I understand that the cave was always there under Wayne Manor, and I’m willing to accept that the vehicle was a Wayne Industries prototype. But who did the conversions? The movies show us Bruce Wayne doing some cave work, and Lucius Fox managing the vehicle project, but these projects are of such a scale that it’s hard to imagine them succeeding alone.
Converting the Batmobile would have involved custom bodywork (particularly for the comics versions), and presumably some level of mechanical modification. Converting the cave would have involved utility lines, HVAC, and security, as well as upgrading the mansion access and the Batmobile tunnels. The computer and scientific equipment, in addition to being custom, would presumably be quite bulky and heavy. (Some of the trophies are enormous, like the T.Rex and the big penny, but it’s plausible that those came along at a point in Batman’s career where he had access to super-help.)
Could Bruce, Lucius and Alfred do all of that work themselves? Has this ever been addressed in the comics?
I think that there must be some sort of huge but secret international construction organisation that specialises in projects like the Bat Cave.
They probably built Tracy island in Thunderbirds and hollowed out the volcano in You Only Live Twice to convert it into a launch pad.
You’ve got to hand it to them their security is excellent,anyone who can get the thousands of tons of cement,steel,wiring,fuel etc. onto site,let alone the hundreds of workers plus their food without anyone noticing certainly get my vote.
It varies from comic to comic. Some have shown him building the Batmobile himself. Other comics have shown other guys building the Batmobiles, and falling under the threat of one villain or another.
According to the recent movies, the Batcave (or at least, its basic furnishings and the passages connecting it to the mansion) were originally built as a hideout for the Underground Railroad. Apparently the Waynes have been in the hero business for some time.
Batmann hires the same Goons that the villians hire and their union rules provide complete confidentiality, not that it is necessary as Batman brings them in blindfolded in the BatBus
Pre-Crisis, before Batman was required to be omnipotent & omniscient, he definitely contracted out the work of building the Batmobile; he once saved the life of a race car driver/ace mechanical engineer :rolleyes:to do so. In a limited series I cannot recall the name of, Robin contacts said contractor after the Batmobile is destroyed and is promised a new one in a week’s time. :rolleyes::rolleyes:
Post-Crisis, he steals his planes from Wayne Aeronautics; i assume somthing similar is done for his cars.
As noted above, the cave itself is a natural formation, but they’ve never really explained the how he acquired the zillions & zillions of manhours required to outfit it. My fanwank is that he either has really good robotic technology he mysteriously does not use for other purposes, or that he press-ganged Clark, Hal, Barry, & J’onn into doing most of it.
I remember there was an episode of the animated series where they stole the plot from Batman returns of the Penguin taking control of the Batmobile. What it implied was that Batman had approached a mechanic as Batman, gotten specifications and made all interactions with him as such. I could definitely see that work for the Batmobile. Even for a lot of the equipment, like the computers, he could probably make similar deals.
I think the movie handles it decently. Batman needs something, so he just comes up with some convenient excuse for how it’s some top secret defense contract, then he can make his own modifications. Or, as it did with things like he mask, he makes seemingly innocuous orders and, again, assembles and modifies it himself. The one part that I really don’t like, though, is how the car worked out. As the blackmail attempt in Dark Knight addresses, it’s easily recognizable; surely, other people at Wayne Enterprises, or possibly even some government contact for the project would recognize it and it would spark an investigation of Batman’s connection to Wayne Enterprises, especially with him being a fugitive.
As for modifications to the Batcave, I think that’s some simple fan wanking. Any large work he wants done, he approaches them as Batman, offers to pay large sums of money to be blindfolded to the work site and not ask questions. If he needs to get large pieces of equipment or other things there, he handles both points, and makes sure that he is the one doing the driving between the origin and the cave, and drives around enough first to make sure he loses anyone potentially following him before heading to the cave.
Well yeah, he contracts out as Ratman, a black wearing pied piper, then just swaps out the logo plates.
I seem to recall that he took in some sort of mechanical savant who works his tech gear, specifically the motor vehicles at some point - I’ll see what I can find.
“Hey, Clark, it’s me, Bruce. You doing anything this weekend?”
“Well, Lois and I were thinking of …”
“Clark-boy, you are so whipped! I’ve got some work I need done this weekend. I was thinking of getting all the guys together, doing it on Saturday and Sunday, and then watching some football. I’ll spring for the beer and pizza.”
“Bruce, you know beer doesn’t have any effect on me.”
"So bring some of that Kandorian piss-water you’re always going on about. C’mon man, I’m counting on you!
“Well, maybe just for Saturday? That would leave me Sunday for Lois.”
“[whipping noise]. Oh, alright. Tell you what. I’ll talk to Barry and see if we can speed up the schedule a bit. You’re not going to let a mere Earthling do a job faster than you, are you?”
“[sigh] Bruce, sometimes I wonder why we’re friends.”
Don’t forget the port-a-potty for all those workers and a truck to regularly empty them.
The vehicles and gadgets, fine - I can suspend disbelief that Batman or Lucious assemble them. They kind of address this in the movie by saying they buy the several parts from different manufacturers and through different companies (although the company making the carbon masks should be a bit suspicious). Granted, it would take them more time than is allowed in the movie, but it could be “done”.
But anyone who has been around construction, knows that those three guys couldn’t possibly build the batcave without help, or equipment (that would need to be delivered to the cave), massive amounts of materials (delivered to the cave), etc.
You know, that’s just how I figure it happened. You’ll notice he never tries that crap with Wonder Woman, though. I figure that she spends every Justice League meeting pretending to doodle but actually making a list of the pluses and minuses of snapping his neck like a twig
Back in the really old days, Bruce did everything himself.
The Batmobile of 1950 is the classic story of him designing and building the massive Batmobile that became iconic before it turned into a sports car in the 1960s. There were similar stories about the Batplane and a zillion other Bat-devices. In those days, comics had three self-contained stories per issue and the writers needed gimmicks galore. Doing a new bat-thingy (everything from specialized bat-suits to the origin of the batarang) helped get them from one end of the year to the other.
It’s interesting how innovations since the Batman comic began have been incorporated into the story line. Like nowadays Batman of course uses night vision, amplified hearing, and body armor. Maybe in the future they’ll show how he and Alfred were able to outfit the Batcave using WayneTech industrial exoskeletons.
She was a prototype of the Terminator T-1000. Bruce, Albert, and Dick memory-wiped her when the work was finished, but there is still a set of backup programming for when they need her to be anything other than a clueless society matron.
Does that mean I shouldn’t mention that Alfred has superpowers that rival Superman’s, but he’s too much the consummate butler to draw attention to himself, or embarrass his employer?
