Which caped crusader operated in Gotham City?
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Batman Gotham City
Batman is a fictional superhero appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The character was created by artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger,   and first appeared in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). Originally named the "Bat-Man", the character is also referred to by such epithets as the Caped Crusader, the Dark Knight, and the World's Greatest Detective. 

Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, an American billionaire, playboy, philanthropist, and owner of Wayne Enterprises. After witnessing the murder of his parents Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne as a child, he swore revenge on criminals, an oath tempered by a sense of justice. Wayne trains himself physically and intellectually and crafts a bat-inspired persona to fight crime.  Batman operates in the fictional Gotham City, with assistance from various supporting characters, including his butler Alfred, police commissioner Jim Gordon, and vigilante allies such as Robin. Unlike most superheroes, Batman does not possess any superpowers; rather, he relies on his genius intellect, physical prowess, martial arts abilities, detective skills, science and technology, vast wealth, intimidation, and indomitable will. A large assortment of villains make up Batman's rogues gallery, including his archenemy, the Joker.

Batman became popular soon after his introduction in 1939 and gained his own comic book title, Batman, the following year. As the decades went on, differing interpretations of the character emerged. The late 1960s Batman television series used a camp aesthetic, which continued to be associated with the character for years after the show ended. Various creators worked to return the character to his dark roots, culminating in 1986 with The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller. The success of Warner Bros.' live-action Batman feature films have helped maintain public interest in the character. 

An American cultural icon, Batman has been licensed and adapted into a variety of media, from radio to television and film, and appears on a variety of merchandise sold all over the world, such as toys and video games. The character has also intrigued psychiatrists, with many trying to understand the character's psyche. In May 2011, Batman placed second on IGN's Top 100 Comic Book Heroes of All Time,  after Superman. Empire magazine listed him second in their 50 Greatest Comic Book Characters of All Time. Kevin Conroy, Bruce Greenwood, Peter Weller, and Jason O'Mara, among others, have provided the character's voice for animated adaptations. Batman has been portrayed in both film and television by Lewis Wilson, Robert Lowery, Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, Christian Bale, and Ben Affleck.

Publication history

Creation

In early 1939, the success of Superman in Action Comics prompted editors at National Comics Publications (the future DC Comics) to request more superheroes for its titles. In response, Bob Kane created "the Bat-Man".  Collaborator Bill Finger recalled that "Kane had an idea for a character called 'Batman,' and he'd like me to see the drawings. I went over to Kane's, and he had drawn a character who looked very much like Superman with kind of ... reddish tights, I believe, with boots ... no gloves, no gauntlets ... with a small domino mask, swinging on a rope. He had two stiff wings that were sticking out, looking like bat wings. And under it was a big sign ... BATMAN".  The bat-wing-like cape was suggested by Bob Kane, inspired by Leonardo Da Vinci's sketch of an ornithopter flying device as a child. 

Finger suggested giving the character a cowl instead of a simple domino mask, a cape instead of wings, and gloves; he also recommended removing the red sections from the original costume.     Finger said he devised the name Bruce Wayne for the character's secret identity: "Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Wayne, being a playboy, was a man of gentry. I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock ... then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne."  He later said his suggestions were influenced by Lee Falk's popular The Phantom, a syndicated newspaper comic-strip character with which Kane was also familiar. 

Kane and Finger drew upon contemporary 1930s popular culture for inspiration regarding much of the Bat-Man's look, personality, methods, and weaponry. Details find predecessors in pulp fiction, comic strips, newspaper headlines, and autobiographical details referring to Kane himself.  As an aristocratic hero with a double identity, the Bat-Man had predecessors in the Scarlet Pimpernel (created by Baroness Emmuska Orczy, 1903) and Zorro (created by Johnston McCulley, 1919). Like them, he performed his heroic deeds in secret, averted suspicion by playing the fool in public, and marked his work with a signature symbol. Kane noted the influence of the films The Mark of Zorro (1920) and The Bat Whispers (1930) in the creation of the character's iconography. Finger, drawing inspiration from pulp heroes like Doc Savage, The Shadow, Dick Tracy, and Sherlock Holmes, made the character a master sleuth.  

In his 1989 autobiography, Kane detailed Finger's contributions to Batman's creation:

Golden Age

Subsequent creation credit

Kane signed away ownership in the character in exchange for, among other compensation, a mandatory byline on all Batman comics. This byline did not originally say "Batman created by Bob Kane"; his name was simply written on the title page of each story. The name disappeared from the comic book in the mid-1960s, replaced by credits for each story's actual writer and artists. In the late 1970s, when Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster began receiving a "created by" credit on the Superman titles, along with William Moulton Marston being given the byline for creating Wonder Woman, Batman stories began saying "Created by Bob Kane" in addition to the other credits.

Finger did not receive the same recognition. While he had received credit for other DC work since the 1940s, he began, in the 1960s, to receive limited acknowledgment for his Batman writing; in the letters page of Batman #169 (February 1965) for example, editor Julius Schwartz names him as the creator of the Riddler, one of Batman's recurring villains. However, Finger's contract left him only with his writing page rate and no byline. Kane wrote, "Bill was disheartened by the lack of major accomplishments in his career. He felt that he had not used his creative potential to its fullest and that success had passed him by." At the time of Finger's death in 1974, DC had not officially credited Finger as Batman co-creator.

Jerry Robinson, who also worked with Finger and Kane on the strip at this time, has criticized Kane for failing to share the credit. He recalled Finger resenting his position, stating in a 2005 interview with The Comics Journal:

Although Kane initially rebutted Finger's claims at having created the character, writing in a 1965 open letter to fans that "it seemed to me that Bill Finger has given out the impression that he and not myself created the Batman, t'  as well as Robin and all the other leading villains and characters. This statement is fraudulent and entirely untrue." Kane himself also commented on Finger's lack of credit. "The trouble with being a 'ghost' writer or artist is that you must remain rather anonymously without 'credit'. However, if one wants the 'credit', then one has to cease being a 'ghost' or follower and become a leader or innovator." 

In 1989, Kane revisited Finger's situation, recalling in an interview: 

In September 2015, DC Entertainment revealed that Finger would be receiving credit for his role in Batman's creation on the 2016 superhero film Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and the second season of Gotham after a deal was worked out between the Finger family and DC. Finger received credit as a creator of Batman for the first time in a comic in October 2015 with Batman and Robin Eternal #3 and Batman: Arkham Knight Genesis #3. The updated acknowledgement for the character appeared as "Batman created by Bob Kane with Bill Finger".

Early years

The first Batman story, "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate", was published in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939). Finger said, "Batman was originally written in the style of the pulps",  and this influence was evident with Batman showing little remorse over killing or maiming criminals. Batman proved a hit character, and he received his own solo title in 1940, while continuing to star in Detective Comics. By that time, National was the top-selling and most influential publisher in the industry; Batman and the company's other major hero, Superman, were the cornerstones of the company's success.  The two characters were featured side-by-side as the stars of World's Finest Comics, which was originally titled World's Best Comics when it debuted in fall 1940. Creators including Jerry Robinson and Dick Sprang also worked on the strips during this period.

Over the course of the first few Batman strips elements were added to the character and the artistic depiction of Batman evolved. Kane noted that within six issues he drew the character's jawline more pronounced, and lengthened the ears on the costume. "About a year later he was almost the full figure, my mature Batman", Kane said. Batman's characteristic utility belt was introduced in Detective Comics #29 (July 1939), followed by the boomerang-like batarang and the first bat-themed vehicle, the Batplane, in #31 (Sept. 1939). The character's origin was revealed in #33 (Nov. 1939), unfolding in a two-page story that establishes the brooding persona of Batman, a character driven by the death of his parents. Written by Finger, it depicts a young Bruce Wayne witnessing his parents' murder at the hands of a mugger. Days later, at their grave, the child vows that "by the spirits of my parents [I will] avenge their deaths by spending the rest of my life warring on all criminals".   

The early, pulp-inflected portrayal of Batman started to soften in Detective Comics #38 (April 1940) with the introduction of Robin, Batman's junior counterpart.Wright, p. 17. Robin was introduced, based on Finger's suggestion, because Batman needed a "Watson" with whom Batman could talk.  Sales nearly doubled, despite Kane's preference for a solo Batman, and it sparked a proliferation of "kid sidekicks".  The first issue of the solo spin-off series Batman was notable not only for introducing two of his most persistent enemies, the Joker and Catwoman, but for a story in which Batman shoots some monstrous giants to death. That story prompted editor Whitney Ellsworth to decree that the character could no longer kill or use a gun. 

By 1942, the writers and artists behind the Batman comics had established most of the basic elements of the Batman mythos.Boichel, p. 9. In the years following World War II, DC Comics "adopted a postwar editorial direction that increasingly de-emphasized social commentary in favor of lighthearted juvenile fantasy". The impact of this editorial approach was evident in Batman comics of the postwar period; removed from the "bleak and menacing world" of the strips of the early 1940s, Batman was instead portrayed as a respectable citizen and paternal figure that inhabited a "bright and colorful" environment. 

Silver and Bronze Age

1950s and early 1960s

Batman was one of the few superhero characters to be continuously published as interest in the genre waned during the 1950s. In the story "The Mightiest Team in the World" in Superman #76 (June 1952), Batman teams up with Superman for the first time and the pair discovers each other's secret identity.  Following the success of this story, World's Finest Comics was revamped so it featured stories starring both heroes together, instead of the separate Batman and Superman features that had been running before.  The team-up of the characters was "a financial success in an era when those were few and far between";  this series of stories ran until the book's cancellation in 1986.

Batman comics were among those criticized when the comic book industry came under scrutiny with the publication of psychologist Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent in 1954. Wertham's thesis was that children imitated crimes committed in comic books, and that these works corrupted the morals of the youth. Wertham criticized Batman comics for their supposed homosexual overtones and argued that Batman and Robin were portrayed as lovers.  Wertham's criticisms raised a public outcry during the 1950s, eventually leading to the establishment of the Comics Code Authority, a code that is no longer in use by the comic book industry. The tendency towards a "sunnier Batman" in the postwar years intensified after the introduction of the Comics Code.  Scholars have suggested that the characters of Batwoman (in 1956) and the pre-Barbara Gordon Bat-Girl (in 1961) were introduced in part to refute the allegation that Batman and Robin were gay, and the stories took on a campier, lighter feel. 

In the late 1950s, Batman stories gradually became more science fiction-oriented, an attempt at mimicking the success of other DC characters that had dabbled in the genre.  New characters such as Batwoman, Ace the Bat-Hound, and Bat-Mite were introduced. Batman's adventures often involved odd transformations or bizarre space aliens. In 1960, Batman debuted as a member of the Justice League of America in The Brave and the Bold #28 (Feb. 1960), and went on to appear in several Justice League comic series starting later that same year.

"New Look" Batman and camp

By 1964, sales on Batman titles had fallen drastically. Bob Kane noted that, as a result, DC was "planning to kill Batman off altogether".  In response to this, editor Julius Schwartz was assigned to the Batman titles. He presided over drastic changes, beginning with 1964's Detective Comics #327 (May 1964), which was cover-billed as the "New Look". Schwartz introduced changes designed to make Batman more contemporary, and to return him to more detective-oriented stories. He brought in artist Carmine Infantino to help overhaul the character. The Batmobile was redesigned, and Batman's costume was modified to incorporate a yellow ellipse behind the bat-insignia. The space aliens, time travel, and characters of the 1950s such as Batwoman, Ace, and Bat-Mite were retired. Batman's butler Alfred was killed off (though his death was quickly reversed) while a new female relative for the Wayne family, Aunt Harriet, came to live with Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. 

The debut of the Batman television series in 1966 had a profound influence on the character. The success of the series increased sales throughout the comic book industry, and Batman reached a circulation of close to 900,000 copies.  Elements such as the character of Batgirl and the show's campy nature were introduced into the comics; the series also initiated the return of Alfred. Although both the comics and TV show were successful for a time, the camp approach eventually wore thin and the show was canceled in 1968. In the aftermath, the Batman comics themselves lost popularity once again. As Julius Schwartz noted, "When the television show was a success, I was asked to be campy, and of course when the show faded, so did the comic books." 

Starting in 1969, writer Dennis O'Neil and artist Neal Adams made a deliberate effort to distance Batman from the campy portrayal of the 1960s TV series and to return the character to his roots as a "grim avenger of the night".  O'Neil said his idea was "simply to take it back to where it started. I went to the DC library and read some of the early stories. I tried to get a sense of what Kane and Finger were after." 

