Not even the Dark Knight can escape a bad back — or a heat wave.

It’s a scorching August afternoon and Toronto Batman, real name Alexander Brovedani, has ripped off his cowl and is standing hunched over on the sidewalk outside the Eaton Centre, dry-heaving. He’d spent the last hour lifting at least a dozen people over his shoulders or up in his arms for photos, and the exhaustion — both from the heat and exertion — shows.

“I’m getting too old for this,” he said as he tried to catch his breath, still clad in the rest of his sweat-drenched Batsuit. “I can feel it in my back and stuff.”

“Too old,” in this case, is 34, but seven years of being the hero Toronto deserves, but not the one it needs, has taken a toll: not only does Brovedani have lower back problems from lifting photo-seekers and come close to heatstroke while wearing his costume in the summer, but he also feels the character has hit a plateau.

And so, after seven years of playing a talkative, occasionally snarky, caped crusader, Brovedani is calling it a day: Toronto Batman is retiring, with his last big appearance scheduled for FanExpo in September.

“I could still do this for another month. I could still do this for another year, if I wanted to, but I really would like to slow down,” Brovedani said.

It’s been a long grind.

The seeds for Toronto Batman were planted in 2008, when Brovedani lived in Los Angeles. While working the standup comedy circuit, he made extra cash by busking as a superhero impersonator on Hollywood Blvd. Batman stuck; Brovedani didn’t want to show his face at the time and could imitate Christian Bale’s infamous growl.

“No one would say I looked like a bad Batman, the way I moved, and I just got into this whole thing,” Brovedani said. “People liked my jaw. I never realized I had the jaw for it.”

His Batman days might have been left behind on the Boulevard had it not been for the death of a friend after he returned to Toronto.

“I was like, ‘S--t, how do I deal with this and deal with this depression?’” Brovedani said. “The girl I was seeing at the time was like, ‘Well, you can wish for something or you can try and make something out of it.’”

Donning the Batsuit again — at that point, a black onesie with latex armour sewn on to the front, a far cry from his current $2,000 get-up — was Brovedani’s way of digging himself out. His first day in Dundas Square was May 21, 2009.

“A lot of people just loved it, so I was like, ‘All right, I’ll do it again,’” Brovedani said. “It was definitely a thing out of mental illness, and when I got better, I thought, ‘We could still run with this.’”

He started working out to build the strength and endurance to lift people, something he thought would make him stand out amongst other buskers and “exceed expectations.”

“When (people) see me lift, and lift heavier people than me, and routinely, and consistently, they’re like, ‘Holy s--t, this guy might be the real deal,’” Brovedani said. The heaviest photo-seeker he ever lifted was a 310 lbs. German tourist; at the time, Brovedani weighed just 180 lbs.

Along with busking, Toronto Batman began starring in YouTube videos on the Sean Ward Show, hitting peak exposure in 2012 and 2013; one video, where Batman and Spider-Man slug it out on the TTC, has close to 11.5 million views.

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But with success came a series of lows: Brovedani said he received at least two concussions while filming fights that have caused memory problems, lost 40 lbs. while travelling for the show in 2013, had a falling out with Ward and tore his left bicep at Taste of the Danforth while lifting people.

“I was starting to take my stuff off and just screaming in pain, and this guy goes, ‘I know you’re hurting but my daughter’s pretty light, you can still carry her?’” Brovedani recalled. Hating to disappoint, he lifted her anyway.

There were also downsides to dealing with the public; Brovedani estimated he’s been punched in the crotch around 50 times, and hecklers call him a “crack head” or tell him to get a “real job” (he works in renovation and as a beer vendor at the Rogers Centre).

With his mental and physical health slipping Brovedani said felt suicidal at points, but having Toronto Batman helped him push through.

“The one constant was that I always felt that someone would want me as Toronto Batman,” Brovedani said, “whether it be a kid or complete strangers, or even the new friends I’ve made.”

Not that being Batman was without its perks; Brovedani said he’s met, among other people, the film crews for The Dark Knight and Suicide Squad, Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan and Kevin Conroy, who voiced Batman in Batman: The Animated Series. He’s travelled to England and the U.S. to shoot videos and attend comic conventions; he’s sat in every Batmobile except one; he’s gotten dates; he meets new people every time he suits up.

“I’ve probably taken pictures with people from all over the world, even like the Samoan Islands,” he said. “That would be the best, when I meet all these people from different cultures and I get to practice my Italian or my Spanish and all these other little phrases in other languages.”

But Brovedani said he’s pushed Toronto Batman about as far as the character can go; there are only so many videos you can film and people you can lift before it becomes repetitive and starts dropping below expectations. And with Suicide Squad, there’s now been a Batman movie filmed in Toronto, something Brovedani said he took as a cue to move on. He wants to focus on other creative projects now — writing, narrating, acting — and creating a name for himself outside of Batman.

Toronto Batman’s final stand will be at FanExpo, an annual convention Brovedani said he’s been a regular at through the highs and lows of Toronto Batman. He might suit up in the future for charity events, like visiting children’s hospitals, and, an avid sports fan, for the World Cup of Hockey this fall, but his street performing days are at an end.

But there’s a little piece of Batman that will stay with Brovedani forever, no matter what — he has the symbol tattooed on his left arm, just below the shoulder.

“If I’m 80 and have grandkids, it’s like, ‘Oh, let me tell you about the time I was Batman,’ and (they’ll say), ‘Oh quiet, you’re just crazy,’” Brovedani said. “And then I show them the tattoo, and then they listen to this grand story. It didn’t go from Point A to Point B, it went all over the place, but man, we did a lot.”