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This Inconsistently Admirable was Headlined on March 2023. | ||
| NOTE: This is a composite profile of the mainstream versions of Batman who undergoes major changes to his character from the several cosmic retcons that have happened in the DC universe. |
| “ | I am vengeance! I am the night! I am BATMAN! | „ |
| ~ Batman's most famous quote |
| “ | 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... a bat! That's it! It's an omen. I shall become a bat! | „ |
| ~ Batman (Earth-Two) |
| “ | For amateurs, you've been diabolically clever! Seldom have any criminals caused me such grief! You've deceived me... humiliated me! The trouble is... I tend not to stay deceived and humiliated! Men like you are driven by greed! I have a stronger motivation! I hate crime... hate it with every fiber of my being! Even in a word as confused and uncertain as ours, justice still exists and whether through me or through the machinery of civilization the law justice triumphs! | „ |
| ~ Batman (Earth-One) |
| “ | The Batman can't die. He feeds on evil like yours! | „ |
| ~ Batman (New Earth) |
| “ | You think you can fool me? You think so? You can't. Because I know all the tricks. Hell, I invented them. And sooner or later... I will find you. Wherever you are... you can't hide from me. Hide in the dark. Because I live here... in the dark... in Gotham. It's my city. | „ |
| ~ Batman (Prime Earth) |
Bruce Wayne, better known as Batman, is a superhero that originated from DC Comics.
He is the titular main protagonist of the Batman comics, cartoons, movies, and video games franchises. He is widely considered one of the greatest superheroes of all time and is one of the most iconic fictional characters in pop culture history.
After experiencing the horrifying death of his parents at a young age, Bruce Wayne travels across the world, learning different styling by fighting and martial arts in various versions. When he came back to Gotham City, he started as a vigilante who will be later known as the legendary Batman.
The character was created by the late Bill Finger (Story-Wise) and Bob Kane (Art-Wise) in May 1939, and first appeared in Detective Comics #27 on March 30th, with of the identical retroactive treatment of that version was created by Dennis O'Neil and Dick Dillin in Justice League of America #82 on August 1970, his second mainstream version was possibly created by Don C. Cameron in Batman #27 but was likely created by Bill Finger again in Detective Comics #140 or Edmond Hamilton in Superman #76 In a more clarified establishment, third mainstream version was somewhat created by Doug Moench on Batman #392 on February 1986 and was fully established by Barbara Kesel on Batman #401 and fourth created by Geoff Johns in Flashpoint Vol 2 #5 and recreated him again in DCU: Rebirth Issue #1 on May 25th, 2016.
His Good Ranking[]
What Makes Him Admirable?[]
In General (With some version sharing)[]
- He truly cared for his parents and his butler Alfred Pennyworth, the rest of us, allies, and all the good people of Gotham City.
- He holds a moral code in refusing to kill his enemies (with the exception of universal-ending threats, like Darkseid) and often tries to help rehabilitate them, though this is mainly because of his New-Earth self-emphasizing this importance more than his Original and Earth-One variants. He repeatedly saves them from death as well, even irredeemably evil villains like the Joker.
- While he is taken very seriously as Batman, it is all for his representation of justice in ending chaos and mostly doesn't have Game Changer traits with his presence around non-villains.
- He works closely with the police and other heroes in his war on crime.
- He trained several sidekicks to help bring them closure in their tragedies and ensure that they wouldn't be consumed by their losses.
- He saves hundreds of lives in his war on crime.
- He inspires ordinary people to be better than themselves and rise past tragedy.
- As Bruce Wayne, he's also a philanthropist who, in several cases, uses his wealth to try and help Gotham City.
- He was one of the founding members of the Justice League, and also funds their operations, and helps them fight threats to the world.
- He meets the Admirable Standard due to helping save people and the world from threats far beyond his power level despite only being just a peak human (Even though very wealthy), and even by just his limited resources alone he was able to be comparable to the Justice Leagues own admirable actions, who are vastly more powerful than him with the exception of his Prime Earth self in using the Hellbat Armor in which he uses to its best potential.
- He ended Alfred Stryker's attempts in becoming CEO of Apex chemicals who was trying to murder the employers that stand in his way of becoming Central Executive Officer.
