Paul Pope

Paul Pope is a world-renowned comic book writer and artist, fast becoming a pop culture icon. Indeed, in 2002 GEAR Magazine puts Pope at # 11 in their annual TOP 100 list of "the most exciting people, places, and things on the planet," calling him "one of the most consistently inventive comics artists of his generation." In France he's been called "the Jim Morrison of comics."...

In 1998 Pope wrote and drew a remarkable "what if?' story in "The Batman Chronicles" comic book. Pope imagined "the Berlin Batman" (by day Baruch Wane, wealthy Jewish artist in 1930s Berlin). This German anti-Nazi version of the Caped Crusader speaks admiringly of... the great libertarian economist Ludwig von Mises! The Berlin Batman attempts to stop the confiscation of Mises' papers by the Nazis (a real-life tragedy). Batman says this about Mises: "I once met him, and I've read his work. He's a brave man to oppose the party in these barren times." And at the end of the story, Robin writes: "Ludwig von Mises escaped to the United States when the Nazis ransacked his apartment in 1938...Von Mises was working on a new book which challenged Nazi social and economic policies. They slowed him down, but they couldn't stop him. He continued work on a book which was eventually published in '49, called 'Human Action', now considered one of the great libertarian works of our times… Von Mises' anti-authoritarian ideas were first a threat to the Nazis, then the Soviets, and to all increasingly regulatory governments in our own times. He was against socialism in all its many forms. He was an advocate of individual liberty, free speech, and free thinking..."

Surely one of the great libertarian moments in comics history!

Source: James W. Harris in Liberator Online, Vol.9, No. 11, 23.06.2004

The Berlin Batman is also included in Batman: Year 100.