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

[The Darknight Detective]

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.

Right. To be a combination of Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, Bruce Tyson (or is it Mike Lee? ), and Thomas Edison, that doesn't happen overnight.

[Ascended]

Exactly. And I'm not fond of the idea that Bruce wanted to join law enforcement either. I know the details change with each telling and I don't think this particular wrinkle has been in play for decades, but one of the big takeaways I always get from Bruce's origin is that he walks out of crime alley with the understanding that law enforcement can't/doesn't do enough. If the systems and institutions we have were able to deal properly with crime, then Bruce's parents wouldn't be dead.

If Bruce had wanted to become a cop or FBI agent, he would've done the normal thing; join the GCPD after high school or apply to intern with the FBI or something. You don't travel the world and dedicate your childhood to becoming a one-man army just to put on a tin badge and get wrapped up in the same red tape and limitations that leave eight year old boys orphaned in the street.

[Alan2099]

If Bruce had wanted to become a cop or FBI agent, he would've done the normal thing; join the GCPD after high school or apply to intern with the FBI or something. You don't travel the world and dedicate your childhood to becoming a one-man army just to put on a tin badge and get wrapped up in the same red tape and limitations that leave eight year old boys orphaned in the street.

The Bruce that wanted to be a lawman didn't travel the world training.

He got just about all his training in Gotham. This was back before Bruce was a genius scientist super ninja.

[bat39]

Exactly. And I'm not fond of the idea that Bruce wanted to join law enforcement either. I know the details change with each telling and I don't think this particular wrinkle has been in play for decades, but one of the big takeaways I always get from Bruce's origin is that he walks out of crime alley with the understanding that law enforcement can't/doesn't do enough. If the systems and institutions we have were able to deal properly with crime, then Bruce's parents wouldn't be dead.

If Bruce had wanted to become a cop or FBI agent, he would've done the normal thing; join the GCPD after high school or apply to intern with the FBI or something. You don't travel the world and dedicate your childhood to becoming a one-man army just to put on a tin badge and get wrapped up in the same red tape and limitations that leave eight year old boys orphaned in the street.

The thing is, there are so many different versions of the origin that I don't think we can make a blanket conclusion of that sort. All that the very first telling of the origin specified is that Bruce made a promise as a child to dedicate his life to "warring against all criminals", and that's the bedrock on which most later origins have been built. The idea that Gotham was a corrupt hellhole where the system was broken and law enforcement was compromised isn't something that emerged until the 70's and 80's. Throughout the Golden Age and Silver Age, Bruce didn't become Batman because Gotham was a mess only he could fix because everyone else was too scared or on the take...he became Batman because he personally wanted to fight crime and do his bit to ensure no other eight year old watched their loved ones gunned down in the street. The idea that he wanted to be a cop first but then realized that he could do more outside the system was probably introduced later in response to the obvious question of "If he wanted to spend his life warring against criminals, why not join the police?" And of course, after Miller's Year One the answer became simply that Gotham was a hellhole and the system was broken so it needed Batman.

The Bruce that wanted to be a lawman didn't travel the world training.

He got just about all his training in Gotham. This was back before Bruce was a genius scientist super ninja.

Yeah, its crazy to think how so many things we take as a given in the Batman mythos are fairly recent additions. Alfred being Bruce's surrogate father, Bruce traveling the world for years to train, Gotham being a totally corrupt hellhole with a totally compromised justice system etc.

If I'm not wrong, Miller was the one who introduced the idea that Bruce traveled abroad to train? Year One starts with Bruce returning to Gotham and during his debut as Batman he thinks about "a cry that [he] brought all the way from Africa". As far as I know, the first story to really delve into his training overseas was The Man Who Falls, which I believe was a major inspiration for Nolan while making Batman Begins.

Miller also introduced the idea of Alfred having been with the Wayne family for a long time and being Bruce's closest confidant right from the beginning...though it was later writers who really dove into the implications of that retcon and fleshed out their relationship.

[Zauriel]

Ironically, Bruce Wayne prefers to wait and train himself to be ready for crimefighting, yet he could not wait to train and allow young children, including his own son, to fight armed criminals.

[The Darknight Detective]

He got just about all his training in Gotham. This was back before Bruce was a genius scientist super ninja.

Except the ninja part (that was kind of there when I was a kid during the '70s), everything else was in print when my father was reading Batman comics 75 years ago.

[The Darknight Detective]

Ironically, Bruce Wayne prefers to wait and train himself to be ready for crimefighting, yet he could not wait to train and allow young children, including his own son, to fight armed criminals.

The idea of kiddie sidekicks has always been stupid as far as back as the creation of Robin, but at least you could understand it when young kids were reading comics predominantly. Why they are still around I'll never know.

[Ascended]

The Bruce that wanted to be a lawman didn't travel the world training.

He got just about all his training in Gotham.

Then that makes more sense.

The thing is, there are so many different versions of the origin that I don't think we can make a blanket conclusion of that sort.

Just my own reading of the character, not meant to be a blanket statement or objective fact. I'm fine with playing the mythos in different ways, I think I even said I enjoyed Bale's Batman for the story they were telling, and he certainly wasn't the educated intellectual I prefer.

