Brampton’s Dark Knight
We’ve been talking about “Brampton Batman” for the last couple months at Stadium Comics. Each passing week has brought new reports from our customers and friends about a mysterious figure wearing the cape and cowl while patrolling the streets of our downtown area. Some people have seen him striding past local after-hours hot spots such as Burrito Boys and Sonny’s in the late night and early morning hours. My first personal sighting was about six weeks ago, where he was walking alone – and with purpose – down Main Street past Kingspoint plaza. When I say “with purpose”, it’s hard to put into words but it’s pretty much how you think Batman would walk.
I initially thought it was just an isolated incident, but when I began telling customers and friends alike about the sighting, I started to hear more tales of encounters with what appears to be our very own Dark Knight. Some people had taken photos, others had seen him conversing with Police, or speaking to drunken revelers. Our good friend Shaun Hatton saw him a couple nights ago purchasing a Slurpee from 7-11! Hey, you can’t blame him for that – must get pretty hot in that outfit!
Ricky and I have been fascinated with “Brampton Batman”, and we were discussing the reasons why this past Saturday night while at the theater for our Man of Steel event. We decided that the great thing about THIS Batman, and what makes him more mysterious and cooler than other guys cosplaying as Batman on a regular basis, is that he just kinda goes out and does his thing. There is no camera crew following him around, he doesn’t have a YouTube channel, and he’s not part of some viral marketing campaign (not that we can tell so far – it’d kind of break our hearts if he was). He’s just been out on the streets allowing his legend to grow – kind of like the Batman of Gotham.
We set out on Sunday night to find him, and to seek out the answers to some of the questions he’s had. The weather wasn’t that great – but we figured the real Batman doesn’t stray from a little rainy weather, so why should Brampton’s? We documented our search on Twitter, and all the while our twitter friends encouraged us to get to the bottom of this mystery.
We made about 4 or 5 trips around some of the areas he’s been known to frequent. We drove down Kennedy Road to Queen Street, down Queen to Main Street, along Main Street to the Kingspoint plaza area, and then back again. We decided to do one last lap, and then, just around midnight, we saw Brampton’s Caped Crusader walking – alone, and with purpose – down Queen Street towards Centre Street.
He walked past a parked car as we got closer. They shouted towards him, “Batman!”
“Those people behind me are police officers!” he replied in a stern voice, pointing at my car. At this point I called out to him, and he just kept walking.
Perhaps he doesn’t want to be interviewed, I thought. Or maybe he just thought I was the police in an unmarked vehicle trying to meddle in his affairs. Either way, I was going to give it one more shot. I pulled into a side street a little ways ahead and waited for Batman to come back my way. I have to admit our hearts were racing at this point. Who knew how he would react if he didn’t want the attention.
I got out of the car and approached him. I could see at this point that his uniform was of very high quality, and adds to his imposing figure.
“Batman! Can I have a picture with you?”, I shouted as I fanboyed out a little.
“Certainly”, he replied. “Those are police officers there” he said, pointing to a dark SUV that sure enough had pulled into the side street we were on. Two men got out of the car and began observing us. At this point I don’t know if they were actually officers, or perhaps friends of his looking out for his safety from a distance. We took a picture together, and he shook my hand. He seemed friendly enough, so I asked if we could do a quick interview on camera – to which he consented.
I’m far from the best interviewer in the world, and I hadn’t really prepared questions, but here’s the exclusive interview we conducted with Brampton’s very own DARK KNIGHT!
Still not sure about how the Batmobile factors into things, and how he intends to parlay his nightly duties into being able to purchase one, but I am curious to see how it will happen!
It’s also great to hear that the police department have been somewhat supportive of his appearances in the city. When he was talking about “The Sergeant”, I wonder if he was actually speaking about Peel Region’s Chief of Police Jennifer Evans? Has she taken a similar stance to Gotham’s Commissioner Jim Gordon on our Dark Knight?
Either way, I think it’s great to have a Batman patrolling our city’s streets. It seems to bring a smile to most people’s faces, and it’s something cool happening in Brampton! Now the city has something more than just our comic shop to get excited about!
We’ve got more questions for Brampton’s Dark Knight, and we’ll be looking to get some of them answered in the near future. Until then, we will continue to watch his legend grow!
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