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Some of you may recall that last year, I made a picture paying tribute to multiple incarnations of The Joker, Batman's most famous enemy.

As one of my pictures for the new year, I've decided to draw a picture paying tribute to many incarnations of the Caped Crusader himself. I once again must say that I unfortunately couldn't include every incarnation of the character this picture pays tribute to. I really wanted to include Batman's incarnations from Young Justice and the Arkham video games, but alas, I did not have enough room!

There's also the fact that Batman's been in quite a lot of media to this day and there are some incarnations of him that I either consider irrelevant (like the DC Nation shorts, though I actually do like a lot of them) and incarnations I have yet to see (like the new live-action series Gotham, as I'm kind of biased towards live-action shows. At least, contemporary ones).

I've grown up being exposed to many different incarnations of the Dark Knight, and while there is one particular version that's my introduction to Batman and the incarnation that I like best, that doesn't mean I dislike any version of Gotham's vengeful protector. To be honest, I've seen good in even the most controversial and reviled incarnations.

For each incarnation of Bruce Wayne's alter ego present in this picture, I will give some information about that adaptation as well as my opinions on it. It is okay if you don't agree with me, just don't act as if me having a different opinion makes me an irredeemable scoundrel. I also advise that you turn away now if you don't want any spoilers.

1960's ADAM WEST SHOW

While not the first adaptation of Batman (that credit goes to a couple of serials from the 1940's), the 1966 live-action television show is the most notorious of the different incarnations of the Caped Crusader because of how campy it was.

The series starred Adam West as Batman with Burt Ward as Robin the Boy Wonder, with many episodes being two-parters with rhyming titles, some of which were rather nonsensical (for example, Mr. Freeze made his debut in the episode "Instant Freeze", while the second part was called "Rats Like Cheese" even though it had nothing involving rats or cheese).

In spite of its reputation for clashing severely with the dark and serious tone most of us Bat-fans prefer, the 1960's show actually did have its share of serious moments from time to time and some characters even got killed, like the female Riddler minion who disguised herself as Robin and fell into the Bat-Computer's reactor core in the pilot, or a frozen Mr. Freeze victim who comedically toppled over and shattered offscreen.

In fact, the first episode even had Bruce Wayne mention that he was motivated to become Batman because his parents were killed by criminals. Not "a" criminal, but criminals in the plural sense, which would indicate that the 1966 version of Joe Chill, if he even goes by that name, must have had some help.

In between the first and second seasons, there came a live-action film of the series where Batman and Robin faced a team-up between the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, and Catwoman. Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin, and Burgess Meredith all reprised their respective roles as the Clown Prince of Crime, the Prince of Puzzles, and Batman's avian adversary, but Catwoman's actress for the movie was Lee Meriwether instead of Julie Newmar, who would also be replaced for one episode in the series by Eartha Kitt.

More recently, DC Comics has gone and published Batman '66, a comic book based on the 1960's series that notably also incorporates characters that weren't in the original show, like Scarecrow, Two-Face, and Clayface. They're even using villains that didn't appear until long after the 60's show went off the air, like Bane and Killer Croc.

One particular installment of the comic series I'm glad to possess is entitled The Lost Episode, so named because it is adapted from a script for an episode of the show that wasn't produced, the best part being that the episode featured Two-Face and was written by none other than Harlan Ellison (registered trademark. Yes, he copyrighted his own name. Don't ask me why)

SCOOBY-DOO BATMAN

Aside from Batman, another franchise I've loved as a kid that I'm still a fan of today would be Scooby-Doo. I grew up watching reruns of pretty much every incarnation, from the original Scooby-Doo! Where Are You? to A Pup Named Scooby Doo. I'm even interested in seeing Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue, Mystery Incorporated, and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo in spite of their controversy. I am trying to catch up right now, but so far I'm still trying to finish The Scooby-Doo Show.

One particular incarnation of Scooby-Doo that I love to death, though, would be The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which had Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Fred encounter animated versions of several celebrities and fictional characters.

Aside from the one where they met the Addams Family, my favorite episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies would be the ones that featured Batman and Robin, which had Olan Soale and Casey Kasem (already the voice of Shaggy at the time) reprise their roles from the 1960's animated series The Adventures of Batman and even had Larry Storch and Ted Knight do the same with their respective roles as Joker and Penguin. Olan Soale and Casey Kasem would later reprise their roles again on Super Friends until Olan was replaced by Adam West in the show's final seasons.

The first episode in particular, The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair, was rather hilarious, especially with Scooby pretending to drive the Batmobile and the Joker essentially doing a "your mother" joke on the cowardly canine.

The Scooby-Doo version of Batman would later appear in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Because Olan Soale, Larry Storch, and Ted Knight were deceased and Casey Kasem was pretty much retired (he was still alive at the time), however, they all had different voice actors, but their replacements happened to be other voice actors I am rather fond of.

