Comic Book / Batman: Black and White

With talent of this caliber, there are no gray areas.

Batman Black and White is a DC Comics Anthology Comic series. Each eight-page story features Batman and has Deliberately Monochrome artwork. Apart from that, stories vary wildly in style, setting, subject matter, and tone; many are not set in any existing Batman continuity. Each story has a different writer and artist, and one of the purposes of the series is to feature the work of artists who represent the best in the field.

Artists featured in the series include: Neal Adams, Michael Allred, Kyle Baker, Brian Bolland, John Byrne, Gene Colan, Darwyn Cooke, Dave Gibbons, Dick Giordano, Gene Ha, Dave Johnson, Joe Kubert, Jim Lee, Katsuhiro Otomo, Alex Ross, Bill Sienkiewicz, Ty Templeton, Bruce Timm, Matt Wagner.

Writers featured in the series include: John Arcudi, Brian Azzarello, Ed Brubaker, John Byrne, Mike Carey, Howard Chaykin, Chris Claremont, Darwyn Cooke, Dan Didio, Paul Dini, Chuck Dixon, Warren Ellis, Harlan Ellison, Neil Gaiman, Alex Garland, Dave Gibbons, Keith Giffen, Archie Goodwin, Geoff Johns, Robert Kanigher, Jeff Lemire, Dwayne McDuffie, Mike Mignola, Ann Nocenti, Dennis O Neil, John Ostrander, Katsuhiro Otomo, Julius Schwartz, Walt Simonson, Bruce Timm, Matt Wagner, Judd Winick, Marv Wolfman.

The first run of Batman Black and White was published in 1996, with five stories in each issue. From 2000 to 2004, new stories ran as a backup feature in Batman: Gotham Knights. A second run of Batman Black and White was published from 2013 to 2014, again with five stories in each issue. All the stories from the various incarnations have been collected in four trade paperbacks published between 2007 and 2015. In 2008 and 2009, twenty of the stories were adapted as Motion Comics, available on the WB website and via several streaming providers.

A new run began in December 2020. A spinoff focusing on Harley Quinn, Harley Quinn Black + White + Red, began in June 2020. Companion series, Superman: Red and Blue and Wonder Woman: Black and Gold, began in March 2021 and June 2021 respectively.

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This series contains examples of:

• Abusive Parents: In "Bent Twigs", Batman intervenes when he passes a rooftop where a man is threatening to murder his son's pet cat as a control tactic, in what quickly becomes apparent is just his latest act of emotional abuse.
• Accidental Hero: In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", Batsman's successes are about half happy accidents like falling through a skylight and landing on a villain he had no idea would be there, and half genuine skill (unless those were also happy accidents that he was quick-witted enough to claim he'd intended all along).
• Affably Evil: The central character of "An Innocent Guy" is a polite young man who has a happy family and attends church every Sunday, who decides he needs to do one absolutely heinous thing in his life — he settles on assassinating Batman, after deciding that kidnapping a little girl and chaining her up to die alone in a rat-infested sewer wouldn't be bad enough — to prove to himself that he's really a good person.
• Ageless Birthday Episode: "Good Evening, Midnight" is implied to be set on Bruce Wayne's birthday; Alfred sets out a cake with a candle, and reminsces about the day Bruce turned three. The cake only has one candle, so it doesn't show Bruce's age, and there are no other indications either.
• All Just a Dream:
  • "The Hunt" ends with Bruce Wayne waking up from a dream. It's left ambiguous whether the whole story was a dream, or just the bit at the end where he flew off in a cloud of bats with a hoodlum under each arm.
  • "Snow Job" is a wacky adventure featuring Batman and his son, Batman Junior, but it all turns out to be just a dream in the end.
• All Part of the Show: In "Petty Crimes", the Civic Virtue serial killer murders two people for talking loudly during a movie, and the crime is not discovered until the lights come up at the end; everyone else in the audience who heard the murders just thought it was part of the sound effects for the movie.
• All Psychology Is Freudian: In "In Dreams", Karen lies on a Freudian Couch while telling her psychiatrist about her recurring dream. He even looks a fair bit like Freud himself.
• Always Identical Twins:
  • Michael and Sam in "A Matter of Trust", complete with the "I'm Sam, he's Michael" joke.
  • A plot point in "Fortunes", where Marie Margay murdered her twin sister, intending to take her place.
• Animal-Themed Superbeing: Batman, of course, has a bat theme. Spoofed in "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", in which an entire flock of bats flies through Bruce Wayne's window instead of the traditional single bat, inspiring him to have a bats theme — his costume has little toy bats dangling off it and his bat-signal features the silhouettes of an entire flock instead of just one bat.
• Animated Actors: "A Black and White World" shows Batman and The Joker working on a movie-like set, reading over their lines and commenting on the corniness of the dialogue, as well as the general way characters in comic books are treated and/or mistreated; the Joker comments that he never gets big dramatic splash panels like Batman, while Batman retorts that he is the one who gets to make all the big speeches.
• Armor-Piercing Response: In "Bent Twigs", an emotionally-abusive father, in the middle of a rant about all the things his son does that in his mind justify his behavior, asks rhetorically why his son spends so much time up on the roof of the apartment building in the snow instead of inside where it's warm and dry and he's got homework to do. He's stunned speechless by his son's reply: "I'm hiding from you."
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "An Innocent Guy", the narrator pictures Batman at work, battling Two-Face or Poison Ivy or "those three guys with animal masks whose names I can never remember".
• Art Shift:
  • In "Legend", the present day in the "city of light" is depicted with open linework and no shading or tinting, giving an impression of light and space, while the Fantasy Sequence of the legend of Batman has heavier linework and lots of solid black shadows.
  • "In Dreams" is mostly in hard black-and-white, with no in-between, but the flashback sequence has lighter linework and softer shadows in various shades of gray.
  • "Night After Night" is mostly shaded in soft gray tones, but the dream sequence is in hard black-and-white.
• Art-Style Dissonance:
  • "Two of a Kind" is a grim Film Noir-ish story with art by Bruce Timm in the cartoony style he developed for Batman: The Animated Series. (On the other hand, some of the events are so gruesome that it probably wouldn't have been allowed in a more realistic art style.)
  • "Case Study" is a story set in the world of Batman: The Animated Series (and written by BTAS writer Paul Dini), but paired with the highly-realistic art of Alex Ross.
• Babysitting Episode: In "A Matter of Trust", Bruce Wayne agrees to keep an eye on a doctor friend's twin toddlers when she has to deal with a medical emergency and can't find a sitter at short notice. He quickly finds that none of his years of training have prepared him for looking after a couple of Bratty Half Pints, but it all turns out okay in the end.
• Bad Habits: In "The Black and White Bandit", the eponymous criminal disguises himself as a nun (in the old-style black and white habit, naturally) for one of his heists.
• Bad Santa: In "A Slaying Song Tonight", a hitman plans to get near his target by taking the place of a Mall Santa hired to put in an appearance for the target's daughter. He doesn't put much effort into playing the part.
  Passerby: Merry Christmas, Santa.
  "Santa": Up yours.
• Bait-and-Switch: At the beginning of "Hide and Seek", Batman is investigating the site of a subway train derailment when he suddenly says "Interesting" and then takes off down the tunnel. Commissioner Gordon, witnessing this, immediately calls for an increased police presence on the scene on the assumption that Batman has found evidence that it was deliberately derailed and is now pursuing the culprit. The story does nothing to contradict Gordon's interpretation for most of the page count, but in the end it turns out Batman was actually tracking down a child who was on the derailed train and panicked and ran off down the tunnel.
