Why didn’t Bruce Wayne start fighting crime as a teenager

[Riv86672]

I remember Pre Crisis stories where he wore costumes and teamed up w. Superboy, and the obvious answer Post Crisis is, “he was training”.

Still, given his history w. sidekicks/the small army of child Soldiers he’s assembled over the years, it strikes me as odd he waited so long to get out there himself.

Any Post Crisis stories that address this?

Or any personal theories’d be great if anything.

[Lightning Rider]

An interesting question. I'm sure there's plenty evidence for why he didn't (or some ways that he did). My vague head-canon is that he did here and there, but didn't fully commit to it. He probably found himself fairly limited as a physical combatant, and was still working through his demons. It's one thing to train someone full-time with all the experience to pass on, and it's another thing to have to work everything out from scratch.

[Frontier]

He would be nowhere near as effective without the amount of training he went through in his young adult years.

Like the training he gives the Robins is a very condensed version of the training he went through which he's only able to do because he went through all that personally for years.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I remember Pre Crisis stories where he wore costumes and teamed up w. Superboy, and the obvious answer Post Crisis is, “he was training”.

Still, given his history w. sidekicks/the small army of child Soldiers he’s assembled over the years, it strikes me as odd he waited so long to get out there himself.

Any Post Crisis stories that address this?

Or any personal theories’d be great if anything.

I figured he didn't have the desire to be a vigilante till later in his teenage years.

[Riv86672]

Such great responses, Ty very much guys!

[The Darknight Detective]

An interesting question. I'm sure there's plenty evidence for why he didn't (or some ways that he did). My vague head-canon is that he did here and there, but didn't fully commit to it. He probably found himself fairly limited as a physical combatant, and was still working through his demons. It's one thing to train someone full-time with all the experience to pass on, and it's another thing to have to work everything out from scratch.

I agree. He most likely did fight crime as a teen, but only as far as his then-training level would allow him to.

[Alan2099]

I don't know the current continuity answer to this (but then again, this is DC. Who does?) but I can tell you what the Pre-Crisis answer was.

1) Bruce did start fighting crime as a teenager and 2) being a vigilante was never his original goal.

Bruce did design a costume and do some crime fighting when he was a kid, but it was mostly just in training. The idea that Bruce traveled the world seeking out all sorts of masters didn't come until later. Originally most of his training happened in Gotham. Bruce designed a costume that he could use to train under one of Gotham's greatest detectives without giving away his own identity. You might recognize that costume better as Dick Grayson's original Robin suit.

But even running around in a cape wasn't Bruce's original goal. He wanted to fight crime, sure, but he wanted to do it legally. Bruce was training himself to be the best policeman/FBI agent/lawman (they were really vague on this point, but he wanted to be some kind of legal representative of the law.) It wasn't until college when one of his professors made Bruce accept the fact that "justice" and "the law" weren't always the same thing. This kind of pulled the rug out from under everything Bruce had been doing his whole life but eventually made him realize he had to be something more than just a law man.

[batnbreakfast]

You can see Bruce being a kid detective in Court Of Owls or Zero Year. I don't remember which one. For some reason I love the idea that he studied in Paris and Quantico and with Zatara first the most.

[Ascended]

Not sure what current canon is, but my head canon goes like this.

Bruce doesn't really fight crime while he's training, because he's training and not ready for it. There's probably isolated incidents where young Bruce finds himself in the right place and the right time and he's in a situation where he can help people out and stop a crime. Probably takes down a mugger or two, y'know? But what Batman does, that requires more than a little preparation and time, and going from "spoiled rich kid" to "hardened warrior" is a long journey. Alfred likely played a big part in making sure Bruce was patient and didn't get in over his head before he was ready.

As for why Bruce can train a Robin so quickly where it took him a decade or more? Bruce was figuring out what he needed as he went, and had to find the experts he wanted to learn from, hunt them down, convince them to help him, etc. It wasn't a streamlined process, it was guess work and ad hoc education. He was learning how to become a vigilante in bits and pieces, stitching his lessons together. But once his training is finished, the path is cut and he can accelerate a Robin's process through that. He has everything he needs to teach right there in Gotham, he knows what a student needs to know and what isn't relevant, etc. And most of the sidekicks were already much farther along than Bruce in one way or another when Bruce began training. I mean, Bruce probably had to burn a couple years becoming as athletic and agile as Dick was on the day he set foot in the mansion. Tim likely knew more about law or chemistry or whatever, due to his advanced/college prep HS classes, than Bruce did when Bruce began his studies.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I figured he did have a few instances where he got involved but they are few. Zdarsky's the Knight miniseries starts out with him going up against Hugo Strange who was ripping off one of his classmates family.

[bat39]

I don't know the current continuity answer to this (but then again, this is DC. Who does?) but I can tell you what the Pre-Crisis answer was.

1) Bruce did start fighting crime as a teenager and 2) being a vigilante was never his original goal.

