Batman Used To Be Really Into Spanking People

Everybody knows Batman‘s hard and steadfast rule against killing people (except for all those times he’s killed people). Instead, he uses his brute force and brawn when he has to get physical with his enemies. But in some of his early comics, he applied that brute force in a somewhat unexpected fashion. The Dark Knight apparently used to really enjoy spanking people. Like, a lot.

It all began in his very first solo book, Batman #1, way back in 1940. After foiling a jewelry theft aboard a luxury yacht, Batman and Robin find the culprit, a precursor to Catwoman known at the time simply as The Cat. As he goes to remove The Cat’s disguise, she tries to pull away in protest. Batman simply – and strangely – replies: “Quiet or Papa Spank!” This was bizarre, considering the fact he was talking to an adult woman he’d never met before.

Two years later, in 1942’s Batman #10, Bruce once again indulged himself and the lead up to this one is kind of terrifying. The opening panel sees a sleeping Dick Grayson with a caption reading, “Across the calm face of a sleeping, unsuspecting lad falls the dark shadow of a groping hand! Steely fingers clamp tight on the boy. A strong hand rises, falls, slaps sharply against yielding flesh.” The… umm “groping hand” belonged to none other than Bruce Wayne, who begins spanking the child, counting as he goes. “Happy birthday, Dick,” Bruce exclaims to the confused minor once he’s got it all out of his system. The only response a clearly befuddled Robin can muster is “Huh?”

As if a grown man waking a child with what’s arguably sexual assault wasn’t bad enough, Batman’s spanking shenanigans were far from over. The next incident would take place a year later, in 1943’s Batman #15. Another early adventure involving Catwoman, Bruce is suspicious Dick is withholding information from him on a case and responds in his spank-happy manner: “Now look here, brat, what have you been up to? Speak up.. or you get a spanking!” Apparently having learned his lesson from Bruce’s birthday “gift” the previous year, Robin quickly spills the beans.

And apparently Batman’s spankings went on for quite some time, because next up is The Brave and the Bold #64, released more than two decades later in 1965. A ditzy, drunk socialite named Marcia Monroe is teetering across the superstructure of a suspension bridge as authorities beg her to come down. They’re unable to reach her, but Batman shows up in the Batcopter and rescues her before she falls to her death. The day is saved, however Batman isn’t done with the spoiled diva just yet. Literally bending her over his knee, he does his thing, telling her “now here’s something you should have had a long time ago!” To add one last layer of cringe to this story, a photojournalist is right next to them, exclaiming, “Hoo-Boy!… What a picture!” Monroe demands he put her down, but Batman’s thirst for spanks had apparently not yet been quenched.

So that’s the decades-long history of Batman’s obsession with spanking people. And hey, what two consenting adults do with one another is nobody’s business but their own. But when a muscle-bound, full grown adult wakes a sleeping child with slaps to the butt, or detains an unwilling woman and spanks her until he’s satisfied she’s learned her lesson, things get uncomfortable real quick. Granted it was a different era, (not that that makes it any better) but still, no means no, Bruce.

About The Author