The Caped Cruader’s Ipseity
The Caped Crusader’s Ipseity
Introduction
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HIS book celebrates the 75th anniversary of one of the most iconic characters in the DC comic world – Batman. One of the most important pieces of Baman’s arsenal is his iconic Batsuit. There have been dozens of iterations of the Batsuit, from comics, video games, and even animation.Batman has created and worn suits for all kinds of occasions and encounters. This versatility and functionality is what makes the Batsuit such a force to be reckoned with. This unique and one of a kind fan catalogue consists of twenty of the most iconic, popular and oddest incarnations of the caped crusader, making for an interesting and factual collection including exclusive fan artwork which brings forth some of the untold details about the extraordinary Batman.
Bruce Wanye and Batman The First Apperance The Silver Age The T.V Series Dark Knight Returns 19th Century Batman Tim Burton’s Batman Vamparic Batman Batman Knightfall Batman Forever Kingdom Come Marvel / D.C
01 – 02 03 – 04 05 – 06 07 – 08 09 – 10 11 – 12 13 – 14 15 – 16 17 – 18 19 – 20 21 – 22 23 – 24
Batman Beyond Batmankoff Batman Begins The Dark Knight Arkham Asylum The White Lantern The New 52 Lego Batman Dawn of Justice
25 – 26 27 – 28 29 – 30 31 –32 33 – 34 35 – 36 37 – 38 39 – 40 41 – 42
Contents
Bruce Wanye B
ruce, an American billionaire, philanthropist and owner of Wayne Enterprises. He was brought up in Wayne Manor and its wealthy splendour and leads a happy and privileged existence until the age of eight. After the death of his parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne, he faced the ultimate confrontation with his lack of control over the world, which turned into an obsession. Bruce was known to have a limited amount of friends; however they were the closest to him and were the most loyal ones.
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Batman B
ruce Wayne developed a fear of bats as a child when he falls into a cave and is attacked by bats. Later on in his life, Ra’s al Ghul helped him overcome his fear, and trained him with the League of 67 Assassins. He returned back to Gotham City, and swore revenge on criminals, an oath tempered by a sense of justice. He emphasizes that his disguise should strike terror into criminals’ hearts. As if responding to his desires, a bat suddenly flies through the window, inspiring him to assume the persona of Batman.
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The First Appearance
Comic Book Bob Kane and Bill Finger were the first people to develop a design for Batman. All the batsuit features for the years to come were defined: The cowl with pointy ears, a bulletproof vest under a tight suit, a bat shape on the chest, boots and gloves, a cape that works as a glider and the belt. The cape, cowl and trunks are all black with blue highlights; following gray leotards, a muted yellow belt, and the bat logo without any yellow oval around it. First glance at Batman, and it was clear, that this was a hero that belonged in the dark.
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The Silver Age “I am the night”
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Comic Book Neal Adams (artist) brought subtle costume changes to the batsuit. Batman’s logo retained its yellow oval and the bat emblem was enlarged. Whilst the blue colour scheme remained, the length of the cape was greatly expanded. The utility belt had capsules around it that carried the gadgets that Batman needed to fight crime. While it isn’t a part of his costume, Batman was designed to look leaner and more trim looking fighter.
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The T.V Series
TV / Movie Adam West was the first Television Batman, and his batsuit was, according to him, “designed to look as close to what was going on in the comic books as possible.” He then also described the suit as “really sick”, extolling how “it looked good and moved well.” Due to the time that this production was happening, the designers had limited fabric and cloth, making this batsuit the best that they could at that time. Visibly, the batsuit did not come with any sort of hard armour, or have any real features that Batman would usually be present with, and this was again, due to the time that it was produced.
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Dark Knight Returns
Comic Book “They only want me dead because I’m an embarrassment. Because they can’t do what I do”
Frank Miller wrote The Dark Knight Returns series. The series, in many ways, was one of the greatest hits of the way Batman had looked up until 1986, when the story was published, however there was one distinctive difference: the utility belt. Until then, the utility belt was a thin strap of yellow plastic or leather with capsules all around it. In Frank Miller drew the belt as what it really was: a yellow belt with pouches. In many of the images of Batman in action, the pouches flop about, making it look real. However, by the end of the story, Miller also brought back Batman’s black cape, cowl, trunks and boots.
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19 Century Batman
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Graphic Novel Gotham by Gaslight was created by by Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola, with inks by P. Craig Russell. It spawned a sequel, Master of the Future (1991), where Batman had to battle Alexandre LeRoi, who is seeking to disrupt Gotham’s turn of the century celebrations. Gotham by Gaslight was not originally called an Elseworlds publication. However, due to its success led to the development of the Elseworlds views so much so that the title had been stated by DC Comics to be its first Elseworlds adventure. Subsequent printings showcased the Elseworlds logo on the book’s cover.