O'Neil and Adams first collaborated on the story "The Secret of the Waiting Graves" (Detective Comics #395, January 1970). Few stories were true collaborations between O'Neil, Adams, Schwartz, and inker Dick Giordano, and in actuality these men were mixed and matched with various other creators during the 1970s; nevertheless the influence of their work was "tremendous".  Giordano said: "We went back to a grimmer, darker Batman, and I think that's why these stories did so well..."  While the work of O'Neil and Adams was popular with fans, the acclaim did little to improve declining sales; the same held true with a similarly acclaimed run by writer Steve Englehart and penciler Marshall Rogers in Detective Comics #471–476 (August 1977 – April 1978), which went on to influence the 1989 movie Batman and be adapted for Batman: The Animated Series, which debuted in 1992.  Regardless, circulation continued to drop through the 1970s and 1980s, hitting an all-time low in 1985. 

Modern Age

The Dark Knight Returns

Frank Miller's limited series The Dark Knight Returns (February–June 1986), which tells the story of a 55-year-old Batman coming out of retirement in a possible future, reinvigorated the character. The Dark Knight Returns was a financial success and has since become one of the medium's most noted touchstones.  The series also sparked a major resurgence in the character's popularity. 

That year Dennis O'Neil took over as editor of the Batman titles and set the template for the portrayal of Batman following DC's status quo-altering miniseries Crisis on Infinite Earths. O'Neil operated under the assumption that he was hired to revamp the character and as a result tried to instill a different tone in the books than had gone before.  One outcome of this new approach was the "Year One" storyline in Batman #404–407 (February–May 1987), in which Frank Miller and artist David Mazzucchelli redefined the character's origins. Writer Alan Moore and artist Brian Bolland continued this dark trend with 1988's 48-page one-shot Batman: The Killing Joke, in which the Joker, attempting to drive Commissioner Gordon insane, cripples Gordon's daughter Barbara, and then kidnaps and tortures the commissioner, physically and psychologically.

The Batman comics garnered major attention in 1988 when DC Comics created a 900 number for readers to call to vote on whether Jason Todd, the second Robin, lived or died. Voters decided in favor of Jason's death by a narrow margin of 28 votes (see Batman: A Death in the Family).  The following year saw the release of Tim Burton's Batman feature film, which firmly brought the character back to the public's attention, grossing millions of dollars at the box office, and millions more in merchandising. However, the three sequels, Tim Burton's Batman Returns and director Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, did not perform as well at the box office. The fourth film in the series, the Schumacher-directed Batman & Robin, meanwhile, was a critical and commercial failure. The Batman movie franchise was rebooted with director and co-writer Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins in 2005, The Dark Knight in 2008 and The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. In 1989, the first issue of Legends of the Dark Knight, the first new solo Batman title in nearly 50 years, sold close to a million copies. 

The 1993 "Knightfall" story arc introduced a new villain, Bane, who critically injures Batman after pushing him to the limits of his endurance. Jean-Paul Valley, known as Azrael, is called upon to wear the Batsuit during Bruce Wayne's convalescence. Writers Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon, and Alan Grant worked on the Batman titles during "Knightfall", and would also contribute to other Batman crossovers throughout the 1990s. 1998's "Cataclysm" storyline served as the precursor to 1999's "No Man's Land", a year-long storyline that ran through all the Batman-related titles dealing with the effects of an earthquake-ravaged Gotham City. At the conclusion of "No Man's Land", O'Neil stepped down as editor and was replaced by Bob Schreck.

Another writer who rose to prominence on the Batman comic series, was Jeph Loeb. Along with longtime collaborator Tim Sale, they wrote two miniseries ("The Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory") that pit an early in his career version of Batman against his entire rogues gallery (most notably Two-Face, whose origin was re-envisioned by Loeb) while dealing with various mysteries involving serial killers Holiday and the Hangman. In 2003, Loeb teamed with artist Jim Lee to work on another mystery arc: "Batman: Hush" for the main Batman book. The twelve–issue storyline has Batman and Catwoman teaming up against Batman's entire rogues gallery, including an apparently resurrected Jason Todd, while seeking to find the identity of the mysterious supervillain Hush. While the character of Hush failed to catch on with readers, the arc was a sales success for DC. As the storyline was Jim Lee's first regular comic book work in nearly a decade, the series became #1 on the Diamond Comic Distributors sales chart for the first time since Batman #500 (October 1993) and Jason Todd's appearance laid the groundwork for writer Judd Winick's subsequent run as writer on Batman, with another multi-issue epic, "Under the Hood", which ran from Batman #637–650.

In 2005, DC launched All-Star Batman and Robin, a stand-alone comic series set outside the existing DC Universe. Written by Frank Miller and drawn by Jim Lee, the series was a commercial success for DC Comics   though widely panned by critics for its writing and strong depictions of violence.  

Starting in 2006, the regular writers on Batman and Detective Comics were Grant Morrison and Paul Dini, with Grant Morrison reincorporating controversial elements of Batman lore (most notably, the science fiction themed storylines of the 1950s Batman comics, which Morrison revised as hallucinations Batman suffered under the influence of various mind-bending gases and extensive sensory deprivation training) into the character. Morrison's run climaxed with "Batman R.I.P.", which brought Batman up against the villainous "Black Glove" organization, which sought to drive Batman into madness. "Batman R.I.P." segued into Final Crisis (also written by Morrison), which saw the apparent death of Batman at the hands of Darkseid. In the 2009 miniseries Batman: Battle for the Cowl, Wayne's former protégé Dick Grayson becomes the new Batman, and Wayne's son Damian becomes the new Robin.   In June 2009, Judd Winick returned to writing Batman, while Grant Morrison was given his own series, titled Batman and Robin. 

In 2010, the storyline Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne saw Bruce travel through history, eventually returning to the present day. Although he reclaimed the mantle of Batman, he also allowed Grayson to continue being Batman as well. Bruce decided to take his war on crime globally, which is the central focus of Batman Incorporated. DC Comics would later announce that Grayson would be the main character in Batman, Detective Comics and Batman and Robin, while Wayne would be the main character in Batman Incorporated. Also, Bruce appeared in another ongoing series, Batman: The Dark Knight.

The New 52

In September 2011, DC Comics' entire line of superhero books, including its Batman franchise, was canceled and relaunched with new #1 issues as part of The New 52 reboot. Bruce Wayne is the only character to be identified as Batman and is featured in Batman, Detective Comics, Batman and Robin, and Batman: The Dark Knight. Dick Grayson returns to the mantle of Nightwing and appears in his own ongoing series. While many characters have their histories significantly altered to attract new readers, Batman's history remains mostly intact. Batman Incorporated was relaunched in 2012-2013 to complete the "Leviathan" storyline.

Since the beginning of The New 52, Scott Snyder has been the writer of the flagship Batman title. His first major story arc was "Night of the Owls", where Batman confronts the Court of Owls, a secret society that has controlled Gotham for centuries. The second story arc was "Death of the Family", where the Joker returns to Gotham and simultaneously attacks each member of the Batman family. The third story arc was "Batman: Zero Year", which redefined Batman's origin in The New 52. It followed Batman #0, published in June 2012, which explored the character's early years. The final storyline before the Convergence (2015) event was Endgame, depicting the supposed final battle between Batman and the Joker when he unleashes the deadly Endgame virus onto Gotham City. The storyline ends with Batman and the Joker's supposed deaths. Starting with #41, Commissioner James Gordon takes over Bruce's mantle as a new, state-sanctioned, mecha Batman, debuting in the Free Comic Book Day special comic Divergence. However, Bruce Wayne is soon revealed to be alive, albeit now suffering almost total amnesia of his life as Batman and only remembering his life as Bruce Wayne through what he has learned from Alfred. Bruce Wayne finds happiness and proposes to his girlfriend, Julie, but Mr. Bloom heavily injures Jim Gordon and takes control of Gotham City and threatens to destroy the city by energizing a particle reactor to create a "strange star" to swallow the city. Bruce Wayne discovers the truth that he was Batman and after talking to a stranger who smiles a lot (it is heavily implied that this is the amnesic Joker) he forces Alfred to implant his memories as Batman, but at the cost of his memories as the reborn Bruce Wayne. He returns and helps Jim Gordon defeat Mr. Bloom and shut down the reactor. Gordon gets his job back as the commissioner, and the government Batman project is shuttered. 

In 2015, DC Comics released The Dark Knight III: The Master Race, the sequel to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again.[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/1.1/23/arts/dark-knight-iii-the-master-race-comic-book-prompts-reflection-and-a-look-ahead.html?smtyp
cur The New York Times]

During the Darkseid War Batman acquires the Mobius Chair and asks "What's the Joker's real name?" and the response causes him to say "No that is not possible.     At the end of the Darkseid War Batman reveals to Hal that the chair told him there were three Jokers  and during DC Universe - Rebirth #1 Batman confirms the existence of at least two Jokers: one who was in Civic City killing people while the other Joker had been caught just outside Baltimore three hours ago and was still in transit to Arkham Asylum.  "(F)rom the looks of the artwork, it appears that the three jokers include the original, Jerry Robinson Joker; the Brian Bolland Killing Joke Joker; and the Scott Snyder/Greg Capullo "New 52" Joker." 

Characterization

Bruce Wayne

Batman's secret identity is Bruce Wayne, a wealthy American business magnate who resides outside of Gotham City. As a child, Bruce witnessed the murder of his parents, Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne, which ultimately led him to  craft the Batman persona and seek vengeance against criminals. Wayne averts suspicion by acting the part of a superficial playboy idly living off his family's fortune, which was amassed through investment in real estate before the city became a bustling metropolis,  and the profits of Wayne Enterprises, his inherited conglomerate.  He supports philanthropic causes through his nonprofit Wayne Foundation, but is more widely known as a celebrity socialite.  In public, he appears frequently in the company of high-status women, which encourages tabloid gossip. Although he leads an active romantic life, crime-fighting accounts for most of his time. 

Writers of Batman and Superman stories have often compared and contrasted the two. Interpretations vary depending on the writer, the story, and the timing. Grant Morrison  notes that both heroes "believe in the same kind of things" despite the day/night contrast their heroic roles display. He notes an equally stark contrast in their real identities. Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent belong to different social classes: "Bruce has a butler, Clark has a boss." T. James Musler's book Unleashing the Superhero in Us All explores the extent to which Bruce Wayne's vast personal wealth is important in his life story, and the crucial role it plays in his crusade against crime. 

Modern stories tend to portray the playboy image of Bruce Wayne as a facade  (in counterpoint to the post-Crisis Superman, whose Clark Kent persona is the true identity, while the Superman persona is the facade).   In Batman Unmasked, a television documentary about the psychology of the character, behavioral scientist Benjamin Karney notes that Batman's personality is driven by Bruce Wayne's inherent humanity; that "Batman, for all its benefits and for all of the time Bruce Wayne devotes to it, is ultimately a tool for Bruce Wayne's efforts to make the world better".

Will Brooker notes in his book Batman Unmasked that "the confirmation of the Batman's identity lies with the young audience...he doesn't have to be Bruce Wayne; he just needs the suit and gadgets, the abilities, and most importantly the morality, the humanity. There's just a sense about him: 'they trust him... and they're never wrong." 

During the character's creation, the name "Bruce Wayne" was chosen for certain connotations. According to co-creator Bill Finger, "Bruce Wayne's first name came from Robert Bruce, the Scottish patriot. Wayne, being a playboy, was a man of gentry. I searched for a name that would suggest colonialism. I tried Adams, Hancock...then I thought of Mad Anthony Wayne." 

Personality

Batman's primary character traits can be summarized as "wealth; physical prowess; deductive abilities and obsession". The details and tone of Batman comic books have varied over the years due to different creative teams. Dennis O'Neil noted that character consistency was not a major concern during early editorial regimes: "Julie Schwartz did a Batman in Batman and Detective and Murray Boltinoff did a Batman in the Brave and the Bold and apart from the costume they bore very little resemblance to each other. Julie and Murray did not want to coordinate their efforts, nor were they asked to do so. Continuity was not important in those days." 

The driving force behind Bruce Wayne's character is his parents' murder and the absence of the father. Bob Kane and Bill Finger discussed Batman's background and decided that "there's nothing more traumatic than having your parents murdered before your eyes".  Despite his trauma, he sets his mind on studying to become a scientist   and to train his body into physical perfection to fight crime in Gotham City as Batman, an inspired idea from Wayne's insight into the criminal mind.

Another of Batman's characterizations is a vigilante; in order to stop evil that started with the death of his parents, he must sometimes break laws himself. Although manifested differently by being re-told by different artists, it is nevertheless that the details and the prime components of Batman's origin have never varied at all in the comic books, the "reiteration of the basic origin events holds together otherwise divergent expressions".  The origin is the source of the character's traits and attributes, which play out in many of the character's adventures.

Batman is often treated as a vigilante by other characters in his stories. Frank Miller views the character as "a dionysian figure, a force for anarchy that imposes an individual order".  Dressed as a bat, Batman deliberately cultivates a frightening persona in order to aid him in crime-fighting,  a fear that originates from the criminals' own guilty conscience.  Miller is often credited with reintroducing anti-heroic traits into Batman's characterization,  such as his brooding personality, willingness to use violence and torture, and increasingly alienated behavior. Batman's original character was changed when comic book codes went into place and DC editor Whitney Ellsworth reinvented Batman as having a stringent moral code which never allowed him to kill. Miller's Batman was closer to the original, Golden Age version, who was willing to kill criminals. 