Scooby-Doo Batman was now voiced by Frank Welker, with Robin played by Jason Marsden and the Joker and Penguin voiced by Corey Burton and Jeff Bennett respectively.

The segment in general spoofed The New Scooby-Doo Movies and even parodied its celebrity cameos by having Weird Al Yankovic involved, but eventually Bat-Mite uses his reality-warping powers to that the heroes can cut the slapstick and just beat the snot out of Joker and Penguin.

BURTON/SCHUMACHER FILMS-

One of the two main versions of Batman I grew up with. Actually, the first two movies came out before I was born, but I saw them before I saw the other two, and it wasn't until last year that I saw the final film in the series.

The 1989 film had Batman played by Michael Keaton and was notably the first incarnation of the Caped Crusader to follow the dark and serious nature that had been established in the comics since the early 1970's after the Comics Code forced Batman comics to be more lighthearted in the late 40's and early 50's.

The film for the most part gives Batman's origin exactly as it was in the comics, except instead of Joe Chill, Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered by Jack Napier, who was played by Jack Nicholson and later became the film's incarnation of the Joker after Batman knocked him into a vat of chemicals.

While Batman ordinarily has a policy against killing criminals, the Tim Burton Batman does not have such qualms and actually kills several of the criminals he faces. The Joker ends up falling to his death and was notably the first version of the character to be permanently killed off.

The sequel, Batman Returns, was also directed by Tim Burton and had Keaton return as Batman, with the villains being Catwoman, Penguin, and a corrupt corporate executive named Max Shreck. Catwoman was played by Michelle Pfeiffer, while Danny DeVito played the Penguin and Max Shreck was played by Christopher Walken. In the end, the Penguin and Shreck were killed, though Catwoman was implied to still be alive.

From then on, the movies were handled by Joel Schumacher and they have been a target of much mockery, though Batman Forever has at least some defenders, what with Batman trying to tell Robin that killing his parents' killer won't solve his problem and the film generally having some funny moments. Instead of Michael Keaton, Batman was now played by Val Kilmer and he was joined by Chris O'Donnel as Robin with the villains being Two-Face and Riddler, played by Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey respectively, even though Billy Dee Williams played a pre-disfigured Harvey Dent in the original 1989 film and was originally contractually obligated to play Two-Face before they decided to replace him with Tommy Lee Jones. Too bad, because then we would have had TWO Batman villains famous for being portrayed by an actor from Star Wars.

Two-Face ended up falling to his apparent death, while Riddler was driven insane and was convinced that he himself was Batman. I'm aware that the film is cheesy, but even today I think it's hilarious when Two-Face and Riddler wore masks while saying "Twick or Tweat" or when the Riddler described Dick Grayson as watching Saturday morning cartoons and dreaming of one day being "bare naked with a girl", complete with the faux-shocked gasp Two-Face made in response.

The last of the films, however, was Batman and Robin and stands out as being the most infamous of them all. Neither Keaton nor Kilmer reprised their role as Batman, this time the Caped Crusader was portrayed by George Clooney. Batgirl is also introduced and is played by Alicia Silverstone, though instead of being Commissioner Jim Gordon's daughter Barbara, she is renamed Barbara Wilson and is introduced as Alfred Pennyworth's niece.

The villains of the film were Poison Ivy (played by Uma Thurman), Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and Bane (Michael Reid MacKay as "Antonio Diego", Robert "Jeep" Swenson when bulked up on Venom), the last of which was portrayed as a dim-witted thug as opposed to the intelligent strategist he was in the comic books.

I know I might risk being flogged to death by saying this, but I actually enjoyed Batman and Robin. That's all I care to say about it at the moment, however.

DC ANIMATED UNIVERSE

The DCAU version of Batman is the other incarnation I grew up with, my first exposure being reruns of Batman: The Animated Series on Cartoon Network. I don't remember my first episode, but I still remember seeing the intro for the first time, asking who the masked vigilante was, and my father telling me "That's Batman".

Batman was voiced by Kevin Conroy, with other characters including the late Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon, Mark Hamill as the Joker, and even David Warner as Ra's al Ghul.

Batman: The Animated Series originally aired from 1992 to 1995, with a retool in 1997 called The New Batman Adventures, which I consider to be the same show in spite of the character redesigns, since it's still part of the DCAU. From that one series, they eventually developed other shows to expand the universe, beginning with Superman: The Animated Series and moving on with Justice League, Static Shock, and Justice League Unlimited.

I liked the show a lot when I was a kid, but I love it even more as an adult because of the powerful stories and the fact that a lot of the villains were sympathetic, since Harvey Dent really did strive to make Gotham a better place when he was a district attorney and still had a glimmer of his old self after he became Two-Face. Heck, the concept of Mr. Freeze being a scientist named Victor Fries who became an ice-themed villain because his boss callously interfered in an experiment to cure his sick wife proved so popular that it was even adapted to the comics, at least until The New 52 ruined it by making it so that Nora was never Victor's wife to begin with and that Freeze was just another psychopath now because of his delusion that it was the case. Baby Doll was also pretty hard not to feel sorry for since her career as a child character on TV was the closest she ever had to a real family.

