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YMMV / Batman

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  • Accidental Innuendo:
  • Adorkable: A great deal of Depending on the Writer is at play, but Batman's various sidekicks have their moments of awkwardly endearing enthusiasm.
    • Stephanie does several backflips of joy when Batman lets her be Robin during Tim's 10-Minute Retirement.
    Stephanie: This is so totally COOL!
    • Damian's eagerness and sneakiness when he dresses up as Batman while Bruce is out of town in Batman and Robin Annual #1 is also pretty notable, especially as he waits for nightfall.
    Damian: Stupid sun. Go down already.
  • Alas, Poor Scrappy: When Jason Todd was first killed off by the Joker. Even many of the people who voted for him to die were saddened by his death.
  • Angst? What Angst?: Dick witnessed his parents' murder at a young age much like Batman, but unlike Bruce, he barely displays any signs of trauma. Although sometimes he's written as grimly as Bruce, most authors depict him to be happy, friendly and one of DC's biggest symbols of Fun Personified.
  • Archive Panic:
    • Trying to figure out where to start reading Batman's adventures? You may as well just pick an issue and not worry about it. The character has been published monthly since 1939, often in multiple comics per month (to date, he has 19 ongoing series, which often intertwine with each other story wise, and often into other DC series as well). Archive collections from DC help, but even they haven't reprinted all 80 years worth of comics.
    • The entire franchise is insanely prolific—besides the staggering amount of comic series he's starred in, there's also 22 one-shot comics, two literary books, two live action TV series, 30 movie serials, 8 live action movies (with a 9th one on the way) a cd album, 4 radio shows, 3 manga adaptations, 2 musicals, 3 pinball games, 44 video games (and 11 more with him in supporting or cameo roles), 2 web series, and he has starred in 11 animated series (7 of which give him top billing) and 17 animated movies (12 of which likewise giving him top billing) and enough misc. tie in toys and merchandise to fill the Batcave! All this, and the series has been going strong for 80 years, and is showing no signs of stopping. To say the least, Holy Archive Binging!
  • Ass Pull: Batman is frequently accused of this, because of his Crazy-Prepared tendencies being taken up to eleven quite often. A lot of his weirder or more “specialized” inventions and gadgets (such as the infamous Shark Repellent spray or Bat-Credit card) are often either the result of various writers having written themselves into a corner for one reason or another and desperately needing Batman to do something miraculous to pull himself out of a situation that should logically be unwinnable under normal circumstances, or because the writer loves Batman and wants to make him look cool by making him do something seemingly impossible, no matter how little sense it makes.
    • In Grant Morrison’s Batman series, during the “Batman RIP” arc, it’s revealed that Batman somehow managed to implant a backup split personality in his mind in case he came under psychological attack, known as the “Batman of Zurr-En-Arrh. While most agree that it’s an awesome idea, it doesn’t really have much buildup to foreshadow the split-personality’s existence, and for the most part, it basically comes right out of nowhere. The idea also raises some questions, since this isn’t the first time that Batman has come under psychological attack or been mentally destroyed. Scarecrow, The Joker, Bane, Ra’s Al Ghul and plenty of other villains have also managed to attack and damage Batman's psyche in the past, so why didn’t the split personality activate to protect Bruce back then?
    • A huge one happened in issue #130 of the 2016 series (Zdarsky’s run). It’s also got some serious Artistic License – Space going on too. In that issue, Batman somehow survives getting ejected in space, somehow doesn’t immediately die, somehow just happens to have an air tank in his ship, somehow managed to rig one of it’s parts to propulse himself back to Earth in about 10-15 hours (we know that this is how long it took him, because the book points out that there’s only about 10-15 hours of air in his tank), then somehow managed to survive atmospheric re-entry while wearing no protection apart from a cheap plastic mask and the Batsuit. What makes this so baffling is that: A), he should’ve died very quickly from being ejected into the vaccuum of space and being exposed to it for so long. B), he had been propulsed away from Earth even farther than the Moon, so even with his ship’s rocket booster, it should have taken him a few days to return to Earth and his air tank would’ve run out by then. And C), the fact that the Batsuit, and even the cheap plastic mask Bruce was wearing on his face, were both durable enough to survive atmospheric re-entry, despite the fact that the Batsuit would definitely not be made to last in such conditions (for context, Batman isn’t wearing any specialized Batsuits or anything like that, he’s just wearing his default costume). It also raises some serious Fridge Logic: If the Batsuit can somehow survive the sheer cold of the vaccuum of space and survive during atmospheric re-entry, then how are villains like Mr. Freeze or Firefly even able to hurt Batman at all? And even if the Batsuit was somehow able to survive all that, it wouldn’t explain how the plastic mask didn’t immediately melt unto Bruce’s face and scar him for life either.
  • Badass Decay: Bane suffered this pretty severely after Knightfall as fans wanted more of him but no one had any idea what to do with him. This lead to several weird plots where Bane thought Batman was his half-brother, he became Ra's Al Ghul's heir, and he searched for his father to kill. Perhaps the lowest point of his career was being defeated by Judomaster's son in the Checkmate series.
  • Broken Base:
    • Batman's Thou Shall Not Kill code is one of the most controversial aspects of his character. Some consider Batman's refusal to kill his enemies to be the one thing that stops him from being as bad as the villains he fights, and that it's a crucial part of who he is and what separates him from similarly dark and edgy heroes like The Punisher or Wolverine, while also arguing that it is ultimately not up to him to decide the fate of his foes, but Gotham's. There's also the Doylist argument that Batman actively killing his villains in the comics would quickly render his Rogues Gallery (meant to be one of the character's biggest draws) unusable. Others argue that by repeatedly entrusting villains to a justice system that's already been shown countless times to not work, Batman is indirectly responsible for every life they take when they inevitably break out of the Cardboard Prison that is Arkham Asylum, and that it should be possible for him to kill the worst of his Rogues Gallery without Jumping Off the Slippery Slope. Most commonly, arguments about this are started by someone asking "Why doesn't Batman just kill The Joker already?", which often ends up in a heated debate. Some stories even touch on this debate In-Universe, like Batman: Under the Red Hood.
    • Audiences are split on the decision for almost every live-action iteration of Batman being allowed to kill his enemies. The comic-adherents consider it a gross misrepresentation of what Batman stands for and accuse the filmmakers involved of just making generic action films which piggyback off Batman's brand. Others are more open to Batman being a killer (at least in live-action films) since not only does the narrative structure of cinema necessitate a sense of closure that often translates to killing the Big Bad, but the damage inflicted in those movies is often shown to be very permanent, with nothing in the way of time-travel or a cosmic rewrite being hinted at. Not helping matters is that Batman Forever and The Dark Knight Trilogy frequently try to have their cake and eat it, showing a Batman preaching the evils of killing, only for both movies to end with him killing Two-Face and not dwelling on it.
