Calendar Man

Julian Gregory Day, better known as Calander Man, is known for committing crimes that corresponded with holidays and significant dates. He often wears costumes to correlate with the date of the designated crime. Because his crimes are generally petty and often ridiculous in nature, he is notorious among both heroes and villains alike for being something of a joke. He has fought Batman and Robin on many occasions. Fixated on the calendar, Day often times and ties his crimes to certain holidays throughout the year. This often leads him to leaving clues by which he could be caught. Gotham City's hopes for a day off are often clouded by the knowledge that any holiday of note is likely to be shadowed by Calendar Man's presence.

History
Calendar Man is fascinated by dates and calendars – even his real name is a pun on the Julian and Gregorian calendars. WHO'S WHO # 4 and Batman # 384 simultaneously confirmed the rogue's real name as Julian Day. In Batman 80-Page Giant # 3, Chuck Dixon took the the 1582 revision known as the Gregorian Calendar into account by identifying the villain as Julian Gregory Day. His crimes always have a relationship to the date that they are committed. The theme may be related to what day of the week it is or to a holiday or to a special anniversary on that date; he will plan his crime around that day. He often wears different costumes which correspond to the significance of the date, though he does have a main costume which has various numbers (meant to represent days on a calendar) sprouting from the shoulders. This outfit was a red and white number that played up the calendar motif and wasn't keyed to any particular season or date. Its cape, for instance, was a collection of calendar pages. The costume reappeared on the covers of Batman # 384 and Detective Comics # 551, and the red and white suit appeared in Calendar Man's entry in WHO'S WHO '85 # 4 and was the costume Calendar Man wore during the Crisis On Infinite Earths. In Batman #400, when Ra's Al Ghul broke all of Batman's enemies out of prison and provided them with replicas of their original weapons and costumes, this was this outfit presented to Calendar Man. It seems fair to say that the Calendar Man committed felonies for reasons beyond pure profit. He was a thrill-seeker who got as much pleasure out of designing theme costumes (an incredible SIXTEEN in his first three crime sprees) and developing weapons (utilizing wind machines, lasers, sonic weaponry and customized motorcycles) and matching wits with Batman. He even had his own above-ground version of the Batcave, a veritable shrine to the timetable --calendar carpeting, a giant calendar rolodex, massive calendars hanging on the wall, ancient stone timepieces and calendar floor tiles. The Calendar Man committed his first crime on a Monday morning in March, when the Gotham City Planetarium was invaded by a man from the moon, complete with a spherical lunar craft whose magnetic field sent the guards hovering helplessly in the air. After helping himself to "stamps which had been hand-cancelled by the astronauts during one of the lunar visits," the man with the round, cratered headgear and spacesuit made his exit. The Calendar Man never did anything in a small way.

The confident Calendar Man placed an ad in the newspaper challenging Batman to stop him. The March 17 edition of the Gotham Gazette noted that an "anonymous letter promises four successful robberies in four days -- each day to correspond to a season of the year -- plus one extra for a 'fifth season.'"

Spring arrived early that year in the form of a man in a flower suit -- petals bursting from his collar, leaves functioning as a cape -- at Gotham's International Garden Show on the 17th. The Calendar Man's debut was tainted a bit by Batman and Robin's interference but he had invited them, after all. "Summer" proved more amenable and he escaped with the proceeds from a March 18 beauty pageant while dressed in a flaming asbestos suit. "Autumn" blew in on the 19th courtesy of a wind machine that helped him pull off an armored truck robbery. And completing the cycle, the Calendar Man became a snowman to steal "ice" from a diamond show for his March 20th winter showing.

Having racked up four consecutive failures, Batman was determined to thwart the robbery intended for the mysterious "fifth season," which he deduced must be India's Monsoon Season. Noting that an entertainer with the stage name of Maharajah the Magician was in town for a five-day engagement at the Bijou Theater, the Caped Crusader correctly gambled that this might be his target. Still wearing his magician's tuxedo, the Calendar Man was taken into custody on March 21 -- the first day of Spring. The crime season had come full circle.

In 1965 a reprint of Calendar Man's debut was printed in Batman # 176.

