SEEKERS OF THE BAT

Owlman is the alternate Batman from the parallel universe Earth-3 where the world lives in fear of the Crime Syndicate, featuring evil versions of the Justice League.  Their first meeting is re-imagined in the animated film: Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths. He is written as a brilliant, albeit completely amoral nihilist, attempting to destroy the multiverse on principle alone.

Although there have been multiple reboots to the multiverse, Owlman’s generally accepted origin is that he is Thomas Wayne Jr., a younger brother that our universe’s Bruce Wayne never had. Thomas Jr. saw his mother and brother shot by a policeman, and much like our other Anti-Batmen, dedicated his life to opposing the law.  An additional wrinkle is that his father, Thomas Sr. is now police chief, and both are obsessed with eliminating each other.

Our universe (Earth-1) has recently gained its own Owlman. Roy Raymond, Jr., grandson of a Golden Age character. A disgraced investigative journalist, he is said to be an excellent detective. In another case of “Batman predicting everything”, Alfred Pennyworth was instructed to recruit and outfit Roy to join the Outsiders during Batman’s Final Crisis disappearance.

Zatanna and Batman’s relationship was fractured during the events of Identity Crisis when it was revealed that Zatanna had secretly erased Batman’s memory to cover up a Justice League crime. This led directly to Batman’s growing mistrust and paranoia of his fellow heroes, although his bond to Zatanna has healed somewhat. She has even encouraged her love rival Selina Kyle (Catwoman) to fight for Bruce Wayne’s affections, despite his engagement to Jezebel Jet at the time.

Batman has always been a loner, and has occasionally had trouble ‘playing nice’ in a team environment, such as the Justice League. After several incidents, he finally quit to create his own team of misfits. Their stated goal is to be the blackops team that can take on the dirty jobs that the Justice League can’t.

The roster of the Outsiders has fluctuated over the years. The original team had Black Lightning, Geo-Force, Metamorpho, Katana, Halo and Looker. Although it has been disbanded multiple times, the Outsiders have evolved to become more than just “Batman’s Justice League” and have become a lasting part of the heroic landscape.

Jean-Paul Valley was a university student who suddenly discovered that he was bred and programmed from birth to be an assassin by a secret religious group called The Sacred Order of Saint Dumas. As the costumed Azrael, he was helped by Batman to break his programming and fought crime alongside the Bat family for several years. He is best known for controversially taking over as Batman while Bruce Wayne convalesced after having his back broken by Bane.

Unfortunately, his upbringing led him to be a violent, sometimes lethal Batman, radically changing the costume to be more damaging. This led to Bruce Wayne having to forcibly bringing him down and take back the mantle. He continued to adventure as Azrael for some time before being killed, although his body was never found.

Bat-Mite is ostensibly a magical imp who travelled from the Fifth Dimension to meet his idol Batman. He would appear in formulaic 1960s Batman stories where he would manufacture a problem for Batman to solve. Although he bore no ill will towards Batman, often saying he just wanted to help, he was treated as an extremely frustrating villain. He was recently again seen in Batman RIP as a [likely hallucinated ] representation of the Batman’s fading sanity. He now tends to serve in a meta capacity anytime the fourth wall needs to be broken.

The modern version of Batwoman was introduced in 2006. Much like Bruce Wayne, Kate came from a wealthy Gotham family that ‘owned what the Waynes didn’t’. As a 12 year old, Kate, her twin sister and mother were kidnapped and held hostage. Her sister and mother were killed in the rescue attempt. Kate went on to be top in her class in military academy until she was discharged for having a gay relationship with another student. She carried on without much direction until a chance meeting with Batman inspired her to take up the costumed identity of Batwoman.

Damian Wayne is the child of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, the daughter of supervillain Ras al Ghul. He was bred as an assassin and was only introduced to his father as a means to derail his work. However, he was inspired by the Batman’s crusade, and switched his allegiances. He now serves as a grim and gritty Robin under Dick Grayson’s cheerful Batman, thus flipping the usual role characterizations. In Batman 666 and 700, Damian has been shown to take on the mantle of Batman in a possible future. Along with his adopted brothers, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, the three past and present Robins patrol Gotham while waiting for their father to return.

Stephanie Brown is another character who has risen through the ranks of the Bat family. Starting her career as the Spoiler, she then takes over as Robin before returning from the grave in time for her friend Cassandra Cain to hand over the position of Batgirl.

As the daughter of supervillain Cluemaster, she donned the costume of the Spoiler in an effort to put a stop to her father’s crime sprees. Her actions gained the attention of Batman and Robin, who tried to dissuade her from continuing her vigilantism. Working alongside them, she developed a relationship with Tim Drake, who helped her through a pregnancy by an absentee ex-boyfriend.

Now on Batman’s radar, Stephanie was welcomed as a reserve Bird of Prey, even becoming fast friends with Batgirl Cassandra Cain, trading reading lessons for fight training. While patrolling with Tim, Stephanie was badly injured. His guilt over not being able to protect her in addition to his father finding out about his double life as Robin led to his quitting as Robin. Feeling responsible, Stephanie stitched together a Robin outfit of her own, and convinced Batman to take her on as a partner, thus becoming the first ‘official’ female Robin. Unfortunately her inexperience, and need to prove herself led her to igniting a citywide gang war and eventually to her ‘death’.

Stephanie later returns approximately a year later, having faked her death and been living in Africa in the meantime. Through a complex series of events, she ruins her relationship with Tim Drake, but instead inherits the Batsuit worn by Cassandra Cain, who disappears for reasons unknown. After being put through rigorous training by Batman, she takes over as the new Batgirl under the watchful eye of Oracle. After a few scrapes, a stronger, better trained, and more mature Stephanie makes the role her own by discarding Cassandra’s suit for the current Spoiler-purple trimmed Batgirl suit.

When all is said and done, young Timothy Drake may be regarded as the greatest of all those who have served under the name Robin. Although he will never surpass the other Robins at their strengths, his analytical skill has been compared to that of Batman himself. He is also the man who introduced the concept of pants to the role.

Single handedly deducing the identity of Batman after recognizing a quadruple flip performed by Dick Grayson, young Tim was welcomed into the Bat family. Not wanting to relive the events of Jason Todd’s death, Batman put Tim through extensive training by experts from around the world. To compensate his lack of natural skill, he developed a mastery of the staff, which would come to become his signature weapon.

Fiercely devoted to his friends, Time changed his costume to a red and black motif after the apparent death of his friend Conner Kent aka Superboy. He went on to abandon the Robin persona completely to investigate the death of Bruce Wayne, who he [correctly] believed to be trapped in time. To signify his new uncompromising view of life, he controversially took over the identity of the Red Robin, last used by the villainous Jason Todd.

After the murder of his father at the hands of Captain Boomerang, Tim joined Dick Grayson as a formal adoptee of Bruce Wayne.  Together with Damian, Batman’s biological son, each of these 3 Robins are doing their utmost in trying to uphold the legacy of their father.

The Huntress is another of Gotham’s costumed vigilantes, notable because she’s been actively shunned by Batman. Although she has fought crime briefly as Batgirl (in the costume Cassandra Cain would later make famous), Batman considers her too violent to allow into his family. There is some meta irony here as Helena Bertinelli, daughter of murdered mobsters was once Helena Wayne, daughter of Batman and Catwoman, in an alternate universe that no longer exists.

Although she continues to struggle for “daddy’s” approval, she has earned the respect of her peers, even serving stints with the Justice League and Birds of Prey. However, her aptitude for violence holds her back from gaining any real traction within the superheroic community.