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Tim Burton’s Batman
Movie Tim Burton’s Batman films features a black batsuit with a yellow ellipse logo, utility belt, and heavy armour placed on the chest, forearms and boots. This became the basic template on which all upcoming live-action batsuits were based on. This suit was notable its for introduction of the grapple gun. Various versions of the gun is featured in comics; a single – shot spear gun with a cord and spear that can be attached to the belt and can pull or carry a set amount of vertical weight, including a Gauntlet, that fires two lines to form a horizontal path across a distance.
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Vamparic Batman
Graphic Novel The Batman and Dracula trilogy began with Red Rain, a 1991 graphic novel by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones. In the novel, Batman investigated a series of homeless people murders of Gotham. Along the way he discovered a family of vampires led by Dracula himself, here a rogue vampire named Tanya aided Batman take down the villain. Batman, after a vampire bite, acquired the necessary strength to stand against Dracula’s minions however while still retaining his humanity. Tanya informs Batman that vampires, created by Dracula, are powerless against his abilities and mental powers.
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Batman Knightfall
Comic Book “Knightfall” is the title given to a major Batman story arc published by DC Comics that dominated Batman related serial comic books in 1993. This storyline followed Batman in the aftermath of the massive breakout at Arkham Asylum and ultimately lead up to his confrontation with Bane and the fallout from that. Knightfall is broken up into two parts “The Broken Bat” and “Who Rules the Night”.
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Batman Forever
Movie This batsuit was introduced in the movie ‘Batman Forever’. The Riddler destroyed all of Batman’s regular batsuits. Bruce is forced to use a prototype “Sonar Suit”, an silvery – black suit that possesses a more armour like design than the previous suits. This new Batsuit utilizes lenses that slide automatically over the cowl’s eyeholes to display a sonar generated image of Batman’s surroundings to him, allowing him to see with more accuracy in extreme darkness or glare.
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“You’re just jealous cause I’m a genuine freak and you have to wear a mask” – Penguin
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Kingdom Come
Graphic Novel The exoskeleton used by Batman in 1996’s Kingdom Come, is where most of Batman’s crime fighting is done through an army of robotic drones. This Batsuit is a power armour that allows Batman to engage in aerial and hand – to – hand combat despite his past injuries, this exosuit allowed an elder Bruce, crippled years of injuries sustained as Batman, to occasionally head out onto the streets and still fight as Batman. The armour is equipped with grappling hooks and shields Batman from flames. It also has lasers, sharp blades, and allows Batman to fly. Lastly, in addition to enabling him to walk the power armour also lends Batman superhuman strength.
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Marvel / DC
Comic Book Dark Claw is from the Amalgam Universe – This was a meta fictional American comic book publisher, and part of a collaboration between Marvel Comics and DC Comics, in which the two comic book publishers merged their characters to create new ones and is a combination of both Batman and Wolverine. Dark Claw’s costume was a mix of Wolverine’s yellow and blue and Batman’s dark hemmed cape suit. The cowl on this costume took its shape from Wolverine, but included the fangs and bone structure of a bat’s face, along with its wings going up the cowl.
“I’m the best there is at what I do, but what I do best isn’t very nice”
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Batman Beyond
Comic Book This batsuit was developed for Bruce Wanye and was given to Terry McGinnis when he became Gotham’s new savior. Bruce incorporated the features of previous batsuits into this suit, such as the flight capability of the Jet – Wings, batarangs with auxiliary functions, grappling guns, bolas, and retractable claws. The suit had a cloaking device and was an exoskeleton of electronic circuits. The cowl was replaced with a full – face mask and the bat chest symbol was changed with this the cape was replaced by retractable wings and the utility belt was fussed into the suit lastly, the boots included thrusters that allowed Batman to fly in the absence of wind.
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“We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Here’s a tip, the hard way isn’t fun.”
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Batmankoff
Comic Book Batmankoff has been said to be trained in every martial art known to man, and out of every single one of those forms of fighting he knows 127 that are deadly. because of his training, Batmankoff has also mastered nearly all weapons known to man. Batman’s combat skills surpasses most metahumans and normal men, and he even knows every pressure point and nerve strike in the human body, as well as dim mak techniques. These can cause dangerous pain to his enemies, which can lead to dizziness, numbness, temporary paralysis, disorientation, and even death.
