Top Batman Moments
(7 minutes reading time)
In honour of Batman’s 75th Anniversary and inspired by this tweet by ComiXology, I’m writing my favourite Batman moments. I’m not going to do a list of 75 as I don’t think I have that many favourites and also I’m writing this on the eve of Batman Day. I only decided to write this just a couple of hours ago. I’m also going by memory and mine’s pretty poor. Plus I’ve not read or experienced every single thing to do with Batman in all the 75 years. So you can’t justifiably accuse me of not being comprehensive.
But you can accuse me of having fun with this! Enough rambling let’s get stuck in. I do have quite a few of these so in no particular order (just as I wrote them down in my notepad)…
Batman kicking Superman’s a** in The Dark Knight Returns
The guy is 55, has a serious heart problem and Superman is scarily more powerful than ever before but Batman still manages to humilate The Big Blue Boy Scout. The people’s champion crushing the god who came from the heavens. Epic.
Batwing + The Moon = BATMAN IS AWESOME
I had mixed feelings of Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman movie but there’s no doubt that I loved this moment right there and then. I think I had chills.
Batman The Animated Series opening sequence
There are many, many great things about BTAS and it is this series that cemented my love for The Dark Knight. The title sequence was originally a test reel that convinced Warner Bros execs to greenlight Bruce Timm and Paul Dini’s take on Batman. They kept it pretty much as is from the test and it captures the mood, aesthetic and cartoon bleakness of what I consider to be one of the best televsion series ever.
BTW as I’m writing this I’ve got the DVD playing in the background.
The very first time you get to be Batman in Arkham Asylum
A few games have tried to make you feel like you’re Batman but none were really any good. I mean for years people considered Batman Returns on the SNES the best and that was only because the graphics looked good for the time. It was a dull scrolling beat ‘em up (which is all Batman games were since ZX Spectrum days). Then in 2009 Rocksteady Studios released a truly groundbreaking game. I’d read the reviews, seen the video clips and knew this was the Batman game. After several months of being very ill we were walking around the shops one Saturday and I saw that HMV were doing a bundle for the Xbox 360 Elite console with a free copy of Batman Arkham Asylum. My wife ex said OK when I asked (which she later explained was because she felt sorry for me being so poorly) and I bought the bundle in a heartbeat.
The start of the game sees you escorting the Joker into Arkham Asylum. The moment you are given control of Batman and walking him alongside the Joker in his gurney, is the moment you’re thinking I’m Batman!
I’m so more Batman than you
“You’re like Two Face and both sides of your face are ugly”. Hilarious!
LEGO Batman in the LEGO Movie
Yes, everything is awesome but NOT AS AWESOME AS BATMAN! (Seriously like how he’s such a douche as well - that’s actually funny)
ZUR-EN-ARRH
Grant Morrison has written quite a few of the best Batman “wow” moments starting from his legendary run on JLA depicting Batman as an uber bad ass far, far ahead of all the super beings in the room. Straight into his Batman run he created the Ninja Manbats 
and Damian 
. My favourite Grant Morrison Batman moment though is probably in Batman RIP when Batman’s sanity is destroyed. At this point the emergency personality that he had programmed into himself kicks in and he becomes The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh! An ingenious homage to the alien Batman in a storyline from 1958. I also love how this personality manifests his subconscious as a haluscination of Bat Mite!
Bat Mite turns Calendar Man into his contender to challenge Batman
Nicely linking up: I asked my Number One Daughter what was her favourite Batman moment. She doesn’t know what “moment” means really so I phrased it as her favourite thing that happens with Batman. She said the one in Brave and the Bold where Bat Mite changes all his costumes and then has Calendar Man appear. But really I think her favourite Batman moment is…
Birds of Prey
This is definitely my Number One Daughter’s favourite Batman moment as she’s made me play it to her many times. I think it’s the combination of three of her favourite superheroes and the musical number that does it. This and the previous are among my favourite moments as I love watching Brave and Bold especially with my girl.
Joker’s love for…
This page is visually better than the actual one when my favourite moment happens. In the later page he is about to enter Arkham Asylum to confront The Joker and thinks about the only time he has actually seen The Joker’s pupils change. They dilate when looking at Batman. They dilate as the Joker feels for Batman… love.
Eeew!
The Killing Joke
Although Scott Snyder has just retold The Joker’s origin in Zero Year, to me this is the definitive by Alan Moore. Recently Grant Morrison told Kevin Smith on the excellent Fatman on Batman podcast that he saw it as Batman killing The Joker at the end. I don’t understand how I never saw that over all these years. A thoroughly disturbing tale (as many of Moore’s work is) especially when Barbara’s shooting is shown to the Commissioner. Here is that final page in original colouring by John Higgins which I far prefer to Brian Bolland’s revision. Bolland removes the luridness that fits the horror. He attemps to invoke sombreness and it doesn’t work as well. I think Bolland has made it feel too “real” and it’s not as much of a fantastic visual.
Batbomb!
From the sinister and disturbing Joker tales I’m bringing it back to the fun and pop culture colour of Batman ‘66 with this excellent scene from the movie. The nuns!
Batman and Wonder Woman sitting in a tree
It is often considered that Superman tickles Diana’s fancy. But since sharing a kiss with Batman she’s quite taken by the dark, brooding, billionaire vigilante. Batman is my hero. Wonder Woman is the ultimate woman (and not a female imitation of some other character). They should get married. Oh but wait Selina…
Heart of Ice
This episode exemplifies how Batman The Animated Series turns something really lame into something really cool… And if they can do that with Mr Freeze, just look at how they took an icon in Batman and elevated him to something so classic that this cartoon show surpasses all of the live action Batman movies IMO.
Building LEGO Batman The Bat with Number One
Last summer I spent a day with my eldest and supervised - I was hands off - as she built my LEGO Batman Bat for me. She utterly loved it and I shared a great moment with my daughter thanks to our love of LEGO and my love for Batman.
Batman by E
My girl is really good at drawing for a child her age (her classmates stand around watching as she draws sometimes). This is her rendition of LEGO Batman for me ♥
That’s it! I’ve probably got more but I’ll save those for another post as this has been EPIC!