15 Most Inappropriate Batman Storylines Of All Time

1. The !*$% Batman

We really should've taken The Dark Knight Strikes Again as the warning it so clearly was. Frank Miller had gone way, way, way off the deep end, and he was taking us all down with him. And Batman too. If there is any character Miller is synonymous with, it's the Dark Knight, owing to his earlier, better work with the character. Even after that terrible sequel we still got suckered into expecting good things from All-Star Batman And Robin, The Boy Wonder, a series that was supposed to exist in the same universe as his Dark Knight stories, albeit at the beginning of Bruce Wayne's vigilante career instead of the end. Throw fan-favourite artist Jim Lee into the mix and that's a sure-fire recipe for success, right? Right?

Yeah, no, obviously not. Because All-Star Batman And Robin is nothing more than pure, unadulterated insanity. It's become infamous for the scene where the Caped Crusader angrily describes himself as "the !*$% Batman", but the context of that scene is even more inappropriate: he's just scooped Dick Grayson off the floor of the circus where he just saw his parents gunned down, immediately recruited him into his war on crime without asking for consent, and then called this newly grieving orphan dense and retarded. Then he leaves him to hunt for food in the Batcave. Reminder: his parents just got shot right in front of him. Batman, you are not nice.

Amongst the other crimes against appropriateness Miller makes (besides the whole orphan bullying gag) are the sections of his script which explicitly call for Lee to frame all scenes with women to be in their underwear and focus on her butt and boobs, Batman beating criminals to unconsciousness, Commissioner Gordon's wife dying from alcohol abuse, and the Black Canary busting up a snuff film ring. We're pretty sure not one of these things should ever, ever have appeared in a Batman comic. And yet. AND YET.