Batman characters | The Batman

Batmans History

Batman is the alter-ego of Bruce Wayne, a billionaire industrialist and philanthropist who was driven to fight crime after his parents, Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha Wayne, were murdered before his eyes at the age of eight by Joe Chill. The killer was later arrested after fleeing the scene. Fortunately, medical doctor and social worker Leslie Thompkins was there to give loving comfort to the traumatized Bruce. He was then raised at Wayne Manor by Alfred Pennyworth.

As a teenager, Bruce developed a friendship with a fellow student named Ethan Bennett. The two enjoyed a friendly rivalry with one another, one that often demonstrated itself on the basketball court. As they grew older, Wayne devoted more of his time towards the management of Wayne Industries, and Ethan went on to become a detective for the Gotham City Police Department, but they kept in contact with one another, and Bruce would occasionally invite him over to the estate for a game of "one-on-one".

As time progressed, Bruce found the means by which he could keep the promise he made at his parents' graves. He fashioned a dark costume for himself to conceal his true identity and took on the guise of the Batman. With the reluctant help of his butler Alfred, Bruce established a crime fighting command center in a cave beneath Wayne Manor. This soon became known as the Batcave. His connection to Wayne Industries provided him access to technology that he used to develop his crime fighting arsenal. He installed an advanced computer network in the Batcave, dubbed the Bat-Wave, and he also designed weaponry, which he incorporated into a utility belt. In addition, he also developed an array of vehicles such as the Batmobile, the Bat-Glider and the Batplane, as well as a manned set of robotic armor which he called the Bat-Bot.

Thomas upon hearing of his parents deaths at home was instantaneously crushed and sank into a complete emotional and mental collapse that would last for years forcing his Uncle Phillip who took in the angry Bruce to commit Thomas, Jr. to a mental institution.

For the first two years of his career, Bruce mostly fought common street-level thugs and members of organized crime. Reports of the Batman's activities quickly circulated throughout the city. Chief of police Angel Rojas took a rigid stance against acts of vigilantism and entrusted his detectives, including Ethan Bennett, to do everything in their power to bring the Batman to justice. Ethan and his new partner, a detective from Metropolis named Ellen Yin, committed many man-hours investigating the Batman. Secretly though, Ethan actually advocated the Batman’s ability to clean up the streets of Gotham.

In his third year of crime-fighting, Bruce encountered an individual who proved to be his most bizarre and dangerous adversary to date – the Joker. He first met the Joker after the latter escaped from his hospital room at Arkham Asylum. He prevented the Joker from releasing a deadly nerve gas over the city, after which, he promptly returned him to Arkham Asylum. The Joker, never one to stay in captivity for long, returned time and time again to plague the Batman with outrageous new schemes.

The emergence of the Joker appeared to have inspired many members of Gotham's underworld to likewise take up costumed identities, many of whom adopted various trademarks or gimmicks that set them apart from the common criminal. Batman’s first super-powered adversary was a Brazilian mercenary named Bane. Gang leaders brought Bane into the United States in the hopes of destroying the Batman through superior muscle power, but fortunately for Bruce, the Bat-Bot armor proved an adequate foil against the oversized behemoth. More and more colorful villains popped up in Gotham City, and Batman developed a veritable rogues gallery of foes including the likes of the Penguin, Man-Bat, Killer Croc, the Cluemaster and the Catwoman.

Batmans power and abilities

• There are a plethora of superheroes without superpowers but of them all the Batman character relies on "his own scientific knowledge, detective skills, and athletic prowess." In the stories Batman is regarded as one of the world's greatest detectives.
• Martial Arts: The Batman is an accomplished martial artist and can defeat nearly any opponent in hand-to-hand combat. The specific fighting disciplines that the Batman is proficient in are unknown.
• Mechanical Aptitude: The Batman possesses knowledge of mechanical engineering and often employs this talent when constructing or upgrading equipment for use in crime-fighting. He has often been seen effecting repairs on the Bat-Bot armor or making improvements to the Batmobile.
• Above Average Strength: The Batman possesses the strength level of a man his age, size and weight who engages in intensive regular exercise.

