9 Times Batman Was Forced To Surrender His Cowl

9. Knightfall

A broken back will stop you from doing many things, and it should come as little surprise that being Batman is one of them.

During the Knightfall event, the venom-fuelled villain Bane liberates Arkham Asylum, forcing the Caped Crusader to burn himself out while rounding up virtually every rogue he's ever previously encountered.

Having learned his secret identity, the hulking criminal mastermind strikes when Bats is at his most vulnerable and the battle leaves our hero with a damaged spine.

The aftermath of Knightfall sees Bruce Wayne confined to a wheelchair and in need of a successor to watch over Gotham during his extended layoff.

He should probably have known better than to call on Azrael, an assassin trained by the Order of St. Dumas, as his stand-in successor, and the events which followed are testament to that.

Although the Jean-Paul Valley incarnation of Batman did succeed in taking down Bane and a number of other Gotham cronies, he grew increasingly violent, adopting an armoured costume complete with razor sharp claws.

Following Bruce's recovery later in the KnightSaga, Azrael is unwilling to relinquish the cowl without a fight, which eventually goes the way you'd expect it to.

So what did we learn from this little exercise? Never allow conditioned assassins with bloody pasts within 50 feet of the cape and cowl, among other things.