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Batman, more properly known as The Batman and occasionally as The Bat-Man, is a fictional character, a comic book superhero, first appearing in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Most accounts suggest that he was co-created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger, but only Kane receives official credit for the character. Batman was at first just one of several characters featured in Detective Comics, but has since become the lead or co-lead character of a number of comic book series, in addition to a "family" of titles featuring related characters (e.g. Robin, Batgirl). Batman and Superman are DC Comics' two most popular and recognizable characters.
The character's creation was inspired by a number of different sources, including but not limited to: Zorro, Doc Savage, The Shadow, the Bat, Dracula, Douglas Fairbanks, and Superman.
In most versions of the Batman mythos, Batman (also called the Batman, and originally The Bat-Man) is the alter-ego of Bruce Wayne, a millionaire industrialist who was driven to fight crime after his parents were murdered by a mugger when he was a child. To that end, he spent his youth learning criminology, forensics, martial arts, disguise, and other relevant skills. He wears a bat-like costume to frighten his enemies, based on his observation that criminals are a "cowardly, superstitious lot". The details of the costume have changed over the years and with different adaptations of the character, except for its most distinctive element: a dark scalloped cape, with a cowl covering most of his face, with a pair of pointed ears suggestive of those of a bat. He also wears a stylized bat emblem on his chest.
To the world at large, Bruce Wayne appears as an irresponsible superficial playboy. He is known for his contributions to charity, notably through the Wayne Foundation, a charitable foundation devoted to helping the victims of crime and preventing people from turning to it. He guards his secret so well that his true identity is known only to a handful of individuals, including Superman. Occasionally, a villain will be struck by the idea that Bruce Wayne is Batman, only to dismiss the possibility because Wayne clearly doesn't have the brains or the nerve to be Batman.
Batman operates in Gotham City, a fictional city modelled after New York City -- specifically altered to emphasize a "dark side," in contrast to Metropolis from the Superman series. He operates from the "Batcave," a cavern located beneath Bruce Wayne's manor which contains his vehicles, crime lab, gym, computers and trophies.
An important part of the mythos is that Batman – unlike, for example, Superman – does not possess any superhuman abilities. He is a normal human who has elevated himself to near-superhuman status through discipline and training. He fights with martial arts, high-tech gadgets, custom designed vehicles, esoteric weapons, psychological intimidation, and (especially) brilliant detective skills and a well-trained mind.
The equipment often shares a common design theme of being dark-colored (black or deep blue) and having some element of design to suggest a bat. A prime example of this is his car, the Batmobile, which is often depicted as long, black-colored and having large tail fins to suggest a bat's wings; another is his chief throwing weapon, the batarang, a boomerang which often looks like a bat. In proper practice, ideally, the "bat" prefix (as in batmobile or batarang) is no longer used by Batman himself when referring to his equipment, especially as this has been stretched to camp in some versions (namely the '60s TV show and the Super Friends series) where his arsenal included everything – including a bat-computer, bat-rope, bat-scanner, bat-radar, bat-handcuffs, even a bat-phone – down to his trademark line "To the Batmobile!"
He keeps most of his personal field equipment in a signature piece of apparel, a yellow utility belt. It typically contains items such as smoke bombs, batarangs, a fingerprint kit, a cutting tool, explosives, a grappling hook gun, a breathing device, etc. In some of his early appearances, Batman used sidearms, but for the past several decades he has eschewed the use of firearms (that being the method of his parents' murder). Some stories have relaxed this rule to allow exceptions such as arming his vehicles, for the purpose of disabling vehicles or removing inanimate obstacles. He is also typically portrayed as a brilliant tactician and detective, but flawed with a humorless personality obsessed with seeking justice.
Nicknames for the Batman include the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader, and the World's Greatest Detective. This last phrase comes from the fact that in addition to his James Bond-styled arsenal of gadgets and weapons, Batman is also a brilliant detective, criminal scientist, tactician, and commander. His most lasting and popular stories have almost without exception been ones where he has displayed intelligence, cunning, and planning to outwit his foes, even more so than merely out-fighting them. His deductive skills put him on par with Sherlock Holmes, and in several stories he has even met the "Great Detective" himself, proving him to be a worthy successor to Holmes. Batman is the mastermind behind the Justice League of America, offering brains and tactical skills to guide the raw power of the other members of the team. He has also been briefly affiliated with other superhero teams, including a short-lived team he founded in the 1980s called "The Outsiders".
Batman's adversaries form one of the most distinctive rogue galleries in comics, including supervillains such as:
However, some versions of the Batman mythos put him against more ordinary enemies, such as mobsters.
Ever since his introduction, Batman has been one of the most famous comic book characters, and is known even to people who do not read the comics. In addition to DC's comic books, he has appeared in movies, television shows, and novels.
Batman is known as being an unusually (though not uniquely) grim superhero, particularly for a Golden Age character. He is driven by vengeance, and wears a frightening costume to scare criminals. The contrast to characters like Superman is stark. The grimness is not a constant; in some incarnations of the character (notably the television series of the 1960s, and many of the comic books from the 1950s and 60s), it evaporates into camp and even comedy. In fact, during the 1950s (when the popularity of superhero comics had declined considerably), Batman and Robin engaged in a number of science fiction adventures that resembled the comic book stories of Superman of the time. They had a number of time travel adventures, travelling into outer space regularly; and Batman even acquired a crime-fighting mascot (Ace, The Bat-Hound) and an annoying extra-dimensional imp named "Batmite", who had powers similar to Superman's own Mr. Mxyzptlk.
