Batman is a comic book series published by DC Comics as part of the New 52 branding initiative. The series was launched in 2011 with Scott Snyder as writer and Greg Capullo as artist.
After the events of Flashpoint, and with the company wide New 52 relaunch, Batman picks up more-or-less where it left off, with Bruce Wayne appointing Batmen worldwide (including Batwing, who operated in a fictionalized version of the Democratic Republic of Congo). However Dick Grayson gave up the mantle of being the Batman of Gotham and returned to being Nightwing, with the mantle returning to Bruce Wayne.
The books also introduced the Court of Owls, an Ancient Conspiracy that has run Gotham for generations and has ties to Wayne's and Grayson's pasts. Later on, it was revealed that Tim Drake had never been Robin, only Red Robin, and that his parents were still alive and in witness protection.
After issue #52 the comic was relaunched for the DC Rebirth initiative. See Batman (2016) for more info.
Storylines in this run that have their own pages:
Batman (2011) provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents:
- As of New 52 and on, Ivy's father was extremely abusive towards her mother. He always bought her flowers as an apology. Of course, he eventually killed Ivy's mother and buried her in their beloved garden. Naturally, about a decade later, Ivy killed him.
- In the New 52, Scarecrow was subject to similar experiments he uses on others when he was a child by his father, and kept in a basement filled with crows when not.
- Acrofatic: Sumo is surprisingly agile for someone of his bulk.
- Adaptational Hairstyle Change: Mr. Freeze is traditionally depicted as bald, but his incarnations in the New 52 and the 2019 Harley Quinn cartoon depict him with a mohawk.
- Adaptational Heroism: In the New 52, Basil Karlo/Clayface is depicted as much less of a villain and more of a desperate, tragic man, looking for a purpose and without full control of what his powers do to him psychologically.
- Adaptational Sympathy: In the New 52, Basil Karlo/Clayface is a neurotic actor who suffered a mental breakdown after ending up in debt to the Penguin and being forced to use his shapeshifting powers to kill, making him much more sympathetic than the original in spite of the horrible things he does.
- Adaptational Villainy: The New 52 version of Freeze is far less sympathetic than most other incarnations of him post-BTAS, being a deluded stalker who was never even married to Nora, to begin with - as Batman points out, he's merely projecting his own twisted desire for love and obsession with the cold onto her. This version of the character has since been retconned out of history after a vocal backlash from fans of the character's more sympathetic interpretation.
- Adapted Out: Ferris Boyle is the man responsible for the modern Mr. Freeze's Start of Darkness in the animated series and the Post-Crisis era. However, come the New 52 era, he's no longer included and it's Bruce Wayne this time who's the stand-in for Ferris when he confronts Victor in the lab incident that led to his transformation.
- Amoral Attorney: In the New 52, Harvey was a defense attorney who specialized in getting Gotham's criminals off on technicalities. He reformed after becoming DA, however.
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Court of Owls have been around since Gotham's founding, back in Pre-Revolutionary America, and have been influencing the city on the political and economic level ever since.
- Ancient Conspiracy: The Court of Owls in Batman and other Bat-books, who've been secretly controlling Gotham City since its founding.
- Ascended Extra: In each issue of Batman: Zero Year that features Uncle Phillip, he appears in at least three times as many panels as he did in all of his pre-New 52 appearances combined.
- Attention Whore: In his New 52 origin story, Basil Karlo was often neglected and ignored as a child, and got so horribly addicted to the attention of others when he finally achieved fame that quite a few of his worst crimes as Clayface were committed solely to remain the centre of attention. In one issue, he was so desperate for the adoration of others that he resorted to kidnapping dozens of people, paralyzing them, and forcing them to watch his movies.
- Berserk Button: As of the New 52 Harley Quinn is the Joker's Ex-Girlfriend. Bringing him up at all is a good way to set her off.
- Black Eyes of Evil: Ivy's New 52 design made her eyes entirely black, save for her glowing green irises.
- Body Horror: Doctor Death is rather gruesomely disfigured. Pre-Crisis this was the result of a laboratory explosion Batman caused in their first encounter. In the New 52, it's the side effect of a special serum that's causing his bones to rapidly grow and his skin to ossify.
- Book Dumb: Following the New 52, Croc has shifted from being a Dumb Muscle to this. He's uneducated and brutish, but by no means dumb and pretty cunning in his own right.
