Bruce Wayne: "Criminals are a superstitious, cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible... a... a..."
Caption: "As if in answer, a huge bat flies in the open window!"
Bruce Wayne: "A bat! That's it! It's an omen... I shall become a BAT!"
Created by
Bob Kane and
Bill Finger, Batman is one of the most
popular comic book characters in the
world. He made his
debut in
Detective Comics #27 all the way back in May of 1939. The character is currently owned and
published by
DC Comics.
After seeing his
parents,
Thomas and Martha Wayne, gunned down by a
mugger when he was a
child,
Bruce Wayne dedicated his life to fighting
crime in
Gotham City and donned a
pointy-eared bat-like disguise to strike
fear into criminals' hearts. He's more a
detective than a superhero, as he solves
puzzling crimes and captures (mostly) non-superpowered
villains, but the
cape and
cowl mean he spends a lot of time hanging around the spandex-jockeys in the
Justice League. As the
Dark Knight, he fights
twisted criminals like
the Joker, the
Penguin, the
Riddler,
Catwoman,
Poison Ivy,
Two-Face,
Killer Croc, the
Mad Hatter,
Bane,
Harley Quinn, and many others.
Batman is completely
obsessed with
crimefighting, but he has no
superpowers at all, so it's a
good thing that he's also
rich enough to afford all the fancy
equipment (including
Batarangs,
supercomputers,
surveillance equipment, disguises, a
Batmobile, and several other vehicles) and
training that he needs. He never
kills people, and he never uses
guns, since he's
reluctant to use the same
weapon that killed his parents. He also attracts a number of
assistants who are similarly
dedicated to eradicating crime in Gotham, including four different
Robins, three
Batgirls, and a
butler named
Alfred.
Several
movies (the best ones directed by
Tim Burton, the worst directed by
Joel Schumacher),
cartoons, and a
campy 1960s television show, starring
Adam West and
Burt Ward, have been made about him.