Others

On two occasions former Robin Dick Grayson has served as Batman. He served briefly while Wayne recovered from spinal injuries caused by Bane in the 1993 Knightfall storyline. He assumed the mantle again in a 2009 comic book while Wayne was believed dead, and served as a second Batman even after Wayne returned in 2010. As part of DC's 2011 editorial mandate, he returned to being Nightwing following the Flashpoint crossover event.

In an interview with IGN, Morrison details that having Dick Grayson as Batman and Damian Wayne as Robin represented a "reverse" of the normal dynamic between Batman and Robin, with, "a more light-hearted and spontaneous Batman and a scowling, badass Robin"" Morrison explains his intentions for the new characterization of Batman: "Dick Grayson is kind of this consummate superhero. The guy has been Batman's partner since he was a kid, he's led the Teen Titans, and he's trained with everybody in the DC Universe. So he's a very different kind of Batman. He's a lot easier;  a lot looser and more relaxed."

Over the years, there have been numerous others to assume the name of Batman, or to officially take over for Bruce during his leaves of absence.  Jean Paul Valley, also known as Azrael, assumed the cowl after the events of the Knightfall saga. James Gordon, donned a mech-suit after the events of Batman: Endgame, and served as Batman in 2015 and 2016.

Additionally, members of the group Batman, Incorporated, Bruce Wayne's experiment at franchising his brand of vigilantism, have at times stood in as the official Batman in cities around the world. Various others have also taken up the role of Batman in stories set in alternative universes and possible futures, including, among them, various former proteges of Bruce Wayne.

Abilities

Skills and training

Batman has no inherent superhuman powers; he 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, if not the world's greatest crime solver.  Batman has been repeatedly described as having a genius-level intellect, being one of the greatest martial artists in the DC Universe, and having peak human physical conditioning.  He has traveled the world acquiring the skills needed to aid in his crusade against crime. As a polymath, his knowledge and expertise in almost every discipline is nearly unparalleled by any other character in the DC Universe.  In the Superman: Doomed story arc, Superman considers Batman to be one of the most brilliant minds on the planet.  Batman's inexhaustible wealth allows him access to advanced technology, and as a proficient scientist, he is able to use and modify these technologies to his advantage.

Batman has trained extensively in various martial arts, mastering over 127 different types, making him one of the best hand-to-hand fighters in the DC Universe. Superman describes Batman as "the most dangerous man on Earth", able to defeat an entire team of superpowered extraterrestrials by himself in order to rescue his imprisoned teammates in Grant Morrison's first storyline in JLA.

Batman has the ability to function under great physical pain and to withstand telepathy and mind control. He is a master of disguise, multilingual, and an expert in espionage, often gathering information under the identity of Matches Malone, a notorious gangster. He is a master of stealth and escapology, which allows him to appear and disappear at will and to break free of nearly inescapable deathtraps with little to no harm.

Batman is an expert in interrogation techniques and often uses extreme methods to extract information from suspects, such as hanging a person over the edge of a building. His intimidating and frightening appearance alone is often all that is needed in getting information from suspects. Despite having the potential to harm his enemies, Batman's most defining characteristic is his strong commitment to justice and his unwillingness to take life, regardless of the situation he has faced. This unyielding moral rectitude has earned him the respect of several heroes in the DC Universe, most notably that of Superman and Wonder Woman.

Technology

Personal armor

Batman's body armored costume incorporates the imagery of a bat in order to frighten criminals.  The details of the Batman costume change repeatedly through various decades, stories, media and artists' interpretations, but the most distinctive elements remain consistent: a scallop-hem cape; a cowl covering most of the face; a pair of batlike ears; a stylized bat emblem on the chest; and the ever-present utility belt. The costumes' colors have traditionally been dark blue and grey, although this colorization arose due to the way comic book art was colored; the character is sometimes depicted in black and grey. 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. In the Tim Burton's Batman and Batman Returns films, Batman has been depicted as completely black with a bat in the middle surrounded by a yellow background. Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy depicted Batman wearing high-tech gear painted completely black with a black bat in the middle.

Batman's batsuit aids in his combat against enemies, having the properties of both Kevlar and Nomex. It protects him from gunfire and other significant impacts. His 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.  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." 

;Batmobile

Batman's primary vehicle is the Batmobile, which is usually depicted as an imposing black car, often with tailfins that suggest a bat's wings. Batman also has an aircraft called the Batplane (later called the "Batwing"), along with various other means of transportation. 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. For example, the 1960s television show depicted a Batboat, Bat-Sub, and Batcycle, among other bat-themed vehicles. 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. In The Dark Knight Returns, Batman tells Carrie Kelley that the original Robin came up with the name "Batmobile" when he was young, since that is what a kid would call Batman's vehicle. The Batmobile was redesigned in 2011 when DC Comics relaunched its entire line of comic books, with the batmobile being given heavier armor and new aesthetics.

;Utility belt

Batman keeps most of his field equipment in his utility belt. Over the years it has shown to contain an assortment of crime-fighting tools, weapons, and investigative and technological instruments. Different versions of the belt have these items stored in compartments, often as pouches or hard cylinders attached evenly around it. Batman is often depicted as carrying a projectile which shoots a retractable grappling hook attached to a cable. This allows him to attach to distant objects, be propelled into the air, and thus swing from the rooftops of Gotham City. An exception to the range of Batman's equipment are guns, which he refuses to use on principle, since a gun was used in his parents' murder.

;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.

Other equipment

Batman uses a large arsenal of specialized, high-tech vehicles and gadgets in his war against crime, the designs of which usually share a bat motif. Batman historian Les Daniels credits Gardner Fox with creating the concept of Batman's arsenal with the introduction of the utility belt in Detective Comics #29 (July 1939) and the first bat-themed weapons the batarang and the "Batgyro" in Detective Comics #31 and #32 (September; October 1939).

Supporting characters

Batman's interactions with both villains and cohorts have, over time, developed a strong supporting cast of characters.

Adversaries

Batman faces a variety of foes ranging from common criminals to outlandish supervillains. Many of them mirror aspects of the Batman's character and development, often having tragic origin stories that lead them to a life of crime. These foes are commonly referred to as Batman's "rogues gallery". Batman's "most implacable foe" is the Joker, a homicidal maniac with a clown-like appearance. The Joker is considered by critics to be his perfect adversary, since he is the antithesis of Batman in personality and appearance; the Joker has a maniacal demeanor with a colorful appearance, while Batman has a serious and resolute demeanor with a dark appearance. As a "personification of the irrational", the Joker represents "everything Batman [opposes]". Other long time recurring foes that are part of Batman's rogues gallery include Catwoman (a cat burglar antiheroine who is an occasional ally), the Penguin, Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face, the Riddler, the Scarecrow, Mr. Freeze, Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Bane, Clayface, and Killer Croc among others.

Allies

Alfred

Batman's butler, Alfred Pennyworth, first appeared in Batman #16 (1943). He serves as Bruce Wayne's loyal father figure and is one of the few persons to know his secret identity. Alfred raised Bruce after his parents' death and knows him on a very personal level. He is sometimes portrayed as a sidekick to Batman and the only other resident of Wayne Manor aside from Bruce. The character "[lends] a homely touch to Batman's environs and [is] ever ready to provide a steadying and reassuring hand" to the hero and his sidekick.Boichel, p. 8.

Batman family

The term "Batman family" is the informal name for a group of characters closely associated with Batman, generally costumed vigilantes who either have been trained by Batman or operate in Gotham City with his tacit approval. They  include Barbara Gordon, Commissioner Gordon's daughter, who has fought crime under the costumed identity of Batgirl and, during a period in which she was confined to a wheelchair due to a gunshot wound inflicted by the Joker, the computer hacker Oracle; Helena Bertinelli, the sole surviving member of a mob family turned  vigilante who has worked with Batman on occasion, primarily as the Huntress and as Batgirl for a brief stint; Cassandra Cain, the daughter of professional assassins David Cain and Lady Shiva, who succeeded Bertinelli as Batgirl.

Civilians

Lucius Fox, a technology specialist and Bruce Wayne's business manager who is well aware of his employer's clandestine vigilante activities; Dr. Leslie Thompkins, a family friend who like Alfred became a surrogate parental figure to Bruce Wayne after the deaths of his parents, and is also aware of his secret identity; Vicki Vale, an investigative journalist who often reports on Batman's activities for the Gotham Gazette; Ace the Bat-Hound, Batman's canine partner who was predominantly active in the 1950s and 1960s;  and Bat-Mite, an extra-dimensional imp predominately active in the 1960s who idolizes Batman.

GCPD

Commissioner James "Jim" Gordon, Batman's ally in the Gotham City police, debuted along with Batman in Detective Comics #27. Gordon has been a consistent presence ever since. As a crime-fighting everyman, he shares the Batman's goals while offering, much as the character of Watson does in Sherlock Holmes stories, a normal person's perspective on the work of an extraordinary genius.

Justice League

Batman is at times a member of superhero teams such as the Justice League of America and the Outsiders. Batman has often been paired in adventures with his Justice League teammate Superman, notably as the co-stars of World's Finest and Superman/Batman series. In pre-Crisis continuity, the two are depicted as close friends; however, in current continuity, they have a mutually respectful but uneasy relationship, with an emphasis on their differing views on crime-fighting and justice. In Superman/Batman #3 (December 2003), Superman observes, "Sometimes, I admit, I think of Bruce as a man in a costume. Then, with some gadget from his utility belt, he reminds me that he has an extraordinarily inventive mind. And how lucky I am to be able to call on him." 

Robin

A widely recognized supporting character for many years has been Batman's junior counterpart Robin.  Bill Finger stated that he wanted to include Robin because "Batman didn't have anyone to talk to, and it got a little tiresome always having him thinking."  The first Robin, Dick Grayson, was introduced in 1940. In the 1970s he finally grew up, went off to college and became the hero Nightwing. A second Robin, Jason Todd, appeared in the 1980s. In the stories he was eventually badly beaten and then killed in an explosion set by the Joker, but was later revived. He used the Joker's old persona, the Red Hood, and became an antihero vigilante with no qualms about using firearms or deadly force. Carrie Kelly, the first female Robin to appear in Batman stories, was the final Robin in the continuity of Frank Miller's graphic novels The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again, fighting alongside an aging Batman in stories set out of the mainstream continuity.

The third Robin in mainstream comics is Tim Drake, who first appeared in 1989. He went on to star in his own comic series, and currently goes by Red Robin, a variation on the traditional Robin persona. In the first decade of the new millennium, Stephanie Brown served as the fourth in-universe Robin between stints as her self-made costumed identity The Spoiler,  and later as Batgirl.  After Stephanie Brown's apparent death, Drake resumed the role of Robin for a time. The role eventually passed to Damian Wayne, the ten-year-old son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, in the late 2000s.  Damian's tenure as du jour Robin ended when the character was killed off in the pages of Batman Incorporated in 2013.  Batman's next young sidekick is Harper Row, a streetwise young woman who avoids the name Robin but followed the ornithological theme nonetheless; she debuted the codename and identity of Bluebird in 2014. Unlike the Robins, Bluebird is willing and permitted to use a gun, albeit non-lethal; her weapon of choice is a modified rifle that fires taser rounds.  In 2015, a new series titled We Are Robin will focus on a group of teenagers using the Robin persona to fight crime in Gotham City.

Wayne family

Helena Wayne is the biological daughter of Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle of an alternate universe established in the early 1960s (Multiverse) where the Golden Age stories took place.

Damian Wayne is the biological son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul,   and thus the grandson of Batman villain Ra's al Ghul.

Romantic interests

Writers have varied in the approach over the years to the "playboy" aspect of Bruce Wayne's persona. Some writers show his playboy reputation as a manufactured illusion to support his mission as Batman, while others have depicted Bruce Wayne as genuinely enjoying the benefits of being "Gotham's most eligible bachelor". Bruce Wayne has been portrayed as being romantically involved with many women throughout his various incarnations. The most significant relationships occurred with Selina Kyle  and Talia al Ghul, as both women gave birth to his biological offsprings, Helena Wayne and Damien Wayne, respectively.

Some of Batman's romantic interests have been women with a respected status in society, such as Julie Madison, Vicki Vale, and Silver St. Cloud. Batman has also been romantically involved with allies, such as Batwoman (Kathy Kane), Sasha Bordeaux, and Wonder Woman, and with villainesses, such as Catwoman, Jezebel Jet, and Talia al Ghul.

Catwoman

While most of Batman's romantic relationships tend to be short, the attraction between Batman and Catwoman is present in nearly every version and medium in which the characters appear. Although Catwoman has been historically portrayed as a supervillain, Batman and Catwoman have worked together in achieving common goals and are usually depicted as having a romantic relationship.

