Batman’s In-Between Years!
Updated: Aug 11
Or, at least our first glimpses of them…
Have you ever wondered what Batman majored in in college?
Or what he did between deciding on a quest for justice and actually going out and learning stuff, since he decided so young?
Well, the Golden/Silver transitional age answers those questions, or at least gives us an “answer”. The canon nature of this outside the stories in which this was published is very suspect, as is the case with basically any teen-years-of-heroes story from this period and before. Even Superboy, despite having a load-bearing Legion of Superheroes connection, isn’t immune to questionability of many of its past-set storylines.
Our first glimpse of one of those questions being answered is in Batman #96 (December 1955), when we first get a glimpse of Bruce’s college days! At an issue set on an at-sea group reunion, we learn he majored in Criminology, played basically every sport on offer, and we meet several of his friends.
None are particularly noteworthy, at least those still friendly with him, and most will be forgotten after one singular appearance more. The exception, and the only one whose name I think you need to actually know, is Joe Danton. Not quite friend, more rival with many mutual friends, Danton was an academic and athletic rival who’d carried bitterness for years at Bruce consistently besting him back in their school days.
Amid a convoluted bid for revenge once the boat hosting their reunion entered international waters, Danton holds his old classmates hostage. Batman, of course, appears after a convenient excuse for Bruce, but Danton recognizes an old scar Bruce has, figuring out his identity.
For some reason, he doesn’t reveal it outright, instead choosing to lord it over him in vague statements only Batman understands to be clues to what he knows. This continues, until Danton dies in a heart attack! Taking the secret to his grave with him, this issue wraps up unexpectedly in a tidy bow.
Later on, more and more would be revealed of what we apparently are meant to consider Bruce’s younger years, with a seemingly high-school aged Bruce meeting young Clark Kent in flashback issues, with Superboy meeting Bruce’s then alter egos (either Robin, in one notable instance, or Flying Fox a few times) or even Bruce himself in school sponsored athletic or academic trips for one or both of them.
Flying Fox, in particular, is an amusing attempt to have the cake of Young Batman in the Superboy style, without upsetting the canonical fact of Bruce only landing on the Batman persona in his adult life. Several barely-canon stories contradict that canon, considering some issues decide to say Thomas Wayne was an original Batman before Bruce was born, though those fall into the category of abandoned-canon. Flying Fox, to its credit, is a story element that tries its best to get around the main driving canon force.
We won’t get much of the skeleton of what Bruce did in his actual preparation for vigilante life, until decades later. All his learning of Indian breathing techniques to simulate death, or nerve pinches to neutralize an enemy, etc is a later addition firmly established in the late Silver/early Bronze ages.
What we do get here, for all its contradictory glory, is perfectly emblematic of the messy nature of stories before Crisis. Kind of messy, confusing how real it is for the stars, and honestly funny as hell.
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