Most origin stories begin with our hero at the beginning of their journey, yet to be encumbered with all the trappings that make the character who they are. This is true in some for Zero Year, but not when it comes to Batman's wonderful toys. Whilst the likes of Year One and The Long Halloween saw a younger, leaner Caped Crusader rely more on his wits than gadgets, Scott Snyder's version couldn't be more different. Hell, the very first pages of the story show Batman on a steam-powered dirtbike in a post-disaster Gotham City, so we know that even when the chips are down, Batman can russle up something cool! In the first few issues of Zero Year, the Dark Knight's also shown testing prototype boots with "electro-adhesion bond", shoes that enable him to hang upside down from a roof. Or, as at one point in the story, upside down, in the middle of a supervillain fight, on the bottom of a flying blimp! Snyder's vision is very technologically advanced - not too far out of the realms of possibility for modern readers, but definitely further advanced than the real world. In fact, the writer takes the idea even further and shows us that Wayne Enterprises was developing this kind of "future tech" even when Bruce Wayne was a boy. His father shows Bruce a new Lucius Fox invention known as The Witch's Eye, a 3D visual mapping device designed for first responders and EMTs. Featuring a 360-degree camera, the device makes an interactive map of an environment, which young Bruce uses to explore the caves beneath Wayne Manor. Wonder what he'll do with that...
