Just a thought that struck me: how old is Alfred Pennyworth?
My personal current headcanon is that he's about 25 years older than Bruce (I cannot imagine hkm having been the Wayne's butler earlier than the age of 30, especially since he's supposedly had a past before coming to work at Wayne Manor), but I'm curious as to what others think and if there's ever been a definitive answer in the comics.
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I always figured that he was maybe a few years older than Thomas Wayne Sr. - maybe around 60, or a vigorous 65, tops.
Based on absolutely no evidence other than what he looks like, I always figured Alfred was in his mid-60s. I don't recall it being specifically stated anywhere. When I get home, I can dig into Michael L. Fleicher's The Encyclopedia of Comic Book Heroes, Volume 1: Batman, but I'm fully confident it doesn't give a specific age.
It all depends on which parts of Alfred's backstory/stories are considered in continuity at the time one tries to figure out his age. After all, back in the 80's, he had a kid with Mlle. Marie, who had canonically died by the end of World War 2 (but when that child, Julia, moved to Gotham some time later, and started dating Bruce Wayne, she was deemed too young for him, despite the fact that, assuming that she had been born sometime before her mother died, Julia would have to have been in her 40s in the mid-to-late 1980s! Frankly, I have never been able to figure out just how Alfred's backstory works so that he could squeeze in enough of a career in British Intelligence to have acquired the skill set he uses to aid Batman, but still have been the Waynes' domestic servant before Bruce was born. I'd place him as closer to 70. And of course, his WW2 career happened to some dimensional counterpart of his...
In my head-canon, Batman is 30-35 and Alfred is 50-55.
Well, to give my two pennies' worth...
Dave Elyea said:
Good point. The whole British Intelligence deal happened in stories I've never read, so it's not part of my headcanon.
I'm sticking with the story from The Untold Legend of the Batman: Alfred joined the Wayne household to honor his promise to his father to take up the family trade of being butlers, but he first showed up after Batman (and Robin) were established crimefighters.
I always thought of "present-day" Batman as being about thirty., especially if he's been Batman for a few years, which would be time enough for him to have raised Dick Grayson from a teenager to a young adult. Even that's pushing it if you add in the time he spent with Jason Todd and Tim Drake.
Alfred's back story has changed significantly several times, so I don't expect at this point for anything to make sense.
Originally, he wasn't part of Bruce Wayne's life until both Batman and Robin had begun their careers. He just showed up and announced he was ready to go to work (in 1943, IIRC). He was fat and kinda dim, a comic foil for Bruce and Dick, like Aunt Harriet would be on TV 25 years later.
He got slimmed down shortly thereafter, reportedly so he would more closely resemble the Alfred of the 1943 Batman serial, played by William Austin.
I don't recall anything about Alfred being in the military when I started reading in the '60s. Gradually as I continued reading, Alfred grew in stature, not just polishing the silver, but also revealing skills as a field medic and wonderful-toy engineer (and computer expert when the Internet arrived). I don't know when the first mention of his military experience came into play.
My original impression was that he had been a British Army medic, but I don't know why I think that. It was possibly mentioned in an '80s story (see below), or maybe it's an artifact from Batman: The Animated Series or Batman: Year One that got lodged in my brain. If anybody can add more, please do.
But I do know that it was revealed sometime in the '80s that he fought in World War II (as a medic?), as evidenced by the appearance of a daughter, Julia, who was the product of Alfred and .... Mademoiselle Marie! Since Marie didn't survive the war, that plants Alfred firmly in the timeline as an adult in the early '40s. Assuming him to be, say, 18 years old in 1940, he would now be 100 years old!
But that's pre-Crisis. Julia has been re-introduced in the New 52, but I didn't read that issue, so I don't know if her mother is still Marie. I'm guessing "no."
Of course, Checkmate introduced the idea that "Mademoiselle Marie" was a code name, used by many French espionage agents, not only during WWII, but before and after. That was after the Alfred reveal, so it's possible that this retcons Alfred's Marie into someone who wasn't the Marie that we all know from the Sgt. Rock stories. But the original story doesn't leave much room for that interpretation, and I tend to ignore it. And it was pre-New 52, so presumably it doesn't count anyway.
Now I think it's a given that Alfred was in the SAS. That's for certain part of the character in Pennyworth the TV show and the Batman: Earth One series of books. Since the idea is so prevalent, I assume it's part of the New 52's back story as well, but I don't recall a specific mention in the post-2011, in-continuity Bat-books I've read (which are not many).
Whether the popularity of the of military backstory elbows out his time on the stage is another thing I don't know. It isn't part of Alfred's backstory in Pennyworth and Batman: Earth One. As noted above, time as an actor was the character's entire backstory when he was introduced, and later -- probably during Denny O'Neil's run, but I can't say for sure -- this came into play as Alfred became Bruce's tutor in the art of disguise.
But if Alfred served in the military, had an acting career AND learned to be a butler BEFORE the Waynes were murdered, it's hard to believe he would be any younger than 40 when he became Bruce's father figure. And if Batman is a perpetual 35 (my guess), then Alfred is a perpetual late sexagenarian.
And that, I think, is pretty much all I know about Alfred Pennyworth. Given that it's all based on vague memories and remembered feelings, any corrections or additions are welcome.
The first mention I saw of Alfred having military experience was in The Untold Legend of The Batman, which in one panel showed him as a resistance fighter (and, presumably, was how he met Mademoiselle Marie).
How that evolved into him being in the SAS I don't know; the first I ever saw of that was in Batman: Earth One, which isn't about "our" Alfred. If it was cited earlier than that about "our" Alfred, I don't know when it was.
It could just be like what the late Terrance Dicks, one-time script editor for Doctor Who, said about continuity, that it was what he “could remember about [his] predecessor’s shows…” and what his “successors could remember of [his]”.
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