DC Comic’s Batman is one of the best examples of how a superhero would handle their secret identity in all of comic books. Unlike Gotham’s Dark Knight, billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne’s personality is a stark contrast with his more stoic superhero persona. It’s unlikely someone would guess he was secretly Batman. But surprisingly enough Batman isn’t Wayne’s only alter ego, as veteran Batman fans may remember Bruce also likes to disguise himself as the New Jersey mobster Matches Malone to investigate crimes. But Matches Malone is a criminal, so this disguise is only useful when Batman needs to spy on the underworld. When Bruce Wayne wants to protect Gotham without being Batman then he needs a brand new secret identity – The Insider.
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2008 saw the publication of Final Crisis, one of DC’s most ambitious (and complicated) crossover events to date. Final Crisis was a sprawling epic that touched every corner of the DC universe. After Darkseid took control of the universe, Batman was forced to break his one taboo on firearms and shoot the ruler of Apokolips with a special bullet designed to kill New Gods. Darkseid retaliated with his almighty Omega Beams and Batman was seemingly killed by the New God. It would later be revealed that Darkseid didn’t kill Batman, he merely sent the Dark Knight backward in time as part of an elaborate scheme to destroy the Earth once Batman returned to the present. Darkseid’s scheme thankfully never came to pass, and Batman returned to the present unharmed. Once he did, Batman donned his Insider persona in order to investigate how Gotham had changed in his absence.
“The Insider” was more than just a change in name for Bruce, however. In order to effectively fight crime, he donned an entirely new costume called the Insider suit to fight crime without letting anyone know he was back. This suit didn’t just look cool, it was more technologically advanced than even the Batsuit. The Insider suit incorporated the powers of all of Batman’s Justice League allies into one costume-the suit granted him super speed, flight, invisibility, heat vision, and it even has a makeshift Lasso of Truth and an artificial Green Lantern ring.
While this all sounds incredibly powerful, the suit does have a major weakness. Because it’s so much more advanced than the standard Batsuit it has a heavy recharge time, which means that Bruce can only use each of these powers for a limited time before he runs out of power. This limitation aside, the Insider suit is a good contender for one of the strongest gadgets in Batman’s arsenal.
Despite how cool it is, Bruce only ever used the Insider suit in one storyline, called Bruce Wayne: The Road Home. This series of one-shots chronicled each of Batman’s allies as they discovered that the original Caped Crusader was still alive. Bruce Wayne would once eventually step out of the shadows and don the mantle of Batman again, retiring his Insider identity and the suit seemingly forever. But with such a cool-looking weapon at his disposal, there’s always hope that Batman will one day revive The Insider suit from obscurity and remind people how powerful it is.