Will Batman operate out in daylight if he *must*?

[Buried Alien]

Ever since CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS and Frank Miller's redefining of Batman in THE DARK KNIGHT RETURNS and BATMAN: YEAR ONE, Batman has been established as a creature of the night: gone were the daylight adventures of Silver Age.

That being said, would today's Batman operate in the daylight if he *must*? Criminals prefer the cover of night, but they don't necessarily insist on it. Some of the threats to Gotham City will strike in broad daylight. If that's the case, will Batman simply shrug and say, "Oh, well...it's daylight out. Nothing I can do about it until the sun goes down," or will he actually get out there in broad daylight and take care of the problem? Have we seen examples of this Post-COIE?





Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive! )

[pennywisdom]

Of course he wouldn't shirk responsibility just because crime is committed during the daylight hours. Having said that, however, he prefers to work at night. Statistically, most crime is committed at night, anyway. It just makes more sense.

An interesting story you might want to check out: In 'Tec 683 and 684 (by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan) the Penguin decides to commit a heist in broad daylight during a flower show upon the advice of a statitician who determines that Batman almost never strikes during the day. Batman's solution for busting in undetected? Closing up the roof and flooding the place in complete darkness. Very cool crime story.

[Jkid099]

Yeah, if something goes down during the day he'll do something to stop it. During the late 80s-mid 90s after Crisis, Batman was still a "known super hero" (before the urban legend thing kicked into gear in the mid to late 90s) and actually would walk down the street and say hi to people. During the whole "urban legend" thing, he would just set up one heck of a distraction or another during daylight so he could get the job done without being noticed. Now that the urban legend thing is over again, and he's pretty much acknowledged as existing by everyone, we'll have to wait and see what he does.

[1HELLBOY]

He went about interrogating the Riddler in Long Halloween in a bar during the day. He even thought to himself that he has more...effect...at night than in the day.

[Lorendiac]

Yeah, if something goes down during the day he'll do something to stop it. During the late 80s-mid 90s after Crisis, Batman was still a "known super hero" (before the urban legend thing kicked into gear in the mid to late 90s) and actually would walk down the street and say hi to people. During the whole "urban legend" thing, he would just set up one heck of a distraction or another during daylight so he could get the job done without being noticed. Now that the urban legend thing is over again, and he's pretty much acknowledged as existing by everyone, we'll have to wait and see what he does.

That's pretty much what I was thinking. When Jim Starlin was writing about Batman in the late 80s, for example, he had Batman operating right out in public in plenty of daylight scenes. For instance, in "Ten Nights of the Beast" the KGBeast was trying to kill a bunch of key figures of the SDI program who were currently in or near Gotham City. We didn't see Batman saying, "This formal luncheon would be a natural place for the Beast to strike - but it's set in the middle of the day, so I guess I'll have to skip it." No, if it seemed likely a new attack would come in broad daylight, then Batman was right there waiting to see what happened. (Nothing else would really make sense to me when we're talking about Batman and his sense of duty, no matter what Denny O'Neil tried to sell us in the later part of the 90s.)

Incidentally, what happened in the case I'm remembering was that 80 people still got fatally poisoned because the Beast's henchman had infiltrated the hotel kitchen without Batman or Gordon or anyone else noticing anything wrong at the time, but at least Batman was right there, primed to react to the massacre after it was too late to save them! (I'm sure that came as a great comfort to their rapidly-cooling corpses!)