The Untold Story of Bat Dude
by 0kelvin
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Throughout my childhood I drew hundreds of pictures, filling sketchbook after sketchbook. The only consistent figure throughout all those years of drawings is a mysterious man by the name of Bat Dude. The prestigious first page of every sketchbook is occupied by a drawing of Bat Dude, as well as dozens of other scraps of paper. But who was he? What was his story? Did he seriously have a monkey as a sidekick? Why doesn't his mask have eyeholes? This article will seek to provide an answer to all of the questions you might have about the legend known as Bat Dude. Except that one about the eyeholes, I have no idea what's up with that. |
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The Birth of a Hero |
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 An early drawing of Bat Dude |
Bat Dude came from humble beginnings. I was nine or ten and it was a quiet afternoon in my best friend's bedroom. My friend always came up with crazy activities and that day's was no different. I don't remember exactly what it was all about, but it involved a cardboard box with a hole cut out of the front as if it was a TV screen. And then we invented superheroes and drew comics and stuck them in the hole or something. It isn't the clearest of memories. But what I do remember is on that fateful day I invented Bat Dude, who not only stole Batman's theme but also the Toxic Avenger's backstory. Bat Dude was an unnamed janitor in a toxic waste warehouse and while going about his job mopping or whatever, a barrel of toxic waste dumped all over his face and burned it off. So I guess he decided to take the rest of the day off work. As he was walking home without a face he stumbled upon a mask sitting in a garbage dump that happened to be situated right next to the sidewalk. I'm thinking the mask was probably in the garbage on account of the fact it had no holes to see or breath through. It really wasn't so much a mask as a strangely shaped piece of trash he stuck to his face. But such trivialities matter not to Bat Dude. He decided to put the mask on and fight crime with his powers of not having a face and being shirtless. By the end of the first comic he had stopped a bank robbery by throwing the robber out a window (this bank was apparently several floors off the ground). When the robber splatted on the concrete below Bat Dude quipped, "Anyone want pancakes?" |
Soon afterwards, I realised what a stupid backstory it was, and decided not to give him one at all. Bat Dude became the superhero with no secret identity, no backstory, and no powers to speak of (besides being able to see through a mask with no eyeholes and a certain aptitude for kicking things). But he lived in the woods, so that's gotta count for something.
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| The Birth of a Sidekick | |
 The original drawing of Gibbon. And possibly the last drawing where I remembered to give him a tail. |
Bat Dude's eternal companion and sidekick was invented one day while at
my other childhood best
friend's house. He had gotten some sort of educational pamphlet all about
gibbons and it explained that a gibbon's arms are so long one could tie its shoes
without bending over. We thought this was incredibly kickass, but kind of
useless since gibbons don't wear shoes. So we invented a gibbon with shoes. His
name: Gibbon. I think I forgot to give him shoes. Like Bat Dude, Gibbon didn't have much of a backstory. He's just a giant monkey that talks and wears shorts. Not that that requires any kind of explaining. |
Together, Bat Dude and Gibbon fought all sorts of crime, most of it taking place in their woods. I guess if there were no villains doing evil things in the woods that day they'd have to commute to the city to fight crime.
