Batman: Ghosts

[cyberghostface]

This was a Halloween special from 'Legends of the Dark Knight'. I figured it would be appropriate for this occasion.

Disclaimer: This is 1/3 of a 48 page story.

The night before Halloween, Batman returns home after a lengthy fight with the Penguin. He feels something is strange. That night, he wakes to a presence in his room.







Thomas tells Bruce that he will be visited by three spirits. Later that night the clock strikes for the first itme and he awakes to find Poison Ivy in his room. Batman assumes that this is because of her.




They go back to a Halloween from Bruce's childhood, where his father had to work late and couldn't take him trick or treating.






She takes him to see the first time he met Lucius Fox, before he was Batman. Lucius is being mugged and Bruce stops the thieves. Lucius offers to work together with Bruce, but Bruce turns him down. Ivy asks Batman if this was how he honors his parents, and Batman responds that he made a promise to stop crime and that she wouldn't understand.

In his bed again, Bruce awakes to the clock striking a second time. He hears laughter in the halls and knows it can only belong to one person:






















"The spirits have done it al in one night."

Later that day, he meets Lucius Fox and makes a business proposal to help the less fortunate. 

That night...

Comments

[starwolf_oakley]

The Bat-mythos doesn't cover Bruce's childhood before or after the death of the Waynes and The Vow. But... he didn't have any friends growing up? Oh, brother. This bugs me as much as the (relatively recent) idea that Clark Kent didn't have friends as a kid either.

Hey, DC. Bruce and Clark do NOT have to be Peter Parker!

[donnblake]

Well, there was Tommy Elliot.

[lego_joker]

Well, Zatanna tried to be his friend... to what extent she succeeded is up for debate.

[espanolbot]

There was also that kid who got murdered by Bruce's head master as part of a demonic sacrifice, in Batman: Gothic.

[obsidianwolf]

It especially bugs me about Clark. That's why I always preferred the gradual emergence of his powers thing because Clark has always seemed way to well adjusted to have lived most of his life in isolation.

I also have trouble seeing Bruce going full on Mini bat as a kid because while Alfred supports his outlandish desire to dress as a bat and beat up criminals as an adult. I can't see him or esp. Leslie going along with it when he was little. I like to think Bruce sprung it on them later and that he played at being more of a normal boy when he was younger. He probably passed off his interest in martial arts and other eventual bat skills as just thingshe was into and they probably went along with it thinking it would make him feel safer after what happened.

[starwolf_oakley]

John Byrne had Young Clark as adjusted. "Young Clark as outcast" is relatively new. Maybe even JMS's "Earth One" new. Are we supposed to think the Smallville kids somehow "sensed" Clark was not human and ostracized him as a result?

A black-and-white short story had Bruce faking being a normal kid... when he's not talking to the Scary Bat God that lives in his head.
Alfred and Leslie would *notice* things like that.

As far as Teen!Bruce and what Alfred and Leslie thought... I can see Bruce trying to "get involved" and it not going well.

"I don't mind being dismissed as a rich kid playing detective. I don't even mind getting the little card with the victim helpline. What I mind is the pity when they realize 'That's Bruce Wayne and his parents...' I will not be pitied."

[selke]

This was my first Batman comic, I think. I loved it.

[superfangirl1]

I never read this comic and now I want to see more of it. :)

[cyberghostface]

It's available in the "Haunted Knight" trade. :)

[superfangirl1]

Ah thank you and will try to hunt it down. :)

[kd_the_movie]

The "bruce having no friends even before his parents death" thing is a Loeb staple. It was a major point of Hush and was supposed to be why Bruce loved Thomas Elliot so much. I presume we're supposed to think Bruce was ostracized due to his parents immense wealth and social standing that eclipsed the already rich and powerful.

[damar148]

Could buy Bruce not having any friends, he seems a loner by nature and not helped by immense wealth.

[benuben]

The thing about Bruce is that he's not "loner" in the sense of wanting to be one. He wants and needs to be around people. He just sucks at it.

[jaybee3]

I'm torn on the Bruce with no friends things. Fact is he is NOT really anti-social or a loner which is why he constantly surrounds himself with people (who has more proteges, sidekicks, allies like the Outsiders or adopted kids than Batman?) and when Bruce wears his "Playboy Bruce" mask he seems to have tons of people that he knows and seems to like him (or pretend to like at least). Bruce is the richest person in Gotham and one of the richest in the world, as an only child everybody and their parents would have known this is SOMEBODY you need to know even as a kid. Unless we're going to go with the whole Bruce had "issues" even before his parents were killed idea (which I personally don't, I prefer the DCAU canon that he was a happy kid) I don't buy he had no friends aside from someone like Tommy Elliot.

The DCnU Clark Kent was/is a loner thing is also ridiculous but that's another story.