Bad News

[xoxoxoBruce]

Batman is dead.

The Batmobile pulled into a gas station Sunday night and, as usual, the children gawked.

Lenny B. Robinson, better known as the Route 29 Batman, was used to that. The Maryland man had become a worldwide internet sensation after an encounter with the Montgomery County police in 2012. He had for years dressed as the Caped Crusader and driven his custom-made, ‘60’s-style beast (or other tricked-out cars) to deliver moments of happiness and distraction to hundreds of sick children in the region’s hospitals.

On Sunday, he was returning from a car show in West Virginia when, during his stop, he met a family whose children were interested in the car, according to Maryland state police. His costume stored in the Batmobile but his alter-ego never entirely switched off, Robinson gave the kids some superhero paraphernalia before leaving about the same time as his new acquaintances.

Minutes later, Robinson pulled over with engine trouble on an unlit stretch of Interstate 70 near Hagerstown, Md., police said. The family parked behind him, turning their emergency lights on. He had stopped in the median but with his car still “partially in the fast lane,” according to a state police news release. He was checking the engine on the passenger side when at around 10:30 p.m. a Toyota Camry slammed into the Batmobile, propelling the steel-framed hunk of black metal into his body. Robinson, 51, died at the scene.

He was a really good guy.

Robinson spent hundreds of thousands of dollars, his brother said, on his Batmobile, costumes and the memorabilia he handed out to children, always autographed “Batman.” It took him about 45 minutes to put on the black eye makeup and his cumbersome superhero uniform, which drained him of 5 to 6 pounds in water weight every time he wore it. In hospitals, he didn’t walk so much as stride.

The Post revealed Batman’s identity to the world in 2012, after Robinson was pulled over in Silver Spring, Md., in a black Lamborghini and full superhero garb. Video of his encounter with police, who had pulled him over because of a problem with his plates — emblazoned with the Batman symbol — made him an instant Web sensation. The encounter began turning up in millions of Facebook news feeds, even making it into a Jimmy Fallon monologue.

Robinson, who lived outside of Baltimore, had become wealthy in the cleaning business, earning enough money to buy his own Batmobile, a costume that seemed more real than the one in the movies, and toys and memorabilia that he handed out to children with cancer at hospitals all over Maryland and the District.