As night falls on the Friday of Halloweekend, I dial a number on my phone and place it beside my ear. I hear a few robotic beeps and boops, then slight static, and then finally, in his signature deep voice, “Batman speaking.” He tells me he’ll meet me on campus soon, and in a murmur adds, “Also, I’m gonna need your help with my suit.”

After searching for the man amid animal onesies and lustful cat costumes, I spy him waddling broodily, silently, clad in shimmering black. A worker at Nasty’s, the late-night joint that serves fried food until 2:00 a.m., glances up from behind the counter. He’s unfazed by the short, stern figure walking menacingly past a few students eating fries. He probably thinks it’s yet another student dressed up for Halloween. But Cornell Batman does this every weekend, and the suit isn’t exactly a costume. 

I shake Cornell Batman's hand. “And I need to take a piss,” he tells me.

In a red brick bathroom on the bottom floor of Robert Purcell Community Center, Batman tells me how it all started. At the college he attended before transferring to Cornell, Halloween had given him an excuse to dress up as a figure he admired. Friends dared him to take the suit outside and walk around. Batman took up the challenge with the ostensible goal to raise school spirit. 

“I was very, very nervous that I was gonna get made fun of,” he says as I zip up the back of his suit. “I was very nervous that people were gonna laugh at me and cast me aside, but contrary to my belief, a lot of people loved it. And they were laughing—not condescendingly. They were smiling and laughing and asking for photos. And I was getting all this attention, and that really mattered to me because I knew that I wanted to create a legacy and be remembered for something out of college.”

I tighten Batman’s gauntlets, each adorned with a set of grapple hooks made of rubber and foam. He says that at his old school, his act made people happier, put smiles on their faces, even alleviated stress during midterms. “And in return,” he says, “I was becoming kind of a celebrity, and I was establishing my own legacy.” Then, when he had the opportunity to transfer to a more prestigious university, he switched schools—and brought the suit along with him.

Batman wants “to alleviate stress, to bring joy and happiness to others, brighten people’s days just a little bit, [and] remind people that it’s not that deep.” And yet, the question of “Why?” still loomed in my head. 

“I want to establish a legacy that I can look back and remember, that the school will remember me by,” he says, his voice reverberating in the small bathroom. “I don’t wanna be forgotten.”

When examining his act, it’s sometimes hard to differentiate the celebrity status and selfless altruism inherent in Batman’s mission. The joy he bestows to others comes with a self-promoting Instagram account, and yet the man behind Batman never truly benefits from the fame. The allure of the Batman comes from his anonymity. 

We leave the bathroom and hear a few oohs and ahhs. When we enter the dining hall at Appel Commons, the woman overseeing the meal swipes recognizes Batman, nods, and waves him through. With gloved hands, he fills a cup with water and sips, then munches on a dinner roll through his mask. A student stops him: “Batman! What is your message to the world?”

“Stay strong, endure, persevere, and embrace failure,” he responds. 

When we sit down at a table in the dining hall, Batman elaborates on his message. He’d like to remind students that their college stresses don’t matter all that much, because the student clad in a black Batman suit walking around on any given weekend “might also be doing badly in his classes.” He wants to make sure students aren't taking the rigors of college too seriously.“The point is,” he says, “I’m doing my best and I’m still coming up short on some things.”

Batman says his role is a “job,” but also admits how much fun he has by cosplaying as the vigilante. “It’s a reminder that college is fun—can be fun.” “For the introverted nerds like myself, who like superheroes or like Star Wars or whatever they like, there are other ways of having fun in college than just partying, hooking up and getting shit-faced. This is a way that someone who doesn’t like to drink or smoke has fun in his free time.”

In spite of the stress of classes and grades and how other people perceive you, to venture out in the dark night on every weekend of the school year takes determination and commitment—and Batman has been Cornell Batman for two years now. Batman tells me he chose the character because they share many of the same values. “Bruce Wayne commits to donning the cowl and fighting crime pretty much every night… He commits to something super important to him, really important to the city. That’s how I want to be in my life.” Not once in the hours in which I interviewed him did he deviate from his husky tone or move at a greater pace than a slow stomp. He also reminds me that, on the record, both of his parents were murdered in an alleyway in Gotham. He is still reeling from that loss. 

As Batman completes the first stop on his night patrol, a student shouts that his friend is actually the Joker. Batman approaches solemnly, and with a chuckle, the student takes the accusation back. Batman is happy to pose for pictures with another student and a dining hall worker. As I walk with him to his Batmobile across North Campus, partygoers applaud his costume. A group of girls yells that they love him so much, and a man who calls himself Clark Kent invites him to a party. 

We saddle into the Batmobile (a midsize SUV) and head towards Collegetown. There’s a Burger King Crown wrapped around the driver-side headrest and a Mr. Saturn plushie suspended from the rear view mirror. He’s quiet as he drives, and in the silence, I realize that I’m seated next to a total stranger clad in a costume speaking only in his character’s voice and barely above the sound of the engine. Batman won’t tell me his name or any other identifiable information about him. Before we met up, he texted me, “It’s important that campus has a symbol and a mantle to look up to, rather than an individual who happens to don the cowl.” 

