Copyright Norfolk Virginian-Pilot
He doesn’t have any superpowers. He doesn’t fight crimes in the streets of Gotham. He doesn’t have a billion-dollar checkbook. But he does have a bat suit. He wears it to shake the hands of sick children at hospitals and charity drives that collect toys. The man behind the mask is a 36-year-old electrician from Hampton. His home isn’t a mansion. It doesn’t feature a subterranean level filled filled with gadgets, suits and vehicles. It’s instead littered with the many toys and drawings of his two children. It’s the home he grew up in, he said, where action figures of the Dark Knight once cluttered his childhood bedroom. “I’ve always been a Batman fan,” said Wayne Crotts, who calls himself the “Batman of Virginia.” “Batman represents unwavering stoicism in the face of all disruption. You can’t sway him. You aren’t going to change him. He represents strength. When he gets pelted with bullets in the movies, I feel that.” Batman begins Some people collect stamps. Others focus on fitness. A few fix cars. Crotts plays Batman. But it wasn’t always that way. “I had a divorce,” Crotts said. “It kind of freed up a lot of my time.” Before his divorce, he said, his interest in superheroes was something he tried to suppress. After, he found himself in need of a suit to wear while going to comic conventions. Batman was the obvious choice. He recalled daydreaming about fitting into the adult costumes found at the back of the Party City catalogs he browsed as a preteen. And now as a grown-up, he had some disposable income. He made his debut, daughter by his side, at Hampton Comicon, where he answered questions about his costume for about 30 minutes. “When I started out, I just got a cheap suit from a cosplay website,” he said. “It was like $300.” Attending these events semi-regularly, Crotts brushed shoulders with other superheroes and characters donning movie-grade suits. He had to level up. His latest suit was acquired from another Batman enthusiast who hung up their cape. While he values it at over $2,000, he said the attention and publicity he gets by wearing it is priceless. That led to his community outreach. He got his first charity gig at a regional bank’s Hallowheels event, a Children’s Assistive Technology Service fundraiser that incorporates wheelchairs into children’s Halloween costumes. “There are so many different reactions I get,” he said. “I know how beautiful it is to see a child and see their face light up. Some freak out and hide behind their daddy. Some people look at you, make eye contact and then look away like they never saw you.” The reactions he gets from adults are mixed, including the initial one he received from his father. The same people who scoff at his impersonation and call it “goofy,” Crotts said, can come around to it the strongest. It turns out, he said, people talk differently to Batman. Even if he isn’t real, most people think they know Batman. Some of the fun of pretending to be a superhero is the ebb and flow of getting in and out of character, Crotts said, sometimes speaking as Batman and sometimes laughing as himself. The Dark Knight’s inner child Assuming the role of Batman, Crotts said, has been more than just speaking like him, collecting armor pieces and keeping a clean shave. “Kids, you know, can see it on your face and see if you’re washed out,” he said. An unexpected part of getting into character was rediscovering his inner child. “He’s in there,” Crotts said. “You can push him down in a corner, but he’s not going to be too happy. That light is still in there.” There’s more fun to life than just going to bars, he said. And Crotts credits his partner, Alisha Denise Gonzales Henrick, for showing him how not to care what other people think. “It’s been incredibly mind-blowing to see someone in real time tap into that creativity,” Gonzales Henrick, 22, said. “A little shame isn’t going to kill. People will make fun of you for pretty much anything. I’d rather have fun than put myself in a box and still get shamed.” She said she found her inner child going to raves. She and Crotts met at one, his first, in Hampton. Gonzales Henrick, for a time, dressed as antihero Catwoman to match Crotts at conventions. Now she dresses as a fairy-elf hybrid, a character of her own invention. “She’s taken me out, climbing trees,” Crotts said. “She doesn’t care what anybody thinks of her.” Their children, Cypress and Maya Crotts, ages 2 and 5, have each donned suits to match their father’s. Crotts said he’s been asked if Cypress will dress up as Robin and Maya as Batgirl. He said he won’t encourage that, unless that’s what they want. To him, it’s important they, and anyone really, can realize that they can be Batman — regardless of how much their suit costs. Batman remains one of the most popular superheroes for a number of reasons. In some iterations, he’s the world’s greatest detective. In others, he’s the leader of an entire team of superheroes. A common trait, across all variations, is that he doesn’t possess any powers. Crotts said that means anyone can be Batman just by trying to make the world a little better. “It’s what I wanted as a kid,” Crotts said. “I wanted to see a real life, in-person Batman.”
