BATMAN LEADS AN INTERESTING LIFE : THE BATMAN CREATURE

Maybe they know that, Robin. Maybe they're tired of this shit. Maybe, you know?

We all know that Bruce Wayne famously adopted his crimefighting disguise in order to capitalize on criminals’ collective sense of cowardice, superstition and the abject fear of getting a woodland creature stuck in their hair, but I’ve often wondered if he’d ever considered how doubling-down could have improved his efficacy as a dread figure of the night? Sure, “bats” are totally terrifying, but how much more terrifying would a BAT-WOLF-MAN be? How about a BAT-SNAKE-WOLF? How about BAT-GORILLA?

Well, thanks to Batman vol.1 No.162 (Mar 1964) the question is answered definitively. A pair of villains have gotten their hands on a ray device which allows them to Dr.Moreau-ize the fuck out of any animals they get their hands on, and quickly they turn this into a means of theft and burglary – getting their hands on such exotic animals as jaguars and polar bears, they transform the unfortunate fauna  into criinal underlings who then go out and steal gems and cash. Of course, it seems to me that stealing wild animals like jaguars and polar bears already requires some pretty impressive criminal chops, so I’m surprised they needed to supplement their existing strategy of illegally stocking private zoos or feeding Ted Nugent.

Batman follows the mutated animals back to the cave headquarters of the metamorphosing malingerers, but unfortunately gets the device turned on him – the result? BAT APE MAN GORILLA MONSTER BEAST. Batman is transformed into a towering, gibbering, hair-covered primate monster bulging with muscles. Most entertainingly, though, his boots suddenly accommodate Batman’s three-toed feet.

A difficult question at any stage of a relationship.

After a brief rampage through Gotham, Robin and Batwoman manage to lure BatBeast into a sense of obedience, and bring him back to the criminals’ cave for a little creature comeuppance and one of those things where Batwoman clobbers crooks with a gadget but because she’s a girl it has to be a girl gadget. A hair net, this time, I think, which is actually big enough to capture a whole dude and is therefore merely a “net”, but they call it a “hairnet” because this is comics and girls are good for nuthin’.