Batman: 80 Greatest Ever Moments

40. The AzBats Suit - Knightfall

Azrael Batman
DC Comics

With Bruce Wayne out of action and Gotham going up in flames, the burden of the Bat falls to Jean Paul Valley, and it isn't pretty. The Azrael-Batman that featured for most of Knightfall was brutal, uncompromising and applied the Dark Knight's mantra to its darkest possible conclusion.

The suit he fashioned in that event signalled all that and more, and it remains a fan-favourite to this day.

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39. The Flashback - Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker

Batman Beyond Return of the Joker Flashback
Warner Bros.

Batman Beyond: Return Of The Joker is perhaps the greatest Batman film ever made, and it just so happens to feature one of the greatest sequences in any piece of Bat-related media ever.

Centred around the resurrection of the Dark Knight's greatest nemesis, the film saw the Batman of the Future, Terry McGinnis, fend off with his mentor's greatest enemy, who had all but been erased from history. With Bruce out of action and Terry looking for answers, it falls to Barbara Gordon to reveal to Terry what happened during Batman and the Joker's final duel, and it is terrifying.

The sequence lasts around ten minutes and reveals how the Joker and Harley physically and mentally tortured Tim Drake into being their own child. Batman and the Clown Prince then come together in a climactic battle that ends in the latter's death - at the hands of the second Robin, no less.

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Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.

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I like my comics like I like my coffee - in huge, unquestionably unhealthy doses.