    • The Bat Family as a concept in general is divisive amongst fans and even writers. Some love the idea of Batman having a Found Family and argue the various members humanize him and give him a lot more depth to him as a character outside of being a brooding loner. Others though, prefer Batman to be a lone wolf type who works alone, finding the idea of him having a "Bat Family" to be a stupid idea that goes against his very nature and dilutes his appeal compared to other heroes. Even among people who like the family as a whole can be very argumentative over issues like how many people it should have, how integral it should be to Batman stories in general, and what form Batman's relationship with any given member should take.
    • In regards to the live-action films, there has been a growing feeling among some fans that are tired of each new interpretation being a Darker and Edgier version of the character. While defenders will argue that this is true to what Batman should be like and that his grounded stories are the best, critics feel that more light-hearted takes on Batman are just as valid and that the decision to make Batman more grounded prevents the use of Batman's more superhuman foes. Related to this is Robin, as people who prefer a darker and more realistic Batman reject the idea of Robin even appearing while those against it are more willing to accept the character, though often acknowledging that he should be reimagined to some extent for the films.
    • Given how much Batman has been interpreted by artists over the years, fans are very divided over how Batman should be drawn in the comics, and there is no agreement over which is more "definitive".
      • What should the color of the cape and cowl be? Blue or black? Some fans find blue to be more striking than black, while others find black to be cooler and more fitting for a Dark Knight. Generally speaking, this tends to boil down to which version of Batman one prefers, with fans of the more classic Batman depictions from the 1940s-to-'90s tending to go for blue, while more modern fans lean towards black.
      • Which is the better emblem for Batman? The black bat emblem or the yellow oval Bat-insignia (also called the yellow oval by fans)? Some prefer the yellow oval for being more striking and distinguishable than a simple black bat, while others find it dumb that Batman would have such an obvious target on his suitnote  and prefer the black bat for being cooler looking.
  • Can't Un-Hear It:
  • Cargo Ship:
    • Jason/crowbar. It's gotten to the point that Jason is usually associated with a crowbar in the fandom.
    • There's also Tim/coffee. It's gotten fairly ridiculous at this point.
  • Complete Monster: See here.
  • Common Knowledge:
    • While Batman was certainly a more ruthless crimefighter at the start, the aspect that he kills criminals and used guns tends to get overplayed. Besides being limited to only the earliest batches of stories, Batman only sporadically took a life and usually only did when the situation demanded it—and in one case, his victim was a vampire, who was undead to begin with. And the times he used a gun in them can be counted on one hand and still have fingers to count—as early as Detective Comics #38 (Batman having first appeared in #26), both of these aspects of the character were abandoned in order to make the character more noble.
    • Also, while the comics may have had a more dark and down to earth tone at the start, it wasnt always hidebound to reality either; the series quickly abandoned any notion of hard realism as early as a few issues in, featuring stories where Batman dealt with a vampire and a mad scientist who looks like Napoleon uses a dirigible armed with a Death Ray to assault New York, as well as crooks dressed up in gorilla suits. As early as issue 38 of Detective Comics, the tone of the comics was already getting Lighter and Softer due to the introduction of lighthearted characters like Robin. In short, the Batman series has had fantastic or goofy elements present from the start.
    • Everyone knows Batman only works at night time. However, this isn't entirely true. While it is true that Bruce primarily operates as Batman at night (due to more rampant crime and his shtick working better at night), he has no qualms about putting on the bat-suit in daylight if the situation calls for it, such as when he is working with the Justice League. Furthermore, some incarnations of Batman — like the version from the 1966 series — primarily operate in the day.
    • After Batman & Robin depicted Bane as a scrawny man who turned into a muscle-bound beast after being pumped full of Venom, it's become common practice for Batman writers to refer to this as canon. In the comics, Bane's muscular build came from years of hard work and his Venom dosage is only around to make him superhuman; it doesn't cause any drastic visual changes (because it can't create mass from nowhere). Thankfully, Tom Hardy's portrayal, where he's extremely muscular from years of training and fighting, seems to have put an end to this idea among general audiences.
  • Creator's Pet:
    • When Scott Snyder was told he couldn't use Cassandra Cain in his Batman run, he created a character named Harper Row. Harper appeared in two issues of Batman (a split-second cameo and A Day in the Limelight) before being billed as a "fan-favorite" for her next appearance. While she was positively received, "fan-favorite" seems to be stretching it. When Damian Wayne died and left the Robin slot vacant, she was immediately pegged as the next choice to fill the slot— although this may end up going to Carrie Kelley, a female Robin from Frank Miller's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns... supposedly from Batman's future. Who is a much more likely candidate for the title "fan-favorite."
      • While she was initially a replacement for Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown during the post-New 52 veto on the characters since they've come back she's been shilled as basically better than either of them as well as the 'uber Robin'. This includes things like being more determined than Steph (who's famously the biggest Determinator in the franchise in terms of never quitting despite horrible odds) and central to every part of Cass' character development to the point where her whole motivation is now based on Harper. We're frequently told how great she is without any evidence and nobody ever calls her out on any of her frequent Jerkass-ness. And she's also an uber tech genius that surpasses Tim Drake (the tech guy in the Bat-fam) somehow despite debuting with basic skills based on electronics. Oh, and she becomes an Instant Expert and is able to pull of advanced acrobatics and fighting despite barely being trained. Even in Detective Comics (Rebirth), a series that's basically the Batman Ensemble Darkhorses in a team book, Harper got more focus than Cassandra Cain for the first two story arcs, and Harper's not even in the main cast.
      • There's also the amount of focus she gets. Batman Eternal and Batman and Robin Eternal were both advertised to feature the return of Stephanie Brown and Cassandra Cain, respectively (the second was also about the Robins). While they do get their origins and appear, Harper also gets extensive focus, even overshadowing the two in many people's eyes. It's basically advertising that your comic will feature the return of a fan-favourite character... and it does, but more heavily features your own original character that people don't like.
  • Death of the Author: Despite Bill Finger having a My Real Daddy reputation, many fans and later writers prefer to go with Joe Chill having just been a random mugger, ignoring how Finger himself had Chill as a hitman for Lew Moxon.
  • Designated Hero: Bruce can dip into this a lot, mostly in regards to his abusive treatment of his sons. While it's probably the most prominent in his treatment of Jason, especially in the New 52 and Rebirth, his treatment of Dick, his 'favorite' son, is hardly any better at times (which makes Jason's jealousy and resentment of Dick painfully ironic). While with Tim, it usually never gets physical like it does with his older brothers, the emotional manipulation is just as damaging. Damian is the one best off — he usually only has to deal with Parental Neglect. As a result of that, it becomes very hard to root for Bruce knowing he never really apologizes or admits that he's wrong for what he's been doing to all of them.
