History BatmanGambit / BatmanGambitsInvolvingBatman

* This is how Bane was able to break Batman during ''ComicBook/{{Knightfall}}'': by busting everyone out of Arkham, he knew that Batman would tear himself apart trying to recapture everyone. And while he didn't recapture ''everyone''[[note]]Joker, Scarecrow and the Ventriloquist were left unaccounted for prior to the breaking[[/note]], it was more than enough to wear Batman to the point where he was helpless against Bane.

->'''Batman:''' The shale held up by those sagging timbers has been shifting for decades. All we had to do was taunt [King] Tut with our silence. This caused him to raise his voice three decibels above high C, which caused the cave-in, [causing a shale boulder to [[TapOnTheHead drop on his head]],] which, of course, [[SplitPersonality returned him]] [[IdentityAmnesia to normalcy]][[note]]Thus, preserving TheMasquerade[[/note]].\\

** Happens in the episode, "Joker's Millions". A wealthy mob boss named King Barlow dies naming the Joker as the sole inheritor of his fortune. Even his henchmen couldn't figure it out because they thought Barlow hated the Joker. As it turned out, he only left the Joker a few million dollars, [[AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted which he knew he would foolishly go through in a matter of weeks before the I.R.S. would come to collect.]] The rest of the money that he supposedly left was fake, leaving the Joker flat broke and potentially facing tax evasion. Of course, the Joker could just reveal that he had been tricked and was not given the amount of money that he was supposed to, but that would mean swallowing his pride and admitting he had been had and become the laughingstock of the underworld.

* In ''[[https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12512455/5/Lex-Marks-The-Spot Lex Marks The Spot]], Lex Luthor has gotten a brainful of [[Series/BuffyTheVampireSlayer Xander Harris]] and embarked on a campaign of money-powered world-changing with a side of trolling the Justice League. One element thereof was giving himself a copy of [[RubberMan PlasticMan]]'s powers -- shortly afterwards, the League ended up shooting off his arm and holding it for study. Batman was curious about how Lex's arm would behave now that it was detached from him, so he asked Flash and Plastic Man to repair the medbay and warned them not to touch it. He would have just sent them in blind, but J'onn felt that was manipulative, so he made Batman ''tell'' them that there was a piece of Plastic Lex in there... which made it ''certain'' those two dorks would start playing with it. Especially since it soon after Batman started studying it, it turned into [[WesternAnimation/OneFroggyEvening a sleepy frog with a top hat and cane]].

* Stephanie Brown pulls on one her dad, the Cluemaster, in ''ComicBook/BatmanEternal'', leading him on a high-speed chase and into the hands of the cops. However, as he's ranting and raving at how "his people" own the Gotham City Police Department, the cops reveal that he's six miles out of Gotham and is now in the hands of the ''State Police'', who are free of Gotham's corruption.
* In ''Comicbook/{{Justice}}'', the plot to bring down the villains turns heavily on this, including fooling them with ExactlyWhatIAimedAt and IdentityImpersonator. The linchpin of it was not FlawExploitation but Virtue Exploitation, [[spoiler:with John Steward realizing, the moment the ring was in his hands, what his role in the plan was. Hal Jordan in fact reflects on how this shows the villains why he's the designated back-up for the ring.]]

** He pulled another impressive one in the episode "Almost Got 'Im". [[spoiler:Disguised as Killer Croc during a poker game with Joker, Poison Ivy, Penguin, and Two-Face, he brought up the subject of who come closest to killing him, knowing that Joker will talk about their last encounter and reveal what he did with Catwoman, who had saved him]].

* ''Stephanie Brown'' pulls on one her dad, the Cluemaster, in ''ComicBook/BatmanEternal'', leading him on a high-speed chase and into the hands of the cops. However, as he's ranting and raving at how "his people" own the Gotham City Police Department, the cops reveal that he's six miles out of Gotham and is now in the hands of the ''State Police'', who are free of Gotham's corruption.

* The Joker pulls one against Batman himself in ''WesternAnimation/TheLEGOBatmanMovie''. [[ISurrenderSuckers He surrenders]] and is imprisoned in Arkham, depending on Batman being GenreSavvy enough to realize he's up to something, steal the Phantom Zone projector from Superman's Fortress of Solitude, break into Arkham, and send him to the Phantom Zone, [[TemptingFate the one place where he can't harm anyone]]. [[spoiler:This allows the Joker to persuade the other villains trapped there to aid him in defeating Batman, and escape with the help of Harley Quinn, who had infiltrated Arkham ahead of time to retrieve the Phantom Zone projector.]]

While the League ultimately overcomes Batman's contingencies, they do so only by cooperating and remembering what they know about each other, something they probably wouldn't do under the kinds of circumstances Batman prepared the contingencies for. And the weakness in the hijack? All Batman had to do to stop it was to pick up the phone and listen to the rest of the League for more than two seconds. [[spoiler: It's no wonder Ra's is grinning so much when he does TheReveal.]]

'''Josek''':''(chuckles)'' I am going...\\

** Happens in the episode, "Joker's Millions". A wealthy mob boss named King Barlow dies naming the Joker as the sole inheritor of his fortune. Even his henchmen couldn't figure it out because they thought Barlow hated the Joker. As it turned out, he only left the Joker a few million dollars, [[AFoolAndHisNewMoneyAreSoonParted which he knew he would foolishly go through in a matter of weeks before the I.R.S. would come to collect.]] The rest of the money that he supposedly left was fake, leaving the Joker flat broke and potentially facing tax evasion. Of course, the Joker could just reveal that had been tricked and was not given the amount of money that he was supposed to, but that would mean swallowing his pride and admitting he had been had and become the laughing stock of the underworld.

