Did Batman read Sailor Moon?

Here’s an old Sailor Moon sighting which has made a resurgence lately which insinuates that Bruce Wayne, Batman’s alter ego, reads the Sailor Moon manga, or has watched the anime.

In a 1999 issue of “Justice League of America” the character of Martian Manhunter, a shapeshifter, disguises himself as a Japanese woman and uses the name Rei Hino. When Bruce Wayne is introduced to her (him) he immediately realizes who he is because of the connection between the name and Mars. Rei Hino is the Japanese name of Sailor Mars, so it’s kind of sloppy for J’onn J’onzz to use it! For Bruce to see through this ploy though, he would have to be familiar with some specifics of the Sailor Moon manga or anime series, which means that Batman either read the Sailor Moon manga or watched the Sailor Moon anime! Check out the full page in question below.

Batman calls out Martian Manhunter, Hino Rei, full page

This raises some interesting questions. If comics exist in Batman’s universe are there also Batman comics there? Were they made by Bob Kane or based on the “real” Batman character? Do Batman comics exist in the Sailor Moon universe? Are they all just in Tommy Westphall’s snow globe?

This connection was originally made on the old Save Our Sailors web site but has recently been made popular again with the emergence of this Comics Facts! image which is shown at the top of this post. It was made earlier this month.

Here’s the cover of issue 27 of Justice League of America in which this happened: