San Francisco Temporarily Transforms Into Gotham City Complete With Batkid

On November 15th, the beautiful city of San Francisco was under siege! With the Riddler and Penguin terrorizing its residents, Police Chief Greg Suhr, had no choice but to call everyone's favorite caped superhero - Batman or as it turns out was the case here, Batkid. No, this was not the filming of Batman Begins, but a citywide charade organized to fulfill the wish of a five-year-old boy by Oregon-based Make-A-Wish Foundation!

Diagnosed with leukemia when he was just 18 months old, Miles Scott has spent a large part of his young life fighting against the disease. In remission since June, when the young boy was asked what he wanted more than anything else in the world by the folks from Make A Wish Foundation, he promptly replied - to be Batkid! Thanks to social networking sites, his desire went viral and the big-hearted residents of San Francisco decided to go all out to make this brave boy's wish come true.

So, last Friday, the five-year-old got to realize his dream to the fullest. Dressed in the black superhero costume, he spent the day dashing from one crisis to another. First, there was the damsel in distress that had been tied to Hyde street's cable car tracks. Leaping into his batmobile (a black Lamborghini with a Batman decal), the young boy accompanied by adult Batman impersonator, acrobat Eric Johnston, zipped to the city's Russian Hill neighborhood where she lay helpless with a handkerchief around her mouth and hands bound to a bomb (plastic of course). Literally leaping into action with the help of a trampoline, the duo rescued her in no time, as the residents of San Francisco or should we say Gotham City, cheered on.

But of course a superhero has no time to relax and bask in his victories. Batkid was soon summoned downtown where Riddler was robbing a bank and then just as he was taking a small break and replenishing his energy with a burger and fries in the Union Square district, came another distress call. This time it was the slimy Penguin that had managed to get his clutches around San Francisco Giants mascot, Lou Seal! The young superhero dashed to the AT&T Ballpark where he found the mascot tied up inside the cage. While he set poor Lou free, his adult counterpart chased down Penguin and handed him over to the grateful police.

By the end of the day, thanks to the full support of the San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) that cleared the way for his 'batmobile' to rush from one section of the city to another and an increasingly large crowd of locals cheering him on at every mission, young Batkid had successfully defeated all the villains and set the city free!

All his hard work of course did not go unrecognized. The grateful 'Gotham City' mayor presented the young Tulelake,California resident with a giant key crafted out of his favorite chocolate, an FBI 'raid' jacket, and a SFPD cap.

And that was not all - The city's premier newspaper, The San Francisco Chronicle, published a special edition of The Gotham City Chronicle outlining Batkid's amazing feats.

If that was not enough, Graham Nolan the artist behind the Batman series for much of the 1990's and the creator of the Bane villain, sketched a special poster of Batkid confronting Bane as a keepsake for the young superhero!

Even the The White House sent out a tweet urging Batkid to 'Go get 'em!' and a video recording from President Barack Obama saying 'Way to go, Miles! Way to save Gotham!'

To say that the young kid had the best day of his life was an understatement. And it's not just because he got his wish fulfilled, but because it also meant a closure to the real villain in the boy's life - the cancer he has been bravely combating for years. Here's to wishing Miles Scott a happy healthy life, one that will involve many more heroic feats.

Resources: mercurynews.com,nydailynews.com, dailymail.co.uk