During Batman and Superman’s latest adventure, DC called back to one of the Dark Knight’s most infamous movie moments.
WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman/Superman #21, available now from DC Comics.
One of the most iconic moments in 1966’s Batman: The Movie sees Adam West’s Batman attempting to dispose of a bomb, frantically running back and forth along the boardwalk of Gotham docks. Famously, Batman laments, “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb,”giving birth to one of the most famous Batman quotes ever uttered. The cheerful caped crusading of West and Burt Ward may be a thing of the past, but homages to the bomb have continued to emerge over the years since – most recently in the pages of Batman/Superman #21.
The culmination of Gene Luen Yang, Ivan Reis and Danny Miki’s “The Archive of Worlds” saga sees Batman and Superman fighting their way through alternate realities and retro cinematic universes, beset by the villainous Alter.io and pit against the Demon Etrigan. When an even more powerful bomb is activated in Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, Batman grabs it and heaves it over his head in a very familiar pose. It’s little more than a throwaway gag in the grand scheme of the story, but a delightful nod to one of the most endearingly silly moments in the character’s history.
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Between the patent absurdity of the situation and West’s straight-faced line delivery, the sequence became ideal meme material in the years to come. Like the sequence where Batman fighting a shark while dangling from a rope ladder, this moment – and the accompanying quote – lives on today as a legendary meme.
The bomb’s appearance in Batman/Superman #21 is not the first time that homage has been paid to this moment. Most famously, the ending of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises saw Batman save Gotham City by attaching a nuclear bomb to his Batplane and flying it out into the ocean – seemingly to his death. Whether Nolan intended this moment as a homage to West’s Batman is unknown – although it wouldn’t be the first time the super-serious film franchise referenced the intentionally silly series. Whether Nolan truly intended it or not, the parallels to the bomb are clear, and its similarity to this moment did not go unnoticed by fans.
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A more direct kind of h0mage was paid to the bomb in the pages of Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Adriano Lucas and Wes Abbott’s Nightwing #80. During a conversation between Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon and two visiting police officers, two coffee mugs can be seen on the table during the conversation. On one of those mugs, plain as day, is a picture of Adam West’s Batman, the iconic bomb hoisted above his head.
With Batman/Superman #21, the legacy of Batman and the bomb live on. This Batman is a far cry from Adam West’s Batman of 1966, but the bomb’s appearance here shows how beloved the moment has become in popular culture. As if giant bombs weren’t ridiculous enough already, this comes in the middle of a story that sees Batman and Superman fighting their way through alternate realities while dressed as cowboys. In the context of swashbuckling Hollywood heroes, the reference to Adam West’s Batman feels entirely natural. The bomb’s appearance is a perfect confluence of ludicrousness – combining Batman’s most ridiculous cinematic moment with his silliest comic book storyline in years.
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