After the introduction of DC Comics' multiverse in the 1960s, DC established that stories from the Golden Age star the Earth-Two Batman, a character from a parallel world. This version of Batman partners with and marries the reformed Earth-Two Catwoman, Selina Kyle (as shown in Superman Family #211). They have a daughter named Helena Wayne, who, as the Huntress, becomes (along with Dick Grayson, the Earth-Two Robin) Gotham's protector once Wayne retires from the position to become police commissioner, a position he occupies until he is killed during one final adventure as Batman.

In an early 1980s storyline, Selina and Bruce develop a relationship, in which the closing panel of the final story shows her referring to Batman as "Bruce". However, a change in the editorial team brought a swift end to that storyline and, apparently, all that transpired during the story arc. Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle (out of costume) develop a relationship during The Long Halloween. The story shows Selina saving Bruce from Poison Ivy. However, the relationship ends when Bruce rejects her advances twice; once as Bruce and once as Batman. In Batman: Dark Victory, he stands her up on two holidays, causing her to leave him for good and to leave Gotham City for a while. When the two meet at an opera many years later, during the events of the twelve-issue story arc called Hush, Bruce comments that the two no longer have a relationship as Bruce and Selina. However, Hush sees Batman and Catwoman allied against the entire rogues gallery and rekindling their romantic relationship. In Hush, Batman reveals his true identity to Catwoman.

Batman and Catwoman are shown having a sexual encounter on a rooftop in Catwoman #1 (2011); the same issue implies that the two have had an ongoing sexual relationship. 

Fictional character biography

Batman's history has undergone various revisions, both minor and major. Few elements of the character's history have remained constant. Scholars William Uricchio and Roberta E. Pearson noted in the early 1990s, "Unlike some fictional characters, the Batman has no primary urtext set in a specific period, but has rather existed in a plethora of equally valid texts constantly appearing over more than five decades." 

20th century

Origin

The central fixed event in the Batman stories is the character's origin story. As a young boy, Bruce Wayne was horrified and traumatized when he watched his parents, the physician Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha, murdered by a mugger with a gun. Batman refuses to utilize any sort of gun on the principle that a gun was used to murder his parents. This event drove him to train his body to physical perfection and fight crime in Gotham City as Batman. Pearson and Uricchio also noted beyond the origin story and such events as the introduction of Robin, "Until recently, the fixed and accruing and hence, canonized, events have been few in number",  a situation altered by an increased effort by later Batman editors such as Dennis O'Neil to ensure consistency and continuity between stories. 

Golden Age

In Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics #27, he is already operating as a crime-fighter.  Batman's origin is first presented in Detective Comics #33 (November 1939) and is later expanded upon in Batman #47. As these comics state, Bruce Wayne is born to Dr. Thomas Wayne and his wife Martha, two very wealthy and charitable Gotham City socialites. Bruce is brought up in Wayne Manor, and leads a happy and privileged existence until the age of eight, when his parents are killed by a small-time criminal named Joe Chill while on their way home from a movie theater. That night, Bruce Wayne swears an oath to spend his life fighting crime. He engages in intense intellectual and physical training; however, he realizes that these skills alone would not be enough. "Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot", Wayne remarks, "so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible..." As if responding to his desires, a bat suddenly flies through the window, inspiring Bruce to take on the persona of Batman. 

In early strips, Batman's career as a vigilante earns him the ire of the police. During this period, Bruce Wayne has a fiancée named Julie Madison.  In Detective Comics #38, Wayne takes in an orphaned circus acrobat, Dick Grayson, who becomes his junior counterpart, Robin. Batman also becomes a founding member of the Justice Society of America,  although he, like Superman, is an honorary member,  and thus only participates occasionally. Batman's relationship with the law thaws quickly, and he is made an honorary member of Gotham City's police department.  During this time, Alfred Pennyworth arrives at Wayne Manor, and after deducing the Dynamic Duo's secret identities, joins their service as their butler. 

Silver Age

The Silver Age of Comic Books in DC Comics is sometimes held to have begun in 1956 when the publisher introduced Barry Allen as a new, updated version of The Flash. Batman is not significantly changed by the late 1950s for the continuity which would be later referred to as Earth-One. The lighter tone Batman had taken in the period between the Golden and Silver Ages led to the stories of the late 1950s and early 1960s that often feature many science-fiction elements, and Batman is not significantly updated in the manner of other characters until Detective Comics #327 (May 1964), in which Batman reverts to his detective roots, with most science-fiction elements jettisoned from the series.

After the introduction of DC Comics' multiverse in the 1960s, DC established that stories from the Golden Age star the Earth-Two Batman, a character from a parallel world. This version of Batman partners with and marries the reformed Earth-Two Catwoman, Selina Kyle (as shown in Superman Family #211). They have a daughter, Helena Wayne, who as the Huntress, becomes (along with Dick Grayson, the Earth-Two Robin) Gotham's protector once Wayne retires from the position to become police commissioner, a position he occupies until he is killed during one final adventure as Batman. Batman titles however often ignored that a distinction had been made between the pre-revamp and post-revamp Batmen (since unlike The Flash or Green Lantern, Batman comics had been published without interruption through the 1950s) and would occasionally make reference to stories from the Golden Age.  Nevertheless, details of Batman's history were altered or expanded upon through the decades. Additions include meetings with a future Superman during his youth, his upbringing by his uncle Philip Wayne (introduced in Batman #208, January/February 1969) after his parents' death, and appearances of his father and himself as prototypical versions of Batman and Robin, respectively.   In 1980 then-editor Paul Levitz commissioned the Untold Legend of the Batman limited series to thoroughly chronicle Batman's origin and history.

Batman meets and regularly works with other heroes during the Silver Age, most notably Superman, whom he began regularly working alongside in a series of team-ups in World's Finest Comics, starting in 1954 and continuing through the series' cancellation in 1986. Batman and Superman are usually depicted as close friends. As a founding member of the Justice League of America, Batman appears in its first story, in 1960's Brave and the Bold #28. In the 1970s and 1980s, Brave and the Bold became a Batman title, in which Batman teams up with a different DC Universe superhero each month.

Bronze Age

In 1969, Dick Grayson attends college as part of DC Comics' effort to revise the Batman comics. Additionally, Batman also moves from his mansion, Wayne Manor into a penthouse apartment atop the Wayne Foundation building in downtown Gotham City, in order to be closer to Gotham City's crime. Batman spends the 1970s and early 1980s mainly working solo, with occasional team-ups with Robin and/or Batgirl. Batman's adventures also become somewhat darker and more grim during this period, depicting increasingly violent crimes, including the first appearance (since the early Golden Age) of the Joker as a homicidal psychopath, and the arrival of Ra's al Ghul, a centuries-old terrorist who knows Batman's secret identity. In the 1980s, Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing.

In the final issue of Brave and the Bold in 1983, Batman quits the Justice League and forms a new group called the Outsiders. He serves as the team's leader until Batman and the Outsiders #32 (1986) and the comic subsequently changed its title.

Detective Comics #439 (1974) depicts Bruce Wayne as a graduate of Yale Law School, in which the final page shows a Yale Law School diploma hanging in Bruce Wayne's office. 

Modern Age

After the 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, DC Comics retconned the histories of some major characters in an attempt at updating them for contemporary audiences. Frank Miller retold Batman's origin in the storyline "Year One" from Batman #404–407, which emphasizes a grittier tone in the character.  Though the Earth-Two Batman is erased from history, many stories of Batman's Silver Age/Earth-One career (along with an amount of Golden Age ones) remain canonical in the post-Crisis universe, with his origins remaining the same in essence, despite alteration. For example, Gotham's police are mostly corrupt, setting up further need for Batman's existence. The guardian Phillip Wayne is removed leaving young Bruce to be raised by Alfred Pennyworth. Additionally, Batman is no longer a founding member of the Justice League of America, although he becomes leader for a short time of a new incarnation of the team launched in 1987. To help fill in the revised backstory for Batman following Crisis, DC launched a new Batman title called Legends of the Dark Knight in 1989 and has published various miniseries and one-shot stories since then that largely take place during the "Year One" period.

Subsequently, Batman begins exhibiting an excessive, reckless approach to his crime-fighting, a result of the pain of losing Jason Todd. Batman works solo until the decade's close, when Tim Drake becomes the new Robin. 

Many of the major Batman storylines since the 1990s have been inter-title crossovers that run for a number of issues. In 1993, DC published "Knightfall". During the storyline's first phase, the new villain Bane paralyzes Batman, leading Wayne to ask Azrael to take on the role. After the end of "Knightfall", the storylines split in two directions, following both the Azrael-Batman's adventures, and Bruce Wayne's quest to become Batman once more. The story arcs realign in "KnightsEnd", as Azrael becomes increasingly violent and is defeated by a healed Bruce Wayne. Wayne hands the Batman mantle to Dick Grayson (then Nightwing) for an interim period, while Wayne trains for a return to the role. 

The 1994 company-wide crossover storyline "Zero Hour" changes aspects of DC continuity again, including those of Batman. Noteworthy among these changes is that the general populace and the criminal element now considers Batman an urban legend rather than a known force.

Batman once again becomes a member of the Justice League during Grant Morrison's 1996 relaunch of the series, titled JLA. During this time, Gotham City faces catastrophe in the decade's closing crossover arc. In 1998's "Cataclysm" storyline, Gotham City is devastated by an earthquake and ultimately cut off from the United States. Deprived of many of his technological resources, Batman fights to reclaim the city from legions of gangs during 1999's "No Man's Land".

Meanwhile, Batman's relationship with the Gotham City Police Department changed for the worse with the events of "Batman: Officer Down" and "Batman: War Games/War Crimes"; Batman's long-time law enforcement allies Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Bullock are forced out of the police department in "Officer Down", while "War Games" and "War Crimes" saw Batman become a wanted fugitive after a contingency plan of his to neutralize Gotham City's criminal underworld is accidentally triggered, resulting in a massive gang war that ends with the sadistic Black Mask the undisputed ruler of the city's criminal gangs. Lex Luthor arranges for the murder of Batman's on-again, off-again love interest Vesper (introduced in the mid-1990s) during the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" and "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive" story arcs. Though Batman is able to clear his name, he loses another ally in the form of his new bodyguard Sasha, who is recruited into the organization known as "Checkmate" while stuck in prison due to her refusal to turn state's evidence against her employer. While he was unable to prove that Luthor was behind the murder of Vesper, Batman does get his revenge with help from Talia al Ghul in Superman/Batman #1–6.

21st century

DC's 2005 limited series Identity Crisis reveals that JLA member Zatanna had altered Batman's memories to prevent him from stopping the League from lobotomizing Dr. Light after he sexually assaulted Sue Dibny. Batman later creates the Brother I satellite surveillance system to watch over and if necessary, kill the other heroes. The revelation of Batman's creation and his tacit responsibility for Blue Beetle's death becomes a driving force in the lead-up to the Infinite Crisis miniseries, which again restructures DC continuity. Batman and a team of superheroes destroy Brother Eye and the OMACs, though at the very end Batman reaches his apparent breaking point when Alexander Luthor Jr. seriously wounds Nightwing. Picking up a gun, Batman nearly shoots Luthor in order to avenge his former sidekick, until Wonder Woman convinces him to not pull the trigger.

Following Infinite Crisis, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson (having recovered from his wounds), and Tim Drake retrace the steps Bruce had taken when he originally left Gotham City, to "rebuild Batman".  In the Face the Face storyline, Batman and Robin return to Gotham City after their year-long absence. Part of this absence is captured during Week 30 of the 52 series, which shows Batman fighting his inner demons.  Later on in 52, Batman is shown undergoing an intense meditation ritual in Nanda Parbat. This becomes an important part of the regular Batman title, which reveals that Batman is reborn as a more effective crime fighter while undergoing this ritual, having "hunted down and ate" the last traces of fear in his mind.   At the end of the "Face the Face" story arc, Bruce officially adopts Tim (who had lost both of his parents at various points in the character's history) as his son.  The follow-up story arc in Batman, Batman and Son, introduces Damian Wayne, who is Batman's son with Talia al Ghul. Although originally in Son of the Demon, Bruce's coupling with Talia was implied to be consensual, this arc ret-conned it into Talia forcing herself on Bruce.Batman issue 656 published October 2006:Bruce: "I remember being drugged senseless and refusing to co-operate in some depraved eugenics experiment."Talia: "Believe me, you cooperated... magnificently."

Batman, along with Superman and Wonder Woman, reforms the Justice League in the new Justice League of America series,  and is leading the newest incarnation of the Outsiders. 

