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WINGED superhero Batman is 82 years old in 2021, but has not yet retired from his full-time job of saving the world – or from travelling it without having to bother with a passport or check-in queues.
And part of his globe-trotting itinerary has taken him to the Costa Blanca holiday capital of Benidorm, where he has been spotted clambering around on top of one of the Osborne 'bull-boards' by the roadside.
In real life, the bull in question – the most commercially-renowned by completely atypical work of famous illustrator and painter Manuel Prieto – can be found on Benidorm's Avenida Costa Blanca.
You can follow for yourself the adventures of Bruce Wayne – Batman's off-duty name – in this east-coast tourist magnet in the newly-released 184-page DC Comics book, a joint creation by artists and teams from all over the planet.
In Batman: The World, the legend from Gotham City embarks on 14 different adventures – not all of them planned – in the past and present.
As well as time-travelling, Batman goes continent-hopping, starting out in the USA with his episode narrated and depicted by artists Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo who, like all the different illustrators and comic-strip writers involved, come from the same country as they show their hero in.
After the USA, Batman goes to France, then comes to Spain through the imagination of Valencia-born creator Paco Roca, winner of the 2008 National Comic Award and the prestigious 2020 Eisner Award, considered the Oscar of cartoon strips.
Italian artists devised the plot and put the pictures to it for Batman's visit to Italy, German ones for his Germany trip, and so on through the Czech Republic, Russia, Poland, Turkey, México, Brazil, China, South Korea and Japan.
In each country, the caped tourist is not known to the people he meets on the street – in real life, of course, he is very famous in practically every nation on earth, but the idea is to show how Batman interacts with local society, culture, landscape and habits, and how these react to him.
Examples include an encounter with Catwoman in the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the warped 'environmentally-friendly' intentions of the Joker in the Bavarian Alpes, Panda Girl standing in for Robin in China, and a black-and-white depiction of the scenery in Japan.
Another of the aims behind this multi-national and multi-cultural Batman book was to show him through the vastly different perspectives and drawing styles found across three continents.
Some might wonder why, on a sole visit to Spain, of all the beautiful heritage and nature and huge, vibrant cities on the western Mediterranean, Batman would choose Benidorm – but as his trip is merely about a relaxing beach break (even though it does not work out that way), this Alicante-province coastal town is a fitting option; also, Benidorm does have 'pockets' of 'real Spain' within it, especially in its historic quarter, it is stunningly-attractive when lit up at night, and is a great choice as a base for those who want to explore the wider area where they will find whitewashed villages, domed-roofed churches, winding cobbled streets, mountains, nature reserves, and entirely Spanish-speaking communities just a few short kilometres beyond the Manhattan skyline.
And Benidorm clearly has some Batman fans, as anyone who was in the town on the night of September 17 would have discovered.
The eve of International Batman Day (September 18) saw the famous 'bat-signal' projected over the Osborne bull on the Avenida Costa Blanca – the symbol Commissioner Gordon uses to warn the historical hero that something is not right with the world and he needs to intervene.
Photos: Paco Roca/DC Comics
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