The Explanation Behind Bruce Wayne's Time Spent in Smallville

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Mar 31, 2019

In their latest look at long-resolved comic book plots, CSBG reveals how Bruce Wayne seemed to be a teenager in Smallville with living parents!

This is "Provide Some Answers," which is a feature where long unresolved plot points are eventually resolved.

Just recently, I wrote about how there had been a number of DC stories over the years that made no sense with what we know, or at least what we always assumed that we knew, about Batman and when his parents were murdered. The worst offender, by far, was Adventure Comics #275 (by Jerry Coleman and George Papp), where the Waynes moved to Smallville and Bruce GOES TO HIGH SCHOOL before his parents are dead!

Young Bruce, as we can see, was destined to be a crimefighter even if his parents DIDN'T die (something that was so beautifully shown in Alan Brennert and Dick Giordano's classic Detective Comics #500, where Batman saves the Waynes in an alternate reality and yet the Bruce from that reality STILL grows up to become a crimefighter). We know this because when he gets the chance to run into action to stop some crooks, he takes it. His problem is that he takes that chance in front of Lana Lang.

You see, while his parents are happy about him spending so much time with Lana Lang...

They don't know that Lana Lang don't mess around when it comes to Superboy and his secret identity. So after Lana Lang lends Bruce a costume to go fight some crime, she then decides to blackmail him over it to get him to use his great powers of deduction to find out who Superboy really is. That's super cold blooded, right? She JUST saw the guy risk his life to save some crooks and then she turns around and decides to use that scenario to BLACKMAIL the dude? Not cool, Lana Lang!

Anyhow, because of how he feels about selling out Superboy (who he meets and befriends and obviously knows his secret identity because Superboy doesn't care about the dangers of time travel and all that nonsense. He just looks into the future whenever he feels like it, so he knows that he and Batman later become best buddies), he decides that, at the end of the story, after Bruce HAS figured out Superboy's secret identity (this is Bruce Wayne we're talking here, he'll figure out your secret), he decides that it is too big of a risk and he wants to be hypnotized to forget it....

(That could probably fit in with my recent bit about all of the superheroes who are really free with the mindwiping)

We then learn that the Waynes moved away after a year.

So, that story can't be explained, right?

Not so fast! Roy Thomas later explained it away...well, as well as he could, that is!

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='The answer will surprise you!']

Note that we don't actually SEE the Waynes in the comic, at least not from the front.

So in World's Finest Comics #271 (by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Frank McLaughlin), Roy Thomas does one of the most amazing pieces of "fitting pieces that don't fit together together" that you'll ever see. I think I'll spotlight that issue in further detail in the future.

For now, though, we see that the explanation for how the Waynes were around while Bruce was so old is that they WEREN'T the Waynes! They were his guardians and the teacher just screwed up!

Hilarious, right? That doesn't address the caption above when it says "parents," but hey, I'm just impressed with the boldness of that retcon!