In the new series BATMAN FAMILY, it spotlighted minor rogues, reviving Kite Man, Signalman, Blockbuster, a new incarnation of Clayface and, in 1979 the Calendar Man. This time, an impressive array of super-weapons was added to the villain's arsenal while the issue retained the Calendar Man's trademark one-time-only parade of costumes.

Batman # 312 had found the Calendar Man committing crimes tied to the days of the week. Monday, for instance, was named after the moon, hence the lunar costume and theft. Tuesday, "named for Tiw, the ancient god of war," found Calendar Man in centurian-like garb for his theft of military treasures. And on Wednesday, "named for Woden -- or Odin -- the Norse god of wisdom," the rogue was clad as a viking when he faced The Batman outside the Metropolitan Museum."Calendar Man is playing this farce to the hilt," he observed. "His cycle even has eight wheels to emulate Odin's eight-legged horse, Sleipnir."

Calling the Dark Knight's attention crimson monocle, the Calendar Man shouted that "Odin sacrificed an EYE to gain knowledge -- but I sacrificed MINE to gain POWER!!" A laser from the eye-piece blasted Batman from his Whirly-Bat and the rogue ultimately made his escape. While playing Thor on Thursday (and carefully avoiding any similarity to the Marvel version), the would-be "God of Thunder" left Batman reeling with an ultrasonic blast from his electronically-lined helmet. Sidelined by damage to his inner ear, the Dark Knight was forced to sit out the Calendar Man's Friday and Saturday robberies.

Sunday was a day of rest, and Batman realized late in the game that his foe would regard it as "the perfect time for you to skip town with what you've stolen --and what more appropriate means of transportation that the Western SUN Express ?" The civilian-clad Calendar Man took refuge in a train tunnel, taking time to switch to his new red and white costume before resuming his flight. In the end, thanks to a skillfully thrown Batarang and rope, the Calendar Man's second round of March Madness came to a close.

Round three got underway in 1985 when a confederacy of Gotham mobsters put a bounty on The Batman's head and, using the Monitor as an intermediary, hired the Calendar Man to kill him. To Julian Day, it was an agonizing decision. "I've never murdered ANYONE, nor do I DESIRE to bloody my hands -- yet the very calendar itself is BASED on death and rebirth, Autumn to Spring."

Questioning his hesitation, he asked himself, "Could it be that I commit my crimes for reasons OTHER than monetary gain ? Could it be that I derive pleasure from passing my time in challenges of wit and skill ? Could it be that the crime of murder is too mundane, too artless, to satisfy my needs ? Could it be that I actually RESPECT The Batman and LOOK FORWARD to our periodic tests ? Of COURSE it could. And were I to KILL The Batman -- red-letter day aside ... the rest of my days could well be blank boxes. With The Batman dead, would I have any reason to live ? And yet ... the money ..."

It was more than the Calendar Man could resist and he embarked on a new six-day crime wave, scheduled in his day planner for March 16th through the 21st. "If he has not stopped my spree by then -- he will DIE." For this series of robberies, the focus would cover holidays set between New Year's Day and his self-imposed "D-Day" -- March 21, the first day of Spring. The next several days found Batman and his new Robin (a.k.a. Jason Todd) facing the usual succession of specialized motorcycles, weapons and novelty costumes, notably a half-shadowed Groundhog's Day outfit that burst into bright light without warning. When the Calendar Man threatened to kill Robin on March 21, the Dark Knight immediately ordered his partner to halt his costumed activities for the duration of the case.

Meanwhile, the villain of the piece was playing an arrow-wielding Cupid for his Valentine's Day crime, silently wondering whether he should move to Green Arrow's home turf "once The Batman is gone." Distracted by a sniper, Batman lost his target once again. Robin, disobeying orders, was on his trail. The Calendar Man escaped but Batman and Robin reached a truce and the Boy Wonder trailed the rogue to his calendar shrine at the corner of March and Day Streets.

