As Neil Gaiman points out, this news story almost certainly misquotes the perp:
A 6-foot-tall, 275-pound bearded man crashed a children’s birthday party in Oak Forest, identified himself as “vengeance,” then helped himself to a piece of cake, police said.
[…] When the owner of the home asked the man who he was, the intruder replied, “I am vengeance. I am the knight. I am Batman.” Then the man went into the kitchen, cut a piece of birthday cake, took it into the living room and ate it.
I would be willing to bet a not-inconsiderable amount of money that the gent said, “I am the night,” not “I am the knight.”
How can we expect our criminal justice system to function properly when obvious homages to the growled utterences of a masked vigilante can’t even be transcribed correctly?
Respectfully, I think you and Neil might be mistaken. I am almost certain the intruder said “I am the Dark Knight”.
Not if he was quoting Bats from The Animated Series blurbs on Cartoon Network (I was looking for a WAV file, but couldn’t find one). “I am vengeance. I am the night. I am BATMAN.” (Actually, it’s a sound cut from a TAS episode, as Bats recovers from Scarecrow’s fear gas and tries to pull himself together.)
I left a comment at my own post to this effect but I thought I should repeat it over it: you have me convinced! 🙂
“… I am the uber-geek!”
Perhaps this is a good place to remind everybody that The Batman premieres Saturday on the WB. Check your local listings for time and station, and fire up those VCRs/Tivos! (I hope it’s better than JLU.)