J is the World's Greatest Detective

J has single-handled deduced the identity of Batman.

Albert II, Prince of Thurn and Taxis might be Batman. Here's what I think he has going for him. He's young, 24, so he has time to get trained. As royalty, he inherited his wealth. It's going to be hard for a self-made man/woman to become Batman as much of your energy and attention during your most energetic years is going to be invested in making your fortune, so, like Bruce Wayne, you need to inherit and have time to grow both disenchanted with your position and the means at an early age to divert yourself with the training necessary to become Batman. I'm thinking that being royalty also exposed Albert to things like fencing, hunting, and other leisure sports that might begin to develop reflexes and skills that translate into those needed by Batman. He has some military service. He is studying both economics and theology which suggests both an intellect and a sensibility that might be drawn to and succeed at fighting against the darker side of humanity - or at least feel like he could/should make a difference. He's a championship racing driver, which suggests that he is drawn to risk taking, competition and action and possesses some level of athleticism and good reflexes. Family owns some kind of tech company which could be used to outfit his crime fighting needs. Family also owns 30,000 hectares of German woodland, in which you could undoubtedly hide a hundred Bat Caves. He lives in a freaking castle. I rest my case. He is Batman.

Incredible. I hope that Prince Albert contacts J about possibly serving in some capacity in his fight against crime, as this is really first class detective work. I also really appreciate the point made about the importance of inheriting wealth. This is why Bill Gates couldn't be Batman, obviously (I'm kicking myself for never seeing this!). The age-earnings profile to become a natural billionaire basically means you cannot also devote yourself to the decade-long years of study becoming a first class detective and martial arts expert. This obviously narrows the list down considerably.

In all seriousness, doesn't this probably suggest it's really unlikely that Bruce Wayne would choose to fight crime in Gotham City? J's right - even looking internationally, we get a really small number of possible candidates. Ideally, shouldn't the real Batman either go permanently underground, and thus lose the alter ego entirely? There's a lot of wasted time to putting on the Bruce Wayne front, after all - he's got to spend time socializing which is almost always during the evening, which is prime crime time. Of course, for Wayne, Gotham City is wrapped up in his own obsession with his parent's death - he can't leave that city. He's fighting his parents' killers, after all, who are Gotham criminals, not crime abstractly (though obviously that is kind of a loose neuroses, as he occasionally does leave Gotham.) Still, it's going to be very hard to hide this, because the number of people who could be Batman are really very small, even when we look internationally.

Maybe Batman's gadgetery really isn't as obvious to the non-superhero DC Universe folks as it is to us. Sometimes, I get the distinct impression that regular folk don't even know if the Batman stories are real. DC kind of oscilates between giving regular people that kind of superstitious knowledge of Batman to obvious knowledge (like having a powers crime unit in the GCPC). Still, maybe his actual wealth isn't at all obvious to regular people.