Mad Anthony Wayne: Actually Batman

“Too Italian.  What else you got?”

~Movie Executives at the suggestion of naming Marion Morrison “Anthony Wayne” instead of “John Wayne”

Being a General of the Revolutionary War is a pretty good point to have on a “Why I’m an Awesome American” resume.  Being the basis for the name “John Wayne” makes you worthy of an American Fun Fact of the Day.   Having your nickname insinuate that you’re balls-to-the-ceiling crazy?  Well, that’s just to be expected for the man who Batman was fucking named after.  All in a day’s work for Mad Anthony Wayne, the man who puts the “Do not fuck with me” into “America.”

Anthony Wayne was born in Pennsylvania in 1740.  Like most third generation soldiers, he was born holding a musket, and fired a glancing shot at the midwife delivering him, just to establish his authority.  While many Americans spent their childhood organizing games of tag or Cowboys and Indians, Anthony Wayne organized his friends into reenactments of epic battles.  That would be like watching an 8 year old child reenacting the final scene of 300 and going, “Okay Jimmy, the Persians just decapitated you, use your hands to show the blood spurting from your neck.”

As Wayne was educated, he suffered from a severe case of, “Fuck school, this is boring, let’s pretend to kill people,” though he eventually settled down and got enough of an education to work for Benjamin “America’s first freestyle rapper” Franklin.  He only worked for a short period as a surveyor in Nova Scotia, but this did prove to be the first of the two instances where Batman joined forces with Benjamin Franklin.

Boom.

When Anthony “Bruce Wayne has been confirmed to be named after me” Wayne was 30, a little thing called the Revolutionary War started, to which an excited Wayne shouted, “It’s clobbering time,” since pretty much every comic book is based off of Anthony Wayne except for The Punisher, Superman, and the X-Men.  This is where Wayne was introduced to his rival in the war, Arthur “Boo hoo nothing cool is named after me” St. Clair.  If while Batman was in Gotham City, there was another Superhero called like, Squirrelman, who got more credit than Batman but also saw 650 of his troops get massacred in a battle against Indians, then Arthur St. Clair would have been Squirrelman.  But there is no Squirrelman, because that’s a retarded superhero idea.  Though, he could like, store nuts in his mouth that are filled with knock-out gas and he’d fire that at his enemies, and he was raised in the trees so he climbs and…get Stan Lee on the phone!

“Pass.”

St. Clair and Wayne were chosen to head up Pennsylvania volunteer battalions for the Continental Army.  They took part in the disastrous Quebec campaign, which was largely foiled when the American soldiers realized, “Hey, Canada is way more boring than America, why would we want to add that to our country?”  When they were forced to retreat, as the soldiers were saying things like, “Seriously, I bet they’re going to invent some sport you play on ice, and then put it on their fucking five dollar bill,” St. Clair got a boo-boo, stubbing his toe on a tree root.  Wayne, who had been injured in the leg during the retreat, said, “Seriously?  Seriously?  You stubbed your fucking toe?” was then put in charge of the retreating troops, who all were mumbling under their breath, “Yeah, a stubbed toe sounds more serious than a leg wound.  Yeah.”

At this point, Batman was put in charge of Fort Ticonderoga, which apart from sounding like a blood pressure medication, was an important strategic point for American forces.  His service resulted in his promotion to Brigadier General, even though Squirrelman received such a promotion shortly before him, because what the hell, Continental Army?

Yeah…the hell?

Mad Anthony, who had not yet received the nickname of “Mad Anthony” or the title of “Batman’s Ancestor” (seriously, Batman is fucking related to Anthony Wayne), then embarked upon the highlight of his Revolutionary War career in the successful battle of Stony Point.  George Washington hand-picked Wayne to lead this battle, and allowed him to change whatever tactics he didn’t like (an unusual move by Washington, proving that even George Washington respected the Batman legacy).  Deciding that bullets were for pussies, Wayne had his soldiers only use bayonets, and led the main charge himself.  Over 500 British soldiers were captured, killed, or wounded, and Wayne’s decree of, “Boo-ya, mothafuckas!” as he slammed his musket to the ground was responsible for one of the British casualties due to accidental discharge, as well as being the first documented example of a touchdown dance.

Soon thereafter, Anthony Wayne got his nickname of “Mad Anthony,” which came not because he was that crazy motherfucker that led a bayonet charge on 800 Brits, but because you did not want to get him pissed off.  When “Jemy the Rover,” a spy who worked for Mad Anthony and who proved that the 1700’s were way better at coming up with nicknames than the 2000’s, was arrested for disorderly conduct and tried to get off the hook by pulling the “I know Anthony Wayne” card, Wayne got so pissed off he ordered Jemy to be whipped 29 times.  This led Jemy to exclaim, “Anthony is mad, stark mad!  Mad Anthony Wayne!”  This is the only time where a nickname was given while someone was being whipped outside of pornography films with a very specific audience in mind.

After the war, Squirrelman showed up again in the Northwest Territory to stop Indian raids.  When he lost over three times as many troops as Custard’s Last stand while killing on 50 Indians, Batman was sent in to clean up the mess, which he did handily.  While preparing his army, an Indian spy referred to Mad Anthony as, “The Chief who never sleeps,” which is another thing that you typically only hear on a porn set.  The site of his ultimate victory against the Indian tribes was later dedicated as, “Fort Wayne.”

Unfortunately, Wayne’s glorious military and potential political career was cut short by the very foe of Arthur St. Clair- his toe.  Wayne was stricken with gout, his steady American diet of Cow Hearts and alcohol ultimately doing him in, as this lead to his death on December 16^th, 1796.  There are even unnecessarily vivid details on how, 13 years after his death, his son boiled his flesh from his skeleton so he could fit the bones in a satchel and bury them somewhere else, effectively meaning that there are chunks of Anthony Wayne in two goddamn graves.  While this is the origin of a pretty kickass ghost story (hell, if you had your bones dropping out of a satchel along a road as your son decides to bury you in two places, you’d probably want to haunt the shit out of everyone too), what few outside of the AFFotD offices know is that this was an elaborate cover up.

Mad Anthony lived for another thirty years, training his children in the arts of “Batman.”  Inspired by a story he once heard about a vampire bat sucking the blood out of a cow, Anthony thought, “I, as an American, like steak.  I like cows, that means.  I like how that bat thinks.”  While the Batman legacy continued past Mad Anthony, living in secret and slowly amassing a large fortune for future generations to purchase awesome cars and cool utility belts, the focus turned away from bayonet stabbing and strategy, and more towards hand-to-hand combat and stopping criminals.  And so, for a man with so many legacies, there is one that stands out for Mad “Seriously, What a Badass Nickname” Anthony Wayne.  American.