- Brought Doctor Death to prison who was using chemical experiments that harmed lives.
- Killed the two vampires, Monk and Dala with silver bullets with one of them being Monk who was hypnotizing his former fiancée and Dala.
- Rescued Karel from Duc D'Orterre's mad experiments.
- Killed Lennox who was impersonating Sin Fang for the use of the idol statue's wealth. (In which Batman used to killed Lennox with)
- Kill Carl Kruger who used tried to use the dirigible to take over the world and took down the dirigible that was causing buildings to be destroyed and countless lives getting murdered.
- Stopped Dr. Strange from creating a fog in Gotham.
- Saved thousands of lives by eliminating the spies who were about to destroy a US Vessel and killed their leader Turg.
- After Dick's parents were murdered, Bruce adopted him as his own.
- Proved that Zucco was a murderous crime lord, by taking a photo of his murder, thus getting him placed behind bars.
- He alongside Robin eliminated the criminals of the opium trade in Chinatown.
- He and Robin uncovered a murder case done by Clayface, and brought him down.
- Took down the Painter of Death.
- Saved the New York World's Fair from Dr. Hugo Vreekill.
- Ended a corrupt mayor Harliss Greer's corruption within a town.
- Cleared his name from the Puppet Master's sinister plan to frame him badly.
- Got The Joker to the State Penitentiary.
- He sacrificed himself to defeat Bill Jensen.
- As a ghost, he alongside other spirit justice league members took down some ghost thugs and tells Jakeem that someone with noble blood can stop the ghosts in England.
- Teamed up with the Shadow to take down the Founding.
- Stopped Joker’s plot in Batman: Endgame.
- He forgave Joe Chill for killing his parents and was there for him in his final moments before he died.
- He saved the Multiverse from being destroyed by the Dark Knights by empowering other heroes with Element X to help fight them and defeating the Batman Who Laughs several times while working together with the Joker.
- He saved Joe Chill's life from falling into the chemical acid in becoming the next Joker, and held his hand on his death bed, as a closure assurance of forgiveness over him murdering his parents.
- He refused to give out the Joker's real name, to protect Jeannie and her son, so that the Joker would not remember who he was that would lead to him finding out where his families location.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- His crimefighting tactics are at best highly questionable.
- While he has a code against killing, he is still willing to be brutal against enemies. He is more than willing to beat criminals to a pulp, even breaking bones in combat, and has nearly killed his villains on several occasions.
- It's also been confirmed in his earlier incarnations that he has killed villains before showing some lethal traits and has done so in a brutal fashion. Further going on point about his lethality during his Earth-Two self, he has broken this code a few times after making the rule. Some of these were so lethal that he blew up a blimp likely killing at least a dozen if not over a hundred people inside, though these were killing countless lives with the blimp, however he can be engagingly violent such as when he was strangling Duc D'Orterre and throwing an idol statue on Lennox's face that caused him to fall to his death.
- To make the breaking of his no-kill-rule even more undeniable, his Earth-Two-self's cameo appearance (Who became a Zur-En-Arrh) was part of the other Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, that tried to corrupt Prime Batman to kill the Joker.
- When Robin kicked a man off from a tall building, Batman had no issue with him doing that.
- His early self gives sadistic remarks for their demise, having humor from their beaten up or horribly deceased state.
- He lied multiple times in claiming he never used guns, when he did use them on Monk and Dala.
- It is heavily implied he intentionally stopped Robin from catching The Cat, despite knowing that it was against his job to let a criminal thief escape.
- Despite his efforts to rehabilitate his villains, he mostly has them sent to Arkham Asylum instead of a facility with high security, leading them to easily escape and cause more chaos.
- His pragmatic nature led him to devise contingency plans against the Justice League, shattering their trust in him and causing him to temporarily leave the League when the plans were revealed, though this is mainly shown with his New Earth and Prime Earth counterparts.
- He is anti-social, condescending, standoffish, and has trust issues, preferring to mostly work alone and being unable to maintain long-term relationships with others.
- He is extremely critical of many of his sidekicks, leading many to fall out with him with the list being:
- He weaponizes his adopted children to become martial vigilantes.
