Created by Professor Hugo Strange, Digitally Advanced Villain Emulator or "D.A.V.E.", was an AI that had the brainwaves of several of Batman's enemies.
History[]
D.A.V.E. was allowed to unleash itself upon Gotham City by Strange who programmed it to "escape" from Arkham Asylum, and allowed it to lure and study Batman. Though he had set the ultimate trap for Batman in the Batcave- having deduced Batman's identity via an elaborate process of elimination, D.A.V.E. set up a trap which would either expose Batman's identity or kill Alfred Pennyworth-, D.A.V.E. hadn't planned on Batman using reverse logic on it. D.A.V.E. was defeated when Batman questions him on its own origins as D.A.V.E didn't have an actual origin, and was unaware that he was a computer program. Although D.A.V.E. knew of the origins of others, he didn't know the origin of himself--or even that he wasn't even human to begin with. After Batman told him that, it bought him enough time to crush D.A.V.E. in his own trap and after he is destroyed and he is exibit in the trophies room of the batcave.
D.A.V.E. made a second appearance in the spin-off comic book, The Batman Strikes! in issue #34, "Shtick Shift". D.A.V.E. was revealed to have survived his last encounter with Batman, but was damaged, did not remember how he survived, and frequently glitched up. Also, out of all the brain waves that were stored in him, he only acted as Joker and the Riddler. D.A.V.E. participated in a contest with Riddler to see who could capture and unmask Batman. D.A.V.E. and Riddler were defeated by both Batgirl and Robin, when they tracked them down in order to save Batman.
Powers and Abilities[]
Due to its brainwaves, D.A.V.E. could correctly guess most of Batman's moves, and could imitate those of other villains, such as the initial acrobatic feats that Joker was capable of accomplishing or Catwoman's agile gymnastic routines, or the Penguin's mastery of martial arts, which made him a tough opponent to battle hand-to-hand. Its robotic body was light, resilient, and flexible enough to take on Batman on far more than equal terms. D.A.V.E. was as intelligent as the Riddler and Hugo Strange, which gave it the psychological advantage. D.A.V.E. could hack into any computer and control every machine that it encountered: given a point of entry by codes or uploading. D.A.V.E. also had deductive skills, as it was able to figure out Batman's identity, by filtering specific public factors; his gender (750,832), an approximate age (18-36, 137,628), body-type (22,157), those with the wealth and resources to be Batman through his technology (3), and finally, the motive to be Batman.
Trivia[]
- D.A.V.E. was possibly a nod to HAL 9,000 from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. D.A.V.E. spoke in a similar calm, monotonic voice and considered himself to be perfect and incapable of making mistakes. "Dave" was also the first name of one of the crew member aboard Discovery One, a spaceship that Hal 9,000 was installed to.
- D.A.V.E. was also quite similar to the "Batman: The Animated Series" A.I. villain, H.A.R.D.A.C., as both were voiced by Jeff Bennett.
- D.A.V.E. had three lights on its "face" in a upward triangular pattern, similar to Superman's villain, Brainiac, whom typically has a downward head triangular crest in modern animated depictions but traditionally has many circular protrusions all over his cranium.
- He did have some flair, choosing to don a long lab coat for dramatic effect.
Appearances[]
The Batman[]
Season 3[]
The Batman Strikes![]
- issue 34 " Shtick Shift"
Voiced by[]
- Jeff Bennett (English)
- Tarusuke Shingaki (Japanese)
- Claudio Moneta (Italian)
- Orlando Drummond (Portuguese)
- Grzegorz Kwiecien (Polish)