Bruce did design a costume and do some crime fighting when he was a kid, but it was mostly just in training. The idea that Bruce traveled the world seeking out all sorts of masters didn't come until later. Originally most of his training happened in Gotham. Bruce designed a costume that he could use to train under one of Gotham's greatest detectives without giving away his own identity. You might recognize that costume better as Dick Grayson's original Robin suit.

But even running around in a cape wasn't Bruce's original goal. He wanted to fight crime, sure, but he wanted to do it legally. Bruce was training himself to be the best policeman/FBI agent/lawman (they were really vague on this point, but he wanted to be some kind of legal representative of the law.) It wasn't until college when one of his professors made Bruce accept the fact that "justice" and "the law" weren't always the same thing. This kind of pulled the rug out from under everything Bruce had been doing his whole life but eventually made him realize he had to be something more than just a law man.

Yeah. It's one of those lesser known facts about Batman that got lost in the mists of time (and COIE).

Secret Origins # 6, which retold the origin of the Golden Age Batman, had an interesting take on it that recontextualises Bruce's friendship with Commissioner Gordon in those early stories. Bruce studied law and basically wanted to join the GCPD as a detective. He set up a meeting with Gordon (a friend of his Uncle Phillip) hoping that Gordon would get him a job in the department. But before that, he created the identity of Batman to try out his physical and deductive skills in the field. After botching his first mission, he decides to settle for a desk-job in the GCPD instead of being an active detective and meets with Gordon, and this leads into 'The Case of the Chemical Syndicate' from 'Tec # 27. Since he was successful in that case, he decides to stick to being Batman.

Personally though, one of my favorite explanations for why Bruce didn't start fighting crime earlier (apart from the obvious answer that a 12 year old kid with little or no training was just going to get himself killed :P) is the one Nolan gave us. In Batman Begins, Bruce didn't make a childhood promise to devote his life to a "never-ending war on evil"...he was just a wayward college student unsure of what to do with his life who wanted to kill Joe Chill when the latter got out on parole, only to have that shot at vengeance taken from him by Carmine Falcone. He then discovers that Chill was just a symptom of Gotham's corruption, that men like Falcone are the real enemy he needs to take down, and that's what prompts him to run away and travel the world in search of a means to fight against such corrupt people and systems.

[JBatmanFan05]

Bruce doesn't really fight crime while he's training, because he's training and not ready for it. There's probably isolated incidents where young Bruce finds himself in the right place and the right time and he's in a situation where he can help people out and stop a crime. Probably takes down a mugger or two, y'know? But what Batman does, that requires more than a little preparation and time, and going from "spoiled rich kid" to "hardened warrior" is a long journey.

Yeah, this is my take. And I think the comics suggest all this. Maybe stopped some crimes/criminals as part of his training, but that's about it. Some of the Batman's trainers it seems were "trial by fire" types where their idea of training was "let's both go out there and do this together."

[The Darknight Detective]

Personally though, one of my favorite explanations for why Bruce didn't start fighting crime earlier (apart from the obvious answer that a 12 year old kid with little or no training was just going to get himself killed :P) is the one Nolan gave us. In Batman Begins, Bruce didn't make a childhood promise to devote his life to a "never-ending war on evil"...he was just a wayward college student unsure of what to do with his life who wanted to kill Joe Chill when the latter got out on parole, only to have that shot at vengeance taken from him by Carmine Falcone. He then discovers that Chill was just a symptom of Gotham's corruption, that men like Falcone are the real enemy he needs to take down, and that's what prompts him to run away and travel the world in search of a means to fight against such corrupt people and systems.

I think I prefer his original mindset, though, because it gives him so many years to develop into the polymathic crimefighter that he becomes. Of course, the Bale Batman isn't that exceptional beyond his fighting skills, so he doesn't need all that extra studying.

[Ascended]

I think I prefer his original mindset, though, because it gives him so many years to develop into the polymathic crimefighter that he becomes. Of course, the Bale Batman isn't that exceptional beyond his fighting skills, so he doesn't need all that extra studying.

This is probably part of why my headcanon is what it is. To me, Batman is a detective and requires education, stuff it takes years and years and years to learn. The combat, the escapology and stealth, those are important and require years of dedication as well, but it's the knowledge skillsets that I think requires the most time and effort. Lots to learn if you wanna be a Batman.

Bale's story in Begins works for the kind of Batman he was playing. I like those movies. But it's too...thin....for my headcanon, "main" Batman, who's an expert in a lot of fields.

[Aahz]

But even running around in a cape wasn't Bruce's original goal. He wanted to fight crime, sure, but he wanted to do it legally. Bruce was training himself to be the best policeman/FBI agent/lawman (they were really vague on this point, but he wanted to be some kind of legal representative of the law.) It wasn't until college when one of his professors made Bruce accept the fact that "justice" and "the law" weren't always the same thing. This kind of pulled the rug out from under everything Bruce had been doing his whole life but eventually made him realize he had to be something more than just a law man.

In his post crisis origin he iirc actually joined the FBI (maybe as an intern?) and realised that with all the bureaucracy he couldn't effectively fight crime.