15 Most Inappropriate Batman Comics Storylines Of All Time
Bladder problems, awkward erections, and date rape.
What could be more inappropriate than a very rich bachelor adopting an orphaned child trapeze artist and drafting him into his personal war on crime? On the basis of years of Batman comics, a worrying amount of things.
Frankly, The Dark Knight started from the bottom in terms of appropriateness, yet he's managed to dig even further down into the bowels of the Creep Cave. It turns out a man who wears his pants over his trousers and dresses like a bat isn't the best role model for those around him.
Admittedly, not all of the Dark Knight's dodgy moments are down to the man himself. There's also his Bat-Family of perverts, Oedipus complex sufferers and dysfunctional butlers who die and come back as supervillains.
The bulk of Batman's back catalogue is the standard detecting and fighting supervillains, with undertones of weirdness with the whole Robin thing. Then there are the stories where the inappropriate behaviour, plot twists or characterisation are totally off-base for the Caped Crusader, those retconned story lines or “wacky” Silver Age adventures.
Which is worse? The comic where, out of nowhere, Batman decides to start getting high on plants bred by Poison Ivy? Or the one where he gets turned into a toddler by a fiendish wizard and has to fight crime as Bat-Baby? They're both equally as creepy. But that isn't even the worst of it...
15. The Surprisingly Dark Batman Adventures
Before the Christopher Nolan films came along and wiped the floor with the competition, Batman: The Animated Series was widely regarded to be the definitive take on the Dark Knight. Bruce Timm's stylised character designs were iconic, the music was epic, and Kevin Conroy's is the voice you always read Batman's speech bubbles in.
It was also kid-friendly because, much as grown-ups like to obscene amounts of money on merchandise related to them, that's who cartoons are for. With the exception of South Park.
Batman: The Animated Series got dark at times, but kept it PG-rated. Apparently the people who wrote the spin-off comic Batman Adventures didn't get that memo.
In fact, the comic based on Batman: The Animated Series has some of the most and intense Batman stories this side of The Killing Joke, peaking with a story where The Joker beats Commissioner Gordon to a bloody pulp with a baseball bat on live TV, looking absolutely terrifying when he's sweaty and giggling after. Kids love that sort of thing, right?