• Bald of Evil: The mad scientist in "Monsters in the Closet" is entirely bald.
• Bandage Mummy: At the end of "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", both Alfred and Robin are wrapped in bandages; in addition, Alfred has a neck brace and a crutch, while Robin has an arm cast and a wheelchair.
• Beard of Evil: In "The Black and White Bandit", the eponymous criminal has a forked goatee.
• The Bet: In "The Bet", Poison Ivy bets Harley Quinn that she can make every man in Arkham Asylum do her bidding (without even leaving her cell). She loses at the last hurdle when The Joker proves immune — or does he?
• Better to Die than Be Killed:
  • In "Fat City", Batman is trying to capture a grease monster that sucks the fat out of people. Chloe Willow, Gotham's fattest woman (who's so obese they have to knock a hole in her apartment wall and lift her out with a crane), agrees to act as bait for a trap. The original plan is to haul her out of the way at the last moment, but when it becomes apparent that won't be possible, she volunteers for a Heroic Sacrifice, explaining to Batman that she's already dying and she'd rather go quickly doing something useful.
  • Another, more villainous example comes in a story narrated by "Do-Boy," a small-time thug who is rising up the Penguin's ranks. He's determined to go out in a blaze of glory by standing up to Batman, and when it seems like all is lost, he jumps for a window, reasoning that at least he can say he died rather than let the Caped Crusader take him to prison, or worse. Unfortunately, Batman's no-killing rule kicks in, and he saves Do-Boy—though it's clear that the Dark Knight knew what the crook was trying to do and takes special delight in cheating him of his dream.
  • A similar example occurs in "To Beat the Batman", centring around a small-time crook and repeat offender whose greed and devotion to a Gold Digger girlfriend had gotten him beaten up by Batman and sent to jail three times, with the beatings more severe and the sentences longer each time. He eventually finds himself a goon for the Joker during a bank robbery, and he ends up shooting a security guard to death on impulse. He's able to escape when Batman crashes the robbery, but knowing that Batman will find him again and he'll probably get the death sentence this time, he commits suicide to spare himself the fate.
• Big Eater: In "Fat City", Chloe Willows is Gotham's fattest woman. Her husband, Stanley, complains that some days all he seems to do is cook for her. This, her weight, and almost always being seen with a cheeseburger, implies that Chloe loves to eat.
• Big Fun: In "Fat City", Chloe Willows is Gotham's fattest woman and is so morbidly obese she can't get out of bed. Despite her condition, Chloe loves to eat and showers her husband Stanley with affection. While he grumbles about constantly cooking to match her appetite, he also remarks that she's a "whole lot of woman" and it's implied that they've been married for years. Chloe is also grateful for all of the aid the Wayne Foundation has given her and selflessly volunteers to be bait for a fat-devouring sludge monster. After suffering a heart attack from the excitement, she sacrifices herself to take the sludge monster with her, saving the city in the process.
• A Birthday, Not a Break: In "Good Evening, Midnight", the Bat-Signal summons Bruce to deal with a bus hijacking just as he was about to sit down to dinner; the presence of a cake with a candle indicates that it's his birthday.
• Bizarrchitecture: "Urban Renewal" pays homage to the weird buildings and giant novelty objects that used to feature in Golden Age stories. Gotham's particularly bizarre-looking buildings such as a huge globe at the top of a travel bureau, or a building shaped like a giant cash register, are being taken down. One man is waxing nostalgic for these old kitschy locales, and decides to publish a coffee table book dedicated to them—and the one publisher who accepts it is Bruce Wayne, who is himself nostalgic about fighting crime atop these ridiculous buildings back in the day.
• Bland-Name Product: In one panel in "Two of a Kind", someone is reading a tabloid called National Inquiry, a play on the real-life National Enquirer.
• Boom, Headshot!: "An Innocent Guy" tells of a boy who decides he's going to kill the Batman and goes into detail about how he'll do it, sniping him while he's preoccupied. In his Fantasy Sequence, the bullet hits Batman square in the head, leaving a big hole and a spray of blood.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In "The Riddle"^note the story from Issue #5 of the 2020 run, the reader is presented with a Choose Your Own Adventure story where they must help Batman catch the Riddler, but by playing the game as intended, Batman will die. But, if they ignore every instance where choices are offered, they can catch the Riddler, which he notices.
  (Panel 8; Batman suddenly appears behind the Riddler)
  The Riddler: What? Where did you come from?
• Bus Full of Innocents: In "Good Evening, Midnight", Batman has to rescue busload of children after their bus was hijacked by an escaped convict. As if that wasn't enough, by the time he reaches the scene it's dangling half-on, half-off a high bridge following a fight on board that sent it off the road.
• The Cameo: Lobo gets an out-of-nowhere cameo in "A Black and White World"; the art for that story is by Simon Bisley, who made his name in America doing the art for Lobo's first solo series.
• Catapult Nightmare: In "Night After Night", Bruce wakes this way from a nightmare about his parents' death.
• Cement Shoes: In "The Devil's Children", a mobster being questioned by police claims that he's "in concrete" (referring to his legitimate cover job as a cement contractor) and knows nothing about any mob activities. After Batman uncovers a scheme the man has been running without the knowledge or approval of his mob bosses, a policeman comments that when they find out, he's going to be in concrete in a whole new way.
• Character Narrator: "Two of a Kind" has frequent narration in text boxes to go with the Film Noir style. At the end of the first page, we learn that the narrator is Harvey Dent. At the end of the last page, we learn that he's telling Batman the story of how he became Two-Face again.
• Chekhov's News: Early in "Monsters in the Closet", there's a newspaper front page with the headline "Langdale heiress missing" and a photograph. The missing woman turns up later as one of the antagonist's victims, with a close-up framed to resemble the newspaper photograph (she's even, somewhat improbably given what she's been through, still wearing the same elaborate earring).
• Childhood Friends: In "A Matter of Trust", Bruce Wayne has an old friend named Robbin Carnahan. They were close friends when they were in school together, and when he got older and started putting off old relationships so he could do his loner vigilante thing, she refused every attempt to put her off. He values her accordingly.
• Clarke's Third Law: Discussed in "Guardian" when Batman meets the Golden Age Green Lantern (the one whose powers are magical, rather than the alien super-science of the later Green Lanterns). Batman asks him about how his powers work, and he says that somewhere in the universe there might be somebody who could explain the science behind them, but that here and now he has no better explanation than "it's magic".
• Cleanup Crew: In "The Devil's Children", Victor Dean used to work as a body disposer for Gotham's mobs, hiding the bodies in landfill or disposing of them out at sea.
• Collateral Damage: In "Monsters in the Closet", the mad scientist tries to kill Batman with a shotgun, but aims wide. The shotgun blast hits the containment unit Batman was examining, letting all the monsters loose.
• Commitment Issues: Exaggerated in the spoof "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", in which Bruce Wayne tells Selina Kyle that they'll have to stop seeing each other because his reputation as a notorious playboy will suffer if he goes steady with any one woman for too long — and she points out that they've been together for only twenty minutes.
• Complete-the-Quote Title: "The Devil's Children" doesn't involve devils or children; it's a play on the proverb that "idle hands are the devil's children", and it's the bit about idle hands that's relevant to the plot.
