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Batman, aka Bruce Wayne ’?JD: The Dark Knight bleeds Yale blue.

By the staff | 11:36am July 26 2012

Sure, other Yalies have played the title roles in major Hollywood productions: Meryl Streep ’75MFA (Sophie’s Choice, Julie & Julia); Paul Giamatti ’89, ’94MFA (Barney’s Version, Big Fat Liar).

But how many Yalies actually are the title character? We’ve got one this week: Batman, aka Bruce Wayne, who—as we documented last year—is a graduate of Yale Law School. You might have heard that Bruce has a new movie opening today, The Dark Knight Rises, last in the Batman Trilogy. You might have also heard that Rush Limbaugh has unmasked the Caped Crusader as a liberal shill in this year’s presidential election, since the Dark Knight’s film nemesis is named Bane, a homophone for Mitt Romney’s former company (and, not incidentally, a synonym for “nemesis”).

Not so fast, Mr. Limbaugh: in revealing Batman’s Yale diploma, we also investigated why comics artist Sal Amendola gave him that diploma so long ago. “I always thought of him as a dual personality,” Amendola said. “As Bruce Wayne he is a bleeding-heart liberal do-gooder, and as Batman he is a vigilante conservative.” In other words, the perfect swing voter. Or maybe that’s Spider-Man?

 

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