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The Religious Affiliation of
Getaway Genius
Roy Reynolds

Religion: Batman karma CBR Scale: M

Name: Getaway Genius

Alter Ego: Roy Reynolds

Other Names: Genius of the Getaway Gimmicks; Ray Reynolds

Classification: villain villain  

Publisher(s): DC

First Appearance: Batman (vol. 1) #170 (Mar. 1965): "Genius of the Getaway Gimmicks!"

Creators: Gardner F. Fox, Sheldon Moldoff, Joe Giella

Number of Appearances: 4

Enemy of: Batman, Robin

Occupation: criminal mastermind

Gender: male

Ray Reynolds (or the "Getaway Genius") had a very strong but very peculiar belief. He genuinely believed that trying to trap or destroy Batman would always bring doom such as capture and defeat to any criminal who confronted the Dark Knight. Reynolds came to this belief after considering Batman's known history, and contemplating all the times Batman had escaped traps and captured the criminals who had trapped him. Reynolds thus came to believe in a sort of "Batman karma." This theory might seem like a reasonable enough conclusion to make, but Reynolds' way of believing this, talking about it, and acting on his belief is clearly more than simply rational analyis. His strict belief about never trying to capture or destroy Batman functioned as a sort of quasi-religious belief for him.

Roy Reynolds was a major supporting character in a story published a few months after his introduction. In "The Human Punching Bag!" in Batman #174 (Sep. 1965), an obsessive hunter named B. G. Hunter (or "Big Game Hunter") breaks Roy Reynolds out of jail only to hold him captive until the Getaway Genius agrees to plan some of his trademark crimes and getaways. Reynolds figures it is better to work for the hunter than stay locked up, so he agrees. In this story, Reynolds' virtually religious certainty that Batman can never be successfully trapped is once again the most prominent aspect of the character. The Hunter, of course, disagrees with Reynolds, and thinks he can use Reynolds' crimes to bait a trap for the game he is hunting: Batman.


This character is in the following 2 stories which have been indexed by this website:
Batman


Suggested links for further research about this character and the character's religious affiliation:
  - http://comicbookdb.com/character.php?ID=9532
  - https://www.comics.org/issue/19004/
  - http://comicbookdb.com/issue.php?ID=72601