10 Times Batman Got It Wrong
5. Unspoken Slavery
Harold Allnut is portrayed in the comic books as being a member of the Bat-family. But when you really think about what it must have been like to be Harold, it leads us to questions how healthy that family actually is. Spanning both Batman and the Detective Comics, The Penguin Affair story arc introduced Harold as the mute, hunchbacked mechanical mastermind who gave Penguin a weapon that almost defeated The Batman: Bird Control.
Well, among other machines of menace in the three-part story-line, that’s the very power that Harold gives Oswald, the baddest bird of them all. It’s not until poor Harold overhears Cobblepot’s plans to kill him, that our technical genius finally understands who he’s shacked up with. Enter Batman, arriving to foil the plans of the umbrella-wielding gangster, only to be set upon by the birds and rescued by Harold, who promptly disappears.
After Batman #458 reveals technical genius was hunted down by untrusting folk after trying to make an honest life, Batman arrives to repay Harold’s earlier assist, and after some deliberation invites Harold to live with him.
With Harold enjoying his TV time and the company of the faithful Bat-Hound, we assume that this is a happy ending for the hunchback. Until you realise that Harold is always in the Batcave, silently toiling away to create all of Bat’s gadgets and keeping the bat-vehicles tip-top. It begins to seem that, for Harold, his whole world is that dark-dank cave, and he works around the clock, with very little mention - and, we assume, no pay.