The following contains spoilers for Batman: The Knight #5, now on sale from DC Comics

One of the most iconic elements of the Batman mythos has always been the Batcave. The secret lair of the hero and his allies, the Batcave has been tweaked and modified and reimagined plenty of times over the years, and has even been rebuilt and redesigned elsewhere. But a new story is reminding readers exactly why someone like Batman needs it.

Batman: The Knight #5 (by Chip Zdarsky, Carmine Di Giandomenico, Ivan Plascencia, and Pat Brosseau) highlighted the moment Bruce Wayne learned the value of having a personal base that serves as more than just a headquarters. This also confirmed the real important role the Batcave plays in the story of Batman.

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batman the knight birth of batcave

Batman: The Knight has been a unique exploration of Bruce Wayne's formative years, highlighting the unlikely mentors who trained him in many of the principles that would come to define his crusade against crime as Batman. This has resulted in Bruce training under criminals and crime fighters alike, learning how they think. Bruce's latest mentor is Avery Oblonsky, an ex-KGB agent who has quietly established herself as a freelance spy utilized by the Russian government. After meeting her formally, Bruce and his friend Anton are introduced to her "cave," a secret base that contains all of her disguises and technology.

On top of being a place to hide her weapons though, Avery explained that the cave actually served an important personal role for her. It functioned more or less for her to be as she truly exists. Everywhere else in the world, she had multiple lives to mind and monitor. But within her cave, she had a space for her "reality," a place to be herself in safety and security while preparing to become someone else. As she described it, Avery's cave served as more than just a headquarters but as a refugee from the rest of the world. It was a place where she could reconnect with herself, even after spending enough time under a mask and false identity to fool the world's greatest minds.

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The Bat family in the Batcave.

It's an interesting explanation for a "cave," and seems to have been ret-conned to be a major influence on Batman's ultimate decision to construct the first (of many) Batcaves. Like Avery's base, the Batcave eventually came to mean more than just being a place for Batman to store his armory and do research for his next missions. The Batcave became a place where the real Bruce Wayne, not the public persona of a playboy billionaire or the masked exterior of the Dark Knight, could be exposed. Bruce in the Batcave is often shown in a far more vulnerable place, willing to take off his mask and actually have discussions with his loved ones. It's arguably one of the few places in the world that Batman seems to feel genuinely comfortable.

Even when the Batcave isn't located under Wayne Manor, having this kind of space has always been crucial to Batman. This has extended to periods when he's out of the mansion. Recent Batman stories have highlighted his Micro-Caves built around Gotham, places where Batman can feel comfortable in costume but without his mask on. Given the number of identities and personas Batman has to utilize in his war on crime, it makes sense he would need a place to actually decompress. The idea that it was a former mentor's greatest lesson to him contributes to Bruce's development into a hero and makes a point about how important it is for someone like Batman to have a place where he doesn't have to be the world's greatest detective.