Driving through campus, we pass escaped convicts, bunny rabbits, and Vector from Despicable Me. Batman warns of jokers he’s dealt with in the past: brash, sometimes inebriated students who find it funny to unmask him. He tells me he fears being photographed in one of these vulnerable moments—not because of shame or future employment prospects, but because then, there’d be no Cornell Batman. 

“At what point do I stop becoming a symbol and start becoming someone who just dresses up as Batman?” he asks aloud. “If everyone knew my identity, I wouldn’t be Batman. I would just be someone who’s in a costume.”

And while, arguably, Cornell Batman is just a dude in a Batman costume, he does stand for something. He refers to himself as a symbol, a hero, and a protector. He recognizes that Halloween can be a dangerous holiday, and says he’s watching out for drunk men who might have bad intentions. “No matter what people might say—that ‘it’s just a joke and you’re not actually Batman and you’re not actually a protector’—even if it costs me losing my mask and getting my identity revealed, I would scrap up with someone if it meant protecting someone else. I would probably lose,” he admits, “but I would still fight regardless.” 

Cornell Batman is really more of a lover than a fighter. He admits that he’s a bit of a flirt and that the added confidence of the suit sometimes brings out his charm. He says he’s asked out a few people while in character. “Don’t hate the player, hate the game,” he says as we arrive in Collegetown. “Shooter’s shoot.”

“What are you looking for in a partner?” I ask, and he answers without hesitation. 

“Someone who shares my same passion, someone who shares my drive, someone who I'm not asking to suit up and walk around with me every night, but who reasonably could be seen to do that, at least on Halloween. Someone who’s a hard worker, does their job, but has time for me as well. Not too much free time, but enough time to see me at least.”

He’s particular about a partner, and says he hasn’t found the one yet. “I’m very picky. I have an idea of what I look for in a partner. If I don't have that or at least most of that, I’m not gonna commit my time to that.” Cornell Batman isn’t convinced that he’ll find his Robin at a Halloween party. (Perhaps all the lurking he does in the dark is scaring away possible mates; some students tell me they are genuinely afraid of him.) He says that he forgoes parties and doesn’t dwell on a possible relationship. “For now the mission is more important,” he declares. Batman has been the only personality he has fully committed to. 

“I know who I am. I know what I have to offer. To myself, to others, to my potential significant other. It's only a matter of time,” he affirms. “I’m young. I’m still in my prime.” 

As we walk the sidewalks in Collegetown, Batman gets sideyes and nods and grins. For some, he goes unnoticed in a sea of Halloween costumes. Lady Gaga strolls past and doesn’t bat an eye, but a group of guys in a black Jeep stops him. One of them angrily yells, “You’re a f*cking fraud.” They’ve noticed an upgrade in his suit and don’t believe it’s still him. Then a few girls scamper across the street and ask him for pictures. “The duality of man,” Batman sighs.

What bothers Batman most is when people say what he does is “embarrassing.” He isn’t ashamed of his act; rather, he says it’s his true self. “All I’ve done is change how I look,” he says. “This is me to my fullest.” Perhaps he’s mastered the blurry line between cringe and candor that eludes so many of us. 

On any given day at Cornell, Batman will listen to the soundtrack from The Batman (2022). On the special evenings he plans to go out, he’ll feel something stir inside of him. “As the sun starts going down and sunset starts appearing, I can feel the batman persona. I kind of, like, get a little angrier, I get a little more determined, a little more confident. I can feel that persona taking over. You can physically tell when the shift is happening.” 

But why go through the trouble of becoming a character? “I think that when I was new to Cornell last year, I was, you know, alone, didn't know many people, and I felt feelings of loneliness. The Batman was also kind of an escape. And every weekend it kind of is an escape. It’s a chance for me to get into another world and get away from the harshness of my own reality. It’s an escape that draws people's attention.” Cornell Batman wants to escape: to be noticed, but not known, to be true to himself albeit with the protection of a mask.

“It’s shifting the reality,” he says. “Instead of dealing with the stress of who I am under the mask, instead, I can revert to my other self: the one that people really, really enjoy, the one that makes people smile, the one that makes people happy. But the thing is, even though it’s not my true face and it’s under a mask, I’m the one who’s doing it.”

The breeze picks up and we start back towards North Campus. Batman crosses a busy street, his cape flapping in the wind behind him. (As a matter of principle, he doesn’t obey traffic laws.) 

With the suit and the voice and the walk, Batman isn’t trying to mimic Christian Bale or Ben Affleck or even Robert Pattinson. He sees the character as a part of himself, not another role to fit into. Behind a mask or going to class, Batman has renditions of his own self to choose from. He has the ability, just like Bruce Wayne, to go in and out of the character that completes him. “This is a reminder to me that I am good enough,” he says. 

Cornell Batman wants disparate things: to be an anonymous shadow and a college celebrity, a dark vigilante and a joyful altruist, a lover and a protector, himself and a hooded superhero. As he drops me off in his SUV outside my dorm, Batman grumbles about the people who try to take off his mask and the fraternities that won’t let him into parties on account of his suit. “It’s hard to tell why anyone does anything,” he booms with his deep voice. He’s not the only student, anymore, who acts like a superhero.