Sure, it may not have been the vigilante Yale graduate we’ve all come to know and love, but a Batman (and his squadron of Bat-Men) did join the California State Guard for a blip in history. Pictured here in this Mechanix Illustrated article from January 1942 is Mickey Morgan, who made his career testing awesome wingsuits.
https://gizmodo.com/where-did-batman-go-to-college-5782361
What makes this news tidbit all the more hilarious is that the military forecaster mentioned in the article — Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson — founded National Allied Publications, the predecessor to DC Comics. Heck, Major Wheeler-Nicholson even helmed the creation of Detective Comics.
In case you’re wondering if this was just a ploy to surreptitiously shill Batman comics in an engineering magazine, know that Wheeler-Nicholson left the company before The Bat-Man debuted in 1939’s Detective Comics #27. Nonetheless, I love how reality momentarily mirrored Gotham City’s newfangled crime-fighter. It’s Batman Incorporated, old-school!
[Via Modern Mechanix]