Grant Morrison's 2008 storyline, "Batman R.I.P." featured Batman being physically and mentally broken by the enigmatic villain Doctor Hurt and attracted news coverage in advance of its highly promoted conclusion, which would speculated to feature the death of Bruce Wayne.   However, though Batman is shown to possibly perish at the end of the arc, the two-issue arc "Last Rites", which leads into the crossover storylines "Final Crisis", shows that Batman survives his helicopter crash into the Gotham City River and returns to the Batcave, only to be summoned to the Hall of Justice by the JLA to help investigate the New God Orion's death. The story ends with Batman retrieving the god-killing bullet used to kill Orion, setting up its use in "Final Crisis".  In the pages of Final Crisis Batman is reduced to a charred skeleton.  In Final Crisis #7 Wayne is shown witnessing the passing of the first man, Anthro.   Wayne's "death" sets up the three-issue Battle for the Cowl miniseries in which Wayne's ex-proteges compete for the "right" to assume the role of Batman, which concludes with Grayson becoming Batman,  while Tim Drake takes on the identity of Red Robin.  Dick and Damian continue as Batman and Robin, and in the crossover storyline "Blackest Night", what appears to be Bruce's corpse is reanimated as a Black Lantern zombie,  but is later shown that Bruce's corpse is one of Darkseid's failed Batman clones. Dick and Batman's other friends conclude that Bruce is alive.  

Bruce subsequently returns in Morrison's miniseries Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, which depicts his travels through time from prehistory to present-day Gotham.    Bruce's return sets up Batman Incorporated, an ongoing series which focuses on Wayne franchising the Batman identity across the globe, allowing Dick and Damian to continue as Gotham's Dynamic Duo. Bruce publicly announces that Wayne Enterprises will aid Batman on his mission, known as "Batman, Incorporated". Due to rebooted continuity that occurred as part of DC's 2011 relaunch of all of its book, The New 52, however, Grayson is restored as Nightwing with Wayne serving as the sole Batman once again. The relaunch also interrupts the publication of Batman, Incorporated, which resumed its story in 2012-2013 with changes to suit the new status quo.

Cultural impact

Batman has become a pop culture icon, recognized around the world. The character's presence has extended beyond his comic book origins; events such as the release of the 1989 Batman film and its accompanying merchandising "brought the Batman to the forefront of public consciousness". In an article commemorating the sixtieth anniversary of the character, The Guardian wrote, "Batman is a figure blurred by the endless reinvention that is modern mass culture. He is at once an icon and a commodity: the perfect cultural artefact for the 21st century." 

In addition, media outlets have often used the character in trivial and comprehensive surveys — Forbes magazine estimated Bruce Wayne to be the 8th-richest fictional character with his $6.9 billion fortune, several places after Iron Man, who is at 5.  BusinessWeek listed the character as one of the ten most intelligent superheroes appearing in American comics.  Entertainment Weekly named Batman as one of The 20 All Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture.  Batman was placed on AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains from the 1989 feature film by the American Film Institute.  In 2013, ComicsAlliance ranked Batman's alter ego Bruce Wayne as #46 on their list of the "50 Sexiest Male Characters in Comics".  The character was the focus of the 2008 non-fiction book Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero by E. Paul Zehr.

In other media

The character of Batman has appeared in various media aside from comic books, such as newspaper syndicated comic strips, books, radio dramas, television, a stage show, and several theatrical feature films. The first adaptation of Batman was as a daily newspaper comic strip which premiered on October 25, 1943.  That same year the character was adapted in the 15-part serial Batman, with Lewis Wilson becoming the first actor to portray Batman on screen. While Batman never had a radio series of his own, the character made occasional guest appearances in The Adventures of Superman starting in 1945 on occasions when Superman voice actor Bud Collyer needed time off.  A second movie serial, Batman and Robin, followed in 1949, with Robert Lowery taking over the role of Batman. The exposure provided by these adaptations during the 1940s "helped make [Batman] a household name for millions who never bought a comic book".

In the 1964 publication of Donald Barthelme's collection of short stories "Come Back, Dr. Caligari", Barthelme wrote "The Joker's Greatest Triumph". Batman is portrayed for purposes of spoof as a pretentious French-speaking rich man. 

In television

The Batman television series, starring Adam West, premiered in January 1966 on the ABC television network. Inflected with a camp sense of humor, the show became a pop culture phenomenon. In his memoir, Back to the Batcave, West notes his dislike for the term 'camp' as it was applied to the 1960s series, opining that the show was instead a farce or lampoon, and a deliberate one, at that. The series ran for 120 episodes; ending in 1968. In between the first and second season of the Batman television series, the cast and crew made the theatrical film Batman (1966). The Kinks performed the theme song from the Batman show on their 1967 album Live at Kelvin Hall.

The popularity of the Batman TV series also resulted in the first animated adaptation of Batman in The Batman/Superman Hour;  the Batman segments of the series were repackaged as The Adventures of Batman and Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder which produced thirty-three episodes between 1968 and 1977. From 1973 until 1986, Batman had a starring role in ABC's Super Friends series; which was animated by Hanna-Barbera. Olan Soule was the voice of Batman in all these shows, but was eventually replaced during Super Friends by Adam West, who also voiced the character in Filmation's 1977 series The New Adventures of Batman.

In 1992, the DC Animated Universe-contunuity premiered with Batman: The Animated Series on the Fox television network; produced by Warner Bros. Animation and featuring Kevin Conroy as the voice of Batman. The series received considerable acclaim for its darker tone, mature writing, stylistic design and thematic complexity compared to previous superhero cartoons,   in addition to multiple Emmy Awards.  The series' success led to the theatrical film Batman: Mask of the Phantasm (1993),  as well as various spin-off TV series; including Superman: The Animated Series, The New Batman Adventures, Justice League and Justice League Unlimited (each of which also featured Conroy as Batman). The futuristic series Batman Beyond also took place in this same animated continuity and featured a newer, younger Batman voiced by Will Friedle, with the elderly Bruce Wayne (again voiced by Conroy) as a mentor.

In 2004, an unrelated animated series titled The Batman made its debut with Rino Romano as the title character. In 2008, this show was replaced by another animated series, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, featuring Diedrich Bader as Batman.

In 2013, a new CGI-animated series titled Beware the Batman made its debut, with Anthony Ruivivar as Batman.  In 2014, the live-action TV series Gotham premiered on the Fox network; featuring David Mazouz as a 12-year-old Bruce Wayne.

In films

The initial Batman film-continuity began in 1989, when Warner Bros. released the live-action feature film Batman; directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton as the title character. The film was a huge success; not only was it the top-grossing film of the year, but at the time was the fifth highest-grossing film in history.  The film also won the Academy Award for Best Art Direction.  The film's success spawned three sequels: Batman Returns (1992), Batman Forever (1995) and Batman & Robin (1997); the latter two of which were directed by Joel Schumacher instead of Burton, and replaced Keaton as Batman with Val Kilmer and George Clooney, respectively. The second Schumacher film, while a box office success, failed to outgross any of its predecessors and was critically panned; causing Warner Bros. to cancel the planned fourth sequel, Batman Unchained,  and place the film series on hiatus.

The Dark Knight Trilogy-continuity began in 2005, when Batman Begins was released by Warner Bros. as a reboot of the film series; directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Christian Bale as Batman. Its sequel, The Dark Knight (2008), set the record for the highest grossing opening weekend of all time in the U.S., earning approximately $158 million,  and became the fastest film to reach the $400 million mark in the history of American cinema (eighteenth day of release).  These record-breaking attendances saw The Dark Knight end its run as the second-highest domestic grossing film (at the time) with $533 million, bested then only by Titanic.  The film also won two Academy Awards, including Best Supporting Actor for the late Heath Ledger.  It was eventually followed by another sequel, The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which served as a conclusion to Nolan's film series.

The DC Extended Universe-contunuity began in 2013, when Warner Bros. announced that Ben Affleck would be portraying Batman in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016). 

In 2014, a short film based on Batman Beyond created by Darwyn Cooke aired on Cartoon Network's DC Nation block for Batman's 75th Anniversary. The short features the original voice cast of the show, as well as cameos of robotic batmen from The New Batman Adventures, Beware the Batman, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, The Dark Knight Returns, Michael Keaton's Batman, Adam West's Batman, and the original comic book Batman from 1939.  Another short film titled Batman: Strange Days directed by Bruce Timm (the co-creator of Batman: The Animated Series) also aired on the DC Nation block; based on the look of the original 1939 Batman comics.  A Lego-themed version of Batman was also featured as one of the protagonists of the animated film The Lego Movie (2014); voiced by Will Arnett. 

Since 2008, Batman has also starred in various direct-to-video animated films under the DC Universe Animated Original Movies banner. Kevin Conroy has reprised his voice role of Batman for several of these films, while others have featured celebrity voice actors in the role; including Jeremy Sisto, William Baldwin, Bruce Greenwood, Ben McKenzie and Peter Weller. 

In video games

Batman has also starred in multiple video games, most of which were adaptations of the various cinematic or animated incarnations of the character. Among the most successful of these was the Batman: Arkham-continuity. The first installment, Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), was released by Rocksteady Studios to critical acclaim; review aggregator Metacritic reports it as having received 92% positive reviews.  It was followed by the sequel Batman: Arkham City (2011), which also received widespread acclaim and holds a Metacritic ranking of 94%.  A prequel game titled Batman: Arkham Origins (2013) was later released by WB Games Montréal.  More recently, a fourth game titled Batman: Arkham Knight (2015) has been released by Rocksteady.  As with most animated Batman productions, Kevin Conroy has provided the voice of the character for these games; excluding Arkham Origins, in which the younger Batman is voiced by Roger Craig Smith.

Batman impersonators

The Dark Knight inspired people around the world such as the American superhero, Leonard B. Robinson also known as "the Baltimore Batman". Robinson used the Batman image to bring joy and happiness to children in hospitals and schools in the Baltimore area. A video of Robinson being stopped by the police due to him having a Bat symbol for a license plate propelled his crusade to comfort sick children and attribute solidarity among the parents of those same children. On August 16, 2015, Robinson died when a motor vehicle struck him at a stop which caused many people in the Baltimore area such as the Baltimore Ravens's Ray Lewis to express their grief and loss over Robinson's death. 

Gay interpretations

Gay interpretations of the character have been part of the academic study of Batman since psychologist Fredric Wertham asserted in Seduction of the Innocent in 1954 that "Batman stories are psychologically homosexual ... The Batman type of story may stimulate children to homosexual fantasies, of the nature of which they may be unconscious."Wertham, Fredric. Seduction of the Innocent. Rinehart and Company, Inc., 1954. pp. 189–90.For discussion of Wertham's impact see Brooker (2001). Andy Medhurst wrote in his 1991 essay "Batman, Deviance, and Camp" that Batman is interesting to gay audiences because "he was one of the first fictional characters to be attacked on the grounds of his presumed homosexuality".   Professor of film and cultural studies Will Brooker argues the validity of a queer reading of Batman, and that gay readers would naturally find themselves drawn to the lifestyle depicted within, whether the character of Bruce Wayne himself were explicitly gay or not. He also identifies a homophobic element to the vigour with which mainstream fandom rejects the possibility of a gay reading of the character. 

Creators associated with the character have expressed their own opinions. Writer Alan Grant has stated, "The Batman I wrote for 13 years isn't gay ... everybody's Batman all the way back to Bob Kane ... none of them wrote him as a gay character. Only Joel Schumacher might have had an opposing view."  Frank Miller views the character as sublimating his sexual urges into crimefighting, concluding, "He'd be much healthier if he were gay."  Grant Morrison said that "Gayness is built into Batman ... Obviously as a fictional character he's intended to be heterosexual, but the basis of the whole concept is utterly gay. I think that's why people like it. All these women fancy him and they all wear fetish clothes and jump around rooftops to get to him. He doesn't care—he's more interested in hanging out with the old guy and the kid." 

In 2000, DC refused permission for the reprinting of four panels (from Batman #79, 92, 105 and 139) to illustrate Christopher York's paper All in the Family: Homophobia and Batman Comics in the 1950s.  In 2005, painter Mark Chamberlain displayed a number of watercolors depicting both Batman and Robin in suggestive and sexually explicit poses,  prompting DC to threaten legal action. 

Notes Gotham City ( ) or Gotham is a fictional American city appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics, best known as the home of Batman. Batman's place of residence was first identified as Gotham City in Batman #4 (Winter 1940). New York Times journalist William Safire described Gotham City as "New York City below 14th Street, from SoHo to Greenwich Village, the Bowery, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the sinister areas around the base of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges."  Batman artist Neal Adams sees the 1940s mobster history of Chicago as the basis for Gotham, while other comic creators have stated that Metropolis is New York in the daytime and Gotham City is New York at night. 

Locations used as inspiration or filming locations for the urban portion of Gotham City in the live-action Batman films have included Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, and New York City. English country house locations in Nottinghamshire, Hertfordshire, and Buckinghamshire, as well as Stevenson Taylor Hall in New York, have been used to depict the less urban setting of Wayne Manor in live-action films.

Origin of name

Writer Bill Finger, on the naming of the city and the reason for changing Batman's locale from New York City to a fictional city, said, "Originally I was going to call Gotham City 'Civic City.' Then I tried 'Capital City,' then 'Coast City.' Then I flipped through the New York City phone book and spotted the name 'Gotham Jewelers' and said, 'That's it,' Gotham City. We didn't call it New York because we wanted anybody in any city to identify with it." 

