A request post - Batman only scares the guilty...

[icon_uk]

From Batman 250, requested by shadowpsykie , this is the story of... "The Batman Nobody Knows"

As ever, a six page story is a nightmare to trim and still leave interesting, but I can thoroughly recommend this story, it's reprinted in "The Greatest Batman Stories ever Told"

Millionaire philanthropist Bruce Wayne has taken three "ghetto hardened kids" on a camping trip so they can get their first experience in the wide open, smog-free, star bedappled sky, spaces, and local wildlife. )Okay, get your minds out of the gutter RIGHT NOW! This is NOT going to be one of those posts.. it's a nice, fun story, and we'll have NO lowering of the tone, RIGHT?)

As the kids and Mr Wayne sit round the campfire, one of them is startled by the hooting of an owl, something he's never heard before. He is mocked by his friends.





And so begins the awesomely fun storytelling, that I can't feature anything like enough of because this entire story is six pages long.

First Mickey's view of the Batman...



Ronnie disagrees completely with this assessment of Batman...



And yet that doesn't convince Ziggy, who has SEEN Batman when he was arresting a local thief.



Bruce has been amused by all of these stories, and decides to join in the fun...



And so it should always be IMHO...

This was later semi-adapted into "Legends of the Dark Knight" for the new Superman Batman adventures, as well as inspiring a sequence in the Batman: Gotham Knight DVD called "Have I got a story for you!".

Comments

[darkblade]

"Damnit I knew I should have used the bat growl."

More seriously though that was adorable.

[shadowpsykie]

see icon :)

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

I like how Bruce is hunched over in shame and disappointment as the kids make fun of him in the 2nd to last panel.

He should have jumped out as ASBAR Batman...

[jlroberson]

My thought now is, how do those kids look at him afterward now that he's shown himself to be a cosplaying weirdo? "Say, why DID he bring us all the way out here...?" ;)

[kamino_neko]

Interesting that the two kids who imagine him as a monster get his costume more or less right, but the kid who gets his actual nature more or less right (minus the jet-pack) has his costume completely wrong....

[icon_uk]

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time...

[morgana006]

Didn't a really similar story happen in Batman: the Animated Series?

[icon_uk]

Yes, as mentioned in the post, it sort of inspired "Legends of the Dark Knight".

[falseaesop]

Yes, the same storyline was also done in the animated Nolanverse tie in movie Gotham Knight

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

Yep but the kids' visions of Batman were spot-on versions of the 60s era and Dark Knight Returns Batman.

The Gotham Knight DTV movie had a segment closer to this one where kids shared a movie monster, and tech-ninja visions of the character.

[thanekos]

" Mr. Wayne, did you swallow a pinecone or something? "

[jarodrussell]

Ah, simpler days, when a single, young billionaire could take children out into the woods and be comfortable knowing he could pay for their silence. I mean...no, wait...that's what I meant. ;-)

[icon_uk]

16 comments before someone went down that road... almost an S_D record...

[blake_reitz]

I love how all three kids totally know it's Bruce, because come on, the mask only covers half his face. But let's be honest here, he's totally trolling for Robins.

[perletwo]

Yeppers, total Robin recruiting trip. "But Mr. WA-AAAAAYNE, why do we have to run this ginormous obstacle course you've set up out here in the woods?"

[blake_reitz]

Also, I would totally read a comic about Ronnie's Batman - or an issue where an adult Ronnie has taken his idea of Batman to heart, and become a teched-up superhero.

[icon_uk]

Essentially he's Hardware who appeared almost exactly 20 years later... :)

[jelly_ace]

Awww. Batman's face in that last panel is so cute.

[jlroberson]

I read this when I was those kids' age. Loved it then, love it now.

[sir_mikael]

Same. Much love.

[falseaesop]

Am I the only one wondering why Bruce had the costume with him? Of course he does plan for everything.

I remember one issue of Green Arrow where Ollie was taking the kids from the Rec Center camping and next thing you know BAM alien interstellar drug smugglars. (this was sometime in the last ten years no less. No silver age crack)

[darkblade]

Aliens want drugs too.

[jlbarnett]

the thread title here reminds me of something.

Could someone repost scans from the issue where someone Batman and Gordon put away years before brings his new family to meet them.

I think it might have been a hostage situation after he lost his family led to him going to jail or Arkham, but he got his head of straight after and had a new family.

His daughter said Batman wasn't scary at all.

[leorising]

Awwww. Millionaire Bruce Wayne couldn't spring for a tent, though? Cheapskate.

[icon_uk]

But in return they have all the raw rat they could ever want...

[halloweenjack]

Black Batman.

Rocket Racer.

Hmm.

[icon_uk]

THANK YOU! It's been driving me nuts where I've seen something similar to that Batman costume before, and that's the one I@m thinking of!

[seriousfic]

"He's loaded with trick-gadgets! Got shiny plastic wings run by motors--jet-propelled by tiny rockets! If it were a movie, he'd by played by Donald Glover!"

[glprime]

"Candy corn looks like tiny traffic cones."

[mr_neutron]

It's a cute story, but even innocent children can get scared by guys leaping out of the dark dressed in weird costumes.

[icon_uk]

Not when it's obvious to them that it's Mr Wayne, the least scary guy they know...

[psychopathicus_rex]

It's a nice story, all right, and a good illustration of Batman's basic nature, but in my opinion, it hasn't aged very well. Naturally, it's ridiculous to criticize something for being 'of its time' - it was written in the seventies, so naturally, it has a seventies vibe to it - but good gods, was Mr. Frank Robbins piling on the lingo. "Ye-ah? Like what do you dig - that I don't?" "So you see the Batman as a super-mod crime-fighter, Ronnie?" (Did he even know what 'mod' means? I don't think that's what it means.) "Like wow, Ronnie - you make the Batman sound like a "Brother"!" (It's the quotes that make it. 'Hey, kids! Check out this new term we just heard!') "No way, man - no how! Every costume-cat thinks he can be the "Man" - the real "Black Batman"!" Not to mention, of course, Ronnie talking about how the Batman is "Muhammed Ali - Jim Brown - Shaft an' Super-Fly all rolled into one!" There's enough seventies-ness in those six pages to start a disco with. I mean, there's 'of its time', and then there's 'dated', and I'm afraid this one is just a wee bit dated.
Also, a slight correction - Ziggy HASN'T seen Batman; he's heard about him from Willie the Horse, who has.