  • Draco in Leather Pants:
    • Many of Batman's Rogues Gallery gets this, having sympathetic backstories or motivations. For example, Poison Ivy's fans often speak of her as a misguided and misunderstood force for good who only kills people because she has no other way of achieving justice for plant life—ignoring her sadism and that her stated goal in many works is to kill every human on the planet. Likewise, Mister Freeze's brutal and revenge minded behaviors are often downplayed as "he just wants to be with his wife." Some even go as far as to claim they wouldn't be villains in the first place if that Jerkass Batman would just give them a chance.
    • Jason Todd often gets portrayed by the fandom (and occasionally by the writers) as a Nice Guy who loves his family. Despite, you know, the various times he's attempted to murder them.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Now has its own page.
  • Escapist Character: Batman himself is one. Grant Morrison actually talked about this and claims that for all the talk about how much of a fantasy Superman is, Batman is even more so:
    "Batman is obviously much cooler, but that’s because he’s a very energetic and adolescent fantasy character: a handsome billionaire playboy in black leather with a butler at his beck and call, better cars and gadgetry than James Bond, a horde of fetish femme fatales baying around his heels and no boss. That guy's Superman day and night. Superman grew up baling hay on a farm. He goes to work, for a boss, in an office. He pines after a hard–working gal. Only when he tears off his shirt does that heroic, ideal inner self come to life. That's actually a much more adult fantasy than the one Batman’s peddling but it also makes Superman a little harder to sell. He's much more of a working class superhero, which is why we ended the whole book with the image of a laboring Superman."
    • Or as a comedian put it: "I wish I was Batman; not so much the fighting crime, I just wish I was rich and my parents were dead."
  • Evil Is Cool: Hoo-boy. This trope may as well be called "The Batman Villain Effect". Standout examples include
    • The Joker. He's funny, stylishly-dressed, smart, and blends entertaining camp with being genuinely terrifying.
    • Harley Quinn is a badass Dark Action Girl with all of the Joker's charm, yet much more sympathetic.
    • Two-Face is a tragic, snappily-dressed old-school gangster skilled enough to fight Batman hand-to-hand despite lacking any special gadgets or superpowers.
    • Bane is a Genius Bruiser with super-strength and an awesome-looking luchadore-esque mask. It helps that he's a badass even without the Venom to give him an edge, and an excellent orator prone to amazingly quotable Badass Boasts.
    • Ra's Al Ghul is an Affably Evil Wicked Cultured Badass, a skilled fighter, and a criminal mastermind.
    • Clayface. Almost every incarnation of him has a cool design, interesting shapeshifting powers, and a strong element of pathos. Even Preston Payne, the one non-shapeshifter, is loved for being both incredibly Creepy Awesome and tragic.
    • Scarecrow is utterly terrifying, and beloved for it. The fact several storylines depict him as a master of sowing fear and psychologically manipulating people without his Fear Toxin only cements him as one of the most menacing Rogues, despite being completely useless in a physical fight (except of course for occasions where he’s not).
    • Poison Ivy. She's legitimately cunning, has a flair for awesomely creepy death traps, and has a legitimately endearing and funny relationship with Harley Quinn.
    • Mr. Freeze is a brooding, sardonic Anti-Villain with an awesome design and a legitimately cool yet tragic power set.
    • Killer Croc. Whether he's being written as a feral madman, a Noble Demon, or even a cold Genius Bruiser as in his original appearance, he's bound to be awesome.
    • Black Mask. He's pure evil and utterly depraved, but he's also so hilarious about it and such a legitimately cunning Diabolical Mastermind it's hard not to loved him.
    • Riddler and Penguin are frequently depicted as comical jokes, but they fall into this when taken seriously. The Riddler can be a seriously cunning Chessmaster and a legitimately challenging intellectual rival for Batman, whereas Penguin can be a very classy Cultured Badass who is both a physical and intellectual threat while remaining genuinely charming the entire time.
  • Fandom-Enraging Misconception:
    • Don't say Bob Kane is the sole creator of Batman, or more specifically, don't leave Bill Finger out when talking about who created Batman. While it is true that Bob Kane came up with the Batman concept and name, Bill Finger was arguably the true driving force of the character and deserves as much credit for Batman's creation as Kane does, especially since he came up with much of the mythos surrounding Batman, including the cowl and cape, the idea of Batman being a detective, the name Gotham City, his sidekick Robin, and much of his rogues gallery. This tends to really upset fans since Bob Kane stole much of the credit for Batman's creation from Bill for years (which even he later regrets) and would cause him to be uncredited for years until 2015.
    • Dick Grayson is not the only Robin, nor is Barbara Gordon the only Batgirl. Dick has at least three proper successors in the form of Jason Todd, Tim Drake, and Damian Waynenote , and Barbara Gordon has two successors in the form of Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown. Now in all fairness, this is an understandable misconception (especially from those who don't read comics), since most adaptations outside of the comics tend to stick to using Dick and Babs as Robin and Batgirl instead of their successors, but still, it's not wise to suggest that they are the only Robin and Batgirl unless you want to anger fans of the comics, especially fans of their successors.
    • "Batman" is one word, he is not referred to as "Bat Man" or "Bat-Man". Now granted, Batman was referred to as the latter in his earliest appearances, but even then, it was very inconsistent and it only lasted for a couple of issues until the current spelling was decided upon.
    • Don't you dare say that Batman is a person who would break someone's bones, just because he stole a piece of bread, in fact there are several stories that make it clear that Batman is usually softer with these types of criminals.
    • Don't you dare suggest that Batman and Superman are enemies, or that they hate each other's guts. The exact nature of their relationship is Depending on the Writer, but they are usually Vitriolic Best Buds at worst (and were straight-up best buds in pre-Crisis media). Serious conflict between them is usually reserved for Alternate Universe/Bad Future situations and/or certain adaptations (Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice et al).
  • Fandom Rivalry:
    • With the Teen Titans fandom, largely over both books' claims to Dick Grayson. The Dick/Kory vs. Dick/Babs ship war is generally seen as a microcosm for this.
    • With Superman fans, though there are those who miss the days when they were the World's Finest and respect both characters. Batman fans think Superman is an overpowered, boring one-dimensional goody two shoes and his fans are children with a lack of understanding of the world. Superman fans think that Batman is an overrated, wangsty, ineffective man-child and that most of his fans are biased, overly-cynical jackasses that don't actually read comics and think cynicism equals realism, and whose combination of absurd wealth and Charles Atlas Superpower is no more or less realistic than a Flying Brick who works a day job as a reporter.
