As The Batman continues to fly high at the box office, so too does the endless stream of Dark Knight-related clickbait clogging up the online world. I mean, seriously, how much is there left to say about an 82-year old comic character whose whole modus operandi is making shitloads of money during the day and beating up bad guys at night? Why in God's name do we need to know the ten greatest Batman stories, ten times Batman lost, or the ten weirdest Bat-costumes? And who spends their time and energy putting these lists together, exactly: some 400lb hack with an ice cream scoop in one hand and a cheque from Warner Bros. in the other?
That said, bloggers can't be choosers if they're desperate for clicks - especially when their stock in trade is snarky commentary espousing deeply unpopular political opinions. So that's why, this week, WordJam takes a first-class seat on the vacuous trivia gravy train to bring you ten things you didn't know you didn't know about Batman: a comprehensive, painstakingly researched list of factoids and eye-openers that'll change forever the way you view everyone's favourite entrepreneur and vigilante. Or not. Anyway, on with the dog and pony show...
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1. He speaks fluent Welsh
Sometimes Batman's crime-fighting activities take him far from the sepulchral skyscrapers and dreary backstreets of Gotham City to more exotic climes like Tel Aviv, Geneva or Surrey. Naturally, this requires the Caped Crusader to be conversant in some of the world's major languages - but did you know he's also fluent in Welsh? Unfortunately, he hasn't had a chance to use it yet, but should the Joker ever set up a deadly laughing gas factory in Pontypridd or Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch you can be sure Batman will be there, beating the living daylights out of male voice choirs and calling everyone 'boyo'.
2. He never remembers Alfred's birthday
Everybody knows that faithful family retainer Alfred Pennyworth acts as both a father figure to Bruce Wayne and a loyal ally in his war on crime, but did you know the Dark Knight has never once remembered Alfred's birthday? As a gentleman's gentleman, social etiquette prevents Alfred from telling his master what a selfish, ungrateful bastard he is, so instead, in time-honoured British tradition, he vents this frustration through arch comments and acerbic asides. Although this doesn't go unnoticed by Batman, every August 16th he still fails to stop off at the all-night garage on his way home from a hard night's vigilantism to pick up a cheap birthday card for his trusted companion.
3. He follows a strict beef-only diet
When you're out every night swinging from rooftops and knocking fifty shades of shit out of perps, you've got to stay healthy. While controversial, an all-beef diet is known to help improve muscle mass and strengthen the immune system: perfect for a creature of the night with a Chiroptera fixation! Contrary to popular belief, Batman didn't learn the benefits of an iron-rich diet from his mentor Ra's Al Ghul but from Kermit-voiced, Canadian pop psychologist Jordan Peterson, whose seminal book
12 Rules for Life takes pride of place on the Batcave coffee table. Not that Batman's read it, of course; if he had he'd know to tidy his own room instead of leaving it to Alfred, the lazy sod.
4. He knows every word to Ricky Martin's "Livin' la Vida Loca"
While roaring through Gotham City in the Batmobile, Batman likes to psych himself up with a few tunes for the night ahead. Ice Cube's "Wrong Nigga to Fuck Wit" and Wu-Tang Clan's "Bring da Ruckus" do the job nicely, but did you know the Caped Crusader's all-time favourite banger is Ricky Martin's cheesy, salsa-rock classic "Livin' la Vida Loca"? Not because this annoyingly catchy pop song about a gold-digging femme fatale speaks to Batman's own troubled relationships with beautiful women such as Selina Kyle and Poison Ivy, but simply because he finds Ricky Martin a clean-cut, morally upstanding young man. So much so, in fact, he even hired the Puerto Rican singer to perform at his 30th birthday party. Well, there's no accounting for taste, is there?
5. He's never seen a Carry On film
On the rare occasions he's not foiling supervillains or attending soirées, Bruce likes to relax with a bottle of Dom Pérignon, some beef sticks and a good movie. But while his tastes range from action flicks like
The Fast and the Furious to arthouse fare like Zoltán Huszárik's exquisite 1971 masterpiece
Szindbád, he's yet to watch a single entry in the deliriously bawdy
Carry On franchise. You'd think he'd probably enjoy the mirthful antics of the craggy-faced Sid James, waspish Kenneth Williams and buxom Barbara Windsor in such classics as
Carry On Up the Khyber,
Carry On Screaming or
Carry On Girls, but then a man who expects people to take him seriously while running around in a rubber costume is clearly lacking a sense of humour.
