The Hall Of Trophies Appears!
But wait, where's the giant penny?
When we think of Batman’s trophies in the Batcave, we see in our minds a life-sized T-Rex, a giant penny, a Joker card, and more. This makes sense, because for decades that’s the image we see and have seen. It’s the nostalgia bait, the obvious callback to the past, the hallmarks of iconic cases and people even if you haven’t read anything where he got those trophies from.
Would you believe me if, the first time we hear any mention, let alone depiction, of Batman’s “trophies”, none of those are present?
In the first story of Batman (1940) #12, we’re treated to a first glimpse of the character keeping trophies, when he can, from important or notable cases. We see him holding up one of Penguin’s trick umbrellas, a decoy duck from an odd Joker case, several guns and pelts, a theatrical mask, and another penguin-related item, a life-sized penguin statue! Of the bird, not the criminal “mastermind”.
The star of that show, in fact, is a notable bulletproof vest, from a case involving a trio of criminal brothers each of whom hid behind a bulletproof vest, only to either die or get caught by non-bullet means. My first time reading it, I was reminded of the story of the three little pigs. Compared to the other, more colorful items, it’s not much in the initial assessment.
But it doesn’t have to be, does it? We’re still in Batman’s early career, here. #12 is nothing to the hundreds upon hundreds of issues that are still to unfold. He has plenty of time to amass trophies, and we get to see it happen! Still, isn’t it jarring? It’s like seeing an invitation to celebrate an important anniversary but it’s been 25+ years since that anniversary passed.
Ironically, Batman #12 also contains a separate story in which the underground sprawl of Batman’s headquarters is most expanded upon, giving a map to how it’s connected to Wayne manor, where the planes and cars and training room go. We’re a long way from the Bat-computer, particularly how it would one day look, but this first glimpse gives us yet another taste of things to come.
As we see things evolve over the years, from the Cave to the trophies to the Batmobile to the computer, it’s nice to see how the world outside, and the stories that pass by, influence the expanding world of Batman comics.
Eventually, we begin to see the slow introduction of the trophies people associate most with Batman’s collections of memorabilia. In World’s Finest (1941) #30, when a man named Coyne who pinches pennies from his job gets arrested, he becomes obsessed with them and starts committing penny-themed crimes (yes, really). The giant penny from this case is soon displayed in the Batcave!
Ironically, for specific memory-based trophy purposes, I would’ve chosen the small roll of pennies that defeated Coyne in the end over that one, but I was neither alive in the 1940s nor capable of possessing the bodies of Bill Finger or Whitney Ellsworth.
Soon after that, Detective Comics #130 adds something next to the penny, a box with a poison needle within that kept confounding crooks and civilians alike. Meanwhile, soon after in Batman #35, Batman and Robin fight a bunch of robotic dinosaurs and cavemen, and when they defeat the robots’ master, they take the robotic T-Rex home!
This continues to slowly build up until Batman #48, when a more in-depth exploration of the Batcave shows us not only the layout of it, including training equipment, garages for vehicles, the robot dinosaur, giant penny, and other trophies like the box with the poison needle!
Over the course of the following 80 years, things like the bulletproof vest, poison box, and any normal gun become things of the past, echoes no longer present in the cave even when we get a view of it purely for the sake of nostalgia bait. The T-Rex, Joker card, giant penny, and sometimes the penguin statue stay, joined occasionally by new symbols of new adventures. But for every new add-on, every upgrade to look more modern or even futuristic, the trophies that we remember from the 1940s leave that anchor to what Batman was.
What trophies and memorabilia do you think of first when you think of Batman? Is it the T-Rex, the giant penny, the joker card? Or maybe something else? I can think of what that something else might be, but for some readers, that’s arguably the heftiest spoiler possible, and we are nowhere near it.
So, I guess the only thing to say is: Stay tuned!
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