- Book Ends: Like the other titles launched at the beginning of the New 52 relaunch, the comic ended on issue... #52. Also, the 52nd issue sported a variant cover with a variation of the first Batman cover appearance done up with the character today.
- Born Lucky: The New 52 version of Catwoman seems to get out of dangerous situations with skill, quick-thinking, but most importantly jaw-dropping luck!.
- Breakout Character: For a villainous group introduced relatively recently, The Court of Owls have already become quite the staple of the Batman mythos, appearing in Gotham and in Gotham Knights (2022).
- Broad Strokes: In spite of the continuity reboot, some of the pre-New 52 stories are considered to have still happened, including The Killing Joke and Batman (Grant Morrison).
- Child Soldiers: The Court of Owls indoctrinates their Talons at a very young age, and specifically targets orphans and abandoned children for their ranks. They even had their eyes on a young Dick Grayson for a time, before Bruce Wayne swept in to adopt the boy instead.
- The Chosen Many: Inverted, as the title of Batman has reverted back to Bruce Wayne after Dick Grayson took on the mantle at the end of Batman (Grant Morrison).
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Not everyone from the old continuity exists in the New 52, including Stephanie Brown (Batgirl III) and Cassandra Cain (Batgirl II).
- Composite Character: Lincoln March/Thomas Wayne, Jr. combines both the Owlman (owl motif, evil mirror of Bruce) and Boomerang Killer (brain-damaged Wayne brother) versions of Thomas Jr.
- Continuity Snarl: There are several examples, due to DC editorial's Broad Strokes approach to the previous DC continuity stating that most major events happened in some form until explicitly contradicted.
- The epic scale and popularity of Batman (Grant Morrison) allowed it's history to carry over into the new status quo, but there are issues trying to cram everything into the new five-year timeline. Batman's timeline in particular is especially messy; despite the Hand Wave of Batman entering the game an extra year prior to the debut of the Justice League, there are still several issues working things out. For example, Batman managed to go through all four male Robins in those six years, but Damian is still eleven years old as he was in the old continuity (Hand Waved by adding previously absent use of Apokolips technology, whereas the greater time scale of the original continuity logically allowed Damian to organically age eleven years). Bruce's "death" and Dick Grayson temporarily becoming Batman have also been carried over, but details were left vague until Batman and Robin #33 simultaneously claimed that Darkseid hasn't attacked Prime Earth since the first arc of Justice League and that Batman was somehow still "killed" by the Omega Sanction from Final Crisis.
- Batman's third sidekick, Tim Drake, also has his own problems. In the first issue of Teen Titans, it was stated that Tim Drake kept his history as Robin and that previous iterations of the team existed, with references also being made to past Titans teams in Red Hood & the Outlaws. Come the zero issue of Teen Titans a year later, and Tim's been retconned to have always been Red Robin and this is the first team of Teen Titans, with the collected edition of the first Titans arc outright removing the details that were retconned out. And as for the previously mentioned members of the Titans in Red Hood, so far the word is, more or less, that Dick Grayson, Starfire, and Arsenal (and possibly some others) hung around with each other, but never called themselves any team name. (This would itself be retconned in the miniseries Titans Hunt (2015), which established the original team did exist, but had been subjected to three seperate memory wipes on the subject.)
- Create Your Own Villain: In the New 52, the executive who shut down Victor's research and unwittingly exposed him to the chemicals that made him dependent on sub-zero temperatures... was Bruce Wayne.
- Dating Catwoman: Unfortunately for those who may have enjoyed it, all that Character Development in Batman and Catwoman's relationship has been set back to square one with the 2011 DC Universe reboot, in which Catwoman has no idea who Batman is behind the mask (although she suspects he knows who she is). Doesn't stop her from having costumed sex with him though.
- Death by Adaptation: His mother Karen Keeny was alive and well in the post-Crisis continuity, but became a victim of Death by Origin Story in the New 52 reboot.
- Determinator: All of the Talons are this. Even death won't stop them from hunting down and killing their targets.
- The Dragon: Lincoln March a.k.a. Thomas Wayne Jr. in their organization. He's also The Starscream, as he kills off most of the Court's top members to take advantage of the organization.
- The Dreaded: The Court of Owls are the most powerful force in Gotham, and those who know of them are very aware of how dangerous they are.
- Driven to Suicide: Harvey in the New 52. He's alive again by DC Rebirth.
- Elite Mooks: Their assassins, the Talons.
- Entitled Bastard: Most of the higher-ups of The Court of Owls are descendants of the original founders of Gotham, and thus consider Gotham to be their city, to do with as they please.
