5 Times Batman Has Gone Back To The Future

#5: King Tut Barges In

King Tut is probably one of Batman’s most ridiculous villains, initially only appearing in the cheesy 60s TV show starring Adam West and Burt Ward. Equally ridiculous is Maxie Zeus, a villain who believes he is in fact the Greek god Zeus, but at least he’s someone who can take on Batman physically. King Tut is the villainous personality a dumpy Egyptology professor takes on when he gets hit in the head too hard. But I digress. In the early days of the Batman comics, time travel was not a uncommon occurrence (but then again, neither were multi-colored Batman suits). This short story in issue #8 of the Batman ’66 comic is a callback to that idea. King Tut suddenly has appeared with a barge filled with golden Egyptian treasures, but it doesn’t appear that he stole them from any museum. So of course he must have somehow traveled through time and stolen them from ancient Egypt! Sure why not. So Batman simply hops back to ancient Egypt (because of course he can) to get evidence and stop King Tut from committing any more time travel thefts. A kind of silly story but if you are into the more campy era of Batman it can be a fun read.

Next: #4:Batman's Roman Holiday...

#4: Batman’s Roman Holiday

Batman #112 is a collection of three short stories, the most infamous of which may be the introduction of Batman’s dumbest villain ever, Signal Man. But dumbest Batman villains is another post for another time, so I’ll move on. The second story, “Batman’s Roman Holiday” features a recurring character in the Batman universe, professor Carter Nichols. Nichols didn’t start as a time traveler, he was able to hypnotize people and mentally send them back in time (and somehow this helped Batman solve cases). Of course because hypnotizing people to believe they’ve gone back in time and theoretical time travel are totally related fields, Nichols is able to develop a time ray to physically go back in time(SURE WHY NOT?!?). This leads to many time traveling adventures, one of which finds Nichols trapped in ancient Rome and Batman and Robin have to rescue him.

Next: #3:Menace of the Madniks!...

#3: Menace of the Madniks

There’s time travel, and then there’s altering the timeline. Always a dangerous thing to try out, but Booster Gold has never been one to really think things through. In case you aren’t aware, Booster Gold is a showboating glory hog of a hero from the distant future. He’s not a bad guy, but he literally stole tech from his time to travel back in time and be an impressive super hero in present day and sometimes selfishness gets the better of him. In this episode of the Batman: The Brave & The Bold, Booster Gold travels back in time to spend time with the former Blue Beetle, Ted Kord, who passed away. Ted Kord was one of Booster Gold’s closest friends, so it’s understandable that he’d want to do that, but as a time traveler from the future, he should know that doing something like that could really mess with the present, which of course is exactly what happens. So then Batman and Booster Gold must fix the timeline so things can go back to how they are supposed to be.

Next: #2: The Return Of Bruce Wayne...

#2: The Return Of Bruce Wayne

Most people are dead when Darkseid’s Omega Beams hit them. Though not Batman, he is merely displaced in time. After the events of Final Crisis, Batman wakes with no memory in the dawn of history. He then is simply pulled forward through various time periods with no control. He even eventually ends up at the end of all time. It turns out there’s a reason for all of this though, Darkseid actually didn’t try to kill Batman. Whatever he did, it built up “omega energy” in Batman every time he jumped to another period in time. This omega energy would eventually build to the point where it would destroy Batman and all of reality along with it (a pretty fitting final revenge for someone like Darkseid). Of course, Batman and the Justice League put a stop to it, but the events have lasting effects on everyone (well til the following reboot of the DC Universe anyways…).

Next: #1: The Once And Future Thing...

#1: The Once And Future Thing

One of the best things about Justice League Unlimited is how it continued the connective tissue of the Timmverse (i.e. all the DC animated shows produced by Bruce Timm) and it’s really on display on The Once And Future Thing. Batman, Wonder Woman & Green Lantern travel through to both the past and the future to stop time traveling villain Lord Chronos. Along the way we get a ton of great fan service such as Jonah Hex (previously only seen in an episode of Batman: The Animated Series), a couple different Green Lanterns, future Static Shock and even Batman of the present meeting old Bruce Wayne and Terry McGinnis of Batman Beyond. It’s just 2 episodes of complete awesome, and if for some reason you haven’t watched it yet, you really should (along with the entirety of the Justice League series really).

And there are 5 times that Batman has traveled through time. He might as well be a time lord. Are there some favorite time travel moments of Batman’s that you thought of while reading this? Be sure to share them in the comments!

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