    • This can also extend to "Batman and characters connected to Batman" versus "every other character DC owns who isn't Batman or connected to Batman." More or less, there's a considerable segment of DC fans who like Batman's mythos and only Batman's mythos, and DC has historically been alright with catering to them, often walling Batman off from the rest of the world or having him make unusually large showings in crossovers. This often results in said Batman-only fans, on a good day, treating all other characters and stories as only relevant in how they inform Batman, and on a bad day, insulting non-Batman superheroes as a bunch of ineffectual losers who are nowhere near as cool and badass as he is. Fans of other characters tend to react to this in exactly the manner you'd expect. In general, it's much less common for, say, fans of The Flash and fans of Green Lantern to get mad at each other than it is for fans of either character to get mad at fans of Batman.
    • In case it wasn't clear, Batman is perhaps the most popular superhero of all time and DC's biggest Cash-Cow Franchise. So occasionally there will be arguments between Batman fans and fans of Marvel's most popular character over which one is the better superhero.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Fans refer to Dick as Batman only as DickBats, since THE Batman is Bruce.
    • Az and AzBats for Azrael. Later became an Ascended Fan Nickname when Nightwing made up the latter.
    • Fans often call the trio consisting of The Riddler, Scarecrow, and Mad Hatter as "The Dork Squad".
    • While the yellow oval bat logo is officially called the "Bat-Insignia" (or the "Bat-Symbol" and "Batman Symbol") by DC, fans often refer to it as the "yellow oval" or "yellow bat logo" instead, primarily to distinguish it from the alternative black bat emblem.
    • Bane's Signature Move, pulling a Hoist Hero over Head with Batman and then breaking his spine on his knee, tends to be referred to as the "Bat-breaker".
  • Fan-Preferred Couple:
    • Although Bruce is strictly heterosexual and has had a number of female love interests, with Selina Kyle and Talia al Ghul being his most popular, many fans simply cannot get enough of shipping him with Clark Kent, which had been a popular pairing dating all the way back to the silver age of comics, which depicted the two as being closely knitted best friends (with Ho Yay to boot). The momentum didn't stop even after the two became more vitriolic in the 80s. If anything, it only increased the ship's popularity, as fans became extremely attached to their Odd Couple-esque dynamic and finds it to be more interesting and engaging than any of Bruce's canonical romances. It is so popular in fact, that it's the top pairing for both in them in any media featuring them or even in media where they're not even in the same continuity (such as Clark Kent from Superman Returns being paired with Bruce Wayne from The Dark Knight Trilogy).
    • The once-canon Tim/Steph, which was the fan-preferred pairing during the Tim/Steph and Tim/Ariana love triangle back in the 90s Robin series. It was also so popular that DC had to bring Steph back from the dead because all of Tim's love subplots after her death (Zoanne, Cassie, etc.) were poorly-received by fans. Though they were kept apart and did not get back together, DC had several times featured these two in teamup issues to spike up interest and sales for their respective solos. There's even a large portion of fans that claim that Steph was Tim's only convincing love interest. This has lead to a butt-load of Young Justice (2010) fanfics that expand on Steph's cameo in order to ship her with Tim.
    • For Cassandra Cain specifically, many prefer to ship her with Stephanie Brown over any of her canonical love interests, which are borderline obscure even amongst avid readersnote . This is largely thanks to their fun dynamic and their extremely close friendship in the comics, on top of both of them being Batgirl.
  • Fashion-Victim Villain:
    • Killer Moth. Good lord◊.
    • And than there's Cluemaster◊. His New 52 outfit is better but still garish enough to earn a Lampshade Hanging from Spoiler.
    • The Designer is dressed like a schizophrenic, military fanboy.
  • Faux Symbolism: At the beginning of "The Joker Walks the Last Mile", the Joker discusses his master plan of putting his Joker Immunity to the test with his mooks to have them make sure they follow his instructions, exclaiming that "The Joker shall die so that he may live again!" Afterwards, being kind of Crazy-Prepared, he plays a villainous version of the Sacrificial Lion by turning himself in to the police and confessing to a long list of crimes (including robbery and murder), resulting in him being given a death sentence and in his execution by the electric chair at the midnight hour. Right after he is declared dead, his mooks quickly retrieve his body from the prison morgue and carry him to a nearby ambulance where they bring him Back from the Dead with some life serum; once he is revived, he becomes a free man and can no longer die for his same crimes. This is kind of similar to the same plot concerning Jesus' passion and resurrection, except that he had God the Father and his angels at his side in his moments of death.
  • Foe Yay Shipping: It's very common to interpret Riddler's obsession with defeating Batman as having an unconscious romantic or sexual undertone. In the comic story "Table For Two" he sets up a Valentine's Day dinner for himself and Batman.
  • Fountain of Memes: Batman spawns a lot of memes due to a combination of his stoic and serious demeanor, his Good Is Not Nice personality, his angst stemming in part from his famously tragic backstory, his Crazy-Prepared-ness, and his ability to get around not having superpowers.
  • Friendly Fandoms: While usually limited to more light hearted versions of the Caped Crusader, most Batman fans get along with fans of Scooby-Doo due to the several crossovers between both franchises.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: The Under the Hood arc that famously had Jason Todd come back as the Red Hood notably involved Jason chewing Batman out for never taking the Joker's life in retribution for the Joker killing Jason. Jason would later learn to be careful what he wishes for in Countdown to Final Crisis, where he at one point enters a world where Batman did avenge Jason Todd's death by killing the Joker, only to escalate towards slaughtering all of the supervillains of the DC Universe and even turning against his fellow heroes when they disapproved of his methods.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: In Batman #19 from the New 52 series, Clayface disguises himself as Bruce Wayne and takes a woman hostage, asking for her name. When she says it's Martha, Clayface!Bruce comments on how amusing it is that she just so happens to have the same name as Wayne's mom. Three years later...
  • Ho Yay: Has its own page.
  • Iron Woobie:
    • Tim Drake isn't called "the saddest Robin" for nothing.
    • Batman himself. He may suffer through the death of various friends and allies and take a lot of crap in the line of duty, but he refuses to give up.
    • Stephanie Brown is probably the biggest example. Death itself couldn't squash her spirits.
    • Most characters who you could call a woobie are this, since they're usually badass vigilantes or Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds. Reading the following Woobie entries, you'll be hard pressed not finding one who isn't this type of woobie.
  • It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: Thanks to all the publicity he and his cast have been receiving in recent years, Batman has grown a rather large amount of detractors in the DC Comics community, just about everyone saying that they want other superheroes to receive some love and pop cultural attention. Notably, this example isn't so much complaining about the popularity itself as it is that the popularity makes Batman a more consistent best-seller than the rest of the superhero line, and so others are less likely to get a turn in the spotlight in the interest of maximizing profits.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • The identity of the new Red Hood as Jason Todd.
    • The ending of Battle for the Cowl, having Dick become the new Batman, although to most fans this was something they saw coming in Batman RIP.
    • Hush's identity as Bruce's childhood acquaintance Tommy Elliot.