In 1953, the book Seduction of the Innocent by psychologist Frederic Wertham was published, in which Wertham used Batman and Robin, among several examples, to attack the comic book medium. He insinuated that Batman and Robin had a pedophilic relationship, and asserted that the bare legs in Robin's costume encouraged homosexuality. He also criticized the dark and violent portrayals of crime in comic books as promoting juvenile delinquence. He succeeded in raising a public outcry, eventually leading to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority. The outcry particularly affected Batman comics; the characters of Batgirl and Batwoman were introduced to "prove" that Batman and Robin were not gay, and the stories took on a campier, lighter feel. Characters such as the Joker, who had previously been murderers, became characterized by odd themed crime sprees, such as committing robbery while dressed as famous jester characters from literature. Most current comic book readers regard Wertham's accusations, particularly those about Batman being gay, as utterly baseless; though Batman continues to be a fairly popular figure in gay culture.
The Silver Age of comic books is generally marked by comic book historians to have begun when DC comics re-created a number of its superhero titles during the late 1950s. Editor Julius Schwartz presided over the drastic changes made to a number of DC's comic book characters, including Batman. After a decade of colorful, campy adventures, Batman was returned to his dark and mysterious roots, giving rise to the character that most fans are familiar with. For the next twenty-five years, Batman was the mysterious, dark avenger of the night; though the popularity of the Batman TV series of the 1960s overshadowed the comic books considerably. A plethora of writers and artists took the Caped Crusader on a number of interesting adventures; high points of the comic book series include the R'as Al Ghul storyline, written by Dennis O'Neil and drawn by Neal Adams who established the modern look of the character; and a brief eight-issue run of Detective Comics written by Steve Englehart that many fans considered to be the definitive Batman. (The classic Joker story "The Laughing Fish" was written by Englehart.)
Writer Frank Miller grounded Batman firmly in his grim and gritty roots with the comic book miniseries The Dark Knight Returns (1986) and Batman: Year One. In both, Batman's story runs parallel to that of Jim Gordon. In Year One, Gordon has not yet become the police commissioner, and is instead a middle-aged cop with a shady past working to redeem himself amidst Gotham's corrupt police force, while Bruce Wayne learns the ropes as a costumed avenger. In Dark Knight, Gordon is seventy, and is forced into mandatory retirement from his post as police commissioner while Bruce returns from retirement as Batman. These stories gave Gordon's character a depth he had seldom achieved before. Dark Knight gave a shot in the arm to the entire mainstream comic book industry, as its popularity was nothing short of phenomenal. It allowed Batman to finally shed the image of a campy, clownish character for which he was still known; and it also helped to raise the image of comic books so that they were no longer known solely as a form of children's entertainment.
The Miller series have set the tone for the franchise, including Tim Burton's Batman movies, Warner Bros' 1990s animated series (created by Bruce Timm), and the ongoing comic book series.
Current comics starring Batman:
From 1943 to 1946 Batman and Robin appeared in a syndicated daily and Sunday newspaper comic strip distributed by the McClure Syndicate. Other newspaper comic versions appeared in 1953, 1966, and 1989.
Beginning in March 1945 Batman and Robin made regular appearances on the Superman radio drama on the Mutual Broadcasting Network. Efforts were made to launch a Batman radio series in 1943 and again in 1950, but neither came to fruition.
There was a 1960s Batman television series broadcast by ABC, with Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin. The series debuted on January 12, 1966 and was marked for its high camp. It continues to be the version many associate with the Batman character, despite it being perhaps the least representative of the many versions. Despite the abhorrence of the TV series by Batman's fans from the 1970s through the present day, the live-action TV show was extraordinarily popular; at the height of its popularity, it was the only prime-time TV show broadcast twice in one week as part of its regular schedule.
There have also been several TV animated series starring Batman, produced by at least three different TV animation studios. These cartoons include:
A number of Batman theatrical movies have also been made:
Several low-budget, "unofficial" Batman movies have also been made, including Batman Dracula (1964) by Andy Warhol; Batman Fights Dracula (1967), made in the Philippines; and a second Filipino movie called Alyas Batman en Robin (1993). (Critics who have seen this movie say it is very poor quality.) Additionally, an independently funded self-promo film titled "Sandy Collora in 2003, starring Clark Bartram as Batman. The film featured not only Batman but also Aliens and Predators from the popular 20th Century Fox film franchises, and generated considerable buzz. Another self-promo by Collora, a "trailer" for a "World's Finest" film and also featuring Superman, followed in 2004.
In addition, since 1997 Warner Bros. has released a number of episodes of Batman: The Animated Series on video (both VHS and DVD), including a season one set of DVDs in 2004. One three-part episode involving a team-up with Superman is available on video as The Batman/Superman Movie. In addition to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm, a number of movies based on the animated series have been released direct-to-video: SubZero, Batman: The Mystery of the Batwoman.
Several Batman video games were created:
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