• Contrast Montage: "Good Evening, Midnight" cuts back and forth between Batman rescuing a hijacked school bus and Alfred at home reading an old letter from Thomas Wayne about what he hopes Bruce will be like when he grows up, setting up a series of contrasts and ironic juxtapositions between the contents of the letter and the events of Bruce's evening.
• Corrupt Politician: The villain in "To Become the Bat" is a senator who bribes his secret service detail to murder his mistress when she gets pregnant.
• Couldn't Find a Pen: In "Two of a Kind", a murderer writes a taunting message on the wall in her victim's blood.
• Counterfeit Cash: In "Funny Money", Batman investigates a criminal gang who have hijacked a shipment of the special paper that real banknotes are printed on so that they can use it to print undetectable counterfeit banknotes.
• Crapsaccharine World: "Legend" is set in the far future, in "a stainless steel city of light" where a woman is telling her child a bedtime story about how evil was banished from the world. Then she starts crying, and we learn that the brightly-lit, peaceful city is a dictatorship with tanks and soldiers on every street. Thankfully, Batman has not given up on defending Gotham...
• Crashing Dreams: "Snow Job" ends with Bruce Wayne waking from a dream of passionately kissing a beautiful woman to find he's at home in bed and his dog is licking his face.
• Crossword Puzzle: In "A Black and White World", where Batman and The Joker are Animated Actors, the Joker does a crossword puzzle in the green room while he and Batman are waiting for their big scene. He asks Batman for help with a clue ("'Ronald Reagan wasn't allowed into this White House.' Ten letters. Ends in an 'A'.") and Batman gives him the answer ("Casablanca").
• Crystal Ball: "Fortunes" revolves around a murder in the house of a fortune teller who uses all the traditional props. It turns out her crystal ball was the murder weapon.
• A Deadly Affair: In "To Become the Bat", the murder victim was the mistress of a powerful man who had her murdered when she got pregnant because he was afraid she would try to use the pregnancy as leverage against him.
• Deliberately Monochrome: It's the whole idea behind the book—every story, regardless of the artist or content, is rendered in black and white. The only exception is "The Gasworks," which uses a light crimson to color both blood and a hallucinogenic vapor.
• Delirious Misidentification: In "Leavetaking", an injured and delirious Batman misidentifies the various passers-by who stop to talk to him as Robin, Alfred, and Commissioner Gordon.
• Detective Patsy: In "Fortunes", the person who hired private detective Ashraf to investigate the disappearance of Madame Margay turns out to have been the murderer, apparently wanting an independent third party to find the body. Unfortunately for them, Ashraf is a good enough detective to spot all the problems with the murder scene and figure out what really went down.
• Disney Villain Death: The villain of "Heroes", a Nazi spy, gets in a fight with the Batman at the top of a skyscraper, and falls to his death.
• Disproportionate Retribution: The serial killer in "Petty Crimes" murders people gruesomely for offenses like ignoring the Express Lane Limit, not cleaning up after their dog, and driving slowly in the fast lane of a motorway.
• Disrupting the Theater: "Petty Crimes" revolves around a serial killer who murders people gruesomely for antisocial actions like littering. Two of his victims get it after talking through a movie at the cinema.
• Dodge the Bullet: In "Snow Job", Batman dodges through a rain of machine gun fire while in free-fall, getting a few holes in his cape but nothing worse. (It ends up being a dream sequence.)
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: In "Perpetual Mourning", Batman begins a post mortem examination of a Jane Doe by picking up her hand to examine her injuries; it's framed like a swain bowing over a woman's hand to ask her for a dance.
• The Dog Bites Back: In "Monsters in the Closet", the mad scientist's attempt to shoot Batman goes wide and breaks open the containment on his monstrous creations, one of whom takes the opportunity to lethally express her displeasure of her treatment at his hands.
• Dogged Nice Guy: In "Bent Twigs", an abusive father's self-justifying rant at one point goes on a detour in which he talks about how hard being a single parent is on the love life, and how women just aren't interested no matter how much he calls and writes and calls and writes and calls and writes...
• Don't Tell Mama: In "Greetings from... Gotham City", a small-town boy who's moved to Gotham writes postcards home to his mother to let her know he's settling in all right, but doesn't mention what he's doing for a living. After the criminal gang he's running with gets busted by Batman, he writes a postcard from his cell apologizing because he's not going to be able to make it home for Thanksgiving, but not mentioning why.
• Down to the Last Play: In "The Bet", Poison Ivy bets Harley Quinn she can make every man in Arkham Asylum kiss her. She works her way through the population without any difficulties until there's only one man left she hasn't kissed yet.
• Draft Dodging: Referenced in "Blackout", set during World War II. Catwoman asks Batman why he hasn't been drafted, he jokes that he failed the physical, and she jibes that all he'd need to do to get classed mentally unfit would be to show up in his Batman outfit. Later she calls him "a slacker and a coward" for bothering with ordinary crime when he could be using his skills to aid the war effort.
• Dragged Off to Hell: In "Devil's Trumpet", this is reputed to have been the fate of the trumpet's original owner. At the end of the story, two musicians discuss the trumpet's subsequent history, including a more recent owner who depending on who you ask suffered the same fate or else was captured by the Batman and ended up in Arkham Asylum. ("Like that's a difference," one of them adds.)
• Dramatic Necklace Removal:
  • "Leavetaking" features a flashback to the night Thomas and Martha Wayne died, including the now-traditional slow motion shot of Martha's pearl necklace breaking.
  • Ditto "Night After Night".
  • And "To Become the Bat".
• Dramatic Unmask: At the climax of "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder", the apparent "Thick" Lyman tears his face apart to reveal that he's actually Batman in a Latex Perfection mask (with his entire usual mask, pointy ears and all, underneath).
• Dread Zeppelin: The climax of "Heroes", set in 1937, features a Nazi airship.
• Drugs Are Bad: In "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder", as part of the deliberately old-fashioned style of the story. The villains are said to be smuggling "enough of a new kind of narcotic to rot the minds of half the kids in Gotham!"
• Dude, Not Funny!: In "Fat City", Batman is tracking a creature that preys on fat people. Alfred makes a quip about it getting its "just desserts". Batman tells him grimly that it's not funny.
• Dying Declaration of Love: In "Fat City", Chloe Willows volunteers for a Heroic Sacrifice when she realizes that her morbid obesity and the excitement of being used as bait for a fat-devouring sludge monster has caused her weakened heart to fail. While preparing to push the trigger to a bomb that will kill her and the monster, her last words are to declare her love for her husband Stanley.
• Endurance Duel: In "The Bat No More...?", the Scarecrow tries to destroy Batman by dosing him with a fear gas that makes him terrified of bats (as well as his own cowl, the symbol on his chest, etc.) Batman responds by developing a fear gas of his own and dosing the Scarecrow with it, then offering to trade antidote for antidote. The Scarecrow refuses. The story ends with them sitting opposite each other, waiting to see who will crack first.
• Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: In "Greetings from... Gotham City", one of the gangsters Batman fights is a dreadlocked brute who does his level best to beat Batman to death with a two-by-four. The last page of the story shows him in his cell sending a nicely-worded postcard to his mom back home apologizing for not being able to make it home for Thanksgiving this year.
• Even Evil Has Standards: In "Role Models," the child kidnapper Playground's latest victim manages to escape him and goes looking for a superheroine to help her. Instead, she runs into Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn, who are getting ready to rob a bank—but when the girl tells them what Playground did, they proceed to kick the absolute tar out of him. Yes, they're supervillains, but hurting children crosses a line.
