Comic Book Monsters: Man-Bat
Gather around ghouls, ghosts, zombies, vampires, and other assorted children of the night… It’s time to spotlight a Comic Book Monster! Every day in the month of October, ACB will be bringing you another frightful feature devoted to the more macabre characters in comic book lore.
Comic Book Monsters – October 8th: Man-Bat
Today’s monster is probably going to sound awfully familiar to one that was just featured a couple days ago, but even though this guy has a not-so-original name and a blatantly ripped off origin, he’s definitely got a cool look to him.
Man-Bat
Everyone knows Batman. He’s one of the most beloved heroes in the history of comic books. We know that he uses the visage of a bat to strike fear in his enemies and all that jazz. But he also has an enemy who actually IS a big man-sized bat named Man-Bat! You’d think with a name like that, he’d be a lot like Bizarro or something. It’s kinda like if Spider-Man had an enemy who mutated into a giant spider and called himself Man-Spider.
All joking aside, Man-Bat certainly has a cool design and is one of Bruce Wayne’s scarier bad guys. He started off as Dr. Kirk Langstrom, a scientist who developed a serum to give people a bat’s sonar hearing. Why would he do that? Because Dr. Langstrom is going deaf. Unfortunately, the formula works, but it also turns him into a ghastly, giant bat. It also removes his intelligence so he generally goes on a rampage when he’s mutated. Kinda sounds like Dr. Curt Connors, huh?
There are times that Man-Bat is able to keep his intelligence and when that happens, he tends to be a good guy. He’s gone so far as to help either Superman or Batman. Because of the side effects of the serum, Langstrom’s son was born looking like Man-Bat. I guess there’s no question who the daddy was in that situation.
Man-Bat is a pretty cool villain in terms of design because he’s a giant vampire bat. He may not be a vampire, but seeing a six-foot bat is just as unnerving. There are actually few monsters that made our list that are better suited for Halloween than Man-Bat.
I dare you to have clean underwear if you ran into this guy.
