Born in a comic, raised by every medium
Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27, published by DC Comics in May 1939. Writer Bill Finger and artist Bob Kane gave the world a grieving billionaire who trained himself to physical and intellectual perfection, donned a cape, and declared war on Gotham City's criminal underworld. There was no single source novel or play. Batman was a comic-book original, assembled from influences including Zorro, Sherlock Holmes, and the pulp heroes of the 1930s.
What happened next is the strangest success story in popular culture. A character born in four panels became a Saturday-morning cartoon, then a campy TV phenomenon, then a blockbuster film franchise, then a prestige video game trilogy, then a sprawling animated universe that many critics still consider the finest telling of the myth. Each era reinterpreted the core idea, sometimes almost unrecognizably, while the essential architecture remained: a child watches his parents die, and refuses to let anyone else suffer the same way.
Every Version of Batman
Source comics, films, TV, animation, and games
Batman Through the Decades
- 1939Batman debuts in Detective Comics #27
- 1943First live-action film serial Batman
- 1966Adam West's pop-art TV series premieres
- 1966Camp classic theatrical spin-off Batman
- 1986Frank Miller redefines the character
- 1987Frank Miller's origin retelling
- 1989Tim Burton's Gothic blockbuster Batman
- 1992Burton's even darker sequel Batman Returns
- 1992The animated series sets the gold standard Batman: The Animated Series
- 1995Neon pop: Joel Schumacher era begins Batman Forever
- 1996Long Halloween graphic novel released
- 1997Schumacher era ends with ice puns Batman & Robin
- 1999Future Gotham in animated form Batman Beyond
- 2005Nolan's grounded reboot Batman Begins
- 2008The Joker elevates the franchise The Dark Knight
- 2009Rocksteady's definitive game debut Batman: Arkham Asylum
- 2011Open-world Gotham in a game
- 2012Nolan's trilogy concludes The Dark Knight Rises
- 2014Gotham City origin TV drama begins Gotham
- 2015Arkham trilogy finale Batman: Arkham Knight
- 2022Reeves grounds Batman as detective The Batman
If you love the dark, psychological Batman
Noir detectives, broken heroes, obsessive justice
If you love the Burton and Nolan Gothic atmosphere
Operatic cities, tragic villains, dark spectacle
If you love the Arkham games
Stealth, combat, and open-world hero fantasy
If the animated series is your Batman
Prestige animation with real dramatic weight
The definitive version is still the 1992 animated series
Batman: The Animated Series did something no live-action film has managed before or since: it found the character's emotional core and refused to compromise it. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini gave every villain a coherent psychology and a reason for grief. The voice cast, led by Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill as the Joker, set a standard that every subsequent version has chased without catching. If you watch one Batman and nothing else, this is it.
The most underrated: Batman Returns (1992)
Batman Returns is a strange, melancholy film about loneliness and the city that produces monsters, not a superhero crowd-pleaser. Tim Burton pushed the corporate blockbuster format as far as it would go and produced something genuinely odd: a Christmas movie where every major character is an orphan acting out their damage. It underperformed in 1992 relative to expectations, and people still underestimate it.
The one to skip: Batman and Robin (1997)
Batman and Robin is not enjoyably bad in the way some argue. It is expensively, exhaustingly bad in a way that nearly killed the franchise for eight years. Every creative decision points away from anything interesting: the villains are costumes rather than characters, the city is a theme park ride, and the script appears to have been written in the same afternoon as the toy catalog. Watch it once for the ice puns. That is enough.