Bat Gadget Evolution!

From Baterang to Batarang, and Beyond!

In the original Batman stories, that first 11 issues pre-Robin, there wasn’t much camp to be found. Sure, a guy was dressing up as a bat and beating up crooks, but it was fairly dramatic fare, seriously taking on serious crooks with serious weapons. 

Yeah, even I don’t fully believe that. Mad Monk alone is one of the campiest weirdos Batman has ever faced. 

But it is true that a lot of the campiest mainstay elements of Batman that a lot of people have come to associate with his oldest stories were not present in the actual earliest ones. The Batmobile wasn’t even there in most of the earliest Bat comics, with Bruce instead riding around in a red car while on his first missions. The first Batmobile arrived in 1941, in Batman #5, debuting as an armored-style car with a few Bat accoutrements. This lasted a while, basically remaining unchanged bar minor art style shifts until 1950. 

In 1950, we actually got a whole special “The Batmobile of 1950” issue (Detective Comics #156), ushering in a new era with a new car for Batman that fit closer to the style of the day. It featured a pronounced, 3-dimensional bat head on the front, something between the actual head of a bat and the mask of Batman. Alongside that, and a sleek navy bluish-black paint job, it featured a single batwing pointed to the sky on the back of the car, acting almost like a shark fin. 

This would remain the design for another 14 years, before Julius Schwartz’s new era ushered in a New Look to the Batmobile as well! 

The Batplane had its origins early as well, but under a whole different name (and technically different vehicle), being a Bat-Gyro, in Detective Comics #31. Batman uses it across Europe as he tracks down the Mad Monk, the Monk’s accomplice Dala, and their captive, Bruce Wayne’s fiancée Julie Madison. However, in the very next issue, it is replaced by the Bat-plane! 

We see Robin get his own Bat-plane in Batman #10, when the design is slightly upgraded, but from there the design stays the same for 51 issues until Batman #61. In that issue, the plane crashes, and the heroes must design and build a whole new one. 

Ironically, the bat-gyros themselves continued on very rare occasion, sometimes with that name and sometimes with the same exact design but described as “whirlybats” off the idea of whirlybirds, throughout the 1950s and 60s. 

Now, all of this is well and good, but there’s one major aspect of Batman’s gadget staples we really have to talk about. The Batarang! 

Over the many years of Batman’s early history, the weapon (which debuted in Detective Comics #31) has had many different iterations, largely dependent on how whatever artist was on that issue (rarely Bob Kane) felt a boomerang would cross over with a bat. 

Ironically, the biggest thing you’ll notice about the difference between batarangs now and from their first appearance is that they weren’t actually spelled like that originally! In Detective #31, the original writers thought the spelling should be “baterang”, taking the e from how boomerangs are actually spelled. 

And between you and me, they’re probably right. “Batarang” works because it’s iconic and we’re used to it, but technically “-erang” is the right way to put it. However, none of us can go back to the 1940s and change any minds, so it’s just better to think of it as a settled matter, and be happy with the iconic way to spell it. Canon is flexible in comics, and not every fight is worth fighting. 

Between you and me, I’m sure every superhero fan has at least once imagined throwing a batarang, right?

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