If a story claims Bruce wanted to grow up and become a cop so he stays in town and studies hard, and he eventually discovers that the law isn't enough so he turns to vigilantism, well and good. That's great for a more emotionally healthy, less obsessive Batman and I kinda dig the idea. But if young Bruce is gonna travel the world and train, that's way too extreme a reaction for "I wanna be a police man!"

[Zauriel]

The idea of kiddie sidekicks has always been stupid as far as back as the creation of Robin, but at least you could understand it when young kids were reading comics predominantly. Why they are still around I'll never know.

Yes. That is also why the comic book publishers had underaged heroes including Bucky Barnes and the Boy Commandos fight armed Nazis on a battlefield. Any battlefield is no place for children. Ask the child soldiers who were conscripted and had no choice but to fight in a war zone.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boy_Commandos

[Riv86672]

Ironically, Bruce Wayne prefers to wait and train himself to be ready for crimefighting, yet he could not wait to train and allow young children, including his own son, to fight armed criminals.

^^^Thats part of the reason I asked the question.

[bat39]

Ironically, Bruce Wayne prefers to wait and train himself to be ready for crimefighting, yet he could not wait to train and allow young children, including his own son, to fight armed criminals.

To be fair, he was in a position to offer them the guidance and training at that early age which he himself lacked as a kid.

Also, the existence of the Robins is somewhat justified if you consider the fact that most of them have probably done something dangerous and gotten themselves killed anyway. Dick, in many versions of his origin, set out to track down his parent's killer on his own and observing this Bruce intervened and took him under his wing. Jason was probably destined for a life of crime, or to be a victim of life, had he not become Robin. And Damian...well, he'd have probably ended up becoming the next Ra's al Ghul so really, being Robin is a much safer and healthier option I guess with Tim Bruce's decision to take him onboard was a bit more questionable, especially in the wake of Jason's death, but then again, Tim did kinda force himself into the family.

Then that makes more sense.



Just my own reading of the character, not meant to be a blanket statement or objective fact. I'm fine with playing the mythos in different ways, I think I even said I enjoyed Bale's Batman for the story they were telling, and he certainly wasn't the educated intellectual I prefer.

If a story claims Bruce wanted to grow up and become a cop so he stays in town and studies hard, and he eventually discovers that the law isn't enough so he turns to vigilantism, well and good. That's great for a more emotionally healthy, less obsessive Batman and I kinda dig the idea. But if young Bruce is gonna travel the world and train, that's way too extreme a reaction for "I wanna be a police man!"

Fair enough. And as it's been discussed, the version of Bruce who wanted to become a cop didn't travel the world and train to become a living weapon.

My point is that at a fundamental level, all Bob Kane and Bill Finger (well, more Finger than Kane it seems) told us is that Bruce's parents were murdered and he swore to dedicate his life to a war on crime. Over the decades, we've gotten many different interpretations of this simplistic idea, from him originally planning to join law enforcement only to realize he would be more effective outside the system (Bronze Age), to Gotham being so corrupt that he needed to work outside the system (Year One, Batman Begins etc.), to the possibility of him just being a deeply traumatized kid who turned his childhood fantasy into reality in a rather dangerous way (Snyderverse, Burton's Batman?). I wouldn't say any of them are necessarily more 'canon' than the other.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

The idea of kiddie sidekicks has always been stupid as far as back as the creation of Robin, but at least you could understand it when young kids were reading comics predominantly. Why they are still around I'll never know.

They grew popular in their own right and DC still markets Batman to kids.

The new 52 tried to retool them as teen heroes or young adults but it was sloppy in execution and poorly thought out.

[The Darknight Detective]

They grew popular in their own right and DC still markets Batman to kids.

They grew popular because eight-year olds were the ones reading about them then. By 1942, nobody was getting killed or even seriously hurt in the comics anymore, so it was understood that none of this was to be taken too seriously. By the Bronze Age, though, comics were being marketed to high schoolers, so the ages of the sidekicks followed suit. Now adults are the true readers of these titles, despite some token magazines for kids, so having youngsters fighting supervillains today is, IMO, ludicrous.

The new 52 tried to retool them as teen heroes or young adults but it was sloppy in execution and poorly thought out.

Whatever the execution, it still makes more sense to have the sidekicks out of middle school.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

They grew popular because eight-year olds were the ones reading about them then. By 1942, nobody was getting killed or even seriously hurt in the comics anymore, so it was understood that none of this was to be taken too seriously. By the Bronze Age, though, comics were being marketed to high schoolers, so the ages of the sidekicks followed suit. Now adults are the true readers of these titles, despite some token magazines for kids, so having youngsters fighting supervillains today is, IMO, ludicrous.



Whatever the execution, it still makes more sense to have the sidekicks out of middle school.

I was fine with Katana being his partner in the Beware the Batman cartoon so I rather he have older partners.

But I was fond of kid/teen protagonists when I were those ages so I get the appeal of still having them. I'm a Harry Potter kid so I'd prefer my protagonists getting older. So comic book time hurts them in the long run to me.

Retooling the sidekicks to start out older and already have their own name and niche would be ideal to me.

There's always the next reboot.

[Ascended]

I wouldn't say any of them are necessarily more 'canon' than the other.

Just depends on the story. Whatever origin and motivation they use, that's canon to that tale, if nothing else.

If we were to talk about, like, the "definitive" canon, if such a thing exists, or whatever the "best" version is....that seems too subjective to really have a singular answer, with too many variables.