One of my favorite moments, though, would be in "Robin's Reckoning, Part 1", when Robin responded to Batman replying to all his statements with "Uh-huh" by snarking that it was a good thing he was such a good conversationalist. And then there's the DVD's Audio Commentary for "Read My Lips" where the creators joked about Batman's reaction to seeing the Ventriloquist's dummy Scarface for the first time. If you have the DVD and have seen that episode's commentary, you must know what I'm talking about!

And then there was a spinoff taking place in the future called Batman Beyond, known as Batman of the Future outside the United States of America. The premise was that a teenager named Terry McGinnis, voiced by Will Friedle, becomes the new Batman and is mentored by an elderly Bruce Wayne, reprised by Kevin Conroy.

I also saw this series when I was young, and while I haven't seen it in a while (aside from the two episodes featuring Zeta), I intend to watch it again when I get around to revisiting the DCAU in its entirety.

Batman Beyond itself had a spinoff called The Zeta Project, which was about a robot with holographic disguise capabilities who is on the run from the NSA because they believe he is a dangerous terrorist and aren't buying Zeta's sincere insistence that he doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore. Both shows even had one crossover episode with each other.

The DCAU was my main introduction to DC Comics characters, and while it remains my favorite DC Comics adaptation, I still see good in at least most of today's DC media.

BIRDS OF PREY

Birds of Prey was a short-lived live-action series that involved Oracle working with Huntress and Dinah, the former being the daughter of Batman and Catwoman as she was in Pre-Crisis continuity and the latter being changed from the second Black Canary to being able to read the minds of whoever she comes into contact with.

While I don't dislike Birds of Prey, I consider it to be one of the weaker adaptations, though I will give some credit for the fact that this show contained the first live-action appearances of Harley Quinn and Clayface, two of my favorite Batman villains.

Batman doesn't appear in person, having been said to have abandoned Gotham City years ago, though he is seen in flashback played by an uncredited and unknown actor and Alfred talks to him on the phone in the last episode.

The Joker was also seen in flashbacks during the pilot episode, being physically portrayed by an uncredited Roger Stoneburner while Mark Hamill provided his voice. He doesn't appear in the actual series aside from being mentioned as being locked away somewhere far from New Gotham, though he is indirectly responsible for the show's conflict, seeing that he was the one who crippled Barbara Gordon and hired Clayface to kill Helena's mother, plus Dr. Harleen Quinzel tries to become Gotham's greatest criminal mastermind because she feels obligated to fill in the void her boyfriend left when he was brought to justice.

THE BATMAN

One of the most controversial adaptations, The Batman got a lot of flack because of its anime-esque art style, some rather drastic creative liberties with his rogues gallery, and because the Bat-Embargo at the time made it so that the show's very existence prevented Justice League Unlimited from using any notable Batman characters aside from the Dark Knight himself, which meant that they had to use more obscure enemies and have no mention made of Alfred, Robin, or Batgirl.

I was still young when The Batman came on the air, and to be fair, the show itself suffered because of the Bat-Embargo because the Dark Knight films prevented The Batman from using Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face, and Scarecrow, and I would have loved to see those guys appear on The Batman. Good thing the Bat-Embargo is no longer valid anymore. If you ask me, there's just no good reason different adaptations of Batman can't use the same characters, especially since they're all done by Warner Bros., since they own DC Comics.

Here, Batman was played by Rino Romano, who I also know for voicing Eduardo Rivera on Extreme Ghostbusters and one of the Centauri police from the Teen Titans episode Sisters. This version of the Caped Crusader is notable for being introduced as a rookie, having only donned the cowl for three years, and even today still hasn't heard the end of the fact that he eats nachos.

I actually liked this show's versions of The Joker and Penguin, played by Kevin Michael Richardson and Tom Kenny respectively, since they were pretty comedic.

It was also pretty awesome how the show's final season brought in other DC Comics characters, because I like diversity, and in my book, it's best that DC Comics adaptations throw in as many characters as possible. Just because most people never heard of them doesn't mean they can't learn to love them!

The film The Batman vs. Dracula was also pretty neat, since it was a lot darker than the series. And for crying out loud, it's pretty hard to mess up a dark, brooding vigilante tangling with the most famous vampire in the public domain.

THE DARK KNIGHT SAGA

I know what I said about Batman and Robin, but even I know better than to deny how horrible its reception was. Had it not failed, there would have been another film called Batman Triumphant, which would have had Scarecrow and possibly Man-Bat as the villains, with Jack Nicholson reprising his role as the Joker in the form of a hallucination that haunts Batman after exposure to fear gas and Harley Quinn being introduced as Jack Napier's vengeful daughter.

