Bat-Mite

Bat-Mite is a fictional comic book character who appeared in stories published by DC Comics. He first appeared in Detective Comics #267 (May 1959).

Related Topics:
Fictional - Comic book - Character - DC Comics - Detective Comics - May - 1959

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Bat-Mite is an imp similar to the Superman villain Mr. Mxyzptlk. He appears as a small childlike man in an ill-fitting Batman costume, with a black lightning bolt instead of the Bat-insignia. Bat-Mite possesses near-infinite magical powers and comes from another dimension, much like Superman's foe Mr. Mxyzptlk. In Bat-Mite's dimension, the resident imps idolize the heroes of the DC Universe and impersonate them, re-enacting their heroic feats and adventures. Bat-Mite's favorite hero is Batman, and thus the imp visited Batman on various occasions, often setting up strange events so that he could see his hero in action. Despite this, Bat-Mite is more of a nuisance than a supervillain, and often left his hero alone when he realized he had angered his idol again. Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk teamed up four times in the pages of World's Finest Comics to plague Superman and Batman together, as well.

Related Topics:
Imp - Superman - Mr. Mxyzptlk - Batman - Costume - Magical powers - DC Universe - Supervillain - World's Finest Comics

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Bat-Mite regularly appeared in Batman, Detective Comics and World's Finest Comics for five years. However in 1964, when the Batman titles were revamped with a more serious tone under new editor Julius Schwartz, Bat-Mite vanished along with the other extraneous members of the Batman family such as Ace the Bat-Hound. After this, only three more Bat-Mite stories were published in the pre-Crisis on Infinite Earths DC Universe: two Bat-Mite/Mr. Mxyzptlk teamups in World's Finest Comics #152 (August 1965) and #169 (September 1967) (which were not edited by Scharz but by Mort Weisinger), and "Bat-Mite's New York Adventure" from Detective Comics #482 (February-March 1979), in which the imp visits the DC Comics offices and insists that he be given his own feature in a Batman comic.

Related Topics:
1964 - Julius Schwartz - Ace the Bat-Hound - Crisis on Infinite Earths - August - 1965 - September - 1967 - Mort Weisinger - February - March - 1979

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After the continuity-revising 1985 miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths was published, Bat-Mite was mostly removed from the Batman comics canon. Bat-Mite made an appearance in the series Legends of the Dark Knight, although he may have been the hallucination of a minor character. This version of Bat-Mite later appeared in Mitefall, a one-shot story that was a parody of the "Knightfall" Batman storyline. He also appeared in the one-shot comic special World's Funnest, in which he battles Mr. Mxyzptlk, destroying the pre-Crisis multiverse of DC Comics as well as the post-Crisis DC universe, the universe of Kingdom Come, and the universe of the and animated series. Bat-Mite may or may not have been formally reintroduced into the modern DC Universe in a 1990s World's Finest miniseries (where he teams up with Mr. Mxyzptlk to "test" Superman and Batman), but this isn't entirely clear.

Related Topics:
1985 - Legends of the Dark Knight - Hallucination - Knightfall - World's Funnest - Multiverse - Kingdom Come - 1990s

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Apart from World's Funnest, there has been no direct connection between Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk; the World's Funnest special implied that different rules applied to their powers. In the Bizarro Comics anthology, Mxyzptlk's native fifth dimension seemed to include beings similar to Bat-Mite and Johnny Thunder's Thunderbolt. Neither of these comics are considered canonical, however.

Related Topics:
Bizarro Comics - Johnny Thunder

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