Warning: The following feature contains SPOILERS for Batwoman season 2, episode 8, “Survived Much Worse.”

The Arrowverse made fun of a classic Batman tool in the latest episode of Batwoman. This mockery was delivered in the form of a clever reference to the first Batman movie and how over-prepared Batman is in regard to the gear he will seemingly just happen to have, no matter how unlikely.

As a character, Batman has a well-deserved reputation as a master strategist who trained himself to face any challenge in his war on crime. Perhaps the most famous example of this is his trademark utility belt, which contains a variety of useful devices ranging from smoke bombs and compact explosives, to first aid supplies and detective’s tools. It has also been established in multiple stories that Batman had developed plans to neutralize all of his superhero allies (sometimes dubbed the Babel Protocols) in case one of them goes bad or becomes mind-controlled by a supervillain. This preparedness has reached the point of self-parody in the world of comics, with Batman’s allies expressing their disbelief whenever he retrieves the perfect Bat-Tool in a crisis.

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The Batwoman episode “Survived Much Worse” pointed out how ludicrous this is and how, no matter how well you plan, there are some things that can’t be realistically accounted for. This point came up as the new Batwoman, Ryan Wilder, prepared to skydive onto the island nation of Coryana; a nerve-wracking task even ignoring that Ryan had never been on a plane before, much less made a HALO jump. Her man-in-the-chair Luke Fox attempted to coax the reluctant Ryan into jumping by pointing out that if she failed to jump within a certain window she’d wind up in the middle of the ocean and that “there’s no shark repellent on the utility belt.” When an incredulous Ryan asked why not, Luke bluntly said “Because that’s stupid.”

This was a knowing nod to the 1966 film Batman: The Movie and the most infamously specific Bat-Tool ever devised; the Shark Repellent Bat Spray. The tool came into play as Batman and Robin were flying to the rescue of one Commodore Schmidlapp, whose yacht disappeared as Batman was climbing down to the deck, leaving the Caped Crusader to have a close encounter with an aggressive (and obviously fake) shark. After failing to subdue the shark with a few punches, Batman called for Robin to climb down and bring him his Shark Repellent Bat Spray, which was conveniently located on a rack inside the Bat-Copter, among a selection of sprays for repelling other oceanic creatures.

The Batwoman reference is not the first time a modern DC Comics production has poked fun at Batman’s oddly specific tool. The Shark Repellent Bat Spray made an appearance in The Batman LEGO Movie when Dick Grayson was getting over-excited about everything in the Batcave. It also played an active role in the Harley Quinn animated series, where Batman used it to subdue a frenzied King Shark on two separate occasions.

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About The Author


Matt Morrison
(1839 Articles Published)

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Matt Morrison has been writing about comics since before the word
“blogging” was coined. He got his start writing for the
legendary DC Comics digital fanzine Fanzing,
before receiving his own column, The Mount. Since then he has gone on
to write for over a dozen websites, including 411
Mania, Comics
Nexus and The Cult of Nobody. He holds both an MS in Information
Science from the University of North Texas and a BFA from the
University of Texas at Arlington. Known as a font of comic book
history trivia, he has delivered lectures on the history of American
Comic Books, Japanese Manga, Doctor Who, and Cosplay at over a dozen conventions
and served as an Expert In-Residence for a course on Graphic Novels
for Librarians at the University of North Texas. In addition to his
work for Screen Rant, Matt is currently the Editor In Chief of
Kabooooom.com and writes reviews for No
Flying, No Tights – a graphic literature and anime review site
aimed at teachers and librarians. He also maintains a personal blog –
My Geeky Geeky Ways –
which hosts his extensive episode guide for the television series
making up The Arrowverse as well as his
comedic Let’s Play videos. What little spare time he has is
devoted towards acting, role-playing, movie-riffing and sarcasm. You
can follow his adventures on Twitter, @GeekyGeekyWays.

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