Quick Thought: Batman's Bright Segment

I picked up the past couple of weeks' worth of books this weekend, and something occurred to me while reading the Batman 80-Page Giant, specifically the Two-Face/Humpty Dumpty story.

I would not be at all surprised if either Dan Slott (who introduced Humpty in the Arkham Asylum: Living Hell mini-series) or Brad Desnoyer (writer of this tale) were a big fan of Theodore Sturgeon. Why? Because reading this story, I was suddenly struck by the similarity of Humpty to the protagonist of Sturgeon's short story "Bright Segment."

If you haven't read Sturgeon's story (which you should), it concerns a mentally-challenged handyman who finds a badly injured woman in the street. Trying to help, he carries her into his apartment. Although he immediately realizes he should have taken her to a hospital, he's afraid that he'll get in trouble because he didn't think of that first. So he decides that the only thing left to do is to "fix" her himself, using his own skills and whatever information he can glean from the first-aid and medical books he finds. (I won't spoil the story by saying anything more.)

While the similarity is striking, it could be just a coincidence. Still, I'll take any excuse to recommend Theodore Sturgeon to anybody.