15 Most Inappropriate Batman Storylines Of All Time

9. Alfred Dies, Come Back As A Supervillain, The Prove Heterosexuality

The greatest enemy Batman and Robin faced in the late forties and early fifties wasn't the Riddler, the Penguin, or the Joker - no, it was barely-qualified child psychologist Fredric Wertham, whose bestselling book Seduction Of The Innocent claimed to unearth a load of coded homosexual messages in the pages of their comic book, which would inevitably lead to the kids reading them becoming super gay too (as if that would be the end of the world). It was nonsense, but it doesn't take much to grip the general populace in a moral panic, and so before long DC was bending over backwards to make Batman and Robin seem incredibly hetero and non-threatening. Which is why Batwoman and Batgirl got introduced, and Alfred had to go.

Apparently the elderly butler was just one dude too many hanging around in the Batcave, and he needed to be gotten rid of. Obviously dismissing the poor guy after decades of good service in employment of the Wayne family, so instead he got a much more befitting dismissal: presumed dead after being crushed by a falling boulder. Except he wasn't dead, awakening in the morgue with pasty white skin, superpowers, and a desire to destroy Batman and Robin. This was the elderly English servant who had previously cleaned the gadgets and jockstraps of the dynamic duo. Doesn't strike anybody else as a weird move? No? Just us?