- Evil Sounds Deep: The Talons are implied to sound this way, as their dialogue is drawn with black speech bubbles.
- Facial Horror: A the start of The New 52, the Joker had the Dollmaker skin his face and then, after he recovered it, spent Death of the Family wearing it like a Leatherface-esque mask. And even in Endgame, his restored face ends up badly burned as the result of the finale battle between him and Batman, though it still ends up restored again.
- Familial Foe: The Waynes were one of the only families in Gotham who opposed the machinations of The Court of Owls. They believed in using their wealth to genuinely help the city and its people rather than simply gain power, and for this reason, the Court views them as their bitter enemies. Interestingly enough, however, the Court was not actually responsible for the murders of Thomas and Martha Wayne, despite having previously assassinated at least one of their distant ancestors.
- The First Superheroes: In the New 52 continuity, Batman has secretly already active for some time.
- Freudian Excuse: In the original New 52 version, Basil Karlo grew up ignored and unnoticed by everyone, and his lack of confidence made casting agents reject him for even minor acting roles. In desperation, he made a deal with the Penguin for a magical clay that could give him an edge as an actor, and while he gained confidence and critical acclaim as a result of his newfound power, the Penguin demanded that he work for him as a criminal in exchange for the clay. Stress, guilt, and hunger for attention prompted Karlo to suffer a disastrous meltdown that destroyed his reputation, trapped him in his giant Clayface form, and left him stuck in a life of crime.
- From Nobody to Nightmare: In sharp contrast to the classic iteration, who was quite famous before he became a murder, the original New 52 version of Basil Karlo/Clayface started out as a total nonentity who couldn't get any attention no matter how hard he tried. In fact, it wasn't until after he was told that he'd never make it as an actor that he made his fatal deal with the Penguin.
- Healing Factor: The Talons all sport this, although they can be killed, at least temporarily.
- His Own Worst Enemy: Basil Karlo's New 52 version suffers this in a different way, for though he wasn't entirely at fault in the destruction of his career, his narcissism is far more self-sabotaging to his career as a supervillain: he cannot shake his compulsive need to be noticed, meaning that his attempts at subterfuge will all eventually break down as he does more and more attention-grabbing things, to the point that he will act contrary to the personality of whoever he's trying to impersonate.
- The Illuminati: The Court of Owls have been manipulating Gotham since olden times.
- Indy Ploy: The New 52 version of Catwoman uses these a lot. In fact she straight out admits she doesn't plan but handles most things by the seat of her pants.
- Kevlard: Sumo's bulk gives him a remarkable resistance to damage.
- Kids Are Cruel: One particular member of The Court of Owls is a little girl (possibly the child of one of the families involved in the conspiracy), who takes special glee in ordering the Talon to beat Batman to death for her amusement.
- Lightning Bruiser: All of the Talons are not only superhumanly fast and skilled in combat, but they're also extremely durable on account of being zombies.
- Matricide: In the New 52 version, Mr. Freeze became obsessed with the ice after his mother fell through thin ice and nearly died from the cold. The following winter, he led her back to the same spot and pushed her through deliberately. This time, she didn't survive.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: In The Court of Owls first appearance, they're alternately shown to be both normal people with owl masks and actual mutant owl humanoids. During this time, Batman had been starved and tortured for quite a while so it's not clear if some of them really were mutant owl people or Batman was simply hallucinating at that point and seeing them as such.
- Movie Superheroes Wear Black: Subverted with Batman, who's New 52 suit retains its black and gray colors.
◊ - Mythology Gag: The Court of Owls role as owls that antagonize bats with agents known as Talons, Thomas Wayne, Jr. in particular, is a reference to Owlman and Talon, the evil Mirror Universe counterparts to Batman and Robin pre-Flashpoint.
- Neck Lift: A favoured tactic of Sumo's to show off his strength.
- Ominous Owl: The Court of Owls whole motif. The fact that owls are the natural predators of bats lends itself quite well to the imagery.
- The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Court of Owls is an evil Ancient Conspiracy.
- One-Steve Limit: Sumo was also the name of a Pre-Crisis Wonder Woman foe, who was re-imagined as an All-Star Squadron foe Post-Crisis.
- Red Skies Crossover: The Zero Year storyline was going to be self-contained, but has since received tie-ins from the Bat Family titles, Green Lantern and The Flash. The tie-ins themselves zig-zag in relevance, with Nightwing merely featuring a teenaged Dick Grayson at a cinema when the black out starts and his attempt to get back to Haly's Circus in the midst of the chaos; whilst Green Arrow features Ollie's return from the island and his subsequent attempt to rescue his mother from the blackout, and his first meeting with Batman.
