9 Cool Batman: Knightquest Moments Everyone Forgets About

9. A Very Different Batman

For the first 54 years of his crime-fighting career, the man beneath Batman's cape and cowl was millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. Then in 1993, the impossible happened, and a criminal called Bane broke Wayne's back, forcing Bruce to entrust Gotham City and the legacy of Batman to another.

Instead of picking the obvious choice and going with the former Robin, Dick Grayson, he would pass the mantle onto the reformed religious zealot and assassin known as Azrael.

DC Comics introduced a very different Batman to the readers and citizens of Gotham City. Instead of Wayne's sleek athletic build, keen intellect and incorruptible sense of justice, there was an armoured nightmare more in line with the '90s comics zeitgeist; one not forged by a desire to save the innocent, but one who had achieved human perfection through psychological manipulation - a warrior built and programmed rather than shaped from pain and sacrifice.

And that was ultimately what Jean-Paul Valley was. Not a hero pursuing justice, but a vicious avenger punishing the guilty through fire and steel.