- In New Earth and Prime Earth, he chose his job of being solely Batman over his fatherhood with Dick Grayson, which made his sidekick quit on him.
- Also, In New Earth and Prime Earth, because of him not bringing the Joker to a more secure prison cell, he indirectly caused Jason Todd's death and resurrection as the villain-turned-anti-hero Red Hood.
- He threatened to destroy the planet of Apokolips to rescue Superman's cousin Kara/Supergirl from Darkseid.
Trivia[]
- It is commonly believed that Batman has never been lethal, in having this restriction remain unbroken and staying true to his moral code forever, this is false, as his No-Kill-Rule wasn't established until several years after his debut, with Batman Issue #4 making the rule, and killed dozens of people before the comic issue. It's worth noting, however, that these earlier Golden Age comics (By most of its establishments with the plots) are widely considered to be placed in Canon Discontinuity, making his lethal actions no longer part of the mainstream continuity, mostly in order to establish his No-Kill-Rule better.
- The person responsible for Batman's 'No-Kill-Rule' was led editor Whitney Ellsworth with the reasons behind it was because Robin, a young boy being the sidekick with a man who kills criminals was considered by the public to not be the best view for children to read, this is why the lead up to his rule was shown when Batman wasn't fond of the idea of killing the Man-Monsters in Batman Issue #1 (Hugo Strange's story). The writing rule establishment was so strict that it led to a policy of heroes never killing villains, regardless of their heinousness. If this didn't happen, Batman's morality would have been a lot different than it how it was perceived by the public through the many generations.
- How canon works for DC Comics and Batman is the original gets treated as an alternate universe instead of being the main true one, with only certain parts of his storyline having some canon to the main Batman's history, an example of this is Goku from Dragon Ball, where the story done by Toriyama is the original Goku but the ending to the manga gets retconned for the mainstream Goku going the route with the Dragon Ball Super continuation, it's like that for Batman and a vast majority of DC Characters but on a far much larger amount.
- This is why Earth-Two Batman's origin debut is written on Justice League of America Issue 82 due to the mainstream canon's treatment first listing him as an alternate universe named as Earth-Two.
- One of the most prime examples of this happening to Batman is the Millerverse Batman with his year one story still being a part of Batman's main storyline, but due to the direction of the personality and later narrative of the character (with his preventions being emphasized much more than the main Batman), he was for almost all of his continuity excluded from the Batman's canon storyline.
- The reason why Bill Finger is credited as the story wise creator of Batman is because he wrote the story and plot for not only Detective Comics Issue 27 but later issues after that while Bob Kane took all the credit for the writings, in which he didn't do much writing at all for Batman especially in comparison to Bill Finger.
- Out of all the mainstream incarnations of Batman, only the original version of him is the reason why this profile gets the deceased category, as his death was never revived from his sacrifice in defeating Jensen.
- Contrary to popular belief, Batman cannot be considered an anti-hero, as, although he is violent in his crime-fighting tactics, Batman is well-intentioned, devoted to a strict moral code and usually does his vigilante work within the confines of the law with the help of the police. Despite this, however, Batman has indeed been depicted as an anti-hero is some mainstream-adjacent interpretations, such as Frank Miller's continuity where he is portrayed as being much more unhinged, violent and even abusive towards his peers. The mainstream Batman, however, is widely considered a firm hero.
- Earth-Two Batman is the only mainstream version that is separate from the other mainstream versions of Batman being the same character but gets drastically altered as a different person but still following the general ideas of who Batman is, basically he is his own incarnation while the others are the same.
- While it is true Earth-One, New Earth and Prime Earth (Pre- and Post-Rebirth) Batman are the same character, the reason why they are classified as different versions to each other is because of the drastic changes they took from DC's not only universal but multiversal scaled reboots (Most notably caused by The Anti-Monitor, The Flash, Great Evil Beast, Dr. Manhattan, and Pandora) that make them narratively by person too different from each other as they don't remember who they were previously, or at least for Prime Earth, not even close to partial line of remembering his former self, in a sense you could say they are different incarnations for each other with the same spirit but with separate newly made consciousness.