I like the Dark Knight trilogy, though the mispronunciation of Ra's al Ghul's name often got on my nerves. His name has nothing to do with the Egyptian sun god!

Anyway, because of its dismal reception, another Batman film wasn't made until 2005, when Christopher Nolan gave us Batman Begins, where the Dark Knight was played by Christian Bale, with the villains being Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson with Ken Watanabe playing a body double). Uniquely, this version makes it so that Ra's al Ghul trained Bruce Wayne with the skills of combat and stealth he uses as Batman. In the end, Scarecrow goes to Arkham (and is the only villain to appear in all three films of the trilogy) while Ra's ends up dead.

In between the first two films was Batman: Gotham Knight, an animated anthology film said to take place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight that notably was animated by Japanese animation studios. The English dub had Kevin Conroy reprise his role as Batman and also had some other actors I like involved. For example, Sal Maroni is played by Rob Paulsen and Corey Burton plays Scarecrow and a criminal called The Russian.

The second film was called The Dark Knight and had the villains being Joker and Two-Face, played respectively by the late Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart. The Joker is arrested, but promises to return, though that sadly never came to pass because they felt it would be best for Ledger's memory by avoiding use of the character in the finale of the series. Two-Face ended up killed, but Batman insisted that his turn to the dark side be kept a secret and that the people of Gotham be told that Dent died a hero.

The final film in the series, The Dark Knight Rises, introduces Catwoman, played by Anne Hathaway, and Bane, played by Tom Hardy, who does everything he can to descend Gotham into chaos. He even exposes the truth about Harvey Dent. In the end, though, Bruce Wayne retires from his career as Batman so he can enjoy a quite life with Selina Kyle, while Jonathan Blake (loosely based on Robin) stumbles upon the Batcave and is implied to become Gotham's new protector.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

Yet another controversial take on Batman because of its lighthearted nature. I actually enjoyed this version, though, because a whole buttload of DC Comics characters were involved, including rather obscure ones, and while the show was indeed a lighter incarnation, it had some serious episodes and most characters that got killed off stayed dead.

Here, Diedrich Bader was Batman's voice actor, and he actually sounds really close to Kevin Conroy's Batman. Sort of. In addition to the aforementioned stuff about Frank Welker playing the Scooby-Doo Batman in one episode, they had Bat-Boy from a MAD Magazine parody also portrayed by Frank Welker and Corey Burton voice the Bat-Manga version of the Caped Crusader. There was even an episode that had Kevin Conroy play the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, who was from another planet and had a costume of bright colors.

Also, a good deal of my favorite voice actors were involved. For example, we've got Tom Kenny as Plastic Man and 'Mazing Man, John DiMaggio as AQUAMAN, Nika Futterman as Catwoman, and Corey Burton as Red Tornado, the Alan Scott Green Lantern, and Killer Moth, among other roles.

BEWARE THE BATMAN

The current and so far last animated adaptation of Batman, barring the occasional DC Animated Original movies and cameos on the highly contested Teen Titans Go (which I have mixed opinions on, even after seeing the much-reviled The Return of Slade).

This show opted to return to Batman to his roots as a dark avenger of the night, but was met with initial backlash because of its decision to focus on Batman's obscure enemies while ignoring the famous rogues like Joker and Two-Face. While the show did garner some fans and several of its initial detractors even admitted that their reactions may have been premature, the show unfortunately was cancelled after only one season of 26 episodes.

On this show, Batman was voiced by Anthony Ruivivar, with Commissioner Gordon played by Kurtwood Smith, Alfred Pennyworth by J.B. Blanc, and Katana played by Sumalee Montano. Katana was used in lieu of Robin, but it was a change I tolerated, since she gets some of the best lines.

It really is too bad that Beware the Batman only lasted one season, since they did eventually become lenient with the whole "Obscure Batman villains only" policy by introducing Ra's al Ghul and later Harvey Dent, who became Two-Face near the end of the show. There were even cameos by the Penguin! Heaven only knows if the Joker would have made it had Cartoon Network done the smart thing and given the show another chance.

Even before they appeared, though, I was okay with the concept of using Batman's lesser-known enemies, because the obscure has always fascinated me. I'd love them even if they were more well-known, it's just that I really like stuff that not everyone knows about it and nothing tickles me pink more than giving the unknown a chance to become known.

I don't know if I'll ever give the Many Faces treatment to any other Batman character or DC character in general, but the year 2016 is still young. Even know, there are still plenty of opportunities waiting to be taken!

Batman and all related characters (c) DC Comics

Description
Made with DeviantArt muro

Some of you may recall that last year, I made a picture paying tribute to multiple incarnations of The Joker, Batman's most famous enemy.