• Everyone Has Standards: In one story, a mother desperate for fame leaves her baby on the hood of the Batmobile, and the Caped Crusader has to carry the infant around with him during his nightly patrol. At one point, he stops two low-level thieves from mugging a woman—and then the woman and the muggers scold Batman for the way he's handling the baby. He sheepishly takes their advice.
• Evil Twin: In "Two of a Kind", Harvey Dent is cured physically and mentally, and falls in love with the psychotherapist who cured him. Unfortunately, his fiancée has a deranged identical twin sister.
• Expressive Accessory: In "A Black and White World", the Joker's flower lapel decoration suddenly has a worried face in the panel where Batman busts in.
• Expressive Mask:
  • In Brian Bolland's artwork for "An Innocent Guy", the eyes and forehead of Batman's mask show every wrinkle of the facial expression underneath.
  • Similarly with Katsuhiro Otomo's artwork for "The Third Mask".
• Express Lane Limit: In "Petty Crimes", a serial killer targets people who break small rules. The first of his victims to be shown is a woman who took twelve items into the Ten Items Or Less lane.
• Extendo Boxing Glove: In "Night After Night", The Joker uses one as a weapon.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: In "The Bat No More...?", when Batman is in disguise the brim of his hat casts a dark shadow that hides his eyes. It gives him a sense of mystery and menace (and notably the Scarecrow in the same story never gets a similar shadow even though his hat brim is much larger and ought to cast an even bigger shadow).
• The Faceless: Batman is depicted this way in "The Bat No More...?"; in the few panels where he's not wearing his cowl or an Eye-Obscuring Hat, an Unreveal Angle is used. The story is told from the viewpoint of the villains, who don't know Batman's identity and are trying to find out.
• Fakin' MacGuffin: In "Blackout", Batman catches Catwoman stealing some jewels, which he confiscates, but decides to let her go with a warning after she helps him catch a more dangerous group of criminals. She pickpockets the bag of jewels off him before she leaves, only to discover when she opens it that at some point when she wasn't looking he'd switched out the jewels as a precaution and all that's in the bag is some ordinary rocks.
• Fantasy Sequence:
  • In "Legend", the events of the bedtime story are shown on the page.
  • In "An Innocent Guy", there's an extensive sequence showing how the protagonist pictures the death of Batman.
• Fat and Skinny: The gangsters "Thick" and "Thin" Lyman in "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder".
• Fish out of Water: "A Matter of Trust". Three words: Bruce Wayne, babysitting.
• Flashback Cut: "To Become the Bat" has a non-comedic use. As Batman investigates a murder, each time he uses a new skill there's a one-panel flashback to him learning that skill during the years he spent preparing to become Batman. There's also a moment where he looks at the female murder victim and gets a one-panel flashback to his mother's death.
• Flashback Effects: The flashback sequence in "In Dreams" has wavy frame borders and a softer color palette (grayscale palette?) than the rest of the story.
• Foreseeing My Death: In "Fortunes", the murdered Madame Margay left a message predicting her death "at the hands of an unbeliever". It turns out she faked her death and left the message to throw investigators off the scent.
• Foreshadowing: In "Fortunes", the murder weapon is visibly damaged from its use as an improvised weapon all through the story, even before the detectives identify it as the murder weapon; the damage is especially visible in the panel in which Batman says that now they need to determine what the murder weapon was.
• Fortune Teller: "Fortunes" features a fortune teller called Madame Margay, who uses all the traditional props including tarot cards and a crystal ball, both of which are clues in the mystery. The story implies that she's a Phony Psychic.
• Funetik Aksent: The gunman in "Dead Boys Eyes".
  Dis time it's gonna be ya ass dat rots in a dark, cold concrete cell. But'cha ain't gonna be gettin' out like me.
• Funny Background Event:
  • In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", Selina Kyle leaves Wayne Manor after a date with Bruce Wayne; a few panels later, while Bruce is soliloquizing in the foreground, the view through the window behind him shows Alfred chasing her across the lawn to retrieve the antiques she stole on the way out.
  • Later in the same story, there's a climactic fight scene in the museum, in which Batsman captures pretty much all of his rogues gallery except Catwoman, who can be seen in the background robbing the place blind while everyone else is distracted.
• Gilligan Cut: "Guardian" has an In-Universe, real-time example, thanks to the Golden Age Green Lantern's Reality Warper powers. After Batman and Green Lantern discover a murder, Green Lantern says that they should report what they know to the police, and Batman argues that given his reputation he can't just walk into a police station to report a crime; between one panel and the next, Green Lantern casually teleports them both into the nearest police station.
• Giving Them the Strip: Near the end of "The Black and White Bandit", Commissioner Gordon collars the disguised villain, who shrugs out of his entire costume in a single move, leaving Gordon holding the disguise while he makes a break for it dressed in his normal outfit.
• Glamour: In "An Unquiet Knight", Batman, who refuses to believe he is dead, cites Zatanna, who claims to be several decades older, looks no different from usual as evidence. Zatanna basically rolls her eyes, reminds Batman she is in showbiz, and briefly drops the glamour to show herself as she really is.
• A God I Am Not: In "Guardian", Batman meets the Golden Age Green Lantern, who used to protect Gotham City, and asks him why he retired. Green Lantern explains that as he became more adept with his ring's powers, he discovered that they were effectively unlimited; he could do anything with just a thought (including, in this story, putting out a raging fire in moments, instantaneous teleportation, and transporting himself and Batman back in time to prevent a murder that they have already seen the results of). When he found himself thinking that with his powers he could reshape the world and eliminate evil, he decided it was time to put the ring down and back away.
  Green Lantern: Just the fact that I was considering it... scared the hell out of me. I had to get back to earth. Rediscover what it was like to struggle for something, instead of wishing it into existence. I love this city. I do. But it needed a guardian, not a god.
• Goodbye, Cruel World!: In "Fortunes", a fortune teller apparently commits suicide, leaving a message saying that she had foreseen she would be horribly murdered "at the hands of a non-believer" and had decided to go out on her own terms. It turns out that it's not really a suicide and the message is phony.
• GPS Evidence: In "Perpetual Mourning", Batman locates the diner where a murder victim had her last meal by matching her stomach contents and time of death with his knowledge of Gotham eateries' menus and service times.
• Half-Human Hybrids: The mad scientist's creations in "Monsters in the Closet" include bats with human-like faces ("Look at what I grew," he taunts, "a little bat-man!") and half-human sea-creatures (at least some of whom were fully human before he got his hands on them).
• Head-in-the-Sand Management: At the start of "Night After Night", a senior doctor from the asylum where the Joker is imprisoned appears on television to assure the public that although the Joker has escaped from his cell there is no way he will be able to overcome the asylum's security measures and get out of the facility before he's recaptured. After the Joker has got out of the facility, attempted mass murder, been recaptured by Batman, and been returned to the asylum, the same spokesman appears on television again to assure the public that they've upgraded the security and this time the Joker is definitely going to stay put.
• Here We Go Again!:
  • "Devil's Trumpet" opens with two musicians discussing the legend of a trumpet with mystical powers, whose original owner came to a bad end. One of the musicians knows where it is now, and tells the other, who then goes to extreme lengths to acquire the trumpet for himself and thereby comes to his own bad end. The story ends with the opening scene being repeated with a new character.
  • "Night After Night" begins with Bruce waking from a dream about his parents' death to a spokesman on the news claiming that there's no way the Joker will escape from imprisonment this time. The Joker escapes, and Batman recaptures him. The story ends with Bruce turning off a news report of the same spokesman claiming that the Joker's definitely not going to escape this time, and going to bed where he has the same dream.