Batmans Costume

Batman's costume incorporates the imagery of a bat in order to frighten criminals. The details of the Batman costume change repeatedly through various stories and media, but the most distinctive elements remain consistent: a scallop-hem cape, a cowl covering most of the face featuring a pair of batlike ears, and a stylized bat emblem on the chest, and the ever-present utility belt. The costumes' colors are traditionally blue and grey, although this colorization arose due to the way comic book art is colored. Finger and Kane conceptualized Batman as having a black cape and cowl and grey suit, but conventions in coloring called for black to be highlighted with blue. This coloring has been claimed by Larry Ford, in Place, Power, Situation, and Spectacle: A Geography of Film, to be a reversion of conventional color-coding symbolism, which sees "bad guys" wearing dark colors. Batman's gloves typically feature three scallops that protrude from long, gauntlet-like cuffs, although in his earliest appearances he wore short, plain gloves without the scallops. A yellow ellipse around the bat logo on the character's chest was added in 1964, and became the hero's trademark symbol, akin to the red and yellow "S" symbol of Superman. The overall look of the character, particularly the length of the cowl's ears and of the cape, varies greatly depending on the artist. Dennis O'Neil said, "We now say that Batman has two hundred suits hanging in the Batcave so they don't have to look the same . . . Everybody loves to draw Batman, and everybody wants to put their own spin on it."

Batmans equipment

Batman uses a large arsenal of specialized gadgets in his war against crime, the designs of which usually share a bat motif.

Bat mobile

Batman's primary vehicle is the Batmobile, which is usually depicted as an imposing black car with large tailfins that suggest a bat's wings. Batman's other vehicles include the Batplane (aka the Batwing), Batboat, Bat-Sub, and Batcycle.

In proper practice, the "bat" prefix (as in batmobile or batarang) is rarely used by Batman himself when referring to his equipment, particularly after some portrayals (primarily the 1960s Batman live-action television show and the Super Friends animated series) stretched the practice to campy proportions. The 1960s television series Batman has an arsenal that includes such "bat-" names as the bat-computer, bat-scanner, bat-radar, bat-cuffs, bat-pontoons, bat-drinking water dispenser, bat-camera with polarized bat-filter, bat-shark repellent bat-spray, and bat-rope. The storyline "A Death in the Family" suggests that given Batman's grim nature, he is unlikely to have adopted the "bat" prefix on his own.

Batman keeps most of his field equipment in a utility belt. Over the years it is shown to contain a virtually limitless variety of crime- fighting tools. Different versions of the belt have these items stored in either pouches or hard cylinders attached evenly around it. A typical major exception to the range of Batman's equipment are conventional firearms, which he refuses to use on principle considering that weapon class was the instrument of his parents' murder. Modern depictions of Batman have him compromise for practicality by arming his vehicles mainly for the purpose of removing obstacles or disabling enemy vehicles.

Bat-Signal

When Batman is needed, the Gotham City police activate a searchlight with a bat-shaped insignia over the lens called the Bat-Signal which shines into the night sky, creating a bat-symbol on a passing cloud which can be seen from any point in Gotham. The origin of the signal varies, depending on the continuity and medium.

In various incarnations, most notably the 1960s Batman TV series, Commissioner Gordon also has a dedicated phone line, dubbed the Bat-Phone, connected to a bright red telephone (in the TV series) which sits on a wooden base and has a transparent cake cover on top. The line connects directly to Batman's residence, Wayne Manor, specifically both to a similar phone sitting on the desk in Bruce Wayne's study and the extension phone in the Batcave.

Batcave

The Batcave is Batman's secret headquarters, consisting of a series of subterranean caves beneath his mansion, Wayne Manor. It serves as his command center for both local and global surveillance, as well as housing his vehicles and equipment for his war on crime. It also is a storeroom for Batman's memorabilia. In both the comic Batman: Shadow of the Bat (issue #45) and the 2005 film Batman Begins, the cave is said to have been part of the Underground Railroad. Of the heroes and villains who see the Batcave, few know where it is located.

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