Batman BatarangOne of our greatest escapist fantasies is that involving the world of superheroes and the villains who challenge them. From Superman to Spider-Man, superheroes manage to give us all a chance to identify with the struggle of good against evil. One of the most popular of these heroes in recent memory is Batman. The Dark Knight battles both his archenemies and his own inner demons, and does it with raucous action. Whether it’s the comic book series, film and DVD adaptations, or different TV versions of Batman’s exploits, there is one thing that has been a regular constant for the Caped Crusader: the weapon known as the batarang. For Batman, the batarang is the weapon he uses in lieu of guns and such weapons, as the Knight lost his parents to gun violence – a violent event which shaped young Bruce Wayne’s life forever, and molded him into the crusader he would become for all of Gotham City. The weapon known as the batarang is named as a cross between a boomerang and a bat. This device was first introduced to us back in 1939, in a comic book appearance by Batman. What began as metal boomerangs which returned to the Caped Crusader eventually evolved into the grapple gun Batman used in the 1989 movie adaptation of the comics. There have been varying forms of batarangs that have existed in the world of Gotham. One of these is the grappling version used prior to the movie, involving a grappling hook shaped as a bat, as well as a rope. In the Batman & Robin movie – the fourth installment in the series – a weapon called a Throwing Bird was used by Robin as a non-lethal way of attacking opponents. In Batman Returns, the batarang at the Caped Crusader’s service was digitized and allowed him to program certain targets to lock in on. There have also been batarangs in cartoons shows which were explosive in nature or charged with electricity. The wearer of the batsuit in the futuristic Batman Beyond cartoon gains the ability to make a batarang appear out of thin air thanks to the advanced technology of the suit. Then there is the distracting tool that batarangs are used for in Batman Begins – the return of the movie franchise – in 2005. Basically, the weapon works in coordination with the ninja training Batman takes on in the film. When The Dark Knight rolled around in 2008, Batman no longer threw his weapon of choice – he fired them from the arm of his batsuit. If you go online, you may be able to find yourself a well-crafted batarang – or even display one proudly as a screensaver to show your support for the Dark Knight. When Jack Nicholson’s Joker in the original film asked where Batman got his wonderful toys…he wasn’t fooling around – for Batman, the batarang has been a wondrous weapon used in many different ways in the Gotham universe.
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