Though Batman is consistently hyped for his onscreen appearances -- like The Batman or the return of Micheal Keaton to the role in the upcoming The Flash --, the decades of jokes about the character are rooted in the comics. These jokes include references to Batman's brooding personality, his questionable parenting, or corny "punchlines."
Of course, the format of these jokes has changed significantly over time, leaving memes as the current social commentary format. Batman comics are no exception, but modern comics are best explained with more memes than just the Bat-Slap.
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The NAS have got nothing on Barbara Gordon, and her Oracle system. With the ability to take near full control of all of Gotham's technical systems, Oracle has everyone's personal information at her fingertips.
Batman's close relationship with Oracle - thanks to her past as Batgirl - allows him access to almost all of her technology and surveillance. But it's probably better that he uses her equipment since a similar surveillance equipment he helped creating was Brother Eye - an AI that turned sentient - and gave new meaning to "malicious spyware".
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With so much history in the decades of comics, Batman is full of panels, scripts, designs, and attitudes that haven't aged well. When it comes to the events that have occurred, both the brand and Batfans often just ignore the parts they don't like. Developing these headcanons as a fan often means pretending something never happened.
When DC does it, they call it a "reboot". Normally centered around some sort of "Crisis" title, these reboot retcons change all kinds of things about the characters' histories and backstories. And they sometimes change them back, like DC's Rebirth era after the changes with the New 52.
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While the standard Batman print titles are skewed towards a darker and grittier storytelling style, DC's Wayne Family Adventures has become a surprise success for the brand as a whole. The more casual slice-of-life series has provided opportunities to flesh out Batman characters in a more relatable setting.
Some of the best aspects of this partnership with Webtoons is a result of DC deciding to make fan headcanons actual canon and not take themselves so seriously. Full of character development and familial relationship development sprinkled with pop culture references, the entire title offers endless meme-able content.
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Batman's best known for being a broody loner who doesn't trust anyone, but Batman has a huge family for someone who claims to work alone. Besides the Batman and Detective Comics titles he heads, the character appears in a supporting role in almost all of the Batfamily's titles fairly regularly and as a character in the Justice League titles.
Batman also heads up multiple Elseworld alternate reality stories and mini-series that cover flashbacks in and out of comics canon, expand on the lore from the films, and develop his relationships.
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From the alternate universe tag, "Bruce Wayne is a Good Father" on fan fiction sites to the Bat-slap meme-ed 'round the world, Batman's lack of canonical parental skills is in a constant state of flux and content creation.
DC tends to focus on either his relationship with Dick Grayson or Damian Wayne for the rare storylines with Batman-as-father-figure. Occasionally, Tim Drake will get a moment - or Jason Todd - and Bruce put their differences aside for an arc. But the comics often leave out Cassandra Cain and Duke Thomas, who also fall under the Wayne kids umbrella.
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Batman's shaky relationship with some of the meta-humans he's encountered has created a rarely-spoken-if-ever-spoken rule about meta-human involvement in the protection of Gotham. While this rule seems to have more influence outside the comics canon, it's often used to explain why other heroes don't interfere with the mess that is Gotham City.
What's actually funny is that Batman seems to actually work with meta-humans pretty frequently by teaming up with Signal, helping Gotham Girl stabilize her powers, and training Clayface. Batman himself was even declared a meta-human by the government in the DC Universe.
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A number of people in Batman's life have a circus story. Dick Grayson, the first Robin, was from a family of circus performers. Jason Todd, the second Robin, was originally introduced as another circus kid. He had a hauntingly similar life story before being retconned to the Red Hood of modern comics.
And Tim Drake, the third Robin, was at the performance where the Graysons were murdered. He was able to deduce Robin's identity from Grayson's skills in that performance, which Drake used as proof of Robin and Batman's identities. These events led to his time as Robin.
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To keep the comics fresh and interesting, DC has been shaking up character relationships and introducing new characters to the mix. The huge span of else world stories means that not every character is handled the same, and the shift in societal norms and expectations means that some characters get massive overhauls.
Punchline was introduced for Batman's eightieth anniversary as a new more modern antagonist for Batman. Unfortunately, DC marketed her extremely heavily, feeding into her role as a replacement Harley which left some fans feeling like they'd been clowned on by the brand.
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The thing most consistent across the Batman comic titles are the random panels that come out of nowhere and leave the readers staring at the image trying to figure out who or what that's supposed to be. The differences between styles change the visual experience of comics constantly and across the Batman comic titles, fans have plenty of styles to choose from.
Sometimes these are printing issues, sometimes drawing issues, and sometimes fashion issues. But without fail, these panels make for the most fun and meme-able content and fans embrace these moments as an aspect of the comic-reading experience.
For a character that's over eighty years old, the Batman comics have a wide variety of very meme-able plot material and no shortage of content.Margaret Rojahn