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"Are you sure that's the answer?"
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An unnamed bandit operated in Burma, stealing valuable gemstones from the government. Alfred J. Pennyworth was put in charge of capturing him during his days in the British Special Air Service.
Biography[]
The bandit operated years before Batman's crusade at a time of civil unrest in Burma. Operating out of a forest, he stole valuable gemstones that the government were using to bribe the local tribes into unification. Rather than use the stolen gems to trade, the bandit merely discarded them after his raids.
At some point during his SAS career, Alfred was deployed to protect the gems and capture the Bandit. For six months, he and his allies failed to discover the identity of the man or his motivation, until at last they came upon a boy playing with "a ruby the size of a tangerine". It was then that they discovered this bandit was not motivated by greed or any rational political objectives. Alfred came to believe that he was simply a man who enjoyed causing destruction for its own sake.
Eventually tired of simply chasing him, Alfred and his allies located the forest he was operating in and set it on fire. This forced him to come out into the open and be arrested. It's unknown what happened to the bandit after this.
Legacy[]
Alfred related the tail to Bruce when the Joker made his first attacks on Gotham, Alfred began to recognize the behavior between him and the bandit. Suggesting the Joker was a criminal that couldn't be classified as any other, he relayed the tale about how he searched for the bandit and his discoveries. Alfred suggested that, like the bandit, the Joker simply turned to crime to cause chaos, making sense of it with the phrase "some men just want to watch the world burn."
After the death of Rachel Dawes, a mourning Bruce asked Alfred if the bandit was ever caught, prompting Alfred to tell him how he'd done so. This unethical action made Bruce realize to catch someone as dangerous and clever as the Joker, he would also have to take an unethical approach. This prompted him to use a sonar surveillance network to track the Joker across all of Gotham.
Appearances[]
- The Dark Knight (Mentioned only)
- Novelization (Mentioned only)
Behind the Scenes[]
- Since Alfred was normally straight-forward and honest with Bruce, it's unlikely that the bandit was simply an allegory, but a real-life situation.