10 Embarrassing Comic Book Moments Writers Had To Explain

2. The Batman Of Zur-En-Arrh

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DC Comics

The silver age was WEIRD, especially for the heavy hitters like Batman. With the comics code authority breathing down their necks 24/7, DC couldn't write any of the true crime detective stories that Batman had been made famous for, so they decided to just throw anything at the wall to see what stuck.

One of these things was the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, a version of the Caped Crusader from a far off planet introduced in one issue of the comics in the 1960s and then never seen again.

Until our good buddy Grant "everything is canon no matter how insane" Morrison took over Batman. So considering how dark and intense the Morrison era of Batman was, how would everyone's favorite egghead handle something as wacky as Batman Zur-En-Arrh.

Well, simple, they explained that Batman Zur-En-Arrh was actually an alternate persona of Bruce's that he simply imagined to in fact be a different version of him altogether. Zur-En-Arrh is a delusional state of Bruce's that he pulls out in emergencies, making the Zur-En-Arrh persona somehow even weirder than it already was.

Contributor
Contributor

John Tibbetts is a novelist in theory, a Whatculture contributor in practice, and a nerd all around who loves talking about movies, TV, anime, and video games more than he loves breathing. Which might be a problem in the long term, but eh, who can think that far ahead?