10 Worst Things Batman Has Ever Done

For someone so smart, Batman sure makes a lot of dumb choices.

After the story Knightfall, Bruce Wayne was in a pretty bad place. His back had been broken by Bane and Gotham was in need of a new protector. Luckily, he had foreseen that something like this might happen and had spent years training Dick Grayson to one day replace him. When the day came to appoint his successor though, Bruce chose someone else.

Not wanting to burden Dick with the responsibility of being Batman, he instead handed the mantle over to his newest protege Azrael. Jean-Paul Valley had been raised by the Order of Saint Dumas, a mysterious cult who had psychologically programmed him to be an assassin. He rejected the order and joined Batman as a crime-fighter.

However, it doesn't take the world's greatest detective to work out that a brainwashed assassin might not be the best person to carry on the Batman legacy.

Azrael's time as Batman was short-lived. His efficiency was completely undermined by his deteriorating mental state that made him more and more viscous. Under the orders of his own hallucinations, he built a suit of armour and engaged in a brutal war on crime, eventually killing the villain Abbatoir.

The upside of this disaster was that it pushed Bruce to recover and take the mantle back for himself.