- Batmans later versions fate are similar to what happened to Spider-Man in Spider-Man: One More Day where Peter makes a deal with Mephisto who erases certain events and memories from his life to save Aunt May involving his relationship with Mary Jane, reversing and changing his character to a certain extent while Batman was completely changed multiple times.
- It's not fully clear on where Earth-One/Pre-Crisis Batman exactly originated from Earth One's debut and so on, as the versions between him in Earth-One and his Earth-Two variant have made switches on issues in Detective Comics, Batman comics, or just certain stories from DC Comics for some cases that would have to go by the best answer on who they are, but it is widely agreed upon that he started on Superman #76 on accepted record, hence the term of Edmond Hamilton being the likely creator, however it's possible that Don C. Cameron is the creator of that version due to Earth One making its debut due to Batman Issue 27 being the first issue after Earth-One's debut, though it could be possible that Superman Issue 76 is the first time Earth-One Batman made an appearance that didn't share an identical story with Earth-Two Batman, being a story that Earth-Two Batman was never identically in, while in Detective Comics Issue 140 they exactly were.
- New Earth Batman only somewhat first appeared on Batman Issue 392 but was fully established on his appearance in Batman Issue 401, it could be possible that the events of that comic issue up to Batman Issue 401 may have happened for New Earth Batman as well but would forget he was Earth-One Batman at that time and might have been in some processes of being New Earth Batman but was still mostly Earth-One before completion and undoing of his former self.
- Prime Earth Batman had two debut appearances, the first was during Flashpoint Vol 2 Issue #5 as New 52, with the second being DCU: Rebirth Issue #1 as Rebirth, why this was the case is because Rebirth to some extent reset Prime Earth's continuity from a minor to partial amount that changed some of Prime Earth Batman's history but not as completely as his previous timeline resets did.
- The argument on his moral agency having issues is questionable on all of his mainstream versions during his time as the Cape Crusader, as his drive to become a vigilante is to bring fear into the hearts of criminals was by him making an outfit based on an animal he was terrified of, or of how the trauma of his parents' murder affected him mentally and while it is out of the motivation to seek justice, his preventions don't help him much with how he's always on the edge of becoming the ruthless symbol he sought to end the corruption of Gotham and the world of, especially when he gets provoked by villains like the Joker doing whatever he could find in getting into his mind by breaking the morals he holds. Batman's reasonability on those personal to him is questionable such as having orphaned children trained to become fighters aka the Robins in life threatening situations, when it was best to find and get adults to train instead or at least prepare the Robins from their young age to be ready to fight in adulthood. Another personal issue is Selina Kyle (Catwoman), who is a thief into stealing the wealthy's money, and Bruce is a billionaire who is very romantically into Selina, and while a lot of the reason is because he wants to help her, he is taking serious risks on what she could do in getting close to her, potentially stealing his huge amount of wealth. To consider the plausibility of his sanity being a parallel to many of the criminals in Gotham city, with their past making them the villains of who they would become, of them being crazy like him, and Joker making a monologue lecture to him about it, with the only difference is he uses his moral agency issues to benefit what he is trying to save, it's even been suggested by him that it could be the case, making him be at least a minor amoral an ambiguous idea. However, this is greatly made up for when he does see the faults of some of his mistakes with his allies, thus showing that he acknowledges his flaws and is not oblivious to it like how his possible moral agency issues would typically be, though the reforms he has made, have not been too major to consider him not abandoning his dreaded issues, despite it having some understandable circumstances.
- The only mainstream version of Bruce Wayne that didn't pass the admirable standard is Flashpoint Bruce Wayne where instead of his parents Thomas and Martha Wayne being killed by a mugger, it's Bruce who is, making that timeline of the character unable to be part of this profile due his role having severely limited chances to doing heroic feats.
External Links[]
- Batman on the Heroes Wiki
- Batman on the Batman Wiki
- Batman (Earth-Two) on the DC Database Wiki
- Batman (Earth-One) on the DC Database Wiki
- Batman (Earth-One) on the Moral Ranking Wiki
- Batman (New Earth) on the DC Database Wiki
- Batman (Prime Earth) on the DC Database Wiki
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 Inconsistently Admirable
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