6. He once dated Joan Collins
As a billionaire playboy Bruce has his pick of the ladies, so it probably won't surprise you too much to know he's had more than a few dalliances with some of Hollywood's most glamorous leading ladies. And Joan Collins. The two dated for a brief time back in the mid-1980s, but according to the pint-sized
Dynasty star they had a troubled relationship in the bedroom. In her memoir
The English Open, Collins recounts how Bruce insisted on sexual roleplay which involved confronting her in a dark alley with a prop gun and tearing off her pearl necklace. "Whenever I asked him about it he'd just mutter something about wires being crossed before reciting this awful poem about dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight," wrote Collins. "I still love Bruce, but he needs serious help."
7. He's blocked the Joker on Twitter
In an age where the number of followers you accumulate on social media dictates your stature in the public sphere, it makes sense for Batman to maintain an active presence on Twitter. This does, however, lead to the problem of his account being trolled by arch-enemies. But while the Penguin fires off devilishly witty Wildean quips and the Riddler sends incomprehensible word puzzles, the Joker bombards his beloved nemesis with clown world memes, videos of Ben Shapiro censuring rubber-wear enthusiasts and an old photo of Bruce Wayne shaking hands with Jeffrey Epstein at a Boy Scouts of America fundraiser. In order to safeguard his true identity, Batman eventually blocked him, although that hasn't stopped his frenemy DMing him under the alias 'Harley's Quim'.
8. He collects garden gnomes
While Wayne Manor may be such an exemplary piece of neo-Gothic architecture it would put the great Augustus Pugin to shame, that doesn't stop it being a fucking drag to live in. That's why, to brighten the place up a bit, Bruce fills the grounds with hundreds upon thousands of garden gnomes sporting different hues and poses. Of course, he lives in perpetual fear that one of his enemies, most likely the Toymaker or the Scarecrow, will hatch some fiendish plan to weaponise them and lay waste to the Batcave, but that's a risk he's willing to take if it means opening the curtains every morning to find an army of fat, jolly, bearded dwarves holding fishing rods and shovels beaming back at him. After all, it's a lonely life being a superhero, y'know.
9. He uses Commissioner Gordon as a glorified alarm clock
The Bat-Signal: a symbol of hope in a world overrun by madness and decay. We all know it, we all admire it. But did you know its real purpose is to wake Batman up of an evening after sleeping off the previous night's mixture of attending lavish gala functions as Bruce Wayne before donning the mantle of the bat? Imagine how poor Jim Gordon would feel if he knew. There he is, fighting Batman's case against the higher-ups at City Hall, labouring under the assumption that Gotham's dark protector would gift him - and him alone - the means to summon his help out of an unspoken yet nonetheless palpable sense of friendship, when all the time he's just being used as a glorified alarm clock. And to add insult to injury, when the Caped Crusader does show up he's all gruff and tetchy from having dragged himself out of bed. Would
you still sanction his activities knowing that? I bloody wouldn't, the cheeky bastard.
10. He doesn't read comic books
You may think being a costumed adventurer would indicate Batman has at least some interest in the superhero genre, but it's actually a well-established fact that the Dark Knight hates comic books. "I never know which panel to read next," he tells the resurrected Earth-One version of Vicki Vale in
Almighty World-shattering Crisis on Infinitesimal Earths #789,245. "And all this convoluted backstory and jerking around of continuity doesn't make any sense to me." Meanwhile in
Detective Comics #8,645,078, he unsuccessfully tries to sue Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons for defamation of character after being made aware of subtle similarities between himself and various characters in
Watchmen, but the case is thrown out of court. This experience strengthened his distaste for the medium, although he secretly enjoys reprints of old
Garfield comic strips in the
Gotham Globe. "It's a cat that eats lasagne," he explains to his irritating sidekick in Frank Miller's
All Star Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder #11. "That's some crazy shit right there."