  • Jerkass Woobie:
    • Jason Todd, post-resurrection. Surely, he did a lot of awful things (as trying to kill Dick and Tim), but the guy is so screwed in the inside. His family is dead, his biological mother watched when was being tortured by the Joker and did nothing to stop it (in fact, she was helping the Joker), and was brought back to life with amnesia, suffered a lot more while trying to recover his identity and his life (as we can see on Red Hood: The Lost Days), and to this day, his life hasn't gotten any better.
    • Damian is a brat, no two ways about it. But he finally gets to be Robin only after his father vanishes from the face of the earth, of which the whole point of getting said role was to spend time with him, is prohibited from killing in this new role, a tad crippling since he now has to solely rely on his ten year old build to subdue the likes of Killer Croc and as a result gets kicked around by a lot of people good and bad, and to top it all off he's surrounded by what amount to the surrogate children of Bruce Wayne, a collection of people Bruce loved and trusted despite not being his biological family, who at first greatly dislike him because of his behavior. Plus how lonely his childhood probably was, and getting his spine blasted to pieces within the second arc of his flagship title. Kid's got it rough.
    • Most of Batman's villains, since an overriding theme of the franchise seems to be how mentally fucked up Gotham is. Notable examples include Killer Croc (deformed by a birth defect that makes him look like a monster and causes everyone to treat him like an animal), Two Face (got horribly scarred, utterly shattering his personality and idealism), Killer Moth (the Butt-Monkey of Batman's Rogues Gallery who suffers constant abuse), and most famously Mr. Freeze (only a bad guy because of an accident suffered trying to save his wife).
    • On rare occasions the Joker can be this, most notably in The Killing Joke, but he usually performs another atrocity before the reader can feel too much sympathy for him.
    • Ra's al Ghul is a heartless bastard in many ways but when you read about his tragic past and how his life was turned upside down by the people he was trying to help, you can at least understand why he is the way he is now. Additionally, we find out in "I Am Robin", set decades later by publication date from "Birth of the Demon", that the real reason Ra's even wanted to become a court physician to the Sultan and his evil son was because he wanted to save his ailing mother and felt he absolutely needed the resources of a royal palace to do so but she died (though was resurrected much later) before Ra's could fully utilize his court physician resources to save her.
  • Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Ferris Boyle is the Jerkass CEO who ruined Victor Fries's life by ordering his experiment with Nora shut down and ended up transforming Victor into Mr. Freeze. Since then, all of Freeze's crimes and ruthless acts have gone on to far surpass Boyle's singular action, having ruined the lives of both men and women in far worse ways than his former employer. Despite all that, Freeze is the one whom fans sympathize with despite being a murderous, albeit tragic, villain with a high body count while Boyle is the one who's hated for being the unlikable jerk who might have had a point about Victor's experiment being unauthorized but still crossed the line by assaulting Victor.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: Dick is probably the most used fandom bicycle, but Bruce himself isn't far behind. Other Bat family members such as Tim and Barbara are subject to this as well, often with Ho Yay.
  • LGBT Fanbase: The franchise's several notable, stereotype-free gay characters like Batwoman and Renee Montoya have unexpectedly made it very popular among LGBT comic book readers.
  • Love to Hate: Batman has some of the most lauded and culturally celebrated villains in fiction, and they have high appeal for multiple reasons, among them being memorable and entertaining to some degree. Some of the series's most vile and irredeemable villains are often highly regarded for providing Batman with a challenge, having interesting quirks and backgrounds, and/or just being really fun to watch and read. Take your pick; The Joker, Hugo Strange, Black Mask, The Batman Who Laughs, and a few more.
  • Magnificent Bastard: See here.
  • Marth Debuted in "Smash Bros.": Many people attribute Batman's ability to glide with his cape to The Dark Knight Trilogy when it's actually been around since the forties.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Batman is one of the more notable ones. Give him enough prep, and he can beat God! "Batman can defeat anyone, given enough prep time," is practically Fanon in this regard.
    • Swamp Thing, Wildcat, Spider-Man and Superman have beaten him on occasion, though, and he has admitted that a fight between him and Captain America could go either way with him completely unsure who would have the greater chance of winning.
    • Another memetic badass is Alfred Pennyworth, Battle Butler extraordinaire. After all, he doesn't follow Thou Shalt Not Kill nor does he have an aversion to guns, so he's perfectly willing to pump a fool full of lead. And he constantly snarks at Batman, once shot a Predator in a crossover comic, and beat Superman's ass when on superhuman pills in Injustice: Gods Among Us. Beware the Batman seems to have caught on to this, turning Alfred into a Jason Statham expy.
  • Memetic Loser: Killer Moth. Seriously, this guy could rival Aquaman for Trope Codifier.
  • Memetic Molester:
    • People will not stop insisting that Batman is gay with Robin. The idea seems to originate from Seduction of the Innocent, where Wertham claimed that gay boys found Batman attractive and viewed Robin as a self-insert, and since then, DC's made countless attempts to give Batman some kind of love interest. None of them have lasted, however.
    • A good deal of fans have gotten a creepy vibe that the Mad Hatter is a pedophile. Whether or not this is a reference to the possibility that Lewis Carroll was a suspected pedophile, Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth and Streets of Gotham have only cemented the idea of Tetch being one.
      • Secret Six provides an alternate view but if anything it's even worse.
    • There's also the recurring rumor that The Joker raped Barbara Gordon in The Killing Joke, but Alan Moore has stated that he didn't. In his self-titled graphic novel, however...
    • Same goes for Black Mask and Stephanie. Given the torture was already brutal enough, and most are usually disgusted by it, this is a relatively minor belief most like to ignore the possibility of.
    • For some reason, 4chan likes imagining Commissioner Gordon as a rapist who wants to violate the Joker or arrange for him to be gang-raped.
  • Memetic Mutation: Batman is probably the most memetic superhero of all time, mostly because of his Crazy-Prepared Badass Normal Iron Woobie status. You can find his memes here.
  • Memetic Psychopath:
    • Batman gets this alot, especially with Superdickery.
    • For some odd reason, /co/ has a joke that Commissioner Gordon is an incredibly disturbed man who wants to rape Joker. It started out as a meme of Gordon yelling at Batman to just kill the Joker already, and then turned into a non-sequitur with this escalation.
  • Mind Game Ship: Hush with Batman, maybe even more so with Bruce.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
  • My Real Daddy:
    • Starting right at the beginning, Bill Finger actually did far more to create Batman himself than his more famous boss, Bob Kane. It was Finger, the writer, who came up with the idea of Batman being a detective, of him wearing a black cape and cowl instead of a red cape and Domino Mask, the Bruce Wayne secret identity, his origin story, Robin, Catwoman, Two-Face, the Joker and the name "Gotham City". Without such contributions, "the Bat-Man" most likely would be long forgotten by now, yet Kane was given sole credit for the character until late 2015 because he undermined Finger's contribution for his entire life, as well as contractually ensuring only he could be credited for creating Batman.
