All The Batmen

After Batman: The Animated Series went off the air, series writer Paul Dini pitched Warner Brothers on a sequel called Gotham Knights that would bring in more of the supporting cast that makes the comics so great. Although the visual style was simplified a little bit from the lush neo-noir look that the previous series boasted, the subject matter of the show was made even darker. Some of the best portrayals of Batman ever were from episodes of this show, and the entire series is available on DVD. You should probably have bought it before finishing this paragraph.

When the Nintendo Entertainment System asserted its dominance over the video game world, a Japanese developer was given the opportunity to create Batman games for it. That developer was Sunsoft, and the games they made are some of the best action titles of the era. 1989's Batman puts the Caped Crusader in a side-scrolling adventure reminiscent of Ninja Gaiden, complete with wall-jumping. Sunsoft would also release the awesome Batman: Return Of The Joker in 1991.

DC Comics has typically organized their alternate-universe stories under the "Elseworlds" banner, transplanting their familiar archetypes into truly strange surroundings. But did you know that the first-ever Elseworlds tale was Gotham By Gaslight, starring none other than Batman? In this version of the tale, Bruce Wayne lives in the Gotham City of the late 1800s, and when Jack the Ripper comes calling, he must take on the hood of the Dark Knight and protect the innocent. With awesome art by Hellboy's Mike Mignola, this is a classic take on the character.

We talked about Sega's The Revenge Of Shinobi in our All The Spider-Men feature, but if you don't remember it, here's the gist: for some reason, Sega thought that they could get away with putting a bunch of copyrighted characters in the game without getting permission. Batman shows up as the boss of the second level, flapping his cape like wings and bombarding our ninja hero with bats. When DC noticed, they naturally raised a stink and forced the game to be revised to change him into a vampire-like creature.

After Batman Returns underperformed at the box office - it only made $266 million worldwide, after all - Warner Brothers decided that the film series needed to go in a more "family-friendly" direction. This would prove to be one of the dumbest decisions ever made, as it resulted in schlock-meister Joel Schumacher being put in charge of the franchise. With Val Kilmer replacing Keaton as Bruce Wayne, the third film in the series also featured Jim Carrey as the Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face. Oh, and the Batsuit had nipples. As bad as the flick was, it could have been even worse - at one point, Marlon Wayans was signed up to be Robin!

Batman went back to team play with the 2001 Justice League animated series on Cartoon Network. Keeping the bold graphical style of the previous shows, this series drew heavily from Grant Morrison's interpretation of the Darknight Detective from the comics - despite having no superhuman powers, Batman was often the key to victory due to his analytic mind and preparation. Alongside Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, the Flash, Martian Manhunter and Hawkgirl, Batman took out villains like Darkseid and the Ultra-Humanite before the show ended in 2004.

Because Val Kilmer was such a royal pain in the ass to work with on Batman Forever, he was replaced for the next movie by ER star George Clooney. All of the noir aspects were thrown out the window, with Joel Schumacher prefacing every take by yelling "Remember, this is a cartoon!" through a megaphone. Clooney was a perfectly acceptable Batman, but what really sinks Batman & Robin is the villain - Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his worst performances ever as Mr. Freeze. The movie was a gigantic critical and commercial failure, with a staggering 69% dropoff in audience after the opening weekend.

The Caped Crusader returned to the airwaves in an unexpected way in 2001, featuring in a series of OnStar commercials. The onboard navigation and assistance service was kind of a big deal in the days before personal GPS devices, and the clips - which starred Bruce Thomas as Batman - saw the hero using it to help out with a variety of Batmobile-related problems. The commercials were well-received, but the campaign only lasted for a year.

2003's Batman: Rise Of Sin Tzu was marketed on having a brand new villain created by superstar artist Jim Lee, but the gameplay was pretty much the same old thug-slugging action. The game let you take control of not only Batman but Robin, Batgirl and Nightwing as well, all of whom had different abilities and attacks. You could also play co-op with friends against villains like Clayface and the Scarecrow. The game wasn't reviewed well, and Sin Tzu? He was never seen again. So much for superstar artist Jim Lee.