Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

Matt May asks:
Professor Popinjay, how many men would Batman bat if Batman could bat men?

—–Cripes! Not another woodchuck question! Oh wait. Batman’s not a woodchuck… as far as I know. At least none of my research eluded to any evidence toward such a conclusion. Just to be safe, let’s assume Batman is in no way a woodchuck and that his bat-cave is at least 80% woodchuck free, allowing for any woodchuck memorabilia from any woodchuck themed villains Batman may have faced. The Chuckster? That sounds like a Batman villain, doesn’t it? More on that later.
—–How many men would Batman bat if Batman could bat men? Easy. All of them. Let’s face it. Batman’s been hankerin’ for some bludgerin’ since year one. If somehow his sense of justice were to allow him to do whatever he wanted, a heavy blunt object would be the first tool of choice. I’m sure the Joker would find the irony of Batman wielding a baseball bat hilarious clear up to the point when he gets a Louisville slugger to the face. Now THAT’S comedy!
—–Batman has undergone an interesting evolution throughout the decades. In the first few comics he was killing left and right. Criminals were punched off roofs, cliffs, onto swords, into vats of acid… you know, whatever was convenient. One of his most infamous killings involved hanging a mental patient by the neck from his jet, afterward announcing he was better off dead. Strange behavior considering this is the same man who funded the construction of Arkham Asylum. God help us! Clearly rehabilitation for criminals is not his foremost ambition.
—–After a brief stint with a pesky regard for human life, in the 1980’s batman again seems to decide the namby-pamby judicial system is too forgiving and the bat-killing spree recommences. At the end of “Son of the Demon” he kicks Qayin into electric cables. People were blown up in “The Cult” and “Legends of the Dark Knight #31”. He may be the world’s greatest detective but is it possible he has no concept of human mortality? He tricked Solomon Grundy into a furnace, granted preventative measures are limited when it comes to the walking dead. The villain known as KGBeast was quite alive, however, when Batman left him to die “Cask of the Amontillado” style. Could this be evidence of Batman’s true alter-ego being in fact the brooding macabre poet Edgar Allen Poe? For the sake of time and effort, let’s just settle on “yes, yes it is”.The situation with KGBeast (dumbest villain name ever) was revamped retroactively so as to maintain continuity (or ret-conned as the cool kids say on the streets while break dancing) but the altering of one instance does not an upstanding vigilante make. Yet as brutal as Batman can be, I could not find one example of him donning the mantle of the bat and entering a battle wielding a bat… except one, but it’s a stretch.
—–In the alternate story line “Batman: Scar of the Bat”, instead of Bruce Wayne or Edgar Allen Poe, real-life 1930’s prohibition agent Eliot Ness dons the bat mantle and starts interrogating gangsters to find illegal stills run by real-life gangster Al Capone. Ness is called Batman not only for his Zorro-inspired appearance, but for his use of a baseball bat as his weapon of choice. How many men did he bat? I’d hate to spoil it for you. Plus, I’d hate to spend 6.99 to get my own copy. I’m not made of money, you know! Regardless, Ness was no Bruce Wayne. In real-life, unless I am mistaken, he only killed one person and it was during a prisoner transfer gone awry. The real Batman, I’m sure wouldn’t bother with something so common as a prisoner transfer, unless it involves a noose and his jet.
—–Of course one cannot search the webbernet for batman and baseball without uncovering links to the Angry Video Game Nerd’s review of an arcade game called “Ninja Baseball Bat Man”, a button-mashing, side-scrolling, beat-’em-up that has hardly anything to do with ninjas, NOTHING to do with Batman, and everything to do with baseball except actually playing the game of baseball. Now that’s my kind of baseball game! If only real baseball was like this, I might actually root for a team. Get Batman to actually show up and I’d camp outside the stadium.
—–There was an episode of “The Brave and the Bold”, a DC super hero television series geared toward… I don’t know, 4-year-olds with learning disabilities? In this absolutely riveting episode, Batman leads the Justice League against the Legion of Doom in a good ol’ game of bases and balls and boy howdy do the bat-puns ever fly! Much to my surprise, despite holding a baseball bat for much of the episode, Batman manages to avoid killing anyone. I, on the other hand, threw a dinner plate through my flat-screen. I felt bad about this until, during my research, I learned that “The Brave and the Bold” has been the cause of dinner plates thrown through flat-screens across the country. Adam West voiced Thomas Wayne in this show! Why’d you lend your name to an inferior product, Mr. West? WHY!?! I would never do that with the exception of Professor Popinjay Brand laxatives which only caused propulsive diarrhea in people who weighed less than 90 pounds. Even then, we cleaned up the mess. You owe me a new flat-screen Adam West!
—–In addition to these research results I did come across a man who calls himself Batman and specializes in a service called “bat shaving”. I originally stumbled upon his business while looking for someone to groom my overly hairy winged mammalian pets but apparently “bat shaving” is the name given to the process for balancing metal baseball bats. Not nearly as interesting but I thought it deserved an honorable mention.
Join me again, same bat-facebook group, same bat-some time next week if I feel like it,
Professor Popinjay

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