The Batman franchise has a lot of characters that became popular over the years.
Heroes
- Batman himself. Originally Batman (Bruce Thomas Wayne) was just one of many characters being published in the anthology series Detective Comics. His first appearance was in issue 27, appearing on the cover. He then became the most prominent character in the book as well as the most popular, and now, he's probably the second most well known superhero, right after Superman.
- Nightwing (Dick Grayson), the first Robin, and formerly Batman. He started off as a kid sidekick in the 1940's, finally officially becoming his own hero in the 1980's in the Teen Titans comics. From there, he got his own series which ran for over one hundred issues, but it was cancelled... because he was getting multiple ongoings once he became Batman. Geoff Johns and Dan DiDio went on to later describe him as "The Heart and Soul" of the entire DC Universe. There were plans to kill him off (permanently), but the idea was scrapped because of the above reason and because he was just too popular. Most fans don't consider Azrael to be a true successor to Batman, and in fact, hated the very idea of him being Batman. The same fans didn't complain when Dick became Batman, and plenty of fans were disappointed when it was announced that he would return to his Nightwing persona in the New 52. Once he took up the identity of Agent 37 of Spyral after faking his death, his popularity increased further, with Dick being the main character in the weekly Batman and Robin Eternal series, not the actual Batman at the time, Jim Gordon.
- Alfred Pennyworth was originally intended to be a comedic foil to Batman and Robin, but eventually got more serious. The Post-Crisis version had him as an out and out Battle Butler, and surrogate father figure to the entire Bat-Clan.
- Jason Todd was Killed Off for Real in the late eighties and stayed that way for about twenty years in real-time. Post-Ressurection, he's enjoyed quite the popularity boost, headlining a series for almost a decade and appearing in many Bat Books as a semi-regular guest.
- While Damian Wayne was a main character in the books from the moment he was introduced, Grant Morrison saw him from the start as an extension of the Canon Welding in their run and always intended to eventually kill Damian off. However, a combination of his backstory, Character Development (both in Morrison and Peter J. Tomasi's runs) and the novel concept of Robin being Bruce's biological son caused Damian to catch on. Consequently, not only was Damian's death undone, he was introduced into the DC Universe Animated Original Movies with Son of Batman (getting the second-most amount of appearances aside from Bruce), is usually the go-to Robin for outside media if Dick Grayson is filling the Nightwing role, and arguably inspiring the creation of Jon Kent. Polarizing as he may be with fans, it's hard to deny that Damian's position and impact in the DCU has far exceeded what his creator could've predicted.
- Stephanie Brown was created to be a one arc character in Detective Comics. However, Chuck Dixon liked her so he wrote her into the Robin ongoing and she's been popular ever since. Having become Robin and Batgirl, the latter even getting her a solo series, Batgirl (2009).
- Anarky
- Only used sparingly by a single author for the first few years of his existence, Anarky was suddenly launched into the big leagues when he was given his own limited series in 1997, and followed it up with a trade paperback and ongoing series in 1999.
- When Fabian Nicieza was given a mandate to write the concluding storyline for the Robin series, months before it was to be cancelled, he decided to revisit old Robin foes from the comic book's early years. Deciding to give cameos for lesser known Robin foes who Nicieza believed could become breakout characters in their own right, and Anarky in particular. Due to this appearance, Anarky was brought back into publication for the first time in years, and went on to become a recurring character in other stories for Tim Drake written by Nicieza.
- Anarky's popularity increased in 2013, as he was selected to be one of the main villains of Beware the Batman and got his own sidequest in Batman: Arkham Origins.
- Flashpoint Batman. A version of Thomas Wayne who became Batman after his son Bruce was killed, he was created for the Flashpoint event. DC likely expected him to be at least a little popular, since he had a miniseries tie-in and was a prominent supporting character in the core miniseries. However, he was incredibly popular, so much so that when the event ended and he was rebooted from existence, the series Earth 2 created an Expy of him in the form of their second Batman, who was also a Darker and Edgier take on Thomas Wayne, and had a costume heavily inspired by Flashpoint Batman's. Then, during Convergence, Flashpoint Batman was brought back to be a supporting character and delivered Jon Kent. After that, Thomas and his entire universe were briefly brought back in "The Button" where he was allowed to interact with his adult son. Then, after the universe was destroyed and Thomas seemingly died... he was brought back again, this time migrating over to the main DCU proper to serve as the primary villain of Tom King's Batman run. After that, it was revealed that he had survived Bane breaking his back and A-Day, and wound up joining the multiversal Justice League, Justice Incarnate, as a main character — despite Justice Incarnate already having a Batman.
Villains
- The Joker was actually planned to be killed off in his debut issue, Batman #1 (1940), but both his popularity and the editor of the issue put a stop to that; what followed? One of the most famous supervillains of all time.
- Lady Shiva debuted with Richard Dragon and Ben Turner, and has massively surpassed them in popularity. The trio are meant to be the top-three greatest fighters in DC, but because of the latter two's relative obscurity, she's gained infamy as the best fighter in the DCU, with a wide margin between her and the rest of the competitionnote .
- This also applies to his Evil Counterpart, The Batman Who Laughs, a Jokerized version of Batman who murdered his entire universe and is the secondary antagonist of the comic storyline Dark Nights: Metal. His characterization as a truly nightmarish, efficient supervillain and horrifying, but awesome appearance have made him incredibly popular with fans and readers in general; as such, he was the only Nightmare Batman to survive the event, and he subsequently made appearances in other series, including one where he is the primary antagonist.