"Gotham" had long been a well-known nickname for New York City even prior to Batman's 1939 introduction,  which explains why "Gotham Jewelers" and many other businesses in New York City have the word "Gotham" in them. The nickname became popular in the nineteenth century; Washington Irving had first attached it to New York in the November 11, 1807 edition of his Salmagundi,Burrows, Edwin G. and Mike Wallace. Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898. (Oxford University Press, 1999), 417. a periodical which lampooned New York culture and politics. Irving took the name from the village of Gotham, Nottinghamshire, England, a place inhabited, according to folklore, by fools.   The village's name derives from Old English gāt 'goat' and hām 'home', literally "homestead where goats are kept",  and is pronounced , like the word goat (cf. Chatham, , a similar name where the letters th represent a "t" sound followed by a silent "h" rather than a "th" sound). The Joker references this etymology in Detective Comics #880, in which he tells Batman that the word means "a safe place for goats".  In contrast, "Gotham" as used for New York has a different pronunciation by analogy to other words spelled with "th" and is pronounced as , 
like the word Goth.

Fictional history

In Swamp Thing #53, Alan Moore wrote a fictional history for Gotham City that other writers have generally followed. According to Moore's tale, a Norwegian mercenary, Captain Jon Logerquist, founded Gotham City in 1635 and the British later took it over—a story that parallels the founding of New York by the Dutch (as New Amsterdam) and later takeover by the British.  During the American Revolutionary War, Gotham City was the site of a major battle (paralleling the Battle of Brooklyn in the American Revolution). This was detailed in Rick Veitch's Swamp Thing #85 featuring Tomahawk. Rumors held it to be the site of various occult rites.

The occult origins of Gotham are further delved into by Peter Milligan's 1990 story arc "Dark Knight, Dark City",  which reveals that some of the American Founding Fathers are involved in summoning a bat-demon which becomes trapped beneath old "Gotham Town", its dark influence spreading as Gotham City evolves. A similar trend is followed in 2005's Shadowpact #5 by Bill Willingham, which expands upon Gotham's occult heritage by revealing a being who has slept for 40,000 years beneath the land upon which Gotham City was built. Strega, the being's servant, says that the "dark and often cursed character" of the city was influenced by the being who now uses the name "Doctor Gotham."

During the American Civil War, it was defended by an ancestor of the Penguin, fighting for the Union Army, Col. Nathan Cobblepot, in the Legendary Battle of Gotham Heights. In Gotham Underground #2 by Frank Tieri, Tobias Whale claims that 19th century Gotham was run by five rival gangs, until the first "masks" appeared, eventually forming a gang of their own. It is not clear whether these were vigilantes or costumed criminals.

Many storylines have added more events to Gotham's history, at the same time greatly affecting the city and its people. Perhaps the greatest in effect was a long set of serial storylines, which started with Ra's al Ghul releasing a debilitating virus called the "Clench" during the Contagion storyline. As that arc concluded, the city was beginning to recover, only to suffer an earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter Scale in the 1998 "Cataclysm" storyline. This resulted in the federal government cutting Gotham off from the rest of the United States in the 1999 storyline "No Man's Land". This trio of storylines allowed writers the freedom to redefine the nature and mood of the city. The result suggested a harder city with a more resilient, resourceful, and cynical populace; a more dramatic and varied architecture; and more writing possibilities by attributing new locales to the rebuilding of the city.

The name "Gotham City" is generally associated with DC Comics, although it also appears in the first Mr. Scarlet story by France Herron and Jack Kirby from Wow Comics #1. Kirby historian Greg Theakston notes that this was published December 13, 1940, shortly before Batman #4 was published.
A city called "Gotham City" also appears in Captain America Comics #10 (January 1942), in a story called "Hotel of Horror".

In the storyline 'Court of Owls', it was shown that the Court of Owls' have been lording over Gotham for centuries.

Atmosphere

In terms of atmosphere, Batman writer and editor Dennis O'Neil has said that, figuratively, "Batman's Gotham City is Manhattan below Fourteenth Street at eleven minutes past midnight on the coldest night in November."  Batman artist Neal Adams has long believed that Chicago, with its proliferation of mobsters in the 1940s, was the basis for Gotham, commenting, "Chicago has had a reputation for a certain kind of criminality," says Adams, who lives in New York. "Batman is in this kind of corrupt city and trying to turn it back into a better place. One of the things about Chicago is Chicago has alleys (which are virtually nonexistent in New York). Back alleys, that's where Batman fights all the bad guys." The statement "Metropolis is New York in the daytime; Gotham City is New York at night" has been variously attributed to comics creators Frank Miller and John Byrne

Gotham City's atmosphere took on a lighter tone in the comics of the 1950s and part of the 1960s, similar to the tone of Batman stories of that era. However, by the early 1970s, particularly with Dennis O'Neil becoming a prominent Batman writer,  the tone of the city, along with that of the stories, had become grittier. (Significantly, by the 1970s, Gotham's real-life counterpart, New York, had lost much of its 1960s "Fun City" luster and was beset by urban problems including public fear of rising crime, a declining economy, police corruption and municipal financial mismanagement). In most stories since the 70s, the portrayal of Gotham is that of a dark and foreboding metropolis rife with crime, grime, corruption, and a deep-seated sense of urban decay. This tone was particularly prominent in the parts of the city not rejuvenated post-"No Man's Land".

During his run as a writer, Batman scribe Grant Morrison brought about a more optimistic interpretation of Gotham City. As Morrison stated: "If Gotham was so bloody awful, no one normal would live there and there'd be no one to protect from criminals. If Gotham really was an open sewer of crime and corruption, every story set there would serve to demonstrate the complete and utter failure of Batman's mission, which isn't really the message we want to send, is it? You've got Batman and all his allies as well as Commissioner Gordon and the city still exudes a vile miasma of darkness and death? I can't buy that. It's simply not realistic and flies in the face of in-story logic (and you know I like my comics realistic!) so my artists and I have taken a different tack and we want to show the cool, vibrant side of Gotham, the energy and excitement that would draw people to live and visit there." 

Architecture

Different artists have depicted Gotham City in different ways. They often base their interpretations on various real architectural periods and styles with exaggerated characteristics, such as massively multi-tiered flying buttresses on Gothic cathedrals or the huge art deco and art nouveau statuary seen in Tim Burton's movie version. Cyberpunk, Japanese, and Greek elements were presented in Joel Schumacher's series of films.

Christopher Nolan, who once lived in Chicago, effected a depiction of Gotham that featured distinct Chicago architecture and which is cartographically based on the canon DC map of Gotham. Batman Begins features a CGI augmented version of Chicago while The Dark Knight more directly features Chicago infrastructure and architecture such as Navy Pier: however, The Dark Knight Rises abandoned Chicago, instead shooting in Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, New Jersey, London and Glasgow.

Within the Batman comics, the person cited as being influential in promoting the unique architecture of Gotham City during the pre-American Civil War era was Judge Solomon Wayne, Bruce Wayne's ancestor. His campaign to reform Gotham came to a head when he met a young architect named Cyrus Pinkney. Wayne commissioned Pinkney to design and to build the first "Gotham Style" structures in what became the center of the city's financial district. The "Gotham Style" idea of the writers matches parts of the Gothic Revival in style and timing. In the storyline Batman: Gothic the Gotham Cathedral plays a central role for the story as it is built by Mr. Whisper. Whisper is man who has sold his soul to the devil. Mr. Whisper is the antagonist in the story. In a 1992 storyline, a man obsessed with Pinkney's architecture blew up several Gotham buildings in order to reveal the Pinkney structures they had hidden; the editorial purpose behind this was to transform the city depicted in the comics to resemble the designs created by Anton Furst for the 1989 Batman film.   
Alan Wayne expanded upon his father's ideas and built a bridge to expand the city. Edward Elliot and Theodore Cobblepot also each had a bridge named for them.

Arkham Asylum: Living Hell mentions the "Sprang Act", which forbids Gothamite businesses from advertising on rooftops. It was passed after minor villain Humpty Dumpty over-wound the mainspring of the city hall clock, causing the hour hand to jump off and knock one of the billboards down, causing a chain reaction. 

After the "No Man's Land" and "Cataclysm" storylines, Lex Luthor took on the task of rebuilding Gotham City, replacing many of Gotham's old art deco and Gothic structures with modern glass skyscrapers and buildings.

Police and corruption

A common theme in stories set in Gotham is the rampant and recurring corruption within the city's civil authorities and infrastructure, most notably within the Gotham City Police Department. During stories set early in Batman's career (most notably Batman: Year One), Commissioner Gillian B. Loeb was depicted as having his hands in many pockets. However, Batman found evidence for conspiracy charges, forcing Loeb to resign his position. Later stories depicted subsequent commissioners as also being corruptible, or open to various forms of influence. In other stories, Batman has had to take on crooked cops, either acting in collusion with supervillains, working for the mob, or on their own. Later stories, featuring James Gordon as the new Commissioner, show the two characters often uniting to purge corruption from the force. Gordon was the commissioner for about 9 to 10 years of continuity, then retired, handing the police force over to his replacement, Commissioner Akins. Recent stories have returned Gordon to the position of Commissioner, unfortunately to find corruption taking a greater hold since his departure. Corruption escalates during Batman Eternal when Gordon is framed for causing a major train accident and a new commissioner is appointed with ties to the old gangs, but Batman and his allies are eventually able to replace him with their ally Jason Bard, only for Bard to resign when he is revealed to have been working with Hush to destroy Batman. During Bruce Wayne's temporary 'retirement' after he was left with amnesia following his last battle with the Joker, the police department even created their own Batman using various donated technology, with Gordon acting as the GCPD's official Batman, but he returned to his old role in the department after the true Batman returned. In the 1966 television series, Batman, the Gotham City police force was not a focus of the stories.

