Man-bat (DCAU)

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Man-bat

Played byMarc Singer
Appeared in
First appearanceOn Leather Wings
No. of appearances3 episodes
Current statusActive
Adapted fromMan-bat
Characteristics
Alter egoKirk Langstrom
AffiliationsGotham city underworld
Created by
Frank Robbins
Neal Adams

Man-bat (Kirk Langstrom), a DC Comics supervillain and enemy of Batman, consistently appeared in Batman: The Animated Series, played by Marc Singer. In it, Dr. Kirk Langstrom is a zoologist at the Gotham City Zoo who experiments with his own physiology to become a mutant bat hybrid. He is the first villain Batman fights in the series.

Contents

[edit] Appearances

  1. On Leather Wings
  2. Tyger, Tyger
  3. Terror in the Sky

[edit] DCAU biography

Man-bat first appears in On Leather Wings, the first episode of the series, commiting a series of drug company robberies, to create a serum at the chemical labs. While Batman investigates he is confused with the creature, making his work harder. The only evidence he gets are a recording tape and some hair he finds at the crime scene.

As Bruce Wayne, a frequent donnor to the Gotham Zoo, he visits the bat observatory in hopes to get more information from the specialists, unfriendly Dr. March, his daughter Francine, and her husband, Dr. Kirk Langstrom. Hoping to get some clues, Bruce gives away the two items while also noting the suspicious behavior of Dr. March.

Langstrom about to confess.
Dr. March calls Bruce Wayne and lies about the source of the sounds and then burns the evidence, but Batman has already learned too much an he isn't fooled. He learns Dr. March and Dr. Langstrom collaborated on an experiment to splice together bat and human genes, but after spending all their founds, the investigation is left inconcluded. However, Langstrom, using himself as a tes subject, decides to take over the experiments secretly by stealing the chemicals. When Batman arrivesto face him, Langström drinks the serum to make his mutation final, revealing himself as the thief. While he fights Batman as Man-bat, Francine arrives at the lab and discovers terrified, that the creature is her husband, who in shame escapes flying. Batman chases the creature over the city until he knocks him unconscious and takes him to the Batacave, where Langström is cured and later returned to his wife.

Langström next appears in Tyger, Tyger, where he aids Batman by analyzing, recognizing and creating an antidote to the chemical that Dr. Emile Dorian, a former partner of his, uses to muteate Catwoman into a cat creature. Lanstrom also revealed to batman the location of Dorian's island.

In the episode "Terror in the Sky", Langström is has a recurring dream in which he is transformed into Man-Bat, and he begins to eat a fruit. Then, Langström wakes up, to find the remains of the fruit and hide it from his wife. When Batman interrogates him, he honestly tells kim that the transformations must be a secuel effect of his past experiments and starts investigating further with no results. Then, as Francine decides to leave him and Gotham City, Batman and he discover that Dr. March briefly picked up where his experiments left time ago. When confesing Dr. March realises that Francine was cut with a piece of glass of his working tools and therefore her blood should have mixed and mutated with the serum into another Man-bat. In the end, Batman cures Francine, and she returns to her husband.

In the Justice League Unlimited episode "The Doomsday Sanction," Proffesor Milo, yet another gene splicer that appears in the series, mentions that Dr. Langström's research has proven useful to his research into splicing together human and animal DNA for the Cadmus Project.

[edit] Design

Man-bat look in the series istarted with some early studies by Kevin Nowlan, but Bruce Timm came up with the idea of making his fingers part of his wider wings (as real bats have) and the muscular chest and powerful shoulders the character would need to handle his wings. Other characteristices contrary to the comics, are his brown fur, his skull like nose and his inhuman cranium, which make him more bat like and a realistic aproach to a bat appearance. Although Man-bat is a huge creature, like a real bat, his body is notably short in comparison with the spread of his wings.

As Langstrom, he is the tall atletic type like Bruce Wayne.

[edit] Action figure

A Man-bat action figure was released by Kenner in 1992 in the second wave of the Batman: The Animated Series toy line. Its wings can move by pressing a button in its back, it comes with handcufs and a large rope.

[edit] See also

Batman: The Animated Series characters
Heroes: Batman | Alfred | Robin / Dick Grayson | Batgirl | Robin / Tim Drake
Villains: The Joker | Harley Quinn | The Penguin | Catwoman | Two-face | Poison Ivy | Rupert Thorne | The Scarecrow | Ra's Al Ghul | Talia | The Mad Hatter | The Ventriloquist and Scarface | Clayface | Killer Croc | Mr. Freeze | The Riddler | The Phantasm | Bane | Man-bat | Firefly | The Ninja | The Clock King | Baby Doll | Roxy Rocket | Hugo Strange | Doctor Milo | Maxie Zeus | The Terrible Trio | Calendar Girl | H.A.R.D.A.C. | Red Claw | Roland Daggett
Supporting Characters: James Gordon | Harvey Bullock | Summer Gleeson | Leslie Thompkins | Lucius Fox | Renee Montoya | Earl Cooper | Hamilton Hill | Andrea Beaumont | Carl Beaumont | Matthew Thorne | Thomas and Martha Wayne
Other heroes: The Creeper | Etrigan the Demon | Jonah Hex | Zatanna | Supergirl | Batwoman | The Gray Ghost

[edit] External links

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