As one of my pictures for the new year, I've decided to draw a picture paying tribute to many incarnations of the Caped Crusader himself. I once again must say that I unfortunately couldn't include every incarnation of the character this picture pays tribute to. I really wanted to include Batman's incarnations from Young Justice and the Arkham video games, but alas, I did not have enough room!

There's also the fact that Batman's been in quite a lot of media to this day and there are some incarnations of him that I either consider irrelevant (like the DC Nation shorts, though I actually do like a lot of them) and incarnations I have yet to see (like the new live-action series Gotham, as I'm kind of biased towards live-action shows. At least, contemporary ones).

I've grown up being exposed to many different incarnations of the Dark Knight, and while there is one particular version that's my introduction to Batman and the incarnation that I like best, that doesn't mean I dislike any version of Gotham's vengeful protector. To be honest, I've seen good in even the most controversial and reviled incarnations.

For each incarnation of Bruce Wayne's alter ego present in this picture, I will give some information about that adaptation as well as my opinions on it. It is okay if you don't agree with me, just don't act as if me having a different opinion makes me an irredeemable scoundrel. I also advise that you turn away now if you don't want any spoilers.

1960's ADAM WEST SHOW

While not the first adaptation of Batman (that credit goes to a couple of serials from the 1940's), the 1966 live-action television show is the most notorious of the different incarnations of the Caped Crusader because of how campy it was.

The series starred Adam West as Batman with Burt Ward as Robin the Boy Wonder, with many episodes being two-parters with rhyming titles, some of which were rather nonsensical (for example, Mr. Freeze made his debut in the episode "Instant Freeze", while the second part was called "Rats Like Cheese" even though it had nothing involving rats or cheese).

In spite of its reputation for clashing severely with the dark and serious tone most of us Bat-fans prefer, the 1960's show actually did have its share of serious moments from time to time and some characters even got killed, like the female Riddler minion who disguised herself as Robin and fell into the Bat-Computer's reactor core in the pilot, or a frozen Mr. Freeze victim who comedically toppled over and shattered offscreen.

In fact, the first episode even had Bruce Wayne mention that he was motivated to become Batman because his parents were killed by criminals. Not "a" criminal, but criminals in the plural sense, which would indicate that the 1966 version of Joe Chill, if he even goes by that name, must have had some help.

In between the first and second seasons, there came a live-action film of the series where Batman and Robin faced a team-up between the Joker, the Riddler, the Penguin, and Catwoman. Cesar Romero, Frank Gorshin, and Burgess Meredith all reprised their respective roles as the Clown Prince of Crime, the Prince of Puzzles, and Batman's avian adversary, but Catwoman's actress for the movie was Lee Meriwether instead of Julie Newmar, who would also be replaced for one episode in the series by Eartha Kitt.

More recently, DC Comics has gone and published Batman '66, a comic book based on the 1960's series that notably also incorporates characters that weren't in the original show, like Scarecrow, Two-Face, and Clayface. They're even using villains that didn't appear until long after the 60's show went off the air, like Bane and Killer Croc.

One particular installment of the comic series I'm glad to possess is entitled The Lost Episode, so named because it is adapted from a script for an episode of the show that wasn't produced, the best part being that the episode featured Two-Face and was written by none other than Harlan Ellison (registered trademark. Yes, he copyrighted his own name. Don't ask me why)

SCOOBY-DOO BATMAN

Aside from Batman, another franchise I've loved as a kid that I'm still a fan of today would be Scooby-Doo. I grew up watching reruns of pretty much every incarnation, from the original Scooby-Doo! Where Are You? to A Pup Named Scooby Doo. I'm even interested in seeing Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue, Mystery Incorporated, and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo in spite of their controversy. I am trying to catch up right now, but so far I'm still trying to finish The Scooby-Doo Show.

One particular incarnation of Scooby-Doo that I love to death, though, would be The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which had Scooby, Shaggy, Velma, Daphne, and Fred encounter animated versions of several celebrities and fictional characters.

Aside from the one where they met the Addams Family, my favorite episodes of The New Scooby-Doo Movies would be the ones that featured Batman and Robin, which had Olan Soale and Casey Kasem (already the voice of Shaggy at the time) reprise their roles from the 1960's animated series The Adventures of Batman and even had Larry Storch and Ted Knight do the same with their respective roles as Joker and Penguin. Olan Soale and Casey Kasem would later reprise their roles again on Super Friends until Olan was replaced by Adam West in the show's final seasons.

The first episode in particular, The Dynamic Scooby-Doo Affair, was rather hilarious, especially with Scooby pretending to drive the Batmobile and the Joker essentially doing a "your mother" joke on the cowardly canine.

The Scooby-Doo version of Batman would later appear in an episode of Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Because Olan Soale, Larry Storch, and Ted Knight were deceased and Casey Kasem was pretty much retired (he was still alive at the time), however, they all had different voice actors, but their replacements happened to be other voice actors I am rather fond of.