    • There's a long-running discussion over which writer deserves credit for Batman as a whole finding his voice. Denny O'Neil brought back the "dark detective" street-level superheroics aspect of the character in the early 70s. Steve Englehart further cemented this take while delving further into Batman's character; began the renaissance of Batman's Rogues Gallery which had, aside from the occasional return appearance and new villain, taken much of the 70's off; and finished what O'Niel started with the Joker by fully defining him as the crazy nutter we know today. Frank Miller deconstructed Batman and embraced his Grimdark noir side. Paul Dini gets credit for many stories which 'personify' Batman's strongest points, and Chuck Dixon gets a lot of respect for fleshing out Batman's supporting cast's personality, role, and themes.
    • While Jeph Loeb created the character, a good amount of fans feel Hush did not get really interesting until Paul Dini started writing the character.
  • Narm Charm: The sheer existence of Bat-Cow is so stupidly hilarious it's awesome.
  • Never Live It Down:
    • The ice cream incident is often taken out of context. The scene where Batman kicks a man seemingly for no reason other than enjoying some ice cream. In actuality, that man is Two-Face and Batman is kicking him for giving out poisoned ice cream to random citizens at a carnival.
    • Then there's that nasty little joke from Kevin Smith's run insinuating that Batman actually wet his pants in one of the most famous scenes from Year One where he confronts the mafia for the first time.
    • Killer Moth is such a Butt-Monkey Ineffectual Sympathetic Villain that it can be surprising for readers to learn that back when he first appeared he was an actual threat. In fact he was one of Batman's deadliest enemies yet, filling the role of the Anti-Batman. This all started, both in and out of universe, after Batgirl effortlessly kicked his ass on her first night out as a vigilante. Back than it was a bit of The Worf Effect; now it's treated as just another example of how pathetic he is.
    • Surprisingly the "Batman used to use a gun" tidbit is approaching this; Batman did use a gun in his first few appearances during the Golden Age, but the gun only lasted about two or three stories before Batman ditched it and cemented his rule of Thou Shalt Not Kill. Despite this a lot of people like to joke that Golden Age Batman was a murderous psycho.
    • Also the whole thing about Bane's Breaking of the Bat. Writers seem to like going back to that, and pretty much every time he appears outside of the main comics continuity, they have him do the exact move or attack Batman in some form, despite there being much more to his character than that.
    • In the comics Bane kicked his Venom addiction only a year after his first appearance by deliberately getting himself locked up in solitary confinement for a month so he could go cold turkey and suffer through it without distractions, and he never touched it again until decades later. Despite this, the popular image of Bane (and very frequent in adaptations to other media) is a guy who will resort to Super Serum at the drop of a hat.
    • Bruce's abusive tendencies going up to eleven during Batman (Tom King). It's easily one of the most hated things about that time period and it tainted the character; now there's not a single Batman fan that is ever going to argue that Bruce is a good parent.
    • While not as bad as other criminal masterminds of Gotham in memetic infamy, there are some people who will never forget the time Harvey Dent, injected with steroids because of the White Rabbit, called himself One-Face.
  • Newer Than They Think:
    • Though it's now his signature gimmick, the Scarecrow didn't use fear gas until over twenty years after his debut. In fact, in the 1940s he didn't use any artificial methods at all, and terrified people using only his wits and conventional weaponry.
    • Prior to the 1980s, Two-Face was not portrayed as a man with multiple personalities, just as someone who rejected moral responsibility and let random chance in the form of his coin make his choices for him. The multiple personalities first showed up when he got a new Post-Crisis origin. The idea of Dent having two personalities caught on so well it completely erased the character's first 40 years. Ironically, his appearance in The Dark Knight caused some protest when it was closer to his original portrayal.
    • The Batman and Joker dynamic and their status as Arch-Enemies is an iconic staple of the Batman mythos, but it's a surprisingly late concept in Batman's history. During the Golden and Silver Ages, the Joker was treated as just another recurring foe for Batman to beat up and was given no more importance than the rest of Batman's rogues gallery (as DC's blog states, "Basically, in the early days there just wasn’t much to say about Batman and the Joker’s relationship. A Batman versus Joker story wasn’t much different than a Batman versus random crook story"). It wasn't until The Bronze Age of Comic Books in the 1970s and the back-to-back success of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, Batman: A Death in the Family, and Batman (1989) in the 1980s that the Joker would be cemented as Batman's most personal foe.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • Scarecrow, didn't create the Fear Gas, it was originally created by Hugo Strange◊.
    • A newspaper comic strip arc had Batman getting his back broken and having a temporary replacement wearing the cowl (Superman no less!) over two decades before it happened in Knightfall.
    • When you hear the word "Arkham" you're probably thinking about the asylum rather then the fictional city of Massachusetts it's named after.
    • Batman had previously faced a Jekyll and Hyde inspired villain by name of "Lamb and Wolf" before the debut of Two-Face. He had no disfigurement but instead had a split personality in contrast to Two-Face who is disfigured and initially did not have a split personality.
  • No Yay: The various batcest ships have rather large followings. However, given they qualify as incest-via-adoption (hence the name) more than a few fans are outspoken about their dislike of the ships, especially the ones that feature large age gaps, such as most of the Damian Wayne ships.
  • Older Than They Think: Bat-Mite wasn't the first one to proclaim "Imagination" as the "fifth dimenison" of the DCU. That honor goes to "Paula Von Gunther" back in the golden age Wonder Woman comics. Granted, Wonder Woman's fifth dimension was a continuation of the three spacial dimensions and sigular temporal dimension, while Bat-Mite's dimension is a higher level of space-time populated by reality warpers who have free reign over the fourth and third.
  • One True Threesome: There are a few notable ones...
    • There's Bruce/Clark/Diana, which stems from the Ship-to-Ship Combat between Bruce/Clark, Bruce/Diana, and Clark/Diana.
    • Dick/Barbara appears to be the basis for a number of these (or more), the most popular of which seem to include Kory and/or Dinah.
    • And there's Tim/Steph/Cass, from fans who interpret both the Tim/Cass and Steph/Cass dynamics as more than just platonic friendship.
  • Paranoia Fuel
    • Doesn't matter if you're a good guy or a bad guy... Batman is watching you. ALWAYS WATCHING YOU.
    • Mad Hatter's hats can create vivid delusions that are nearly seamless. One popular episode of the animated series has him trap Batman in a paradise world where everything in Gotham is perfect and the sole thing that allows Batman to even notice anything wrong is his innate paranoia. Everything seen during his appearances could just be a fake world he's made.
