Batman does not come to mind when you picture a cuddly and shy cuddling bear as a pet. You picture a trained, submissive animal. The Dark Knight may think himself to be a cute labrador, but it seems like a hound would be a better match for him.
Ace The Bat-Hound is a super-dog that fights crime and serves as Batman’s sidekick. He made his debut in 1955 and was the product of Sheldon Moldoff and Bill Finger’s creative team. This indicates that he has been around for a while. Unfortunately, 10 years later, the editors decided to make Batman more serious than previously, and he was written off.
Thankfully, the character has had a number of makeovers and comebacks and can now be seen in both the animated series and comic books. We will go over all the stories in today’s film where this good youngster has honored us with his presence.
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Ace The Bat-Hound: Origin
Ace the Bat-Hound was once again brought to the plot in the animated series Batman Beyond, this time as the companion of an elderly Bruce Wayne while Terry McGinnis served as Batman.
It is only fitting that Ace receives his origin story as every character seems to have a backstory. This is exactly what the episode “Ace In The Hole” does; it sheds insight on Ace’s life by describing how he comes to be Bruce Wayne’s sidekick.
The episode opens with Terry taking Bruce to the chiropractor. While Bruce continues with his appointment, Terry takes Ace outside for a walk when Ace comes across a man and reacts aggressively. He chases him and Terry tries to stop Ace but as the man flees, so does Ace. He rips off his leash and leaves Terry’s side.
When Bruce learns about this, he is of course inquisitive about who the man is. With the help of Terry’s description, they come up with a composite drawing and Bruce immediately recognizes the man – Ronny Boxer. He had been arrested for being a promoter of illegal dog fights, which makes the situation with Ace all the more dark.
Meanwhile, Terry comes up with a sneaky plan to get closer to Ronny Boxer. He wraps a bandage around his arm to pretend like he was attacked by his aggressive dog. He then approaches some people who were associated with partaking in dog fights with his story and they tell him where he should go to.
Soon, we are presented with a flashback which takes us to the time when Ace was but a pup. Him and Boxer went way back. He was sold illegally to Boxer who wanted to make him a champion of his dog fighting ring.
It was evident from the get go that Boxer treated the dogs horribly as he rolled up a newspaper to threaten Ace which brought out his aggression. The pup then grew up in captivity and was ‘nurtured’ (or the opposite of it) to be vicious. Ace finally ended up in his first dog fight where his opponent was a much larger dog. But before the fight could begin, the Gotham City Police Department barged in and arrested those involved in the business. Ace found a leeway in the ruckus and fled, much to Ronny Boxer’s dismay.
Ace then went on to live as a stray for a while. On one particular day, Bruce headed towards Crime Alley as part of his regular pilgrimage when he came across a member of the Jokerz who intended to mug him. The man lunged at him when Ace appeared from a distance and tackled the mugger down. But the man hit him with his club and Ace lost his consciousness. Bruce was visibly angered by this and gave the Jokerz member a beatdown. He then took Ace back to his home to treat him.
The episode brings us back to the present after explaining the rough life Ace has always had. Terry finds Ronny Boxer’s hideout and his chemistry lab. While on comms with Bruce Wayne, he tells him about the chemicals present. Bruce does not skip a beat and immediately understands that Boxer is creating a growth hormone named Cerestone which he uses on his dogs to make them larger.
Meanwhile, Ace is still on the streets after leaving Terry’s side to pursue Ronny Boxer. He is soon found by a man from animal control who unfortunately turns out to be Boxer’s attendant. He is amazed by how strong Ace is and tries to sell him off to Boxer, who immediately recognizes the hound as one of his own. And Ace is visibly frustrated and angered towards Ronny.
Terry tracks down Boxer’s illegal arena where Boxer attacks him with a beastly, massive, and rabid bull dog who seems to be the product of a failed Cerestone experiment. Terry tries to subdue it but the creature is too strong. Fortunately, the impact of its attacks cause Ace’s cage to fall off which loosens the lock screws. With his might, Ace breaks free and takes Boxer down. Meanwhile, the creature destroys Terry’s Batsuit and eats him whole when Ace attacks it, prompting it to regurgitate Terry out. Ultimately, Terry uses his ropes to subdue the creature and electrocutes him while Ronny Boxer dangles off a rail with churning propellors beneath him. Batman is not the type to kill but both him and Ace decide to not do anything about it and they head back home.