"Now why didn't WE think of that ?"Batman laughed. "You've done good work, Robin -- but remember our DEAL. Your part is finished now -- and whatever you do, STAY OUTSIDE." The Dark Knight had reckoned without the Calendar Man's laser rifle and, more significantly, his weakened condition from a gunshot wound sustained earlier in the evening. Robin felt compelled to intervene and smashed into the lair, knocking the gun to the floor thanks to Calendar Man's collapsing Stonehenge replica. Batman got in the last punch but he had to admit that the Boy Wonder had made the right decision.

1985 only got worse for the Calendar Man after that. Transported to the alternate world of Earth-X, with dozens of potential new adversaries rising to its defense, the seasonal scoundrel still wound up being knocked cold by his own foe, Batman in Crisis On Infinite Earths # 10. The next time, Julian Day was freed from prison (by Ra's al Ghul), he had no interest in participating in a group venture on behalf of his mysterious benefactor. "After being behind bars so long," he explained, "A lot of us got plans of our own ... OTHER than chasin' the wind". Whatever plans he may have had in mind, the Calendar Man wound up spending most of his time following the jailbreak with other penniless rogues in a super-villain bar called the Dark Side in Justice League of America # 43.

Since the Crisis, Calendar Man even been forced to exclusively wear his seasonally generic red and white outfit. He couldn't afford any others. With his change of fortune, the Calendar Man agreed to join other so-called "misfits" Catman and Chancer in Killer Moth's plot to kidnap Bruce Wayne, Mayor Armand Krol and Commissioner James Gordon for a ten million dollar ransom in Batman: Shadow Of The Bat # 7. Even here, Day was whipped into a rage by Catman's persistent jokes about his theme. Catman apologized but insisted that "a calendar is a pretty, uh, unusual gimmick."

"I happen to like dates, right ? There's nothing weird about that!"

Using his technological skills, the Calendar Man crafted a series of traps for the millionaire and the civil servants and predicted dire circumstances for the middle of the week. "Monday's child is fair of face -- Tuesday's child is full of grace -- but Wednesday's child -- Hey, I see nothing but woe! ... Now, if it'd just been Thursday -- 'long way to go' -- they'd have been okay. Guess everybody has to have a bad day sometimes." The abductions went off without a hitch and Killer Moth had to admit, "Calendar Man may be going slowly round the bend -- but he hasn't lost any of his skill with gimmicks."

His eccentricities notwithstanding, Day had only agreed to participate in the caper if the hostages were not killed. Unknown to his accomplices, Killer Moth had intended to do just that and only the intervention of Robin averted that dire fate. In a climactic confrontation between Batman and the Misfits, the Calendar Man stunned the Dark Knight with a barrage of lead-weighted calendar tiles and aimed the Moth's gun at him. Batman sneered at his reluctance to fire, noting that he was "going down for attempted murder already."

Calendar Man was stunned but Killer Moth confirmed it. "They were WITNESSES -- they HAD to die! Forget THEM, you squeamish chump -- SHOOT HIM!" Hanging his head and lowering his gun, Julian Day said, "No." With a punch to the jaw, The Batman said "Thanks!"

Within months, Julian Day was approached by the 2000 Committee, an organization devoted to overthrowing the United States government by the turn of the century. In exchange for his freedom, the Calendar Man would orchestrate the escapes of three other time-themed villains, the Clock King, Chronos and the Time Commander and steal a unique hourglass that the latter rogue had once possessed. The jailbreaks were executed flawlessly ("I ALWAYS keep my dates," Day boasted) but the robbery was not. The team had pinned their hopes on the Commander's ability to use the stolen hourglass to step through time but the addled villain insisted that "it's broken."The time bandits quickly ran afoul of the Team Titans, whom Calendar Man desperately tried to hold off with the only tools he had left, his calendar page cape and a miniature stun gun.

Adding insult to injury, the captive quartet was psychoanalyzed by Terra, who observed that "you guys have come up with some pretty peculiar and wasteful -- albeit creative -- ways of addressing your fears about the finite nature of your existence." Day insisted that "even Batman will tell you -- I'm basically a NICE guy. Yeah, I got a mortality fixation. Yeah, I got a problem with death. But I mean, who doesn't ?"

Calendar Man and friends got together for one more scheme in Showcase '94 # 10, still seeking a device that would allow them to move through time at will. Instead, they were caught in a temporal loop that was as much a result of the Time Commander as it was the massive assault by Extant and Parallax on the timestream. Determined to break the cycle, the Time Commander shattered the hourglass that was causing events to repeat themselves.