Gotham Underground

* Unified Crime Family
** Black Mask - During the events of "Batman: War Games", Roman "Black Mask" Sionis gains control over all gangs in Gotham City and works with The Society to kill Batman. After his criminal operations are systematically crippled by the Red Hood, he is eventually killed by Catwoman and a power vacuum leads to a series of gang wars. Jeremiah Arkham takeover the Black Mask persona after Sionis' death and reunifies the Gotham gangs. 
** Great White - Warren "the Great White Shark" White becomes the successor to Black Mask's crime empire, successfully running all crime in Gotham from inside Arkham Asylum.  During Intergang's bid for power, Great White is beaten and hidden behind a door in Blackgate prison in order to keep him out of the way. After freeing Arkham's inmates the new Black Mask takes control over Warren and his men.
* Crime Families
** Falcone Crime Family (Italian) - Run by Carmine "the Roman" Falcone, who maintained a stranglehold over all of Gotham City's crime before the rise of 'masks.' After he is murdered by Two-Face, his daughter, Sofia Gigante, takes control.  Upon her death and the murder of many other family members, the family loses its grasp on the city.  After an extended absence, Falcone's son, Mario, reclaimed some of the family's former power.
** Sullivan Crime Family (Irish) - Run by Mickey "the Mink" Sullivan, the family was considered subordinate to the Falcone family. After a failed attempt to kill Two-Face, they were killed in a hotel by Holiday.
** Ibanescu Crime Family (Romanian) - Run by Dragos "the Romanian" Ibanescu, the family was involved in animal fights, human trafficking and prostitution. They operate in the East End.
** Maroni Crime Family (Italian) - Run by Luigi "Big Lou" Maroni until his death, from which the family was inherited by Lou's son, Salvatore "the Italian" Maroni. The latter Maroni was responsible for scarring Harvey Dent, and murdered while in prison.
** Dimitrov Crime Family (Russian) - Run by Yuri "the Russian" Dimitrov, the family is continually at war with the Maroni Crime Family.
** Moxon Crime Family (British) - Run by a distant friend of the Wayne family, Lew Moxon, who held a vast empire until his tragic death.
** Odessa Crime Family (Ukrainian) - Run by Vasily and Alexandra Kosov, the family was taken over by Tobias Whale. 
** Riley Crime Family (Irish) - Run by Peyton Riley's father, Sean Riley until his death. It is implied that Johnny Sabatino killed him.
** Sabatino Crime Family (Italian) - Run by Johnny Sabatino, who married Peyton Riley to cement peace between the Irish and Italian mobs. Their loveless marriage erupted into violence when he tried to kill her. Peyton allied with Scarface to kill Johnny, but all were apparently killed during the struggle. 
** Yakuza - Run by Akahara until his death in a shoot-out in War Games.
* Gangs
** All-Americans - One of the first gangs in Gotham since the late 1800s.
** Free Men - One of the first gangs in Gotham since the late 1800s.
** Wound Ravens (Irish) - One of the first gangs in Gotham since the late 1800s.
** East-Siders (Italian) - One of the first gangs in Gotham since the late 1800s.
** Jewish Sons of David (Israeli) - One of the first gangs in Gotham since the late 1800s.
** Ghost Dragons (Chinese) - Run by Sir Edmumd "the King Snake" Dorrance until his death at the hands of Lynx, who was assigned as the gangs field commander, to gain control over the gang. Lynx was accidentally beheaded by one of her own gang members.
** Golden Dragons (Chinese) - Gotham branch of the Hong Kong-based gang. Their leader is the new Lynx.
** Hanoi Ten (Vietnamese) - Rivals of the Golden Dragons.
** League of Assassins (Arabian) - Run by Ra's "the Demon's Head" al Ghul, this eco-terrorist organization is made up of the most dangerous assassins in the world, orchestrating the method to give the world a perfect environmental balance through injustice, without hesitation or fear of death.
** Joker's Gang - Run by the Joker, this gang enact in various schemes and heights made just for fun and to look like "bad jokes". Although not known for their intelligence, they have a nihilistic outlook and borderline insanity, dressing up as clowns and circus people to associate themselves with the Joker.
** Scarecrow's Gang - Run by Dr. Jonathan "the Scarecrow" Crane, this gang is augmented by the Scarecrow's "fear toxin" to look ethereal and demonic, warping the perceptions of their victims and ranging from a common criminal to a vast gallery of monstrous and misleading hallucinations.
** Riddler's Gang - Run by Edward "the Riddler" Nashton, this gang are known to leave riddles and puzzles leading to a deathtrap at their crime scenes.
** Penguin's Gang - Run by Oswald "the Penguin" Cobblepot, this gang was once the premier power in Gotham until it was ousted by Intergang but was restored by Batman. The Penguin is currently fighting for dominance over Two-Face's gang.
** Two-Face's Gang - Run by Harvey "Two-Face" Dent, the dominance over this gang is currently being fought over by the Penguin.
** Bane's Gang - Run by the King Snake's son, Bane, this gang earn the right to obtain and be supplied with Bane's Venom drug to make them look tougher.
** False Facers - Run by Roman "the Black Mask" Sionis, this gang wears a mask of their own choosing to conceal their features. Black Mask was never able to reform the gang after they were all seemingly killed during a bank robbery by Killer Croc, the gang itself has been ever since disbanded.
** Sprang Bridge Soldiers - Control Robbinsville, almost taken over by Jason Todd.
** Blackgaters - Briefly taken over by Jason Todd in an attempt to unite the gangs against the Underground.
** Intergang - Run by Darkseid through Bruno "the Ugly" Mannheim, the gang employs Johnny Stitches to take control over the Gotham City underworld. They successfully take down Penguin's gang and buy out Tobias Whale to gain full control. 
** The Burnley Town Massive - Run by Able Crown, this gang was made up of several other street gangs in the Burnley Town district that were later wiped out in a gang war.
** The Mutants - Run by the mysterious Mutant Leader, this gang surfaced sometime after Batman's retirement brutal methods, advanced weaponry and vast numbers, making them too big of a threat for the GCPD to handle on their own. When Batman came out of retiremrent and defeated the Mutant Leader, the gang has ever since been disbanded and divided into splintered groups.
** Batboys
** Five Fingers
** Sirens
** Blue Flu Gang

Geography

Gotham City's geography, like other fictional cities' geographies in the DC Universe, has varied over the decades, because of changing writers, editors, and storylines. The majority of appearances place Gotham on the Northeastern coast of the United States, where New York City is located. Also, Manhattan is an island in the Northeastern United States, which corresponds to maps depicting Gotham City. However, the 1990 Atlas of the DC Universe states that Gotham is located in New Jersey, across the Delaware Bay from Metropolis, which would place it on the southern coast of New Jersey.

Historically, "Gotham" has been a nickname for New York City originating on November 11, 1807 by Washington Irving in his Salmagundi Papers.  DC Comics publisher and former president Paul Levitz says that Gotham is "New York from 14th Street down, the older buildings, more brick-and-mortar as opposed to steel-and-glass." New York Times journalist William Safire described Gotham City as "New York below 14th Street, from SoHo to Greenwich Village, the Bowery, Little Italy, Chinatown, and the sinister areas around the base of the Manhattan and Brooklyn Bridges."

'Batman: Shadow of the Bat,' Volume 1, Annual #1 (1993) establishes that Gotham City is in New Jersey. Sal E. Jordan's driver's license in the comic depicts his address is: 72 Faxcol Dr Gotham City, NJ 12345.

Relationship with Metropolis

Gotham City is frequently depicted to be within driving distance of Metropolis, the home of Superman. Like Gotham, Metropolis' location has also varied over the years. The distance between Gotham and Metropolis has varied greatly over the years, with depictions of the two ranging from being hundreds of miles apart to Gotham and Metropolis being shown as twin cities on opposite sides of Delaware Bay, with Gotham City in New Jersey and Metropolis in Delaware.  

In Bronze Age stories that depicted Metropolis and Gotham City as twin cities, the Metro-Narrows Bridge was said to be the main route connecting Metropolis to Gotham City.   It has been described as being the longest suspension bridge in the world. 

A map appeared in The New Adventures of Superboy #22 (October 1981), that showed Smallville within driving distance of both Metropolis and Gotham City. (In post-Crisis comics, Smallville was officially relocated to Kansas. ) 1990's The Atlas of the DC Universe also places Metropolis in Delaware and Gotham City in New Jersey. 

Notable residents

The various comic book series of the Batman family of books are set in Gotham, and feature characters such as Nightwing, Huntress, Black Canary, Barbara Gordon and Batwoman.

Other DC characters have also been depicted to be living in Gotham, such as mercenary Tommy Monaghan  and renowned demonologist Jason Blood.
Within modern DC Universe continuity, Batman is not the first hero in Gotham. Stories featuring Alan Scott, the Golden Age Green Lantern, set before and during World War II depict Scott living in Gotham, and later depictions show him running his Gotham Broadcasting Corporation. 

DC's 2011 reboot of All Star Western takes place in an Old West-styled Gotham. Jonah Hex and Amadeus Arkham are among this version of Gotham's inhabitants. 

Apart from Gotham's superhero residents, the residents of the city feature in a back-up series in Detective Comics called Tales of Gotham City  and in two limited series called Gotham Nights. Additionally, the Gotham City Police Department is the focus of the series Gotham Central, as well as the mini-series Gordon's Law, Bullock's Law, and GCPD.

Mayors in the comic books

Several mayors of Gotham have appeared in the comic book series that collectively form the Batman Family of titles:

Officers of the law in the comics

Features

Gotham City is a major economic center within the United States of the DC Universe. Its important industries include manufacturing; shipping; finance; fine arts, represented by its numerous museums, galleries, and jewelers; and the production of giant novelty props. In addition to its commercial seaport, it also supports a naval shipyard. 

Districts and locations

Otisburg

Otisburg is the district in Gotham that runs straight through the northern segment of the island and connects to Gotham County on the mainland.
* Stagg Enterprises is a multinational science company in Otisburg that specializes in various nation-wide industrial aspects and new, innovative methods in the fields of engineering, chemistry and genetics.
* Monarch Playing Cards is a playing card company next door to Ace Chemicals that the Red Hood gang attempted to rob before being gunned down using the Ace building as a shortcut.
* Knightsdome Sporting Complex is a sporting complex in the north-western section of Otisburg that hosts many of the city's major sporting teams and events.
* OMAC Base is the hideout of OMAC and his Brother Eye located underneath Knightsdome Sporting Complex.
* Ace Chemicals is a chemical company in the western area of Otisburg where one of its former engineers attempted to smuggle the Red Hood gang through so they can rob the Monarch Playing Cards company next door, but was stopped and tripped by Batman into one of the chemical vats, resulting his transformation into the Joker.  In the 1989 Tim Burton film, the company is "Axis Chemicals".
* The Stacked Deck is a seedy nightclub where the most notorious criminals hang out.
* Amusement Mile is an amusement park in the northern cape of Otisburg lined Ferris wheels, roller coasters and other attractions typical to a theme park.
** The Joker's Funhouse is a park attraction at the center of Amusement Mile owned and operated by the Joker, who uses it as the legitimate front for his criminal operations.
* GothCorp is a economical and pharmaceutical company rivaled by Wayne Enterprises. Its CEO is Ferris Boyle, who is responsible for the transformation of one of his employees, Victor Fries, into the supervillain Mr. Freeze. 
* S.T.A.R. Labs is in an multinational research company in that specializes in weaponry through its Gotham branch.
* Westward Bridge is the bridge that extends over the Gotham River to the west, connecting the Burnley district to Arkham Island.

Burnley

Burnley is the district that runs at center of Gotham.
* Gotham University is one of the city's oldest and most prestigious universities, giving rise to many of the nation's brilliant minds and thinkers. Among these former college students were the Batman adversaries Harleen "Harley Quinn" Quinzel, who studied psychology there via a gymnastics scholarship, and Jonathan "the Scarecrow" Crane, who once taught psychology there until he was fired for experimenting a fear-inducing toxin on his students. Founded in 1898, the university became a highlight in academic education, resulting in it possessing its own bank and a museum with a priceless art collection. Though its primary sport is American Football, the college also hosts high end Gymnastics and Golf teams.
* Von Gruenwald Enterprises is an economical and biological defense company in Burnley that specializes in various industrial aspects and advanced pharmaceutical research and development.
* WGTU Radio is a television station supported by Gotham University based on the real station in Traverse City, Michigan.
* Gotham Mercy General Hospital is Gotham's primary public hospital.
* Giordano Botanical Gardens is a reservation garden in Burnley that Poison Ivy sometimes uses as a hideout.
* Burnley Freight Yards is a chief location for importing and exporting material to and from the city that is most likely used by the Falcone Crime Family.
* Gotham Arms Apartment is an apartment complex located in the southern area of Burnley that use to display a sign with a design or symbol by which to identify an inn or tavern. For example, the "Gotham Arms" was identified by a Gotham Coat of Arms hung above the tavern's doorway to easily distinguish it from the city's other residential establishments.
* Old Gotham Subway is an underground series of abandoned subway tunnels located underneath Burnley.

East End

The East End is an underdeveloped part of Gotham laden with poverty, crime, prostitution, and the circulation of illegal drugs and weapons. Catwoman takes an active interest in protecting this area.
* Crime Alley is a small side street located in the East End. Formerly known as "Park Row", Crime Alley is a dangerous, crime-infested area. This is where Joe Chill killed Thomas Wayne and Martha Wayne in front of their young son Bruce after the family had visited an opera. In addition, this is the location where Batman first met Jason Todd when the youth attempted to steal the tires from the Batmobile. Crime Alley is also where Dr. Leslie Thompkins maintains her clinic. 
** Wayne Memorial is a memorial site in Crime Alley dedicated to Thomas and Martha Wayne. Although essentially a collection of roses placed over the spot where the Waynes fell, the site is maintained by Batman.
** Park Row Theater is a once-fashionable run-down movie theater in Crime Alley that, over the years, became infamous for being the last location Thomas and Martha Wayne visited before they lost their lives in a mugging in front of their son. The theatre quickly lost business and ran into bankruptcy, joining the rest of the district in corruption and decay.
* The Bowery is described as Gotham's worst neighborhood. Bordered by Crime Alley to the north, the neighborhood is home to Crown Point, a smaller inner-district ridden with crime, homelessness, and prostitution.
* Falcone Penthouse was the headquarters of the Falcone crime family before Two-Face killed Carmine Falcone himself. This was also the place where Batman first encountered Catwoman and Two-Face, all of this in Batman: The Long Halloween.
* The Cauldron is an area of Gotham known to be used as the headquarters of the Sullivan and Riley crime families. It is also home to some of the most prestigious hitmen in the city.
* Daggett Enterprises is a economical and pharmaceutical construction company opposing Wayne Enterprises that specializes in various industrial aspects, epidemical research and real estate development.
* Special Crimes Unit (SCU) is a police station that serves to accommodate police officers and other members of staff that are charged with overseeing the enforcement of law within the East End. To this end, the station is also home to the Bat-Signal and built to contain offices and accommodation for personnel and vehicles, along with locker rooms, temporary holding cells and interview/interrogation rooms. In The Dark Knight Trilogy, it is known as the Major Crimes Unit (MCU).
* Distribution Center is a hideout used by Bane slightly south of the SCU.
* Robert H. Kane Memorial Bridge is a colossal bridge constructed by the step-brothers Nicholas and Bradley Anders that connects the Eat End to Kane County.
* Robbinsville is a curved district on the East End's southern peninsula named after DC comics artist Frank Robbins.
* Cape Carmine is a cape at the end of Robbinsville that has always been under the occupation of organized crime.