As Ace returns to Wayne Manor, both him and Bruce Wayne are ecstatic to be reunited. And the episode comes to an end.
Ace had previously appeared in the first episode of the second season, even though the role he had played was not as big as the one from Ace in the Hole.
In this episode known as Splicers, a new terrifying fad seems to hold the teens of Gotham City by a chokehold. A company called the Chimera Institute specialized in splicing human DNA with that of animals and undergoing this experimentation did cool but scary things to the human body.
While most of the teens, including Terry’s friend Chelsea, have undergone the procedure, the adults are absolutely against such an atrocity while several news outlets report a marked increase in animalistic, aggressive behavior conducted by the spliced teens. In fact, the D.A. Sam Young seeks out to stop this practise in Gotham City.
Terry’s girlfriend Dana asks Terry to be more open to the idea but Terry, along with Bruce Wayne, are dead against it. They also learn about the man conducting these experiments from a vidcast. His name is Dr. Abel Cuvier.
Terry gets into a fight with two spliced teens following which, he takes his girlfriend to the Chimera Institute, not because he wants to get her spliced but because he needs an excuse to investigate the place. Over there, he comes across the teens he had fought while Dana ponders over whether she should get spliced or not. She decides not to go with it. Meanwhile, Cuvier puts a hit out on the D.A. Sam Young who was trying to ban the practise on splicing.
Batman learns of this during his investigation but a chimera named Tigress spots him (thanks to his smell and her sharp nose with the tiger DNA) and gets him captured. He is shackled and Cuvier injects his splicing formula into Terry, altering his DNA. Batman suddenly gets more aggressive and attacks Cuvier but soon, he flees as he begins to feel sick from the effect of the experiment. He then tries to go to Sam Young’s house to protect him where he comes across Cuvier’s henchmen chimera once again. Now spliced with animal DNA, he behaves viciously and fights the chimeras, taking them down while growling and foaming in the mouth. Before he can harm innocent people, he runs away to Bruce Wayne.
Fortunately for him, Bruce had already created an antidote for the mutated condition. Suddenly, the Bat-hound Ace (who is the star of today’s video), senses that something is wrong and begins to growl. Soon, Terry arrives and reveals himself to having been transformed into the Man-Bat with the DNA of a vampire bat. Ace attacks Terry who then attacks Bruce. But before an old Bruce can fall to the mutated Terry, Ace intervenes and buys Bruce Wayne the time required to catch his balance and hit Terry with a dart loaded with the antigen that cures splicing.
Back to being completely human once again, Terry decides to seek out Cuvier and cure the spliced teens. He also finds one of his claws stuck to his suit. Ace is put to the test and he sniffs the claw to track down Cuvier who is now in hiding. He takes Batman to a taxidermy facility where the chimera Tigress smells him. Ready to fight, Cuvier injects several serums into himself while Batman uses his darts to cure the two of the three henchmen (including Tigress) into their human states. The last guy does not want to become human once again as several teens genuinely preferred being spliced since it gave them an identity. But even he falls victim to the antidote, and rightfully so.
When Cuvier arrives to the fight, he resembles a true chimera as he is now a mix of several animals such as a hawk and a tiger while having the lower body of a snake. Barely able to keep up, Batman injects more of those splicing serums into Cuvier which causes him to mutate further and not in a cute way. He uses his giant new crab claws to capture Batman when Ace arrives to aid the Bat. But Ace gets captures as well when Batman returns the favor as he saves the hound. Ultimately, a beastly Cuvier ends up causing a fire as an out of control beast and presumably dies in the ensuing explosion.
Return Of Ace The Bat-Hound After Crisis
Originally, Ace was found by Bruce Wayne’s Batman and Robin. He made his debut with a mark on his forehead in 1955 in the 92nd issue of DC’s Batman comics.
Batman and Robin had found him when he was trying to swim in a river but was sinking. He was saved by the duo after which Bruce put up advertisements in the newspaper to seek out his owner. He also put the ad as Bruce Wayne because he could not give out the location of his Batcave as Batman.
However, Robin had grown fond of the dog. During a case pursuit, he jumped into the Batmobile. Due to his forehead mark and the newspaper advertisement, Batman and Robin created a mask for him to conceal his identity since people recognizing the dog would allow them to draw parallels between Bruce Wayne and Batman. And that’s how Ace the Bat-hound became a part of the Bat family.
