June 24, 2008 

Batman: Victim

One issue later we get another odd story in the sense that just does not fit Batman at all.

Did you know that Bruce Wayne was victimized by a bully in his childhood? No. Really.

See, it all starts when Batman freezes up, letting a criminal escape:

Ten years old. Keep in mind in most versions his parents would be dead already.


“I mean sure, some guy killed my parents… but at least he never 3-6-9ed me!”

That’s right, in this story, it’s Bart’s bullying that gets Bruce buff, not the untimely murder of his parents.

Really.

Yup. He’s honed his body to perfection, fought serial killers and mad scientists, been on the run from the police as a vigilante, and created a person to strike fear in the heart of evildoers… but some kid once gave him a dead-arm while singing a chant and over a decade later he turns to pudding.

This story is never, ever mentioned again. Thank G-d.


  • http://www.ronhogan.net Ron Hogan

    Those are the oldest looking ten-year-olds I’ve ever seen.

  • Dierna

    You always remember the first person who bullied you. I feel your pain Bruce…

    I wonder what 3-6-9 means?

    Doing a quick search it seems ole Bart Lambert now owns a construction company in Utah…

  • onion3000

    “… but some kid once gave him a dead-arm while singing a chant…”

    That’s not a chant, it’s a rap. It even says so on panel.

  • Powers

    Dierna – obviously 3-6-9 is a reference to that issue of Detective Comics, which typolad conveniently posted in the previous entry.

  • Megalon

    “Those are the oldest looking ten-year-olds I’ve ever seen.”

    Bart look like he’s in his mid-thirties. Maybe that’s why he’s such a jerk. Being held back in elementary school for decades would make anyone bitter.

    And would Bruce really recognize that guy if he hadn’t seen him since he was ten?

  • clarkins

    He deserved the 3-6-9. Look at the little pansy wearing a suitcoat and tie to a public school.

  • David.

    Those aren’t press-ups! What’s an adolescent Bruce Wayne doing on that carpet??

    “… every day furiously” indeed…

  • George C

    DC! Get Frank Miller to re-do this story!

    “Three-Six-Nine, A bottle of…. AAAAAAAAAGGGGGhhhh NNOOO MY SPLEEN AAAAGHHHH MY FACE NO NO PLEASE DON’T ….****”

  • Michael

    “In our neighborhood…”

    What, you mean the richest one in Gotham City?

  • http://speedforce.org/ Kelson

    There’s a Flash story with a similar setup. One of Barry’s childhood friends has become a famous actress, and she’s picked up a stalker. The stalker turns out to have been the neighborhood bully who used to beat up Barry. This would have been Flash #308.

    The weird thing is that when they were kids, Barry would play super-hero and dress up in a home-made Flash costume, complete with a pie tin for a Jay Garrick-style helmet.

  • Your Obedient Serpent

    With Barry, that WORKS — even the silly costume bit, since Barry was established as a hardcore Jay Garrick fanboy no later than “Flash of Two Worlds”.

    With Bruce… it just ignores and cheapens the origin. On the other claw, this was during a period when they didn’t really pay much attention to Bruce’s childhood tragedy, and Bruce didn’t obsess over it all the time. Losing track of that hook may have been why the Bat-books were on the verge of cancellation for most of the early ’60s.

    Funny, in the ’60s, they paid more attention to SUPERMAN’S childhood tragedy than Batman’s. It was all about Tragic Lost Krypton, Jor-El and Lara’s Brave Sacrifice, wah wah wah. Superboy stories invariably referred to the Kents as his “foster parents” — even when Clark is thinking to himself.

  • Lisa

    That is a painful way of doing a push-up! Couldn’t the artist have shifted the perspective or something?

  • HellRazor

    Bart pretends to knock the books out of Bruce’s hands just to sneak in a grab-ass.

    Now we know the secret origin of Bruce’s infatuation for young boys.

  • Maniac Doc

    Another contrived “overcoming your past” Aesop requiring the use of a lame one-time story that doesn’t fit the character at all simply to justify using the trope. My guess, the writer remembered or had recently met one of his bullies from back in the day and wanted to vicariously live out a fantasy of his through Batman.

  • HellRazor

    This is the weirdest looking Bruce Wayne ever.

    What the hell…look at Bruce’s hand in the second to last panel! And his weird arms in the push-up panel!

    That’s it! This isn’t Batman at all! It’s the Martian Manhunter…DISGUISED as Bruce Wayne! And these memories are just one of his many powers, Martian False Memory Vision!

  • corando gallegos

    Now hold on everybody…this is just a setup for the story about a person in Bruce’s childhood that we never heard of before but affected him never the less. Then years later, he returns as a new supervillian that greatly affects Bruce/Batman! It will be great and will change the Batman universe and the way you feel forever!….wait a minute…never mind!

  • Amake

    Wow, it’s like the writer and editor both suddenly forgot Batman’s entire backstory. Which is amazing. I mean, it’s probably the most prominent and often repeated not to mention most easily summed up and crucial to his motivation superhero backstory there is.