Scooby-Doo Batman was now voiced by Frank Welker, with Robin played by Jason Marsden and the Joker and Penguin voiced by Corey Burton and Jeff Bennett respectively.

The segment in general spoofed The New Scooby-Doo Movies and even parodied its celebrity cameos by having Weird Al Yankovic involved, but eventually Bat-Mite uses his reality-warping powers to that the heroes can cut the slapstick and just beat the snot out of Joker and Penguin.

BURTON/SCHUMACHER FILMS-

One of the two main versions of Batman I grew up with. Actually, the first two movies came out before I was born, but I saw them before I saw the other two, and it wasn't until last year that I saw the final film in the series.

The 1989 film had Batman played by Michael Keaton and was notably the first incarnation of the Caped Crusader to follow the dark and serious nature that had been established in the comics since the early 1970's after the Comics Code forced Batman comics to be more lighthearted in the late 40's and early 50's.

The film for the most part gives Batman's origin exactly as it was in the comics, except instead of Joe Chill, Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered by Jack Napier, who was played by Jack Nicholson and later became the film's incarnation of the Joker after Batman knocked him into a vat of chemicals.

While Batman ordinarily has a policy against killing criminals, the Tim Burton Batman does not have such qualms and actually kills several of the criminals he faces. The Joker ends up falling to his death and was notably the first version of the character to be permanently killed off.

The sequel, Batman Returns, was also directed by Tim Burton and had Keaton return as Batman, with the villains being Catwoman, Penguin, and a corrupt corporate executive named Max Shreck. Catwoman was played by Michelle Pfeiffer, while Danny DeVito played the Penguin and Max Shreck was played by Christopher Walken. In the end, the Penguin and Shreck were killed, though Catwoman was implied to still be alive.

From then on, the movies were handled by Joel Schumacher and they have been a target of much mockery, though Batman Forever has at least some defenders, what with Batman trying to tell Robin that killing his parents' killer won't solve his problem and the film generally having some funny moments. Instead of Michael Keaton, Batman was now played by Val Kilmer and he was joined by Chris O'Donnel as Robin with the villains being Two-Face and Riddler, played by Tommy Lee Jones and Jim Carrey respectively, even though Billy Dee Williams played a pre-disfigured Harvey Dent in the original 1989 film and was originally contractually obligated to play Two-Face before they decided to replace him with Tommy Lee Jones. Too bad, because then we would have had TWO Batman villains famous for being portrayed by an actor from Star Wars.

Two-Face ended up falling to his apparent death, while Riddler was driven insane and was convinced that he himself was Batman. I'm aware that the film is cheesy, but even today I think it's hilarious when Two-Face and Riddler wore masks while saying "Twick or Tweat" or when the Riddler described Dick Grayson as watching Saturday morning cartoons and dreaming of one day being "bare naked with a girl", complete with the faux-shocked gasp Two-Face made in response.

The last of the films, however, was Batman and Robin and stands out as being the most infamous of them all. Neither Keaton nor Kilmer reprised their role as Batman, this time the Caped Crusader was portrayed by George Clooney. Batgirl is also introduced and is played by Alicia Silverstone, though instead of being Commissioner Jim Gordon's daughter Barbara, she is renamed Barbara Wilson and is introduced as Alfred Pennyworth's niece.

The villains of the film were Poison Ivy (played by Uma Thurman), Mr. Freeze (Arnold Schwarzenegger), and Bane (Michael Reid MacKay as "Antonio Diego", Robert "Jeep" Swenson when bulked up on Venom), the last of which was portrayed as a dim-witted thug as opposed to the intelligent strategist he was in the comic books.

I know I might risk being flogged to death by saying this, but I actually enjoyed Batman and Robin. That's all I care to say about it at the moment, however.

DC ANIMATED UNIVERSE

The DCAU version of Batman is the other incarnation I grew up with, my first exposure being reruns of Batman: The Animated Series on Cartoon Network. I don't remember my first episode, but I still remember seeing the intro for the first time, asking who the masked vigilante was, and my father telling me "That's Batman".

Batman was voiced by Kevin Conroy, with other characters including the late Bob Hastings as Commissioner Gordon, Mark Hamill as the Joker, and even David Warner as Ra's al Ghul.

Batman: The Animated Series originally aired from 1992 to 1995, with a retool in 1997 called The New Batman Adventures, which I consider to be the same show in spite of the character redesigns, since it's still part of the DCAU. From that one series, they eventually developed other shows to expand the universe, beginning with Superman: The Animated Series and moving on with Justice League, Static Shock, and Justice League Unlimited.