    • In "The Widening Gyre" Onomatopoeia disguises himself as a rookie superhero. The disguise works so well that he manages to get Batman to invite him to the Batcave and is only caught when makes a distinctive sound effect, at which point turns around to see him jabbing a three-inch bowie knife into a woman's neck.
  • Periphery Demographic: Batman sure has his lady fans. And judging by the large amount of officially licensed plushies, babydoll tees, and jewelry, DC is aware of this.
  • Pop Culture Holiday: Batman Day was first celebrated on July 23, 2014 with subsequent celebrations taking place on the third Saturday in September. This is officially recognized by DC Comics.
  • The Problem with Licensed Games: In general, Bats has had more luck with this than most superheroes; his first NES outing by Sunsoft is considered one of the finest Nintendo Hard-in-a-good-way platformers, his 16-bit games tended to be at least okay (though this is the time period which The Angry Video Game Nerd found the most to object to), and the Batman: Arkham Series proved that licensed games don't have to be bad. He has still had some stinkers, though (like a few of the aforementioned 16-bit era games, or the Commodore 64 game, which looked cool but was a nightmare to actually play). Then there's Batman: Dark Tomorrow, which is generally considered to be one of the worst DC Comics-inspired video games period. Other Bat-titles (Batman Begins, Batman: Vengeance, and Rise of Sin Tzu) have fallen somewhere in the middle with mixed reception.
  • Questionable Casting: Seems to be a recurring pattern for Live-Action Adaptations of the character. Every new actor announced to play the role has been met with initial backlash from the fans. Each time, however, said actor promptly shuts them up and becomes the Batman.
  • Quirky Work: Silver-age comics are notorious for being "out there". Not unlike how Superman was often subject to Superdickery at the time, it was common for Batman's comic covers to feature Batman and Robin put in bizarre situations. These are just a few of them (mixed with covers from other eras, to a lesser extent).
  • Realism-Induced Horror: Of all the Rogues, James Gordon Jr. looks the least outrageously villainous with no gimmicks, no garish outfit and looking like a normal person. It's precisely because of this that he's considered one of the most frightening Batman villains, because that's how real serial killers operate.
  • Replacement Scrappy:
    • The second Robin, Jason Todd, was unpopular enough that fans voted for him to be killed off in the infamous A Death in the Family storyline. His New 52 incarnation is similarly hated: In the wake of Dick's faked death, writers have attempted to re-integrate Jason back into the Bat family. However, he comes across as a poorly-written anti-heroic Dick, and his interactions with Bat family members often require them to act wildly out of character.
    • Barbara-as-Batgirl has become this with a lot of fans, as many saw Cassandra Cain as superior or felt that Barbara was more interesting as Oracle.
    • The second Ventiloquist hasn't been very well-received, as the perception is that rather than try to make her appealing in her own right, much of the focus has been on running down her predecessor to say how much better she is. The third one that replaced both in the New 52 isn't very liked either. Apparently the writers caught on since both her and the second are either dead or ignored while the original is back in action.
    • Steph replacing Cassandra as Batgirl wasn't well-received by all. Before that, her replacing Tim as Robin wasn't, either.
    • The post-Batman: Endgame Batman, James Gordon, was disliked much like the other armor-wearing Replacement Scrappy, Jean-Paul Valley. This is mostly due to the fact that he's seen taking a Never My Fault attitude and attacking Batman's old supporting cast and allies. This is easily shown in Superman: Truth where he accidentally nearly causes a war with a subterranean race, then proceeds to tell Superman that it was his fault and to piss off. Although Snyder's run as a whole was acclaimed, the issues where the second Batman is the protagonist are commonly seen as the weakest.
    • To some, Basil Karlo as the main Clayface. While Karlo was the first villain to hold the title and a good rogue in his own right, he wasn't a shapeshifter like his successors. After becoming a true Clay-creature, he became a dumber, two-dimensional version of the Animated series Clayface with absolutely none of Matt Hagen's more complex qualities and little characterization beyond "sociopathic brute". Clayfaces 3 and 4(Preston Payne and Sondra Fuller) were also seen as more interesting and sympathetic characters, but have since been shoved to obscurity for Karlo. And that's not even mentioning the abominable actions through his career. While the Rebirth incarnation of Karlo retconned him into being a sympathetic and likable character, some still feel it would've been more apppropriate for other Clayfaces like Payne and Fuller to get that treatment.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap:
    • Jason Todd has been in and out of the scrappy heap:
      • Many fans warmed up to him after he helped save Superman in For the Man Who Has Everything.
      • In the mini-series "The Cult", he saved Batman's life, shook him out of a major BSOD, restored his faith in himself, and provided the impetus to save Gotham when Batman was ready to give up on it.
      • The Direct-to-DVD movie Batman: Under the Red Hood fixed a lot of the problems with the original story in which he came back and made him more sympathetic, resulting in more fans warming up to him in the comics.
    • Accomplished to such a degree with Damian that many who hated him are both surprised terrified with the fact that they are starting to LIKE him.
    • Flamebird. Due to her early Valley Girl nature and incompetence Post-Crisis, her clingy obsessive attitude, as well as being a retool of an already-campy character, fans didn't take to her very well. Geoff Johns and Ben Raab fleshed her out more in Beast Boy mini-series.
    • The Penguin went from being arguably Batman's number 1 villain during the Silver Age to being widely derided in the Dark Age. So what did the writers do? Give him a quasi-Heel–Face Turn and make him a wealthy nightclub owner who played a neutral role in the Gotham underworld. The fandom seems to like him again.
    • When Steph first became Batgirl, she became a Replacement Scrappy for Cass. After the first two story arcs, however, this died down a lot.
    • Hush was hated in his first appearance but was redeemed into a fairly cool villain after he was taken out of Jeph Loeb's hands.
  • Ron the Death Eater: The common meme / accusation that "Batman beats up poor people and mental patients" tends to downplay the fact that not only are most of Batman's Rogues Gallery psychopathic murderers and borderline terrorists, but that a substantial of them are more middle-class than anything else; many of them tend to be scientists or hold some kind of Ph.D.
  • Ships That Pass in the Night: For a brief time, Flamebird was looking to be linked with Beast Boy.
  • Ship-to-Ship Combat: With a huge cast of characters, there are quite a few of these:
    • Bruce/Selina vs Bruce/Talia is a major point of contention. Not helping is Grant Morrison's characterization of Talia as a full-on villain. Then there's also the fanbase who prefers Bruce with Wonder Woman.
    • Dick/Babs vs Dick/Kory vs Dick/Helena. Oh god. Not helping matters were the writers who participated. Chuck Dixon, in his Nightwing run, was rather dismissive of the Dick/Kory relationship in order to favor Dick and Barbara, the latter of whom starred in his Birds of Prey run. But then there was Devin Grayson who wrote a romantic encounter between Dick and Helena in the Nightwing/Huntress mini-series.
