Batman as Collector
It’s really no secret that I collect everything that has anything slightly resembling that which might be perceived as a something Batman-like if you squint at it in the right light, and the reasons that I like Batman are really too numerous to quantify, but I also like Batman because, like me, he’s a collector. As unsentimental as we seem, we’ve got a soft streak in us. One that isn’t full of bats and holding people by their necks off of buildings.
An observer would think that endless martial arts training, a constant regimen of fighting crime across Gotham City (and upon occasion, distant planets and cities) and a perpetual angry scowl would prevent such a man from really assigning any sentimental value to anything, but I don’t think that the giant dinosaur in the Batcave was there when he started fleshing out the place. And that giant penny? I don’t think that he has that because he’s a big fan of Abraham Lincoln. These items are actually relics of nefarious capers that he’d thwarted, two of many trophies from his battles. In fact, the penny is an item left over from a villain that no one even remembers – the Penny Plunderer, who was featured in 1947, when it was probably pretty serious to steal pennies and the American dollar was worth something. Of course, the Penny Plunderer didn’t even get his place in the history books, as more recently, the history of the giant penny has been re-written and is now credited to the more well-known Two-Face instead.
Not only does Batman collect these dark mementos, but it’s been pretty well established that Bats would collect blood and various leavings from crime scenes, such as The Joker’s smiling Jokerfish or Poison Ivy’s toxic vines, catalogued for future reference in making antidotes or tracking relationships between the criminal element. Like me, he collects these things because he MIGHT use them someday. In one storyline that divided the Justice League, Batman has even collected these items from his friends, just in case any of them turned ‘evil’ and needed to be taken down.
The ‘Hush’ storyline, illustrated by Jim Lee and written by Jeph Loeb, brought to light the fact that Batman has actually kept a revolving garage of previous Batmobiles from throughout the history of the car. Surely the campy 1940s Batmobile wouldn’t have the necessary kick to keep up with a fleeing Mr. Freeze, clearly negating its practicality in light of the newer models, and defining it as another one of Batman’s personal collectibles.
Not only are these things preserved, but Batman keeps a set of display cases within the Batcave that feature the costumes of his slain or critically injured sidekicks, a counterbalance to his reminders of success. Jason Todd, the second Robin, was murdered by the Joker, and the original Batgirl was paralyzed by the same. Like a living scrapbook, though still in a giant cave full of bats, these costumes are preserved. As wealthy socialite Bruce Wayne, the Hush storyline also revealed that Bruce collects first edition books, an appropriate pursuit for someone of his considerable wealth and social standing, as well as an effort to keep up appearances as a normal guy. While he rarely gets the opportunity to appreciate his collection, his continuing accumulation of books is a preservation of the memory of his father, who shared the collection with him during his lifetime, before he was shot to death in Crime Alley, thus creating the Batman.
Fictional collectors aren’t usually given this kind of dignity, as collectors are often portrayed as unbearably eclectic or sometimes even repellant. The Simpsons’ Comic Book Guy is certainly someone that no one wants to approach, and Kivas Fajo from the Star Trek : The Next Generation episode ‘The Most Toys’ was pretty much a huge, kidnapping jerk. Even Sylar’s mother on Heroes, a collector of snowglobes, was portrayed as an out-of-touch, slightly crazy woman. Despite these negative portrayals of collectors, the crazies and the unbathed, we’ll still always have Batman on our side.
