Bat-Mite

Bat-Mite is a fictional comic book character from DC Comics. He first appeared in Detective Comics #267 (May 1959).

Bat-Mite is an imp similar to the Superman villain Mr. Mxyzptlk. He appears as a small childlike man in an ill-fitting Batman costume, with a black lightning bolt instead of the Bat-insignia. Bat-Mite is often portrayed as having near infinite magical powers though in reality these have a scientific explanation as he comes from a higher dimension again similar to Mr. Mxyzptlk who comes from the 5th Dimension. In Bat-Mite's dimension the imps idolize the heroes of the DC Universe and impersonate them re-enacting their heroic feats and adventures. Bat-Mite's favorite hero is Batman and he will often set up strange events so that he can see his hero in action. Despite this Bat-Mite is more of a nuisance than a supervillain and often left his hero alone when he realized he angered his idol again. Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk teamed up 4 times in the pages of World's Finest Comics to plague Superman and Batman together as well.

Bat-Mite regularly appeared in Batman, Detective Comics and World's Finest Comics for 5 years, but in 1964, when the Batman titles were revamped with a more serious tone, Bat-Mite vanished along with the other extraneous members of the Batman family. Only 3 more Bat-Mite stories were published in the pre-Crisis DC stories- Bat-Mite/Mr. Mxyzptlk teamups from World's Finest Comics #152 (August 1965) and #169 (September 1967) and "Bat-Mite's New York Adventure" from Detective Comics #482 (February-March 1979), in which the imp visits the DC offices.

Pre-Crisis Bat-Mite was part of the DC Canon but post-Crisis his existence is more tenuous. He has appeared in Legends of the Dark Knight although he may have been the hallucination of a minor character. This version of Bat-Mite later appeared in Mitefall, a one-shot that was a parody of the Knightfall story. He also appeared in the one-shot World's Funnest in which he battles Mr. Mxyzptlk, destroying the Pre-Crisis multiverse of DC Comics as well as the post-Crisis DC universe, the universe of Kingdom Come and the universe of the Superman and Batman animated series.

Apart from World's Funnest there has been no direct connection between Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk. In fact in this comic there seemed to be different laws applied to their powers. In the Bizarro Comics anthology Mxyzptlk's dimension seemed to include beings similar to Bat-Mite. Neither of these comics are considered canon however.

Other media depictions

Bat-Mite was a regular character of the 1977 animated series The New Adventures Of Batman where he was depicted as a well meaning magical fan of the superhero. As such, he tried to help Batman even though he usually complicated matters.

An animatronic Bat-Mite briefly appeared in the "Deep Freeze" episode of Batman: The Animated Series, in which Bat-Mite enthusiastically greeted Batman, saying, "Hi, I'm Bat-Mite! I'm your biggest fan!" before kissing the Dark Knight, who was not amused.

One episode of the animated series Teen Titans had the appearance of a very similar character named Nosyarg Kcid ("Dick Grayson" spelled backwards) but whom the characters rename Larry for ease, who idolizes Robin rather than Batman.