Main article: List of Batman Family adversaries
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."[54] 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."[131] 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.[132] BusinessWeek listed the character as one of the ten most intelligent superheroes appearing in American comics.[133] Entertainment Weekly named Batman as one of The 20 All Time Coolest Heroes in Pop Culture.[134] He also was placed on AFI's 100 Years…100 Heroes and Villains from the 1989 feature film by the American Film Institute.[135] 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
Main article: Batman franchise media
The character of Batman has appeared in various media aside from
comic books. The character has been developed as a vehicle for 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.[136] 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
appearance in The Adventures of Superman starting in 1945 on occasions when Superman voice actor Bud Collyer needed time off.[137] 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."[137]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.[138]
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 release Batman (1966). The Kinks performed the theme song from the Batman series 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 series The Batman/Superman Hour;[139] 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 series, 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 1989, Batman returned to movie theaters in director Tim Burton's Batman, 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.[140] The film 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 Batman Triumphant, and place the film series on hiatus.
In 2005, Batman Begins was released to theaters 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,[142] and became the fastest film to reach the $400 million mark in the history of American cinema (eighteenth day of release).[143] 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.[144] It was eventually followed by another sequel, The Dark Knight Rises (2012), which serves as a conclusion to Nolan's film series.
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 Batman: Arkham Asylum (2009), which was released by Rocksteady Studios to critical acclaim; review aggregator Metacritic reports it as having received 92% positive reviews.[145] It was followed by the sequel Batman: Arkham City (2011), which also received widespread acclaim and holds a Metacritic ranking of 94%.[146] As with most animated Batman media, Kevin Conroy has provided the voice of the character in these games.
Homosexual interpretations
Further information: Homosexuality in the Batman franchise
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," "the 1960s TV series remains a touchstone of camp," and "[he] merits analysis as a notably successful construction of masculinity."[148]
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. Denny O'Neil's Batman, Marv Wolfman's Batman, 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." Writer Devin Grayson has commented, "It depends who you ask, doesn't it? Since you're asking me, I'll say no, I don't think he is ... I certainly understand the gay readings, though."[149] While Frank Miller has described the relationship between Batman and the Joker as a "homophobic nightmare,"[150] he views the character as sublimating his sexual urges into crimefighting, concluding, "He'd be much healthier if he were gay."[151] Burt Ward, who portrayed Robin in the 1960s television show, has also remarked upon this interpretation in his autobiography Boy Wonder: My Life in Tights; he writes that the relationship could be interpreted as a sexual one, with the show's double entendres and lavish camp also possibly offering ambiguous interpretation.[152]
Such homosexual interpretations continue to attract attention. One notable example occurred in 2000, when DC Comics refused to allow 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.[153] Another happened in the summer of 2005, when painter Mark Chamberlain displayed a number of watercolors depicting both Batman and Robin in suggestive and sexually explicit poses.[154] DC threatened both artist and the Kathleen Cullen Fine Arts gallery with legal action if they did not cease selling the works and demanded all remaining art, as well as any profits derived from them.[155]
Will Brooker argues in Batman Unmasked: Analyzing a Cultural Icon,[156] that a queer reading of Batman is a valid interpretation, and that homosexual readers would naturally find themselves drawn to the lifestyle depicted within, whether the character of Bruce Wayne himself is explicitly homosexual or not. He also identifies a homophobic element to the vigour with which mainstream fandom rejects the possibility of a homosexual reading of the character. In the April 2012 issue of Playboy, long time Batman writer Grant Morrison said that "Gayness is built into Batman. I’m not using gay in the pejorative sense, but Batman is very, very gay. There’s just no denying it. 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.”[157] Building on this, a Comics Alliance opinion piece titled The Gayness of Batman discussed the question of homosexual readings of the character, citing his relationship with the flamboyant Joker as "a monstrous distortion of the conflict between the closet and the scene."[158
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