• Heroic Bystander: In "Fat City," Chloe Willow, "Gotham's fattest woman," agrees to serve as bait for a trap against a monster made of living grease that kills people by sucking all of the fat from their bodies. The initial plan is to pull Chloe away and throw a phosphorous bomb at the beast, but when it attacks early, Chloe grabs the bomb herself and tells Batman he needs to leave. She also admits that she's dying of a heart condition but wants to go out helping the city she calls home by killing the monster. Batman calls Chloe a "brave woman" and salutes her as he flees, and her choice saves all of Gotham.
• Historical AU: "Heroes" and "Blackout" reimagine Batman in a World War II setting.
• Hood Hopping: In "Greetings from... Gotham City", during a pursuit of a getaway car, Batman leaps from roof to roof of moving cars traveling in the same direction.
• Humans Are the Real Monsters: In "Monster Maker", Batman battles a gangster who recruits children, while reflecting that angry mutants are "kid's stuff" in comparison.
• Idiosyncrazy: In "The Black and White Bandit", the eponymous criminal is an artist who became obsessed with black and white after going colorblind. He steals things like antique chess sets, using plans that involve dalmatians, zebras, and on one occasion a nun costume.
• If Only You Knew: In "Bent Twigs", an abusive father attempts to justify his actions to Batman by claiming that his son is disruptive and he doesn't know what to do. Batman calmly points out that family counselling is a thing. The father scoffs, "And who's going to pay for it — you? What are you, Bruce Wayne or something?"
• I Have Your Wife: In "Heroes", set in 1937, a pioneering inventor is approached by an agent of German military intelligence with a job offer. When he refuses, the German captures his ten-year-old son to force his compliance.
• Imagine Spot: In the Babysitting Episode "A Matter of Trust", Bruce considers calling in Alfred to help and pictures him immediately taming Bruce's rambunctious charges with "secret butler knowledge".
• In Medias Res: "Night After Night" has a variant; it begins with Bruce dreaming of the night his parents died, starting halfway through the dream and with his mother halfway through a sentence, and ends with him having the same dream again, stopping halfway through a sentence at the exact point in the dream where the story started.
• In the Back: In "Dead Boys Eyes", a criminal lures Batman into a trap and shoots him in the back.
• Incredibly Obvious Tail: Done deliberately in "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder", as a psychological gambit. Batman and Robin tail the villains very conspicuously and without a break for several days, so that every time one of the gangsters looks around, either Batman or Robin is right there, watching.
• Informed Loner: Batman's status as such is parodied in "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld". Early in the story, he claims that it is his fate to be alone, but as it goes on it becomes apparent the main Running Gag is that he's never alone even when he wants to be. At one point, he's on a solitary vigil when all his various sidekicks and associates show up one by one to tell him they saw the Bat-signal and want to help, and their combined weight causes the gargoyle he's lurking on to break free and plummet to the ground.
• Insane Troll Logic: The unknown main character of "An Innocent Guy" has the belief that in order to be truly good, one must commit at least one evil act as proof they have experienced what evil feels like and therefore prove to themselves that they have the willpower to still be a good person after that. The more wicked the act, the more righteous they will be afterward by comparison, according to him. With this warped mindset, the main character is able to easily consider performing acts such as kidnapping an innocent child and leave them to die tied up in a sewer or murdering Batman, convinced he can continue to live his life as a truly "good" person after the crime without a shred of remorse, guilt, or any consideration of the consequences. He even addresses his fantasy of his post-crime life as "blameless".
• Insurance Fraud: The motive in "Fortunes". Specifically, Marie Margay made out a life insurance policy payable to her twin sister, then murdered her sister in a way that made it look like she herself had committed suicide, intending to impersonate her sister and claim the insurance money. In describing his conclusions, Ashraf points out that she was apparently unaware that life insurance doesn't pay out on suicide, one of several reasons he sums the plan up as "poorly conceived".
• Insult Backfire: In "Night After Night", the Joker tries to get under Batman's skin:
  Joker: You know you're insane, don't you?
  Batman: I'm insane?
  Joker: Oh sure, I have one or two small delusions of my own, but you — you actually think you can stop crime.
  Batman: What do you mean? [smiles] I stop it every night.
• Ironic Hell: In "Stormy Nether," the child kidnapper Prave falls to his death while being pursued by Batman. It turns out that his afterlife will consist of being chased by supernatural, monstrous versions of the Dark Knight for eternity.
• Karmic Injury: In "Broken Nose," Alfred treats Bruce for the first broken nose he receives during his career as Batman. Bruce grumpily comments that he was beaten by Mabuse, a criminal in a self-made suit of armor (or, to use Batman's description, "a geek in a trash can"). After Albert patches up both the wound and Bruce's ego, the Dark Knight tracks Mabuse down again, overpowers him, and, after the villain has surrendered, breaks his nose as well.
• Kill and Replace: In "Fortunes", Marie Margay murders her twin sister in a way that will lead people to identify the corpse as Marie, intending to take her sister's place.
• King in the Mountain: "Legend" is set in 'the far future', where a woman tells her child a bedtime story about how the great warrior Batman finally banished evil from the world, then went to sleep in the Batcave, having promised to awaken if evil ever returned. Then she starts crying, because although she's shielding her child from it the world they live in is beset by evil apparently victorious. The final panels show a malefactor looking around in surprise and then alarm as a familiar pointy-eared shadow falls over him...
• Kissing Discretion Shot: In "The Bet", when Poison Ivy is kissing all the male inmates of Arkham Asylum, the audience watches Harley getting increasingly annoyed while Ivy kisses The Penguin, Two-Face, and Killer Croc off-panel, since actually seeing any of those kisses on-panel would probably break the mood.
• Laser-Guided Amnesia: In "Guardian", Batman meets the Golden Age Green Lantern, now retired, and there's a scene where he reminisces to Batman about his days as Gotham's guardian hero, referring to his sidekicks and his colleagues in the Justice Society of America by their real names; a moment later, he adds, "You'll forget all these names in a minute, by the way", and Batman does.
• Latex Perfection: In "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder", Batman disguises himself in a latex mask that's apparently convincing enough to fool the brother of the person he's impersonating at close range. It's particularly impressive because he's revealed to be wearing his normal rigid cowl underneath, which you would expect would negate one of the main advantages of a latex mask (being able to convey the facial expression underneath).
• Legend Fades to Myth: "Legend" is set in 'the far future', where the memory of Batman has become a bedtime story about a great warrior who fought without rest until he banished evil from the world.
• Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: "Legend" is set in the far future, in "a stainless steel city of light" that's deliberately contrasted with Batman's usual milieu; one of the city's inhabitants recounts a legend about Batman which depicts him inhabiting a world of eternal night.
• Light Is Not Good: "Legend" is set in the far future, in "a stainless steel city of light" that's deliberately contrasted with the rain-shrouded darkness Batman stories are usually set in. Then, on the final page, there's a wider view of the city which reveals it to be a dictatorship with tanks and soldiers on every street, and no dark corners to hide in. (But wait — there is one shadow... a familiar pointy-eared silhouette...)
• Living Aphrodisiac: In "The Bet", Poison Ivy demonstrates her pheromone power by making every male employee and inmate of Arkham Asylum kiss her and then forget it happened, with the implication that she could have got more than a kiss if she'd wanted.