I liked the show a lot when I was a kid, but I love it even more as an adult because of the powerful stories and the fact that a lot of the villains were sympathetic, since Harvey Dent really did strive to make Gotham a better place when he was a district attorney and still had a glimmer of his old self after he became Two-Face. Heck, the concept of Mr. Freeze being a scientist named Victor Fries who became an ice-themed villain because his boss callously interfered in an experiment to cure his sick wife proved so popular that it was even adapted to the comics, at least until The New 52 ruined it by making it so that Nora was never Victor's wife to begin with and that Freeze was just another psychopath now because of his delusion that it was the case. Baby Doll was also pretty hard not to feel sorry for since her career as a child character on TV was the closest she ever had to a real family.

One of my favorite moments, though, would be in "Robin's Reckoning, Part 1", when Robin responded to Batman replying to all his statements with "Uh-huh" by snarking that it was a good thing he was such a good conversationalist. And then there's the DVD's Audio Commentary for "Read My Lips" where the creators joked about Batman's reaction to seeing the Ventriloquist's dummy Scarface for the first time. If you have the DVD and have seen that episode's commentary, you must know what I'm talking about!

And then there was a spinoff taking place in the future called Batman Beyond, known as Batman of the Future outside the United States of America. The premise was that a teenager named Terry McGinnis, voiced by Will Friedle, becomes the new Batman and is mentored by an elderly Bruce Wayne, reprised by Kevin Conroy.

I also saw this series when I was young, and while I haven't seen it in a while (aside from the two episodes featuring Zeta), I intend to watch it again when I get around to revisiting the DCAU in its entirety.

Batman Beyond itself had a spinoff called The Zeta Project, which was about a robot with holographic disguise capabilities who is on the run from the NSA because they believe he is a dangerous terrorist and aren't buying Zeta's sincere insistence that he doesn't want to hurt anyone anymore. Both shows even had one crossover episode with each other.

The DCAU was my main introduction to DC Comics characters, and while it remains my favorite DC Comics adaptation, I still see good in at least most of today's DC media.

BIRDS OF PREY

Birds of Prey was a short-lived live-action series that involved Oracle working with Huntress and Dinah, the former being the daughter of Batman and Catwoman as she was in Pre-Crisis continuity and the latter being changed from the second Black Canary to being able to read the minds of whoever she comes into contact with.

While I don't dislike Birds of Prey, I consider it to be one of the weaker adaptations, though I will give some credit for the fact that this show contained the first live-action appearances of Harley Quinn and Clayface, two of my favorite Batman villains.

Batman doesn't appear in person, having been said to have abandoned Gotham City years ago, though he is seen in flashback played by an uncredited and unknown actor and Alfred talks to him on the phone in the last episode.

The Joker was also seen in flashbacks during the pilot episode, being physically portrayed by an uncredited Roger Stoneburner while Mark Hamill provided his voice. He doesn't appear in the actual series aside from being mentioned as being locked away somewhere far from New Gotham, though he is indirectly responsible for the show's conflict, seeing that he was the one who crippled Barbara Gordon and hired Clayface to kill Helena's mother, plus Dr. Harleen Quinzel tries to become Gotham's greatest criminal mastermind because she feels obligated to fill in the void her boyfriend left when he was brought to justice.

THE BATMAN

One of the most controversial adaptations, The Batman got a lot of flack because of its anime-esque art style, some rather drastic creative liberties with his rogues gallery, and because the Bat-Embargo at the time made it so that the show's very existence prevented Justice League Unlimited from using any notable Batman characters aside from the Dark Knight himself, which meant that they had to use more obscure enemies and have no mention made of Alfred, Robin, or Batgirl.

I was still young when The Batman came on the air, and to be fair, the show itself suffered because of the Bat-Embargo because the Dark Knight films prevented The Batman from using Ra's al Ghul, Two-Face, and Scarecrow, and I would have loved to see those guys appear on The Batman. Good thing the Bat-Embargo is no longer valid anymore. If you ask me, there's just no good reason different adaptations of Batman can't use the same characters, especially since they're all done by Warner Bros., since they own DC Comics.

Here, Batman was played by Rino Romano, who I also know for voicing Eduardo Rivera on Extreme Ghostbusters and one of the Centauri police from the Teen Titans episode Sisters. This version of the Caped Crusader is notable for being introduced as a rookie, having only donned the cowl for three years, and even today still hasn't heard the end of the fact that he eats nachos.

I actually liked this show's versions of The Joker and Penguin, played by Kevin Michael Richardson and Tom Kenny respectively, since they were pretty comedic.

It was also pretty awesome how the show's final season brought in other DC Comics characters, because I like diversity, and in my book, it's best that DC Comics adaptations throw in as many characters as possible. Just because most people never heard of them doesn't mean they can't learn to love them!

The film The Batman vs. Dracula was also pretty neat, since it was a lot darker than the series. And for crying out loud, it's pretty hard to mess up a dark, brooding vigilante tangling with the most famous vampire in the public domain.

