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The Batman is set to make his return to the big screen this weekend with the release of the appropriately-titled The Batman. With all superhero movies come cross-promotional tie-ins, frequently in the form of food items from branded bags of potato chips to themed breakfast cereal. In the case of The Batman, the most eye-catching food tie-in has undoubtedly been The Batman Calzony, a combination pizza and calzone in the shape of a bat offered by Little Caesars.
You might be asking yourself: how does a bat-shaped pizza relate to the caped crusader and his crime-fighting crusade? After eating the The Batman Calzony, I can tell you that Little Caesars has created the food equivalent of the dark knight’s war on crime in a number of ways.
It is incredibly messy
There’s nothing clean about Batman taking to the streets in a suit of armor and beating the pulp out of criminals, common and costumed alike. Similarly, there’s nothing clean about eating the The Batman Calzony. It may be the single greasiest pizza I have ever experienced.
From picking up the pizza at Little Caesars to arriving at home – a drive of less than five minutes – the bottom of the Batman-themed box had soaked nearly all the way through with grease, and into the lid of the packaging.
This is pretty par for the course with Little Caesars, but it was still incredibly striking. The sight of all that grease acted almost as a warning, like a Batsignal in the sky alerting me to what lay ahead.
It requires tools to undertake
Of course, The Batman has his wonderful toys, from batarangs to batzookas to bat-geiger-counters. Each of those items aids The Batman in his war on crime, and also provide him an alternative to getting his hands quite as dirty as they could from all the punching and pummeling.
When it came to the The Batman Calzony, I also chose to utilize some tools in order to tackle the meal. A knife and fork came in quite handy, as even the lightest handling of the pizza coated my fingers with the aforementioned grease and required numerous paper napkins to clean off. Perhaps I should have invested in some Batgloves!
It takes a physical toll on the body
Bruce Wayne spent years training with master detectives and fighters around the world before donning the mantle of The Batman, and all that training is what prepared him to handle any scenario put before him by The Riddler or Catwoman. Still, no amount of training could prepare him for the toll that leaping from rooftops and getting into fights with poor people would take on his body, and the image of a heavily-scarred Bruce Wayne has become a staple of the character.
This is where I will admit that The Batman has one up on me, as eating the The Batman Calzony was only the third time in my life that I’ve ever eaten Little Caesars, and I engaged in zero outside training ahead of diving into it. Either way, though, my body would still have experienced a physical reaction to eating the pizza, as I quickly began to feel bloated and dehydrated from all the grease, salt, and cheese.
It’s not pleasant
The modern interpretation of The Batman is that of a tortured avenger who wages war on criminals not because he wants to but because he has to, and who finds no enjoyment in what he does.
I undertook eating the The Batman Calzony with a similar mindset, curious about what the experience would be like so that I could inform the public via the website comicsbeat.com. I did hope, though, that as a fan of pepperoni pizza and of calzones I might at least take some pleasure in the eating of it. Unfortunately that was not the case. The grease (have I mentioned the grease?) largely overwhelmed whatever flavor there was to be found in the sauce, cheese, and pepperoni slices, leaving the experience of eating it feeling more like a chore than an enjoyable meal.
It’s impossible to do alone
The Batman’s war on crime is a never-ending battle, and he is just one man. For that reason, among others, The Batman has taken on a number of crime-fighting partners over the years, building up a veritable Bat-Family, largely made up of children, to aid him in what is ultimately an impossible task.
I made it halfway through the The Batman Calzony – one calzone piece and four pieces of pizza – before I admitted defeat. It bested me, and unlike Batman himself I came to recognize the futility of my struggle with it, as it was never something I could finish on my own.
Luckily, I was able to call in reinforcements in the form of the staff of my local comic shop, who were more than happy to take the remaining half of the The Batman Calzony off my hands. Like The Batman, I recognized the need for help in a task I couldn’t complete on my own, and I’m fortunate that I had people willing and ready to help with the job.
In the end, eating the The Batman Calzony from Little Caesars was a messy and deeply unpleasant experience that left me physically and mentally exhausted. In that respect, I believe eating it was the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like Batman as he engages in his war on crime. The The Batman Calzony gave me a new respect for the dark knight, and for that I will be forever grateful.
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