• Locked into Strangeness: In "The Black and White Bandit", the eponymous criminal has black hair with two white stripes, and matching stripes in his beard. Notably, he doesn't have the stripes in the flashback to the days before the accident that drove him to crime.
• Look Behind You: In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", in a spoof of Batman's traditional Stealth Hi/Bye, Batsman's Stealth Bye involves shouting "Look out! The Joker's got a bomb!" and jumping out the window while Commissioner Gordon panics.
• Madame Fortune: "Fortunes" features a fortune-teller who goes by Madame Margay.
• Mad Scientist: The antagonist in "Monsters in the Closet", creating twisted inhuman monstrosities in a secret lair.
• Manipulative Bastard: Catwoman in Blackout cooks up a scheme to get Batman off her back for one night by tricking him into thinking she has been wounded and is near death's door counting on this to invoke the memory of what the Joker did to Barbara Gordon to infuriate Batman beyond the point of rationality. While he is less than amused by the ruse, a comment from Slam Bradley makes him figure the entire thing. The next panel, a briefly gloating Selina is interrupted from her heist to see a really annoyed Batman.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: "Devil's Trumpet" revolves around a trumpet that's reputed to grant exceptional musical prowess to whoever owns it, but its owners tend to come to bad ends. The person who acquires it in the story does come to a bad end, but that can easily be explained as a consequence of his obsession with owning it. Whether it truly has any effect on his prowess is left open.
• Meaningful Background Event: "A Slaying Song Tonight" has a scene where Batman stands on a rooftop looking down on a crowded street, reflecting that any one of the people below could be the hitman he's searching for, while scraps of conversation float up around him. A couple of the scraps of conversation are hints to the hitman's activities, such as a shopkeeper puzzling over someone breaking into his shop and stealing a single pillow.
• Meaningful Echo: "Devil's Trumpet" opens with a two-page account of how the legendary trumpet's first owner was dragged off to hell by a demon. Near the end of the story, the man who murdered the trumpet's latest owner to possess it for himself is captured by Batman, in another two-page scene that visually echoes the composition of the opening, with Batman in place of the demon.
• Merry Christmas in Gotham: In "A Slaying Song Tonight", a hitman plans to get near his target by taking the place of a Mall Santa hired to put in an appearance for the target's daughter. Batman figures it out in the (Saint) nick of time and stops the hitman just before he reaches the house — then puts the costume on and does the Santa appearance himself. The little girl declares it the best Christmas ever, and Santa-Bruce replies that it's the best Christmas he's had in a long time himself.
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: "Blackout", set in World War II, starts with Batman investigating a window that's showing a light in defiance of the blackout order, which leads to him discovering a jewel robbery in progress, which leads to him learning that the owner of the jewels was using them to fund a Nazi spy ring.
• Morton's Fork: Every choice the reader can make in "The Riddle" (Issue #5). Every path will lead to Nygma's victory. The only way to beat the Riddler's game is not to play.
• Ms. Fanservice: In "Two of a Kind", Harvey Dent is seduced by Madeline, the twin sister of his current lover Marilyn. Madeline approaches Harvey in a stunning lingerie complete with stockings and a good view of her butt.
• Mundane Made Awesome: In the Animated Actors story "A Black and White World", comic book characters carry their drama around with them even when they're off set. Batman is always dramatically shadowed, even when he's just sitting in a brightly-lit green room reading a magazine. A casual conversation between Batman and the Joker about how their respective families are doing is given the same dramatic lighting and framing as if it were one of their in-character confrontations.
• Murder by Mistake: In "Case Study", an anecdote is told to illustrate how cunning and ruthless the Joker was even when he was just a nameless gangster: he antagonised Gotham's top mob boss enough for the boss to go gunning for him personally, then tricked him into shooting a decoy who was the mob boss's own girlfriend.
• Mythology Gag:
  • In the Animated Actors story "A Black and White World", the only news magazine available in the green room where Batman waits between scenes is TIME; "company policy", a receptionist explains. At the time the story was written, Time Inc. and DC Comics were both owned by the same media conglomerate (Time Inc. has since been spun off into a separate company again).
  • "Greetings from... Gotham City" features a tourist postcard with smiling and waving Batman depicted on it, depicted in a cartoony style similar to Super Friends, in contrast to the gritty depiction in the actual story.
• Narrator All Along: "Greetings from... Gotham City" is narrated by a young man's postcard home to his mother, telling her how he recently saw Batman in action against a gang of jewel thieves. The artwork on the first page highlights a clean-cut onlooker, implying he's the narrator, but the final page reveals it's actually one of the jewel thieves. "P.S. It doesn't look like I'm gonna make it home for Thanksgiving."
• Nasal Trauma: "Broken Nose" is about the first time in Batman's career that an opponent managed to inflict the eponymous injury on him. When he catches the culprit, he makes a point of returning the favor.
• Near-Death Experience:
  • In "Dead Boys Eyes", Batman is shot and, hovering near death, hears the voice of Gotham City speak to him.
  • In "Leavetaking", Batman is shot and relives the night his parents died.
• Nerd Glasses: In "Broken Nose", Batman hunts down a man who robs banks wearing Powered Armor. Out of the armor, he turns out to be a skinny geek wearing half-moon glasses.
• Never Suicide: In "Fortunes", a woman apparently committed suicide by shooting herself, but the detective studying the crime scene immediately notices that the wound isn't right, and figures out that she was actually killed with a blow to the head.
• Nightmare Sequence: "In Dreams" opens with one.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: In "Devil's Trumpet", the legends surrounding pioneering blues trumpeter Coley Treadwell are inspired by the legends that surrounded pioneering blues guitarist Robert Johnson.
• No Name Given:
  • The mad scientist in "Monsters in the Closet" is not named, because Batman is unaware of his existence before following a clue to his lair, and he gets killed by one of his own creations before he gets around to introducing himself. The narration refers to him as "the little man".
  • "Case Study" involves several people being interviewed about the Joker's activities before he became the Joker, without ever revealing his real name. One of the interviewees reels off several names and says the guy seemed to have a different handle every time he popped up again.
• No One Could Survive That!: In "A Game of Bat and Rat", a hoodlum fires a rocket launcher at Batman, blowing up the vehicle he was crouching on top of. "No way Bat-boy coulda lived through that," he says confidently — and, of course, incorrectly.
• No-Sell: In "The Hunt", two criminals open fire on Batman and are horrified when the only thing that happens is that he complains about how long it's going to take to mend the bullet holes in his suit.
• Nostalgic Narrator: "Heroes" is narrated by the protagonist from some unspecified distance in the future, looking back on "that year, when I was ten years old".
• "Not So Different" Remark: The serial killer in "Petty Crimes" claims this when Batman catches up to him. Batman takes the point about them both taking the law into their own hands, but holds the line on "kills people for minor transgressions" being a significant difference.
• Obfuscating Insanity: "Case Study" proposes that The Joker is a ruthless chessmaster who makes plans on multiple levels and hides it all under a cloak of being a whimsical madman.
• Oblivious Mockery: Near the beginning of "Devil's Trumpet", an old bluesman comments about "the soulless crap that these records stores blare at you", gesturing at a nearby store playing the latest popular jazz album — not knowing that the man he's talking to is the headline performer on that very album.
• Odd-Shaped Panel: "Funny Money" features a Time-Passes Montage in which the panels keep getting smaller as time goes on: three panels are arranged in a grid where the fourth quadrant contains three panels arranged in a grid where the fourth quadrant contains ... and so on, vanishing into infinity.
