Find out which DC superhero, Batman ally, is named after a Dark Knight gadget?
Maybe you didn’t know that an unsung DC superhero was named after a Batman gadget? There is indeed the Batwing superhero, who therefore has the same pseudonym as Batman’s famous flying device!
Obviously, the name “batwing” is most commonly attached to Batman’s plane. The first flight device appeared from the n°31 of Detective Comics (1939) under the term “batgyro”, a sort of helicopter with fins stylized as bat wings. The following year, in the Batman n°1, the batgyro becomes the bat-plane.
The vehicle will become the batwing from Tim Burton’s first Batman film (1989) and the term will remain, to the point of applying the following films and influencing later comics.
Warner Bros. And then there are other versions…
The origins of the hero Batwing could go back to n°250 of the Batman comics, published in 1973, in which young people tell their vision of the Dark Knight. Among them, an African-American evokes a black Batman with a crime-fighting jet pack, which could serve as the first inspiration for the future Batwing.
DC Comics
The real superhero Batwing appears for the first time in Batman Incorporated #5, a 2011 story arc in which Bruce Wayne trains various heroes around the world to “franchise” the Batman brand. He trains David Zavimbe, alias Batwing, in Africa.
DC Comics
Batwing (2011)
The character will know a new incarnation in 2013 in which the costume is worn by Luke Fox, son of Lucius Fox. We have seen this version of the character in the animated film Batman is having bad blood but also in the Arrowverse of American television, played by Camrus Johnson. We see it alongside Batwoman in the eponymous series worn by Javicia Leslie.
Colin Bentley/The CW
Following the cancellation of the series, Batwing could fall back into oblivion. Let’s hope that the connected DC universe in the cinema, notably supervised by James Gunn, gives a second life to this character on the screen despite his confusing name!