THE DARK KNIGHT SAGA

I know what I said about Batman and Robin, but even I know better than to deny how horrible its reception was. Had it not failed, there would have been another film called Batman Triumphant, which would have had Scarecrow and possibly Man-Bat as the villains, with Jack Nicholson reprising his role as the Joker in the form of a hallucination that haunts Batman after exposure to fear gas and Harley Quinn being introduced as Jack Napier's vengeful daughter.

I like the Dark Knight trilogy, though the mispronunciation of Ra's al Ghul's name often got on my nerves. His name has nothing to do with the Egyptian sun god!

Anyway, because of its dismal reception, another Batman film wasn't made until 2005, when Christopher Nolan gave us Batman Begins, where the Dark Knight was played by Christian Bale, with the villains being Scarecrow (Cillian Murphy) and Ra's al Ghul (Liam Neeson with Ken Watanabe playing a body double). Uniquely, this version makes it so that Ra's al Ghul trained Bruce Wayne with the skills of combat and stealth he uses as Batman. In the end, Scarecrow goes to Arkham (and is the only villain to appear in all three films of the trilogy) while Ra's ends up dead.

In between the first two films was Batman: Gotham Knight, an animated anthology film said to take place between Batman Begins and The Dark Knight that notably was animated by Japanese animation studios. The English dub had Kevin Conroy reprise his role as Batman and also had some other actors I like involved. For example, Sal Maroni is played by Rob Paulsen and Corey Burton plays Scarecrow and a criminal called The Russian.

The second film was called The Dark Knight and had the villains being Joker and Two-Face, played respectively by the late Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart. The Joker is arrested, but promises to return, though that sadly never came to pass because they felt it would be best for Ledger's memory by avoiding use of the character in the finale of the series. Two-Face ended up killed, but Batman insisted that his turn to the dark side be kept a secret and that the people of Gotham be told that Dent died a hero.

The final film in the series, The Dark Knight Rises, introduces Catwoman, played by Anne Hathaway, and Bane, played by Tom Hardy, who does everything he can to descend Gotham into chaos. He even exposes the truth about Harvey Dent. In the end, though, Bruce Wayne retires from his career as Batman so he can enjoy a quite life with Selina Kyle, while Jonathan Blake (loosely based on Robin) stumbles upon the Batcave and is implied to become Gotham's new protector.

BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD

Yet another controversial take on Batman because of its lighthearted nature. I actually enjoyed this version, though, because a whole buttload of DC Comics characters were involved, including rather obscure ones, and while the show was indeed a lighter incarnation, it had some serious episodes and most characters that got killed off stayed dead.

Here, Diedrich Bader was Batman's voice actor, and he actually sounds really close to Kevin Conroy's Batman. Sort of. In addition to the aforementioned stuff about Frank Welker playing the Scooby-Doo Batman in one episode, they had Bat-Boy from a MAD Magazine parody also portrayed by Frank Welker and Corey Burton voice the Bat-Manga version of the Caped Crusader. There was even an episode that had Kevin Conroy play the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, who was from another planet and had a costume of bright colors.

Also, a good deal of my favorite voice actors were involved. For example, we've got Tom Kenny as Plastic Man and 'Mazing Man, John DiMaggio as AQUAMAN, Nika Futterman as Catwoman, and Corey Burton as Red Tornado, the Alan Scott Green Lantern, and Killer Moth, among other roles.

BEWARE THE BATMAN

The current and so far last animated adaptation of Batman, barring the occasional DC Animated Original movies and cameos on the highly contested Teen Titans Go (which I have mixed opinions on, even after seeing the much-reviled The Return of Slade).

This show opted to return to Batman to his roots as a dark avenger of the night, but was met with initial backlash because of its decision to focus on Batman's obscure enemies while ignoring the famous rogues like Joker and Two-Face. While the show did garner some fans and several of its initial detractors even admitted that their reactions may have been premature, the show unfortunately was cancelled after only one season of 26 episodes.

On this show, Batman was voiced by Anthony Ruivivar, with Commissioner Gordon played by Kurtwood Smith, Alfred Pennyworth by J.B. Blanc, and Katana played by Sumalee Montano. Katana was used in lieu of Robin, but it was a change I tolerated, since she gets some of the best lines.

It really is too bad that Beware the Batman only lasted one season, since they did eventually become lenient with the whole "Obscure Batman villains only" policy by introducing Ra's al Ghul and later Harvey Dent, who became Two-Face near the end of the show. There were even cameos by the Penguin! Heaven only knows if the Joker would have made it had Cartoon Network done the smart thing and given the show another chance.

Even before they appeared, though, I was okay with the concept of using Batman's lesser-known enemies, because the obscure has always fascinated me. I'd love them even if they were more well-known, it's just that I really like stuff that not everyone knows about it and nothing tickles me pink more than giving the unknown a chance to become known.

I don't know if I'll ever give the Many Faces treatment to any other Batman character or DC character in general, but the year 2016 is still young. Even know, there are still plenty of opportunities waiting to be taken!

Batman and all related characters (c) DC Comics