Old Gotham

Old Gotham is the district more well known for the location of Oracle's Clock Tower and the GCPD headquarters.
* GCPD Headquarters is the primary headquarters for the Gotham City Police Department. The building itself had been a target for attacks from vandals, delinquents and supervillains alike, however, the building is always restored, rebuilt and refurnished to continue upholding the law and maintaining justice in a city filled with corruption.
* The Clocktower is a clock building which at one time contained the secret headquarters of Barbara Gordon, for her activities as Oracle.
* Gotham City Hall is the city's public institution where its city officials reside.
* Cathedral Square is the location of Gotham's main cathedral. The Cathedral was once intended to be the spiritual center of the city, with stone gargoyles and tolling bells watching over Gotham from its towers; designed conceptually to keep evil at bay, the Cathedral once dwarfed the surrounding buildings of the city.
* Riverfront Center is a bottled shopping center located in the northern area of Old Gotham, overlooking Miller Harbor.

Diamond

Diamond is a district of Gotham that is home to the city's wealthiest citizens.
* Wayne Enterprises is a economical military defense company in the Diamond District that specializes in various industrial aspects and advanced technological research and development.
* The Iceberg Lounge is a nightclub owned and operated by the Penguin. He uses the club as the legitimate front for his criminal operations. 
* Robbins Enterprises is an insurance company that specializes in various software research and development.
* The Gotham Gazette is one of the major newspapers in Gotham City. In the Silver Age comics, the editor-in-chief of Metropolis newspaper The Daily Planet, Perry White, had once worked for the Gazette early in his career. 

Robinson Park

Robinson Park is the city's main park. During "No Man's Land", Poison Ivy claimed this area as her own.

Chinatown

Chinatown is a district that is home to a solid and traditional Chinese community. Known for its restaurants and oriental markets, Chinatown residents seem to consider themselves a self-contained community and neither ask for nor feel that they require assistance from "outsiders". The district's main street could be accessed through an ornate golden gateway on Gate Street.
* Vincefinkel Bridge is a bridge that connects Chinatown to the mainland out west. Originally known as the Brown Bridge before the No Man's Land incident, the Vincefinkel Bridge stretches across the Gotham River.

Blackgate Isle

* Blackgate Penitentiary is Gotham City's main prison, located on Blackgate Isle. 
* Statue of Justice is a monument situated offshore of the city. The figure appears to have a blindfold over her eyes and a sword and scale in her outstretched hands.

Bristol County

* Wayne Manor is the mansion estate of Bruce Wayne and the location of the Batcave. It is also known as Wayne Mansion and Stately Wayne Manor. 

In other media

Films

During the events of the direct-to-video film, Batman & Mr. Freeze: SubZero (1998), a computer screen displaying Barbara Gordon's personal information refers to her location as "Gotham City, NY", and also displays her area code as being 212 - a Manhattan area code.

1989 Batman Anthology

Batman (1989), the look of Gotham was designed by production designer Anton Furst, who won an Oscar for his work on the film. Wayne Manor's exteriors utilized Knebworth House, a Gothicised Tudor, while its interiors were Hatfield House in Hatfield. The Axis Chemical Works, where Jack Napier (Jack Nicholson) plunges into the chemical sludge, was filmed at a disused power station in Acton Lane, West London. The exploding exterior was Little Barford Power Station, a couple of miles south of St Neots in Cambridgeshire.  Tim Burton's sequel, Batman Returns (1992), filmed city scenes entirely on soundstages.  Production designer Bo Welch, who took over from Furst, based his designs on Furst's concepts. 

When Joel Schumacher took over directing the Batman film series from Tim Burton, Barbara Ling handled the production design for both of Schumacher's films  Batman Forever (1995)    and 1997's Batman & Robin    Ling's vision of Gotham City was a luminous and outlandish evocation of Modern expressionism  and Constructivism.  Its futuristic-like concepts (to a certain extent, akin to the 1982 film Blade Runner ) appeared to be sort of a cross between Manhattan and the "Neo-Tokyo" of Akira. Ling admitted her influences for the Gotham City design came from "neon-ridden Tokyo and the Machine Age. Gotham is like a World's Fair on ecstasy."  When Batman is pursuing Two-Face in Batman Forever, the chase ends at Lady Gotham, the fictional equivalent of the Statue of Liberty. During Mr. Freeze’s attempt to freeze Gotham in the film Batman & Robin, the targeting screen for his giant laser locates it somewhere on the New England shoreline, possibly as far north as Maine. The soundtrack for Batman & Robin features a song named after the city and sung by R. Kelly, later included on international editions of his 1998 double album R.

The Dark Knight Trilogy

Christopher Nolan has stated that Chicago is the basis of his portrayal of Gotham, and the majority of both Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008) were filmed there. However, the city itself seems to take many cues from New York City: police cars use a paint job that was used by the NYPD in the 1990s, and the same is applicable to garbage trucks, and the Gotham Post seems to have the same font heading as The New York Post.

In Batman Begins the art deco Chicago Board of Trade Building was used for the film's Wayne Tower, which in the film, was also as the hub of Gotham's water and elevated railway systems. Garrick Theatre stood in as Gotham's opera house. 35 East Wacker was used as the Gotham courthouse. Mentmore Towers in Buckinghamshire was used to portray Wayne Manor. Nolan desired that Gotham appeared as a large, modern city that nonetheless reflected a variety of architecture styles and periods, as well as different socioeconomic strata. The production's approach depicted Gotham as an exaggeration of New York, with elements taken from Chicago, the elevated freeways and monorails of Tokyo, and the "walled city of Kalhoon" in Hong Kong, which was the basis for the slum in the film known as The Narrows.

In the animated Batman: Gotham Knight (2008), which takes place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, The Narrows was converted into an expansion of Arkham Asylum.

In The Dark Knight, Wayne Enterprises was previously depicted at the Chicago Board of Trade Building, now the Richard J. Daley Center. As Wayne Manor was being reconstructed during the events of The Dark Knight, a digitally enhanced Hfront 71 was used as Bruce Wayne's penthouse. 330 North Wabash was used as Gotham City Hall and houses Mayor Garcia's office and Harvey Dent's office. The climax of the movie on the Prewitt Building uses the then-under-construction Trump Tower. Other Chicago landmarks seen in The Dark Knight include the Marina City towers, Willis Tower, Navy Pier, the Randolph Street Metra Station, and 111 East Wacker Drive. It is revealed that downtown Gotham, or much of the city, is on an island, similar to New York City's Manhattan Island, as suggested by the Gotham Island Ferry. However, while Gordon is discussing evacuation plans with the Mayor, land routes to the east are mentioned. In conversation with Harvey Dent, Bruce Wayne indicates that the Palisades of the Wayne Manor estate are within the city limits. In terms of population, Lucius Fox says that the city houses "30 million people". The film indicates that the city's area code is 735, which in real life is an unused code. Compared to the previous film, less CGI was used in Gotham's skyline.

For The Dark Knight Rises (2012), the production utilized Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, New York City, Newark, New Jersey, London and Glasgow for shots of Gotham City.
 Locations in Pittsburgh included the Mellon Institute and Software Engineering Institute at Carnegie Mellon University, and Heinz Field, which is used as Gotham City's football stadium. A scene where John Blake confronts two construction workers at the "Broucek Cement Company" was filmed at the Frank Bryan Cement Plant in South Pittsburgh. In Manhattan, the Trump Tower replaced the Richard J. Daley Center as the location for the headquarters of Wayne Enterprises. The JP Morgan Building at 23 Wall Street represents the exterior of the Gotham City Stock Exchange, the area of Park Avenue around 84th Street is used for the scene in which rich citizens are dragged from their homes, and Batman surveys the city from atop the Queensboro Bridge. In Newark, Military Park Station, on the Newark Light Rail, between Orange Street and Penn Station, is used as the subway tunnel through which Catwoman lures Batman into Bane's trap, and Newark City Hall was used as the Red Cross shelter inhabited by Bane's guerrilla army.  An address by the president refers to Gotham City as "America's greatest city," combined with a map seen briefly onscreen, confirms that Gotham (which looks more like Manhattan than Chicago, the city that stood in for Gotham in the previous two films) is an analogue to New York City within the movie's universe.  A state trooper on the last remaining intact bridge into the city is shown to be part of the "Gotham State Police," suggesting that Gotham City is in the fictional US state of Gotham.

DC Extended Universe

In Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016), director Zack Snyder confirmed that Metropolis and Gotham City are portrayed as being in close geographical proximity to each other,  with the Boston Globe positing that Gotham is analogous to Jersey City or Hoboken, New Jersey while Metropolis is analogous to Manhattan.   A television spot for Turkish Airlines premiering during the 2016 Super Bowl featured Bruce Wayne (played by the film's star, Ben Affleck) promoting Gotham as a tourist destination.   As Metropolis was established to be a federal district  , not a state in Man of Steel, it can be assumed that Gotham City is located in the state that neighbours Metropolis. Documents seen in the movie list Gotham City being located in "Gotham County" in this unnamed state, with US Senator Debbie Stabenow making a cameo appearance as the states governor.

Television

* The 1960s live-action Batman television series never specified Gotham's location. The related theatrical movie showed Batman to be flying over suburban Los Angeles, the Hollywood Hills, palm trees, a harbor, a beach and a view of the Los Angeles City Hall. The George Washington Bridge was used as a backdrop to a bridge that led to "New Guernsey." Other New York references included Short Island Sound, the United World building, the West River and Chimes Square.
* Gotham City appears in Batman: The Brave and the Bold.
*The TV series Gotham films in New York City, and according to executive producer Danny Cannon, its atmosphere is inspired by the look of the city itself in the 1970s films of Sidney Lumet and William Friedkin. Clues to this include and signs showing phone numbers bearing the area code 212.  Donal Logue, who portrays Harvey Bullock in the series Gotham, described different aspects of that series' design of Gotham City as exhibiting different sensibilities, explaining, "For me, you can step into things that almost feel like the roaring 20s, and then there's this other really kind of heavy Blade Runner vibe floating around. There are elements of it that are completely contemporary and there are pieces of it that are very old-fashioned...There were a couple of examples of modern technology, but maybe an antiquated version of it, that gave me a little bit of sense that it's certainly not the 50s and the 60s...But it's not high tech and it's not futuristic, by any means." 
* Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman mentions Gotham in a conversation between Lois and Clark. Lois casually talks about Clark's alternate life as Superman in public, so Clark chastises her, saying, "Could you say that a little louder? I don't think they heard you in Gotham City!"
* In the TV series Smallville, Gotham City is mentioned by the character Linda Lake in the episode "Hydro", who jokes she can see Gotham from her view. It is also mentioned in "Reunion", where one of Oliver Queen's friends mentions having to get back to Gotham.
* In "Schooled", the fifth episode of Young Justice, Gotham City is indicated to be in Connecticut, near Bridgeport.

DC Animated Universe

Gotham City is featured in Batman: The Animated Series. In the episode "Joker's Favor", a driver's license lists a Gotham area resident's hometown as "Gotham Estates, NY". In the episode "Avatar", when Bruce Wayne leaves for England, a map shows Gotham City, at the joining of Long Island and the Hudson River, the real-life location of New York City. The episode "The Mechanic", however, implies that Gotham resides in a state of the same name; a prison workshop is shown stamping license plates that read "Gotham: The Dark Deco State" (as a reference to the artistic style of the series). Also, in the episode "Fire from Olympus" it is seen on a character's address in a police file that Gotham city is located in New York state. In addition, the episode "Harlequinade" states that Gotham City has a population of approximately 10 million people.

Batman Beyond (1999-2001) envisions a Gotham City in 2039, referred to as "Neo-Gotham". It has futuristic architecture which mixes Gothic and Asian influences, with elevated streets looping around buildings, replacing the Gothic architecture based on early 20th century American city.

Video games

* Gotham City appears in the Batman Begins video game.
* Gotham City appears in DC Universe Online.
* Gotham City appears in Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe
*Gotham City makes another appearance in a video game with Injustice: Gods Among Us, where the player can fight in front of and inside of  Wayne Manor, on top of a building and in an alley as well.
* Gotham City appears in Lego Dimensions.

Lego Batman

* Gotham City appears in Lego Batman: The Videogame.
* Gotham City appears as the main hub world of LEGO Batman 2: DC Super Heroes.
* Gotham City appears in LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham.

Batman: Arkham

Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009) opens with Batman driving Joker from Gotham City to Arkham Asylum. Joker also threatens to detonate bombs across Gotham. In Batman: Arkham City (2011), the slums of Old Gotham City (the northern island) were converted into Arkham City. Inside the prison walls, this part of Gotham contains various landmarks throughout the story, like Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, the Ace Chemical Plant, the Sionis Steel Mill, the Old Gotham City Police Department building, and the Monarch Theatre with the Wayne murder scene in Crime Alley. Most of these locations have major events in the story. In Batman: Arkham Origins (2013), an earlier, younger version of the city can be seen than that of other games in the Batman: Arkham series. In addition to the northern island, this installment in the series lets players explore a new southern island, connected to the former by the Pioneer's Bridge. In Batman: Arkham Knight (2015), the Central Gotham City is five-times larger than Old Gotham.
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