- Ret-Canon: A number of elements of other media incarnations made their way into the DC Universe. Among them...
- Commissioner Gordon retaining red hair in the present
- Similarly, Zsasz has been altered to have a beard. In addition to getting his outfit tweaked, Bane was later seen leading an army and in a flashback Detective Comics, Vol. 2, # 19, had planned to steal a nuclear device to threaten Gotham much like he did in The Dark Knight Rises.
- Bane's new costume, though it was later been tweaked to include a vest and cargo pants.
- Similarly, Harley's new look seems to take after her Batman: Arkham City and Batman Live versions.
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Role-Ending Misdemeanor: The New 52 Basil Karlo suffered a nervous breakdown after being forced to use his powers to serve as hired muscle for the Penguin, descended into self-defensive narcissism, held up production on films by refusing to leave his trailer for hours, and lost his temper with anyone trying to reason with him. Combined with his faltering grip on his Shapeshifter Default Form, this gradually destroyed his reputation and made him essentially unemployable; before long, the sequel to his star-making role had a new actor, and Karlo became Clayface full time. - Secret Identity Apathy: In some stories, it's implied that Two-Face knows who Batman really is. In the New 52, he reveals that he's known that Bruce Wayne is Batman for at least a few years, but has repeatedly convinced himself not to kill him. In One Bad Day, he also shares a conversation with Batman after he's been captured regarding both their fathers. In spite of his knowledge, however, Two-Face has never seemed particularly interested in using this information against Bruce and the Bat-family in any way or sharing it with other villains.
- Simple Solution Won't Work: The Red Hood asks Batman, quite bluntly, why he hasn't killed the Joker yet and ended the countless amounts of misery that he brings to Gotham every time he goes on a rampage. Batman points out that Gotham is such a Crapsack World that 1) killing the Joker wouldn't really reduce the amount of threats that are plotting from the shadows to hurt the citizens (a fact that he has evidence of with the Court of Owls, which made itself known to Batman by cutting the Joker's face off) and 2) the possibility exists that if the Joker died he would resurrect anyway, or something even worse would appear to replace him (a fact that would manifest much later with the Batman Who Laughs). So for the DC Universe, it's damned if they do, damned if they don't.
- Skin Walker: In the first New 52 origin story, Karlo gained his powers from a sample of clay that's said to be the source of Skin Walker powers, provided for him by Penguin.
- Stout Strength: Sumo doesn't appear to have any super powers, but uses his massive size and weight to subdue his enemies.
- Took a Level in Badass: In the New 52, Arnold Wesker never died and becomes a mutated monster who shoves his hands into his victim's backs and makes them "talk" like a doll. That said, other writers have disregarded his return in favor of Shauna Belzer.
- Tragic Villain: Doctor Death in the New 52, where the death of his son (a soldier who was on a mission to find the missing Bruce Wayne) contributed to his descent into madness.
- Underwear of Power: Surprisingly averted. Batman no longer wear briefs as part of his costume.
- Unexplained Recovery: Jeremiah Arkham has returned to his position as administrator of Arkham Asylum in-between the Post-Crisis and New 52 continuities, however rather than a Cosmic Retcon as is common with reboots, Night of the Owls implies his tenure as Black Mask still happened, but was cured of his insanity off-panel....and it happens again in-between Death of the Family and DC Rebirth.
- Unholy Matrimony: Poison Ivy with Clayface briefly in the New 52. It was just a ploy to keep him under her sway, and lasted almost no time at all.
- Villainous Friendship: In his New 52 incarnation, Basil Karlo/Clayface strikes up a friendship with a fellow prisoner at Arkham who happened to be a big fan of his movies, eventually leading to the flashback to his origin story. Unfortunately, his friend happened to die of a heart attack, reducing Karlo to tears - eventually prompting him to snap out of his complacent spell and break out of Arkham.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Sumo is almost always bare chested.
- White Mask of Doom: Members of The Court of Owls wear creepy barn owl masks.
- Wolverine Claws: Scarecrow has taken to using a mix of this and Playing with Syringes in the New 52.
- Wolverine Publicity: Batman and the other Gotham heroes appear in more books than any other in the New 52, having up to triple the exposure of the second-most-common franchises (Superman and Green Lantern).
