The Everywhere Man - Recap

John Marlowe is giving a presentation of his collected artwork to a museum, purchased with money made from his many patents. Museum curator Clea is there talking with Bruce Wayne, who is an old friend of Marlowe’s. Bruce wonders about how Joe has changed from a shy geek to an overly confident businessman. They’re interrupted when a costumed burglar breaks in, wearing a white-and-orange costume with an E on his faceless mask. As the burglar tosses Marlowe aside and takes the paintings, Bruce slips away then returns as the Batman. He and Marlowe chase the thief into a broom closet only to find the man has disappeared.

Batman and Robin are at the Batcave when they get word of a break in at the museum. They arrive to find the same burglar taking a painting. They go after him, he runs around a corner, and when they get there they find another man, identically dressed, running in a different direction. The Dynamic Duo split up to pursue, but each of them finds that the one their pursuing has a second similarly-dressed accomplice, making four in total. They try to chase all four of them only to have the thieves disappear in a burst of light.

The police arrive and Commissioner Gordon talks to Clea, who reveals that nothing is missing. Batman finds a hair sample belonging to Marlowe and refuses to rule him out despite the fact he was present at the first robbery. Bruce goes to visit his friend and check out the closet where the thief disappeared, and Alfred remotely-detects radiation inside. Robin finds the same radiation and Bruce confirms that Marlowe is similarly irradiated. Later that night, Batman and Robin go to Marlowe’s penthouse apartment, having determined that Marlowe is developing a quantum theory project for the government. They find two radiation traces and split up to investigate them. Batman goes to a lab and finds the masked thief. They fight and Batman unmasks his opponent to reveal it’s Marlowe. However, another man in the same costume knocks Batman down from behind. Marlowe then uses a wrist device and creates several similarly dressed duplicates of himself.

The Marlowes escort Batman up to the penthouse level where the original Marlowe is waiting and introduces himself as the Everywhere Man. More of his duplicates search the apartment for Robin, who has taken refuse in the ventilator shafts. Robin overhears them talking about another prisoner who is secured. Meanwhile, Marlowe boasts that during his quantum research he created a device that lets him create quantum duplicates of himself. He can recall them at will, which is how they disappeared in the previous encounters. He explains that he can also create duplicates of objects, and engineered the thefts by taking the originals and leaving quantum duplicates behind so no one would realize the real items were stolen.

Robin finds the prisoner guarded by Everywhere Men and knocks them out, only to discover that the prisoner is… Marlowe. Batman has figured out the same thing, given the levels of quantum radiation that “Marlowe” is given off. His captor is actually the first Marlowe copy, which Marlowe made. The copy then used its free will to decide to go off on its own. Figuring that the original is in the building, Batman uses a smoke grenade to escape. The copy Marlowe creates dozens of duplicates to search the penthouse, and find Batman, Robin, and the original Marlowe in the atrium. The duplicates soon overwhelm Batman but Robin confronts the villainous copy and reveals that he’s found the prototype duplicate. The Boy Wonder creates dozens of duplicates of himself to battle the Marlowe duplicates, but the device is faulty and the Robin duplicates disappear after being solidly struck.

All three men are captive but Batman points out to the duplicates that they’re disposable now that the first copy has what he wants. All of the Everywhere Men fight among themselves, some arguing for independence and some supporting their creator. The copy Marlowe is forced to disperse them all, and Marlowe manages to grab the duplicator and disperse the first copy. Later, Marlowe turns over his paintings to the museum as planned and Bruce looks on as the “real” Marlowe, back to his old shyer self, gets together with Clea.


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