Not every umbrella tool is as awesome as a hidden flamethrower, but at least they are practical.

I'm sure a spinning saw blade at the end of an an umbrella would cut a mean slice of ham.

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Batman isn't the only one in Gotham City with cool toys.

In "The Three Eccentrics" (Batman #21, 1944), Penguin uses a miniaturized motion picture camera hidden in the handle of his umbrella to spy on the safe of the world's richest man. Penguin's scheme is well described. Less clear is how Penguin's mark got to be the world's richest man when he's stupid enough to keep all his money inside a safe in plain sight of a first floor window.

Miniaturized cameras were hidden in the handles of canes as early as the 1920s, so Penguin's technology in this issue isn't as outlandish as, say, a bat-shaped propeller airplane that can hover in one place on autopilot. In comics the villains tend to be more realistic than the heroes. If your hero is a millionaire who dresses like a bat to fight crime in his free time, I guess they'd have to be.

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