Captured soon after, Julian Day was sentenced to "serve the maximum for his crimes". Informed that he'd "spend millennial New Year's behind bars," Day displayed insanity in the courtroom and was sent to Arkham Asylum. He escaped briefly thanks to a breakout staged by Bane but a heist in Century City attracted the attention of Power Girl and the Calendar Man was in custody once more, this time in Blackgate Prison. His outings with the Time Commander and company had been a disaster, as well.

Freed from Blackgate by the Gotham earthquake, Day spent months in the government- abandoned city before surrendering to authorities. The Calendar Man had been grateful at the time but his opinion changed when he was transferred to Arkham Asylum once more. A doctor suggested "a radical therapy" to eradicate Day's fixation with calendars by placing him in solitary confinement, primarily in darkness. No longer capable of determining the passage of time, the Calendar Man snapped. "They've stolen the most precious thing from me," he agonized. "The passing of one millennium to another."

Living in total darkness with no way of keeping track of the passage of time, Day was slowly coming unglued and losing himself in fantasies. In one recent nightmare, he'd even imagined himself as a jailer at Arkham in Superman # 160.

Calendar Man was eventually released from his cell and informed that he was being paroled. He was stunned ("Could they really have mistaken catatonia for good behavior ?") but gleefully returned to the outside world and "the simple glory of watching the shadows chase themselves across the ceiling." Batman was not convinced and told Day as much when he confronted him in his rented room.

The Calendar Man finally went over the edge in that moment. He'd fantasized about destroying Gotham with three tons of dynamite on New Year's Eve but now he would make his dreams of death a reality. "If I missed the big show in January, so what ? There are OTHER calendars. OTHER lists of days and moon phases and equinoxes. I will have my wrath on that day!" I will bring suffering down on Gotham on THAT date. And I see now, in a moment's inspiration, how it is to be. I have only MONTHS to prepare. So much WORK to do. And I can't do it ALONE." Dressed in a new costuume, the Calendar Man now wore predominantly red, including hood and cape, with gold shoulder pads and belt and an Egyptian motif that included a Pharaoh's mask and a Sacred Ibis on his chest.

After five months of recruiting henchman and making plans, the Calendar Man delivered a message to police headquarters. With cryptic references to Mai 105, Sextilus Ante Ides X, 12 Tun 17, Sha'ban 23 A.H. and Thoth, the note indicated to Batman, Robin and Alfred that Day was planning his operation around calendars of the ancient world. "Most ancient calendars were based on a three-hundred and sixty-day year ... with five days left over. Those five days came at the END of the year. Most people partied down for those days. But some, like the Mayans, saw those days as a time of uncertainty."

Working for hours on end, Robin was able to decipher the clues. "Mai 105 is near the end of the dry season on the calendar kept by the Nuer tribesman of Sudan" and corresponded to August 19 on the modern calendar. The other dates matched up to the 20th, 21st and 22nd. "And Thoth is the Ibis god of the Egyptians. But he's ALSO the symbol of the last day of the Egyptian year as determined by the flow of the Nile."

Although he'd mined his last known residence with explosives and abducted a dozen calendar girls from the Wayne Motors photo shoot as preliminaries, the Calendar Man remained someone whom most regarded as a non-lethal gimmick crook. That image was shattered in the wee hours of August 19 when the Calendar Man used a rocket launcher to blast incoming Flight 601 from the sky, sending two-hundred plus passengers and crew to their deaths. He followed up with an electromagnetic pulse that effectively shut down the city's electrical grid. "For everyone who thought January first was a letdown," the Calendar Man exulted, "here's your Y2K, Gotham."

With a renewed sense of urgency, Batman began to tap into every resource that Gotham possessed, notably its criminal element. Using strongarm tactics and his own underworld alter ego of Matches Malone, the Dark Knight successfully transformed the Gotham mobs into a strikeforce that he'd use to take down the Calendar Man and his own underlings.

