Batman is the World's Greatest Detective. He lives in a cave under a barn. He got there by accident. This is the official origin story.

This week Zach and Mike go back to Batman Annual Issue 1 (1961) to find out how Bruce Wayne discovered the Batcave. A story written by Bill Finger, drawn by Sheldon Moldoff, and so completely unhinged that Mike spends most of it convinced Batman is just a drug addict having vivid hallucinations in an alley somewhere.

Here's what actually happens: Bruce buys a house. He was going to use the barn as his secret headquarters, just a regular barn. The floor gives way, he falls into a cave full of bats, and he decides on the spot that this is an omen. The Batcave is born. That's it. That's the origin. Two pages.

But then they find a piece of ancient pottery that says "Death to the Man of Two Identities" and naturally the only logical next step is to travel back in time via hypnosis to 1700s Gotham to figure out what it means. They bring their costumes. Batman builds a periscope, a surveillance mirror system, a utility belt, and a trophy room for a colonial spy with a broken leg named Jeremy Coe. Who, it turns out, discovered the cave first, called it the bat cave because of the bats, and is technically the original Batman. Batman also paints himself with tree bark dye, gets rained on mid-mission, and has to be rescued by a 12-year-old via smoke signal shaped like a bat.

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