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| Tools of the Trade and Dressing for Successing | |
 Bat Dude practices his punching |
Bat Dude's costume was simple and changed very little over the course of the
years. A mask, shorts and shoes. He eventually got tiny little metal squares to
protect the back of his hands and wrists (I suppose it's better than blocking a
sword with your shirtless chest, but not by a whole lot),
and the mask got a hood to cover the back of his head and neck when I realised I
didn't know how to draw his head in profile. To this date, besides the original comic which all die-hard Bat Dude fans agree is not canon, Bat Dude has never been depicted without a mask. Much like that neighbour on Home Improvement, Bat Dude's true face is a mystery to all. |
Bat Dude had a wide array of evil-fighting gadgets to rival even that of Batman's utility belt. Unfortunately having only the pockets of his cutoffs to carry these in, these gadgets never really saw much use. These gadgets included such crime-fighting essentials as: |
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Bat Dude Bolas Because real superheroes don't run. |
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Bat Dude Boomerang It so badly wants to be the Batarang, but ended up looking like somebody took a regular boomerang and glued some pointy decorations on it. Check out its totally sweet flight path, though. |
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Bat Dude Portable Fucking Copter The image speaks for its amazing self. |
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| Arch-Nemeses |
| Bat Dude and Gibbon didn’t have many enemies. There were a couple drawings of
them fighting hunters (and occasionally
midget hunters) and
generic gang members
(and occasionally gang members with
the biggest head in the world),
and even once they fought a giant, but that was pretty
much it. It wasn't until I decided to come up with the first Bat Dude story
arc that I had to introduce an actual villain.
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| The Return |
| After many years, I began to realise I still drew Bat Dude occasionally, but
I never drew Gibbon anymore. I had become bored with him at some point. So while
on vacation at my grandparents' house in Saskatchewan, I decided to chronicle
the triumphant return of Gibbon. Because in Saskatchewan, there is literally
nothing else to do whatsoever. So I drew the 64 page epic The Return, which
introduced a new, improved, more extreme Gibbon (which wasn't hard seeing as
the old Gibbon was just a monkey wearing cutoffs). The Return also
introduced the evil monks/ghosts called the Druidslayers, which in
retrospect were a very poorly thought-out enemy. Even though there was a
seemingly infinite number of Druidslayers, they had no method of attack
whatsoever, and weren't much more difficult to defeat than a bathrobe.
Basically their only significant power was the power of illusion, which they
really only ever used to disguise themselves as either Bat Dude or Gibbon.
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| The Death of a Sidekick? |
| After completing The Return, I realised I had to fill in the backstory about what happened for Gibbon to disappear in the first place. So I introduced Bat Dude and Gibbon's first real arch-villain, the evil samurai Shaon Khaoul. He was later renamed Yukio Yoshimune, which manages to be about as threatening as if I'd renamed him Paul. Actually, I'm pretty sure I just grabbed two random Japanese names from the back of an SNES instruction booklet. |
 In an intense battle on the edge of a cliff, Shaon Khaoul swipes his ridiculous glowing diamond-shaped sword across Gibbon's chest, puncturing his lung and sending him hurtling off the cliff. |
 The End of Gibbon? (Hint: No, it's not.) PS. I think that bunny was supposed to have had a hand in nursing him back to health, but I don't really remember. Maybe he ate it! |
 Having clearly gained an advantage in the fight, Shaon Khaoul then proceeds to disappear rather than finish Bat Dude off. Those villains work in mysterious ways when it serves the plot. Apparently his disappearing spell only works on himself and his pants because his helmet and shoulderpads are left behind. |
Rather than going to the bottom of the cliff and confirming Gibbon is dead, Bat Dude goes home, and in what may be the single best thing I have drawn in my entire life, mourns Gibbon's death. Meanwhile, Gibbon nurses himself back to health in the cave at the bottom of the cliff he conveniently landed next to. He constructs a breathing mask to wear while he sleeps, and finally realising his monkey fur isn't sword-proof, he fashions himself some armor and an arsenal of new weapons. He then follows Bat Dude around and waits for the most dramatic moment possible to reveal himself... |
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Here are a few Bat Dude related images that I couldn't find a
place for in the
article, but are each special in their own way. Keep in mind these aren't taken
out of context or anything. All of these drawings are exactly as they originally
appeared.
Bat Dude at Evil Robot HQ
Bat Dude at Lookout Point
Bat Dude and Gibbon in the Lost
Dimension
Bat Dude on steroids (?)
Gibbon on steroids (?)
Bat Dude 3000, my City of Heroes
character
©2005 0kelvin
