Why Batman Can Wait

I have been slowly processing the shooting that happened a week ago in Aurora, Colorado. Similar to my reactions after the September 11 tragedies, there were moments when I found it very hard to believe that the incident had even occurred. Why a movie theater? Why at a Batman premiere? Why Aurora? The last question is the most disturbing to me, because for a while in the early 1990's, I lived in Aurora. As a result of being an active duty Army officer, and being stationed at the now closed Fitzsimons Army Medical Center. The campus, which is now the home of the new University of Colorado Medical Center. One of the places where the Aurora wounded were treated. Both of my sons grew up in Aurora, and we went to movies at that Century theater a couple of times when it was brand new. Now, it faces permanent closure because of an unspeakable incident. Questions about this tragedy are endless. Primarily, what could possibly drive a  person to such extremes. The customers in theaters 8 and 9 were just there to be entertained by a comic book character. A work of fiction. A superhero who was created as a result of a tragedy in his own life. A hero who was imagined in the 1940s by Bob Kane for DC Comics.The explosions and violence seen on the screen were all staged to excite imaginations. The bad guy, in this case a character named Bane, is created to be the antihero. Created to foil the hero's every move, and to stop him at every turn. Last Friday, the cartoonish violence portrayed on the screen spilled out into the audience. When a "character" dressed in black entered the auditorium from the emergency door, patrons thought that it was part of the Warner Brother/DC Comics promotion of the film. Tragically, it wasn't. The perputrator who described himself as another Batman nemesis, The Joker, rendered unbelivable carnage on a group of innocents. He blinded them with a smoke grenade and methodically began killing them. Families were torn apart, boyfriends became sacrificial heroes, lives were cut incredibly short, by someone who served no other purpose than to manifest evil and to kill. To kill people who were only there to watch a goddamn movie. Of course the incident, and press coverage of it, had the potential to inspire copycats. It has, but nothing as devastating as what happened on that early Friday morning. I have also seen that, in defiance of the incident, patrons went to see "The Dark Knight" in record numbers across the country last weekend. Along with that, gun sales spiked in Colorado. Strange correlation, but everything about this occurence has been out of the ordinary. From the shooting itself, to the assailant's booby trapped apartment, this will have everyone talking about Aurora for a long time. Inside Edition has labeld it "The Batman Movie Massacre". ( I cringe everytime I hear that) The visits to Aurora by President Obama and Batman actor, Christian Bale to see the wounded, began to put a face of humanity and compassion on this whole thing. The prayer vigil on last Sunday was moving, and explored the spiritual realm. Still, although I have been a huge comic book fan since around the age of 4, and love Superman, Spiderman and all the superheroes.... Batman can wait. I have watched every trailer since they announced that the last of the trilogy was coming out, and was excited about seeing it....but it can wait. When I think that people went to a theater at the Aurora Mall, began to get comfortable in their seats, with their popcorn and their families....only to be slaughtered, it saddens me, and angers me. I feel that I could not watch the movie with a mind for being entertained....at least not yet. I am not saying that I am swearing off movies forever, or that we should boycott the Batman movie, or even that I will never see "The Dark Knight" in a theater. But I feel that out of respect to those innocents who lost their lives, for no good reason, only because they wanted to be entertained by their favorite superhero.......for me...Batman can wait.