• Offscreen Teleportation: In "A Game of Bat and Rat", Batman does this repeatedly during a fight with a group of criminals in a warehouse, to the point that sometimes he seems to be in two places at once. At the end of the story, the ringleader flees the warehouse, only to find Batman already waiting for him outside.
• Our Gargoyles Rock: "Gargoyles of Gotham" revolves around the inanimate gargoyles and grotesques that are a feature of Gotham's Gothic/Art Deco architecture. The story explains their history, makes note of the difference between the two (gargoyles form part of the rainwater drainage system while grotesques are just statues; Batman prefers gargoyles because grotesques are often added to cornices superficially and make terrible purchases for grappling hooks) and explains that most grotesques on Bruce Wayne's buildings are secret emergency Bat-Gear caches.
• Paper-Bag Popping: In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", Batsman sneaks up behind Commissioner Gordon and pops a paper bag, in a spoof of Batman's traditional Stealth Hi/Bye.
• Passing the Torch: In "Guardian", Batman meets the Golden Age Green Lantern, who used to protect Gotham City, and the story ends with Green Lantern telling him to "look after my city".
• Pastiche: "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld" is a comedic story in the style of a MAD Magazine parody.
• Powered Armor: In "Broken Nose", the villain is a bank robber in a home-made suit of powered armor. Batman's first fight with him lasts around two minutes and ends with Batman limping away with a broken nose, but Batman also spent the time assessing the armor's weaknesses; the second fight lasts around the same amount of time but is a victory for Batman.
• Priceless Ming Vase: In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", one of the museum displays is a large vase labelled "Priceless Ming Dynasty Vase", which inevitably gets used as an improvised weapon and doesn't survive the experience.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: In "Monster Maker", Batman encounters a trio of muscly gangsters who his internal monologue describes as having "bodies by Leavenworth".
• Private Detective: In "Fortunes", Batman encounters a private detective who's on the trail of the same mystery he's investigating.
• Punctuation Shaker: Exaggerated in "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", where the equivalent character of Ra's al Ghul is named R'a's a'l G'h'u'l.
• Reading Lips: In "Blackout", Batman spies on a telephone conversation by lip-reading through binoculars from a building on the other side of the street.
• Recurring Dreams:
  • The central character of "In Dreams" has a recurring nightmare due to buried childhood trauma.
  • In "Night After Night", one of the things the title refers to is Bruce's recurring nightmare about his parents' death.
• Retraux:
  • In "The Heist", all the shading is done with old-timey screentone dots.
  • "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder" is drawn in the style of a Golden Age Batman comic and is written accordingly as well. Batman and Robin smile throughout the story, deliver wisecracks and best the villains via a clever scheme. The first page is a splash panel that looks like an old comic book cover, with the title appearing in the same style it used to on actual covers in those days.
  • "Urban Renewal" features some nostalgic flashbacks by characters to the "old days", and the flashbacks are drawn in the Golden Age style as opposed to the more realistic present-day scenes.
• Right Behind Me: In "Guardian", a police officer, seeing that the Golden Age hero who used to protect Gotham has temporarily come out of retirement, remarks that they could do with someone like him around all the time, "not like that psycho bat-guy" — unaware that Batman is standing right behind him. Batman doesn't make his presence known, but the reader gets a good look at his irate reaction.
• Scenery Censor: In "Perpetual Mourning", Batman does an autopsy on a female corpse. One panel shows an overhead view of the autopsy room, with the lighting rig over the work table hiding the corpse from shoulders down to knees.
• Serial Killer:
  • The murderer in "Petty Crimes" who kills people for small transgressions like driving slowly in the fast lane of the motorway.
  • The murderer in "The Third Mask".
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the characters in "Bent Twigs" is drawn to resemble Dagwood Bumstead.
  • "Heroes" is a homage to pulp adventures like those of Doc Savage. It also contains explicit shout-outs to Terry and the Pirates and The Adventures of Robin Hood.
  • In "Case Study", a cinema displays the titles of The Bat Whispers, a 1930 thriller film that was one of the inspirations for Batman, and The Man Who Laughs, a 1928 film that was one of the inspirations for the Joker.
  • In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", one of Gotham's novelty giant object buildings is a homage to Dr. Seuss's cartoons that codified the Cartoon Bug-Sprayer.
  • In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", the climactic action sequence takes place at the Kane Museum, named after Bob Kane.
• Sleep Cute: Non-romantic example in "A Matter of Trust", which ends with Robbin finding Bruce asleep with her two young sons that he's been minding asleep on top of him.
• Splash of Color: "The Gasworks" features red spot color for every appearance of the hallucinogenic gas.
• Spotting the Thread: "A Place In Between" has an apparently deceased Batman being rafted to the afterlife by Deadman, where he is subjected to his worst nightmares and failures. But then he realizes something...
  Deadman: What's it like being hunted like an animal?! Face it, detective! Face your worst fears, all at once!
  Batman: What? Did you say "fears"?
  "Deadman": Oh... Did I?
  Batman: You were close, the ploy was very good.
  "Deadman": I—I didn't really mean to...
  Batman: Not Hell or Heaven, or "Anywhere in Between"... Just a sick bastard trying to unsteady my mind... Well played, Dr Crane. My turn.
• Stealth Hi/Bye:
  • Spoofed in "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", where Batsman's version of the Stealth Hi involves sneaking up behind Comissioner Gordon and popping a paper bag to scare him, and the Stealth Bye involves a really obvious Look Behind You.
  • At the end of "Fortunes", Ashraf asks Batman a question and then turns around to find that Batman has disappeared. The scene is framed in a shot over Ashraf's shoulder, so for once the reader gets to see Batman depart as Ashraf is speaking.
  • In "Hide and Seek", Batman makes his appearance doing a Stealth Hi on Commissioner Gordon — in the middle of a subway tunnel that's currently a sealed crime scene swarming with cops. Gordon asks how he got so close without anyone spotting him, but doesn't get a straight answer.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: In "The Black and White Bandit", Roscoe Chiara becomes a villain obsessed with black and white. His victim recognizes him with a cry of "Chiara—Roscoe Chiara!", making it easier to spot the link between his name and chiaroscuro, an artistic technique involving stark contrast between light and dark.
• Supernatural Fear Inducer: The Scarecrow and his fear gas feature in several stories including "The Bat No More...?", in which he develops a special strain designed to give Batman a terror of bats (including his own bat symbol, cowl, etc.).
• Superpowered Evil Side: The antagonist in "The Third Mask" has an alternate personality who's dramatically muscled and capable of superhuman feats of strength and agility. At the end of the story, Batman manifests his own similar alternate self to confront him.
• Super Window Jump:
  • In "The Hunt", Batman crashes through a large window to break up a robbery, in a splash panel taking up half the page.
  • At the climax of "Devil's Trumpet", Batman crashes through a large window to catch a murderer.
  • In the Animated Actors story "A Black and White World", Batman comes crashing down through a glass ceiling while The Joker is mid-speech. As they head to the canteen after the scene wraps, Joker points out that Batman always gets the big dramatic splash pages, while Batman admits he wishes that he got to make speeches.
  • "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder" begins with Batman and Robin swinging through a large window to capture a group of gangsters.
• Symbol Swearing:
  • The robbers in "The Heist".
    Bernie: What'd that little &@$!#*% say?! What the #$@& is he shooting at?!!
  • "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld" ends with Batsman fleeing with a shout of "Get the #&(%@! away from me!!" after his latest attempt at solitary brooding gets interrupted once again.