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Batman Begins
Movie This suit is from Lucius Fox’s R&D Program, Wayne Enterprises’ Applied Sciences Division. Based on an advanced artillery armour system constructed from Nomex, the first layer of is an under suit with built – in temperature regulators designed to keep Batman at a good temperature in any condition. The second layer of the suit consists of armour built over the chest, calves, thighs, arms and back infussed with kevla bi-weave that can stop slashing weapons and deflect any bullet short of a straight shot impact, with reinforced joints allowing maximum flexibility and mobility. Bruce also adds metal gauntlets with scallops on the forearms. This was mainly used to block against knives or other stabbing weapons.
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The Dark Knight
Movie “...Because sometimes truth isn’t good enough. Sometimes people deserve more.” This new bodysuit is made of hardened Kevlar plates on a titanium-dipped fiber and was broken into multiple pieces of armour over a more flexible bodysuit for greater mobility. The cowl which was previously attached to the shoulder and neck, is now a separate piece inspired by the design of motorcycle helmets, allowing Batman to move his neck without moving the rest of his upper torso. The iconic blades on the sides of Batman’s gauntlets are now retractable and are capable of firing outwards as projectiles. The Batsuit also had “sonar vision”, where signals emitted by mobile phones are converted into images in a similar way to sonar. In order to view these images, white lenses fold down from Batman’s cowl to cover his eyes.
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Arkham Asylum
Video Game In Batman: Arkham Asylum and its next sequel Arkham City, the batsuit appears more similar to that of the cloth versions seen in the comics. Underneath the aesthetic layer was a series of amour to protect against ballistic damage. The mask contains a “Detective Mode� visor to allow Batman to investigate crime scenes, collect data, navigate and locate signals. The gauntlets contain not only Batman’s signature spiked blades but also a hardened mini computer and remote for his vehicles. His cape is similar to the Nolanverse films, which permits him to glide across vast distances.
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“Sometimes it’s only the madness that makes us what we are.”
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The White Lantern
Comic Book Batman was formerly a White Lantern Corps. During ‘Brightest Day’, a Green Lantern event which featured all the DC heroes, Batman received, briefly, a white ring of power from an entity called Deadman. However, it was discharged after the ring reacted violently. As a result, the Power Ring removed itself from Batman whereupon it stated that instead of actively searching for the chosen one Deadman (Boston Brand) should wait till the ring found the individual who would bear the White Lantern Power Ring. The Power Ring revealed that Batman was not the true heir to the White Light.
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The New 52
Comic Book In the wake of the New 52, Batman wears another version of the Batsuit. This suit appears with various elements from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Trilogy. The suit is made of hardened Kevlar plates on titanium tri-weave fibers and is broken into multiple pieces of armour over a more flexible bodysuit for greater mobility. The gloves are made of dense but flexible leather with ribbing on fingers, piping and convex metal knuckles. The utility belt is now a convex metal ampules form, its buckle is made of beveled metal platelets. The back of the belt has an intricate containment device and can be detahed to be used as a tool.
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Lego Batman
Movie The beloved toy brand (Lego) created successful sets based on movies and comic books.The Batman mini figurines based on the super hero from the DC Comic Universe originally appeared with two variations in 2006, one in 2007, and one in 2008; being the original suit, 1989 film suit, classic suit, and 2008 film suit, respectively. Batman’s first Microfigure was also released in 2013. 2014’s known variants include a suit based on the Beware the Batman TV series, a brighter version of the blue Super Heroes suit, and a Scuba suit. In 2015, new variants of Batman released included his Space Suit and his New 52 suit.
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41 “Tell me... do you bleed? You will!”
Dawn of Justice
Movie The cowl was inspired by the artistic work of Frank Miller – the most notable quality of this mask is that the ears are much shorter than previous versions. The Batman logo has evolved to an incredible degree of the years. While Christopher Nolan, Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher opted for skinny – winged versions of the symbol, Zack Snyder went in a completely opposite direction. The batwings here aren’t so much wings as they are a cape. Batman has been portrayed as wearing a black costume moving away from the blues and greys of the comic – but one piece of equipment has always provided a splash of color: the utility belt. Either yellow or gold.
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BATMAN 75TH ANNIVERSARY
The author of this book would like to thank the following artists and online publictions. Full page artworks: Doaly Design Serivces, Kevin Tiernan, Peter Gutierrez, Wizyakuza Art, Martin Ansin, Paullus23, JB Fuller Online publications: Seyyed de la Llata (Gulf news), Matthew Liedke (After movie reviews), Batman: Atkham City (2011)
“It’s not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me.”