* ''BatmanUnderTheRedHood'' indicates that he taught this to his sidekicks as well. Red Hood hatches a plan that's dependent on the assumption that, when pressed hard enough, Black Mask would [[spoiler:free The Joker from Arkham.]] Which is exactly what happens.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Superfriends}}''; though the show was LighterAndQuirkier'', Batman still had his touch:

** During the same episode, Franchise/TheFlash is imprisoned with the rest of the good Justice League, and Justice Lord Batman is told to guard them. Batman says he can't think of an escape plan, because Justice Lord Batman has thought of everything he'd ever think of. So the Flash speeds up his own heart, faking a heart attack, knowing that something happened to this universe's Flash and that Justice Lord Batman wouldn't want to see him die. It works, and he knocks out Justice Lord Batman when he comes to help him. As he's freeing Batman, Batman explains that this was his plan all along: Justice Lord Batman would anticipate any plan ''he'' could come up with, so he left it to the Flash to think of something.

** He pulled another impressive one in the episode "Almost Got 'Im". [[spoiler:Disguised as Killer Croc during a poker game with Joker, Poison Ivy, Penguin, and Two-Face, he brought up the subject of whose come closest to killing him, knowing that Joker will talk about their last encounter and reveal what he did with Catwoman who had saved him]].

'''Batman:''' I prefer not to think about those things, Robin, they depress me.

** He pulled another impressive one in the episode "Almost Got 'Im". [[spoiler:Disguised as Killer Croc during a poker game with Joker, Poison Ivy, Penguin, and Two-Face, he brought up the subject of whose coming closest to killing him, knowing that Joker will talk about their last encounter and reveal what he did with Catwoman who had saved him]].

* In the "Hush" storyline, Batman finds himself facing off against a mind-controlled Superman, and is clearly physically outmatched. His solution is to have Catwoman dangle Lois Lane off a roof, and give Supes the choice of either saving her or continuing the fight. This trick would never work if he didn't know full well that even a brainwashed Clark would never let Lois die, and that Catwoman is just amoral enough to threaten an innocent woman without actually meaning it. He may even have predicted that Lois' struggles would cause her to fall, adding an element of urgency to the situation.

* {{Darkseid}} had one for when Batman attacked him: he predicted that Batman would succeed in finding his way back to his own time, so he set things up such that when it occurred, Batman would bring with him a weapon capable of killing the JLA. Batman eventually countered with a {{plan}} of his own, [[OutGambitted hence the fail condition]].

->'''Batman''': The shale held up by those sagging timbers has been shifting for decades. All we had to do was taunt [King] Tut with our silence. This caused him to raise his voice three decibels above high C, which caused the cave-in, [causing a shale boulder to [[TapOnTheHead drop on his head]],] which, of course, [[SplitPersonality returned him]] [[IdentityAmnesia to normalcy]][[note]]Thus, preserving TheMasquerade[[/note]].
-> ...
->'''Robin''': But suppose something went wrong. Suppose Tut didn't raise his voice, what then?
->'''Batman''': I prefer not to think about those things, Robin, they depress me.
-->-- "I'll Be a Mummy's Uncle," ''[[Series/{{Batman}} Batman the TV Series]]''

** In "Ragdoll to Riches", {{Catwoman}} was in the middle of a ''very'' nasty rivalry with another thief named Ragdoll. After one confrontation ended with Catwoman victorious and Ragdoll ''angry'', Batman thought of a way to set a trap for both of them. He reopened Gotham Clock Tower, a structure built by his grandfather, for a limited tourist showing; a local legend claimed that a mobster during the Prohibition had hidden the stolen Cat's Eye Emeralds there, but they were never recovered. Batman knew that this kind of rumored hidden treasure would attract Catwoman, and that Ragdoll ''knew'' she'd show up, and would show up too to get even. And it worked. While the hero only apprehended Ragdoll, there was one bonus: [[spoiler:the myth was true after all, and the Emeralds were recovered.]]

** In "Ragdoll to Riches", {{Catwoman}} was in the middle of a ''very'' nasty rivalry with another thief named Ragdoll. After one confrontation ended with Catwoman victorious and Ragdoll ''angry'', Batman thought of a way to set a trap for both of them. He reopened Gotham Clock Tower, a structure built by his grandfather, for a limited tourist showing; a local legend claimed that a mobster during the Prohibition had hidden the stolen Cat's Eye Emeralds there, but they were never recovered. Batman knew that this kind of rumored hidden treasure would attract Catwoman, and that Ragdoll ''knew'' she'd show up, and would show up too to get even. And it worked. While the hero only apprehended Ragdoll, there was one bonus: [[spoiler:the myth was true after all, and the Emeralds were recovered.]]

* Since the mid-1990s in Comics, Batman's gambits seem to consistently get hijacked by other people -- with disastrous consequences. The [[JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]] arc "Tower of Babel" ([[http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batman_manipulative_bastard_3147.jpg the former page image]]) is an example of this. It's somewhat masterfully combined with a second BatmanGambit specifically designed to keep Batman diverted while his stolen contingencies are being used against the rest of the League: [[spoiler: Ra's Al Ghul steals Bruce's parents' bodies from their graves and dangles them above a Lazarus Pit.]]\\

* ''JusticeLeague'':