Turns out, he was later found by his owner but he returned from time to time to aid Batman and Robin. Sometime during the Silver Age, he stopped appearing altogether.
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, which unified all the universes into a single DC Universe to simplify the DC-verse, the franchise’s continuity got a reboot. Several origin stories had been changed and Ace the Bat-Hound was no exception.
He appeared in the 462nd issue of the Batman comics which was created by Alan Grant, Steve Mitchell, and Norm Breyfogle.
A blind, old man named Black Wolf seemed to have been having a one-sided conversation with God in a desert. He resented his life and his lack of sight and wanted to know why he had found the dog as a companion.
In the next issue, the dog intercepted the Batmobile and brought Batman to Black Wolf. Turns out, Black Wolf had an evil grandson who had kidnapped several people to sacrifice them for a ritual. But ultimately, Black Wolf killed the grandson and freed the people who had been kidnapped. He then prepared to accept his own death, something which he had been seeking for a while now. After he passed, his bond with the dog came to an end as well.
With Batman present and the dog having no home, it was time for Batman to take the hound home.
Batman’s Favorite Dog And His Dark Connection With Joker
Even though Ace had a calmer, more positive origin story in the comics unlike its Batman Beyond counterpart, things really hit south in the Batman: Urban Legends #15 storyline known as ‘Hounded: Part V’. It was created by Mark Russell, Trish Mulvihill, Karl Mostert, and Steve Wands.
Here, Ace originally belonged to the Joker. He was even named by the Joker. As Batman’s pet, you would guess he was named Ace because he was an ace at everything he did. And there was no doubt about the fact that he was the goodest of the good boys. However, the word Ace alludes to another world. A world of cards, often used by clowns to pull tricks where the deck houses four cards that are called ‘Ace’.
This origin story was brought to light in DC’s Rebirth Era during which he served as an attack dog of the clown prince of crime. He had been adopted by a person in witness protection but they soon became a victim of the Joker. The clown did not know what he should do with the dog and relied on a game of cards to decide the fate of the pup. That’s a whole new level of cruel.
As Joker pulled out the King of Spades, the dog had to go for a card that could beat the king. And only one card could do so. Fortunately, the next card was the Ace of Spades, which was stronger than the king, and thus, Ace was named.
In the first issue of Batman Annual which came out in 2017 and was written by Tom King and David Finch, Batman was attacked by an Ace who was loyal to Joker. However, Ace was later left alone and had to fight other dogs to fend for himself and find food. Ace managed to reign supreme and killed the other dogs after which he was sent to the Gotham Pound.
Two days later, he was adopted by Alfred who had actually bought off Gotham Pound and turned it into the Martha and Thomas Wayne Humane Society. He then spent the next few months training him and soon, even Bruce Wayne ended up bonding with a dog who was previously loyal to his arch-nemesis. He was then given a Bat-Mask after which he became Bruce Wayne’s partner as his Bat-Hound.
How Ace Helped Batman Come Out Of His Suicidal Tendencies After Alfred’s Death
Dogs turn out to be the best of friends we can ever have and that holds true for the Dark Knight as well. In Tom King and Mikel Janin’s Batman (issue number 83), Bruce Wayne lost his long time loyal butler and partner Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred was killed after Bane broke his neck which made life all the more worse for Bruce. He had already lost his parents at a terribly young age and now, he was back to being all alone once again. And despite his cold and hard demanor, even Batman failed at keeping himself calm and collected after Alfred’s passing as he held Alfred’s lifeless body and cried.
Some of its repercussions were explored in the City of Bane arc where Batman had to deal with several mysterious deaths across Gotham City. He continued with his duty diligently, even without Alfred by this side, and went home to play catch with his dogs Ace and Titus, which seemed to be one of the more brighter things in his life. However, as he played with them, he fell to his knees as the pain of Alfred’s absence grew unbearable. He really was going through a very dark time as the tragedy seemed to have reopened his old wounds. Thankfully, Ace and Titus arrived to his aid immediately to console him and be there for him.
And that’s what dogs do. They never leave your side and always stay by you through thick and thin. Fortunately, despite living a tragic life and several failed romances, Bruce Wayne found his happiness in Ace.
And with that, today’s video comes to an end. What did you think of Ace the Bat-Hound? Did you enjoy this video? If yes, then don’t forget to like and comment on this video. Till then, goodbye. And have a nice one!