A Chinese version of Batman's origins

Craig Yoe pointed me to this delightful Chinese version of Batman's origins, found on a dollar store toy.

Chinese dollar store offers wonderfully insane backstory for Batman

• [MrEricSir]

  Makes more sense than a lot of Hollywood scripts.

• [fett101]

  Old image is old.

• [Donald Petersen]

  Doctor Jackstraw, the Abnormal Drug Trafficker, was a particularly daunting criminal activate to stroke.

• [Joshua Zelinsky]

  It made perfect sense and wasn’t that far off until it got to the part about Spiderman. I don’t even know how bad translations could possibly get that mistake in there. 

  • [travtastic]

    It’s probably not a mistake. Ever see the sets in import shops that have a ton of different toys on one card? That’s the origin story.

    Edit: Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Sense of Right Alliance

    • [Mujokan]

      No, it’s just a mistake. This is tied to the “Batman Begins” movie from 2005. It all basically makes sense in that context except for confusing a spider for a bat. Tougon is Falcone and Jackstraw is Scarecrow. (Jackstraw is an archaic variant of scarecrow, Tougon I have no idea.)

    • [9illy]

      I do not use the phrase casually, but the Sense of Right Alliance made me literally laugh out loud just now.

  • [ghurley]

    Bruce Wayne is Superman, not Batman.

• [Mujokan]

  I wonder if this is Chinese, because normally you’d say “gaotan” for Gotham City, not “gete”. I would investigate further in what language “gete” = “Gotham” but my interest ran out. Also you can find commentary on this packaging dating back to 2008, and probably further back if you look hard enough.

• [jeligula]

  Absolutely priceless.  At first, I was ambivalent in that it couldn’t possibly transcend Japanese translations, but was pleasantly surprised; to wit, if you do not have a firm grip on a mythos, make shit up.  That’s how new ones get started.  A sonar-directed flying spider that thrives in darkness is a myth that I am happy to spread.

• [Hunter Pendleton]

  Old news, guys! Idle Thumbs was all up on this!

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0P1TDJRK9Q

  (I don’t actually care about it being old, the dramatic reading is what is important)

• [travtastic]

  Did u guyz know this was previously featured on other websites?

• [Christopher Lee]

  I find it beneath contempt that you would dare post something without scouring the entire damned internet to make sure that it has never been posted before. I find that I can derive no enjoyment from this photo, knowing that it has been seen before.

  • [travtastic]

    First!

• [zombiebob]

  I lold big time when I read the Spiderman bit

• [Urban Garlic]

  I personally liked “abnormal drug trafficker” — it sounds like one of those John Hodgman hobo names or something.

• [Huwman]

  I don’t know if it will taken a superhero to fix this but when I logged in and tried to post earlier there was a phone or Blackberry ad right in the text box so I couldn’t type anything. No great loss, since I didn’t have anything that clever to say, but has anyone else experienced this?

• [nanuq]

  I totally want to see that movie.  When is it coming out?

• [Lilah]

  I, for one, am most amused by Ninja Group. It seems so financier-y. I want to see what their holdings and stock portfolio look like.

• [pjcamp]

  You should hear me give the back story for Dragon Ball Z.

• [Gbaji]

  Batman is a God Monster with intelligence.  We love Batman very much because he always survive by using some funny ways.

• [nosehat]

  So does stroking all kinds of criminal activate them (as this helpful reference work suggests), or does that only work for certain types of criminal?

  Is “Ra’s Al-Ghul” an example of a stroked criminal? (Typographically, he certainly is.)  If so, why is Bruce taking advice from him?!

• [Xof]

  Isn’t this Batman’s back story in the DC 52 reboot?

• [Alvarez Fernando]

  Was this ghostwritten by Peter Chimaera by chance? (He of “Doom: Repercussions of Evil” fame.)

• [James Marler]

  It makes me happy to know that, in China, “Wayne Manor” is just a “villa.”

• [Lemoutan]

  But there’s nothing particularly Chinese about this piece of misrepresentation is there? Other than the accident of location. Anyone, from anywhere, who either didn’t understand, or just didn’t give a toss, could have come up with this nonsense at any time (well, OK, after 1939 then).

• [Jakob Drud]

  And to think that in 2000 years, historians will write very long books on the batman mythos based on this one surviving fragment…

• [Steve Schnier]

  “And to think that in 2000 years, historians will write very long books on the batman mythos based on this one surviving fragment…”
  …and on Mickey Mouse: “The God Who Failed”.

• [Lobster]

  Needs more puffins.

• [wrybread]

  Interesting that the apostrophe is escaped in the phrase “Ra’s Al-Ghul”. The only reason I can think of for that is that the text was stored in a SQL database. Now that I type it out I’m not sure why exactly I find that interesting, but I do.

  • [mooduino]

    It’s only an escape sequence in certain databases. So we know they’re not using MSSQL Server. Or maybe they are, and that’s why the sequence made it to the printer.

• [SarahSu]

  LOL

• [markyoshi]

  Batman bin Spidarman

• [Owen Godfrey]

  This is cute … but maybe Batman does translate as Spiderman? Okay, probably not, but consider; in German “Batman” would literally translate to “Fledermaus mench”, or translated back to english “Flying-mouse man”. Can you imagine that? 

  (Panicing villain) “Who are you!?!?”
  (Batman) “I’m flying mouse man!”

  It really doesn’t have the same impact, does it. :)

• [Christoph Rehage]

  hilarious