Even as his thugs fell before the mobsters, the Calendar Man fled to ensure that the day of Thoth would come to pass. Aiming his bazooka at the Gotham nuclear power plant, he observed that "a single shot will lock up all electronics in the plant. Their meters and readouts go black. Without the controls, the raw power at the heart of the core is unleashed. Gotham City and the surrounding counties become an irradiated wasteland. Until Y3K." Batman barely managed to arrived in time to ruin his aim and beat him into submission.

Calendar Man reappears in Harley Quinn's series, as an inside informant to the fugitive.

In Week 20 of the weekly series 52, a radio broadcasts a message saying that Calendar Man was left tied up for the police in Gotham City, even though Batman is not responsible. It is revealed the new heroine Batwoman was responsible for his latest capture.

Powers and Abilities
Calendar Man is a successful inventor, capable of designing the machinery needed to deploy his various schemes. His talents aid him as he pursues his obsession with quirks of the calendar, carefully planning and theming his crimes around holidays.

Trivia

 * Because his crimes are generally petty and often ridiculous in nature, he is notorious among both heroes and villains alike for being something of a joke.

In other media
Calendar Man later makes a brief cameo appearance in Mayhem of the Music Meister! as one of the Arkham inmates under the Music Meister's control during the song "Drives Us Bats!"
 * Calendar Man makes an appearance in the new animated series Batman: The Brave and the Bold, voiced by Jim Piddock. He appears in the episode "Legends of the Dark-Mite". When Bat-Mite summons a bunch of villains for Batman to fight, he tricks the former into summoning Calendar Man. Batman then whispers to Day to take a dive, hoping this will cause Bat-Mite to leave them alone. However, the unimpressed Bat-Mite then "upgrades" Calendar Man into Calendar King, which grants him the power to magically summon holiday based henchmen (such as biker Santas and giant mutant Easter bunnies). Batman eventually punches Calendar Man into the wall, destroying his cape of calendar pages, and Bat-Mite causes Day to disappear in order to line Batman up against another villain, Killer Moth.

Batman: Arkham Asylum

 * In Batman: Arkham Asylum, in the Main Cell Block of the Penitentiary, Calendar Man's cell can be glimpsed. The cell is covered with torn calendar pages, and when photographed the bio of Calendar Man may be unlocked.

Batman: Arkham City
Calender Man appears in Batman: Arkham City, somewhat resembling his appearance during the Long Halloween story arc. He is the only inmate inside Arkham City who chooses to remain in his cell. Unlike previous interpretations of Calendar Man, who crimes consisted of everything but murder, this Calendar Man's crimes consist almost exclusively of murder; he evens confesses to murdering his own mother and father on the respective holidays. It is also said if the player visit's Calender Man on a real-world holiday, he may give you something.



Psychological Profile (by Penelope Young)
Calendar Man

Real Name: Julian Day

CHECK PERMANENT CALENDAR BEFORE EACH VISIT...

Psychological Profile: Day suffers from schizotypal personality disorder, with ideas of reference focusing around the calendar. He believes the major dates of Gregorian calendar mark times when he is personally and uniquely freed from societal norms. On these dates, he exhibits mildly sociopathic, frequently criminal behavior. He is in general one of the easier to treat here at Arkham, except on major holidays, when he becomes impossible to handle, displaying borderline behavior and refusing to socialize throughout the day.

Additional Notes

I have been unable to source his ideas of reference; I suspect incidents of childhood trauma related to a number of major holidays.

Due to my tendency to work through the holidays during which most of other staff take leave, I've been able to study the majority of Day's schizotypal breaks.

Arkham City Profile: Dr. Hugo Strange
Calendar Man is one of the more circumspect and introverted prisoners. He whiles aways his days obsessing over anniversary schedules, privately reliving every gruesome detail of his monstrous crimes. There is no hope for rehabilitating him; if he ever escapes Arkham City, his criminal plans extend endlessly into the future.

Trivia

 * In Dr. Young's notes, Penguin wrote his signature where, through history, everybody has to have an inventor or machiner, where Calendar Man is known for his brilliant inventions. Calendar Man is one of the easiet patients, so Penguin has no difficultity controlling him, yet on any holiday, Calendar Man may become so psychotic, that it can be used as a advantage.