Warning: Spoilers for Detective Comics #1035

As if swinging from buildings wasn’t enough, now Batman is aping Spider-Man’s iconic web-slinging in his latest DC Comics outing. While escaping a squad of trigger-happy police officers in the sewers beneath Gotham City in Detective Comics #1035, by Mariko Tamaki, Clayton Henry, and Dan Mora, Batman deploys a rope-device which spreads over the opening of a sewer tunnel in a web-shaped pattern and repels away. It’s an effective strategy/gadget, which not only deters the officers giving chase, but is safer than using razor-sharp batarangs or smoke bombs in a confined space. 

Batman has always used his grapple-gun in the comics with an eery efficiency similar to Spider-Man with his web-shooters. That is to say, he isn’t just using the device to scale tall structures quickly, or to repel down deep crevices safely. He’s often depicted using it as means of navigating Gotham’s skyline, nimbly swinging from rooftop to rooftop and getting the drop on the bad guys. It works, and it’s greatly more inconspicuous—though significantly less cool—than the growling Batmobile. Ultimately, it’s all about having the right tool for the job, isn’t it. What is interesting to consider is just how evident a parallel this creates between Bruce Wayne’s Batman and Marvel Comics’ Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man: Peter Parker. 

Related: Spider-Man Just Took a Shot at Batman's Iconic Origin

It’s easy for readers to forget that besides boasting super-strength, an uncanny ability to climb walls, and wickedly powerful extrasensory perception (aka the “Spidey-Sense), Peter Parker is also a brilliant inventor. Unlike other spider-heroes like Silk, the webs Parker shoots aren’t an organic product of his body, but come from technological web-shooters. Attached to his wrists, both shooters are equipped with web-fluid cartridges which are replaced when depleted. Though these gadgets have been known to malfunction or be damaged on occasion, they remain a dependable and quintessential element of Spider-Man’s arsenal. What’s more, the properties of the web-fluid itself are astounding: from its outrageous tensile-strength, adhesiveness, and versatile malleability. On multiple occasions, Spider-Man has even been able to adapt the base chemical composition of the fluid with relative ease in order to better suit a task or threat, for example: insulating the webbing against electrical discharges. Not to mention the remarkable accuracy and firing power of the shooting devices themselves. All of this devised and built by a working-class kid from Queens, New York. 

Detective Comics #1035 Batman Webbing Invention Cropped

In comparison, Batman’s own clunky web-slinging and “wall crawling” gadgets come off as off-brand knockoffs. That isn’t to say Batman hasn’t come up with some pretty notable inventions, or applied existing science and tech in clever ways, but the Dark Knight’s efforts, more often than not, lack a certain flexile elegance that Spider-Man’s technological accomplishment possesses. Despite having Wayne Enterprise R&D and virtually limitless resources at his disposal, as well as access to alien technology, the keen mind of Bruce Wayne still can’t come up with a solution as ingenuous as Spider-Man’s. If this seems like an overblown statement, imagine what kind of effect it would have on Batman’s non-lethal crimefighting prowess were his signature bladed gauntlets equipped with Spider-Man-issued web-shooters? 

Both Batman and Spider-Man have inventive, industrious minds which they’ve put to good use fighting crime, but when it comes to gadgets for web-slinging, wall-crawling, and tying up criminals Spidey’s got the World’s Greatest Detective beat. At least, until the good folks over at DC Comics step up their game. 

Next: The Next Batman Is A Murderer