10 Untold Secrets About The Batcave

The Batcave is the secret subterranean headquarters and command center of the Batman, and its main series of bedrock and limestone caves extends deep beneath Wayne Manor. In the beginning, it was little more than a desk and a few filing cabinets, and now it has grown into a multi-leveled and multi-roomed fortress for the Dark Knight to monitor crisis points throughout the world, train with his numerous allies, and enjoy rare moments of peace and tranquility between emergencies.

In the earliest stories, there was no cave at all, merely a secret tunnel that led from Wayne Manor out to an adjacent old and seemingly unused barn where the Batmobile was stored. At first, Batman kept his costumes, equipment, laboratory, and even memorabilia from his early cases within hidden areas of the mansion accessed through secret panels and false walls. When things began to outgrow Bruce’s ability to conceal them in the Manor, new arrangements needed to be made.

The Batcave made its comic book debut in Detective Comics #83 in January 1944. Over the years, its owner, his partners, and subsequent artists have filled the cave with a massive supercomputer, a fleet of amazing motor vehicles, a state-of-the-art crime lab, and a museum of memorabilia of Batman’s war on the criminal element of Gotham City and the world.

In the Cataclysm storyline that ran through all of the Batman-related titles, an earthquake of 7.6 on the Richter scale ripped through Gotham City, collapsing many of the buildings and killing nearly 100,00 residents. Although the more modern Wayne Enterprise-created buildings had been designed to withstand earthquakes and remained standing, the centuries-old Wayne Manor and, of course, the Batcave had not, and both collapsed in on themselves, trapping Alfred in the Manor and Batman in the cave.

When the Batcave was reconstructed, one of the first things created was an enhanced bomb shelter that could withstand another earthquake or even a potential nuclear attack. The earthquake had changed the architecture of the cave and it now had eight levels that Bruce filled with a new library, high-tech laboratory, training areas, storage, and access to his various vehicles.

The Batcomputer was now set on a rotating island platform and was seven Cray T932 mainframes linked together with a holographic display and a series of retractable glass maps in the computer platform. The computer had Kevlar shielding to protect its systems from any further seismic activity. Retractable walkways, stairs, bridges, and elevators throughout the cave provide access to each level, and the whole system is powered by hydroelectric power from a river that runs through the cave.