  • In "Greetings from... Gotham City", a thief shouts "Aw, fer [string of symbols]'s sake!" when Batman catches up to his getaway vehicle.
  • In "Blackout", Catwoman shouts "@*#! %*!!" when Batman captures her.
• Take Our Word for It:
  • "The Riddle"^note from Batman Black and White Volume 2; not to be confused with the story from Issue #5 of the 2020 run revolves around The Riddler trying to steal a document reputed to contain Lewis Carroll's one true punchline to the Orphaned Setup Raven Riddle from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. When he gets his hands on the document, he reads it, laughs, and says, "Brilliant! No wonder he never published this!" The punchline itself is not revealed to the audience. And at the end it turns out Batman replaced the actual solution for his own, or to add insult to injury, convinced Riddler he had done so, spoiling the entire thing for him.
  • The backstory of "The Black and White Bandit" revolves around a painting that's hailed as a masterpiece with sublime use of colors. It would be impossible to show the painting in its full glory in a Deliberately Monochrome story with art that leans toward the cartoony end of the realism scale, and no attempt is made to do so. Mostly we see reaction shots of people looking at it, and in one panel it's visible in the background and only rendered as an undetailed rectangle.
• Tally Marks on the Prison Wall: Played with in "The Bet". Harley Quinn makes a set of tally marks on the wall of her cell to track the progress of her bet with Poison Ivy. Near the end of the story Batman notices them while returning The Joker to his cell and remarks that he hadn't thought she'd been in that long.
• Tap on the Head: In "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder", while Batman and Robin are fighting a group of gangsters, a gangster's moll sneaks up behind Robin and hits him over the head with a vase.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: In "Bent Twigs", Batman is disgusted by an irresponsible and emotionally abusive father who perpetuates a vicious cycle of hurting his son before turning around and asking why he made him do it. When all attempts at reason fall on deaf ears, Batman instead foists the father over the edge of a building in a Neck Lift and threatens to drop him just as the father did the boy's cat, Tiger.
• Tempting Fate: In "Dead Boys Eyes", a minor criminal gets the drop on Batman and shoots him several times from behind, then dumps Batman's unconscious body in the sewer and saunters off chuckling, "That was too easy." Of course because it's Batman, a little thing like being shot multiple times and dumped in a sewer isn't going to stop him bringing the justice.
• Time-Passes Montage: "Funny Money" has a montage where Batman stares down a close-mouthed suspect until he cracks. The suspect shifts uncomfortably from panel to panel, but Batman doesn't move a muscle.
• Trauma-Induced Amnesia: The protagonist of "In Dreams" had a traumatic experience at age five that she completely repressed until it started expressing itself in a recurring nightmare of being menaced by Batman. It turns out that she was kidnapped, and Batman rescued her just as the kidnapper was about to kill her.
• Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: In "Monster Maker", Batman goes up against a gang that recruits children, encountering eleven-year-olds who wield automatic firearms proficiently and without hesitation and have more felonies on their rap sheets than they've had birthdays.
• Twisted Christmas: "A Slaying Song Tonight" opens with a splash panel of a skinny, wild-eyed Santa Claus hiding a machine gun in his sack, going on to reveal that this is a hitman who plans to get near his target by taking the place of a Mall Santa hired to put in an appearance for the target's daughter.
• Unexplained Recovery: "A Game of Bat and Rat" begins with a hoodlum announcing that he has killed Batman by shooting him at close range with a rocket launcher. Batman shows up less than an hour later, not only still alive but apparently not even seriously injured, though his cape is a bit tattered. It's never explained how he survived.
• Unreliable Voiceover: In "Greetings from... Gotham City", a small-town boy who recently moved to Gotham sends a postcard back home describing how he got to see Batman take down a gang of jewel robbers. The text of the postcard appears as narration over the visuals of the fight scene, and at first it seems like the narration is basically reliable, if a bit short on detail due to the space restrictions of the postcard. Then it turns out the postcard writer left out some fairly significant details, such as the fact that he was one of the jewel thieves, who was seen in the fight scene making several attempts to injure or kill Batman.
• Unsound Effect: In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", a gargoyle collapsing makes the sound effect "Collapse!".
• Unwinnable by Design: invoked "The Riddle", the similarly named story from issue #5 of the 2020 run, is a Choose Your Own Adventure comic where Batman has to chase The Riddler throughout his maze in order to capture him... only each choice the reader is asked to take will result in The Riddler winning.^note In fact, one path sees Batman attempt to acquire the plans for the maze itself, only to get beaten to death by The Riddler and Killer Croc, and (in his dying moments) realize the plans make no sense, and that the maze can't be solved. As such, the actual answer to the story is to ignore the choices entirely, as following the game as intended will kill Batman.
• Ventriloquism: Recurring villain the Ventriloquist appears in "The Bet", and uses his ability to help Harley Quinn win the eponymous wager. (His dummy, Scarface, then accuses him of being a "soft-hearted simp".)
• Villain Episode: "The Riddle"^note from Batman Black and White Volume 2; not to be confused with the story from Issue #5 of the 2020 run is about The Riddler breaking into a private collection of memorabilia to steal a valuable document, with Batman only showing up on the second-last page.
• Villains Want Mercy: In "Monsters in the Closet", the mad scientist goes from smugly confident that Batman can't do anything, to squealing for mercy when his monsters turn on him.
• Visible Silence: In "Bent Twigs", a motor-mouthed character is shocked speechless, represented by a speech bubble with nothing in it but a radiating symbol like the one that's sometimes used in comics to represent a balloon popping.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Civic Virtue serial killer in "Petty Crimes" murders people for antisocial actions like littering and blocking traffic, and claims to be holding the line for civilized society. Several characters, including Batman, say that while of course they can't condone his methods they do kind of see his point.
• Where Does He Get All Those Wonderful Toys?: "Heroes" revolves around the man who designs Batman's gadgets.
• Whole-Plot Reference: "Leavetaking" reprises the parable of the Good Samaritan, with Batman in the role of the gravely injured man whom nobody will stop to help. In this updated version, the passersby include an African American teenager, an alcoholic, and a policeman who refuses to help because he doesn't want to deal with the paperwork he'd have to do. In the end, this being Gotham, there is no good samaritan, and Batman has to drag himself to an emergency room under his own power.
• Would Hit a Girl:
  • In "The Hunt", the female villain tries to invoke Wouldn't Hit a Girl, but Batman calmly responds that he's an equal-opportunity dispenser of justice before knocking her unconscious.
  • In "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld", Batsman declares that it's against his principles to hit a girl but that he has no rules against smashing them over the head with, for instance, a Priceless Ming Vase.
  • In "Batman with Robin the Boy Wonder", a gangster's moll tries to invoke Wouldn't Hit a Girl, saying "You wouldn't hit a lady, would you?" Batman replies that of course he wouldn't, but he doesn't see any ladies here, and knocks her cold.
• Would Hurt a Child: The kidnapper in "In Dreams". The parents of his five-year-old hostage pay the ransom, but he decides to kill her anyway "to get rid of the evidence". Batman arrives in the nick of time while he's explaining to his hostage how much he's going to enjoy doing it.
• Written Sound Effect: During the action scenes in "Batsman: Swarming Scourge of the Underworld".
• You Must Be Cold: In "Case Study", a gangster offers his date his hat and coat after her own coat goes missing, in what turns out to be something other than chivalrous gesture it appears: one of his rivals is gunning for him, he knows it, and he's deliberately setting her up as a decoy.

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