    • Tim and Steph may be an Official Couple, but there are plenty who prefer Tim with Kon (Superboy), and Steph with Cass (Batgirl).
  • Strangled by the Red String: Tim Drake and Bernard Dowd. It's not that fans don't think Tim being bisexual is a bad thing, since it's stands him out a bit more against the other Robins, it's that the person who has been writing Tim's adventures since the change, Meghan Fitzmartin, has been doing her damnedest to completely derail Stephanie and Tim's previous relationship - in the Batman: Urban Legends storyline, the two break up off panel, it only being revealed to the audience in a throwaway line, with Tim completely and utterly ignoring her and refusing to even think of telling her what's going on; in Dark Crisis: Young Justice, t1here's a scene where "Batman" tells Tim that his infatuation with Bernard is "just a phase" and he'll go back to Stephanie soon; and in Tim's new ongoing, Tim Drake: Robin, Tim suggests that he just "settled for" dating Stephanie before Bernard.
  • Strawman Has a Point: Jason Todd, the second Robin. After having been killed by the Joker, he came back and went on a violent killing spree against criminals; convinced it is the only way to stop crime for good. In the climax, he defends his stance to Batman by pointing out that in not killing the Joker, Batman essentially guarantees the Joker will claim more victims. Batman replies he will not kill the Joker because it would be too easy the next time. While Jason is a typical strawman of heroes willing to kill by being a total psychopath, his comments about the Joker were sound, even going as far as pointing out the slippery-slope fallacy of Batman's counterargument.
  • Squick: Multiple examples, with how long running the Batman franchise is. However, one aspect of the earlier comics that many fans agree on as being this was the Ho Yay that Bruce had with Dick Grayson and pre-death Jason Todd. This is in large part because it counts as Incest Subtext, due to Bruce being their primary caregiver/adoptive father. Them being not blood related doesn't change the implications of possible Wife Husbandry, and the added fact that some-but-not-all writers have admitted the subtext was intentional on their part just increases this for many. Understandably, many fans refuse to acknowledge the subtext as a result, as it puts Batman in an incredibly unflattering light.
  • Theme Pairing: Elsa from Frozen is shipped with Mr. Freeze because they share having ice powers.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • Tim's ENTIRE personality and backstory in the New 52. Instead of being a nerdy, non-athletic and all-round Nice Guy who started out as a Dick Grayson fanboy, he's now an arrogant, friendless Olympic-level gymnast whose last name may not even be 'Drake', which means that he might not even be the real Tim Drake. And they've taken away his role as the third Robin — he was never Robin in this universe, adopting the Red Robin name from the start instead. Not surprisingly (and justifiably), fans went into a huge outrage over this development.
    • A number of fans of Cass and Steph are unwilling to see them in the New 52 because of the risk of this happening. If you believe him, Dan DiDio is also scared of this, and refuses to let them be published until they have 'the right story' to avoid doing them wrong.
    • The Joker wearing his own torn-off face for a while and becoming absurdly competent was a huge offender.
    • For the fans that love the classic Harley Quinn and hate the New 52 version. It certainly doesn't help that her characterization can change drastically between different books.
    • Mr. Freeze's changed origin in the New 52, changing him from a man desperately trying to save his terminally ill wife to... a guy who has a sick obsession with a frozen woman he doesn't know. Taking the poster boy for Even Evil Has Loved Ones and turning him into just another crazy person in a Rogues Gallery full of crazy people has not been well-received, and it's mocked for how "edgy" the writers wanted to be. Noticeably, Freeze wasn't used much in the New 52, and by the time he got a bit of a spotlight in DC Rebirth, it seemed like the New 52 change was undone, as Batman mentions Nora being Victor's wife (in a way that didn't come off like he was humouring Freeze, which he had no reason to do)... before Detective Comics outright thawed her out and had the two very clearly be husband and wife, putting the New 52 origin into completely into Canon Discontinuity.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Most of the Club of Heroes members languished in obscurity for years despite the loads of potential they had. Grant Morrison made a point to bring them back in their Batman run and gave them a massive boost in popularity but for whatever reason few writers since have bothered to give them any acknowledgement.
    • Onomatopoeia hasn't been seen since "The Widening Gyre" despite being considered an awesome villain who's really popular with fans.
    • Bruce's uncle Phillip, who became his guardian after his parents died in some continuities. Many fans feel his distant but loving relationship with Bruce and potential reactions to Bruce being Batman could be interesting. However, he has only ever appeared in about nine issues across all continuities, usually just for a panel or two at a time in a flashback.
    • Astrid Arkham has a rich mythology, with the rogues gallery, an interesting Freudian Excuse, and more potential for reevaluating her worldview than many Batman villains, but her character was written out of the series barely two years after first appearing.
  • Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Bruce got hit with this hard during Batman (Tom King). Yes, it sucks that Selina left him at the altar. No, it does not give him the excuse to neglect, abuse, and more-or-less alienate his family, especially when each and every single one of them have already got a laundry list of grievances against him. It eventually got so bad that fans outright disowned Tom King's Batman, because he was that unsympathetic.
  • Wangst: Exactly how strongly this is portrayed falls squarely into Depending on the Writer.
    • MY PARENTS ARE DEAAAAAAAAAD!
    • This is one of the reasons why Bruce became Unintentionally Unsympathetic during Batman (Tom King). Bruce kept acting like Selina leaving him was literally the worst thing that could have ever happened to him, and began acting more out of control than he was when Jason, and later Damian died. The latter was literally only a couple of years prior, which meant only a couple of months ago in-universe. The fact that he didn't react nearly as badly when Alfred died in that same run did not help matters.
  • The Woobie:
    • Cassandra Cain was raised as a Tyke Bomb under traumatic circumstances. Her first normal friends die in the Blüdhaven disaster, has to fight both of her parents a lot, is at one point branded as a murderer by others in the Bat Family and is lured into brainwashing on one occassion by Deathstroke, playing on how she misses having a father figure.
    • Stephanie Brown grew up with an absent super villain as a dad, has been a rape victim, had a bad break up with Tim Drake at one point, has to give up her daughter for adoption due to fears her hero activities will ruin her life, inadvertently causes a lot of chaos during her time as Robin and is tortured and nearly killed, and has to spend a while letting the others think she's dead. And that's not even considering her D.C. rebirth counterpart having her father trying to kill her and her mother not moving to interfere.
    • The Ventriloquist. How can you not feel for the guy? It ain't his fault that he has to share his brain with a ruthless, abusive gangster.
    • Let's face it; Commissioner Gordon's life sucks.
    • Killer Moth, especially when writers play up his Butt-Monkey traits. The poor guy just wants to be remembered/respected.
  • WTH, Costuming Department?: The armor worn by James Gordon in DC You, with its Chappie ears. It was even mocked in-universe.

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