One of the most impressive parts of Batman’s character is that he’s just a mortal man.
He could be anyone.
I mean, we all know he’s got a genius level intellect, a whole lot of plot armour and
an never ending bank account, which definitely helps with the whole caped crusader business,
but still.
You guys get the point.
While this is one of his defining traits, the character has occasionally been giving
super powers in a handful of instances, so today, we’re going to take a closer look
at his past with our list of the top 10 times Batman got superpowers.
Let’s dive in.
10 Hellbat Armour Back in Batman and Robin issue 33 to issue
37, volume 2 of the new 52, Batman donned something called the Hellbat Armour.
It was a suit forged by the Justice League but designed by Bruce in order to upgrades
his strength significantly.
Made of a shifting nano kinetic metallic composition, it has a built in clocking feature that makes
Batman entirely invisible, it’s cape can turn into wings allowing him to fly, project
powerful blasts of energy, drain others of energy, and much more.
While it gives him a mega power boost, it does drain his metabolism, and could potentially
kill him if he wears it too much.
9 Knight Terrors A fear powered Batman?
That was a thing in 2011, when the caped crusader was exposed to a brand new strain of fear
toxin that gave one super human strength and an insatiable need for violence.
Mixed with venom, this new fear toxin is exposed to Arkham Asylum’s inmates, which include
a slew of Batman’s rogue gallery, which took place in Batman The Dark Knight in a
story titled Knight Terrors.
Batman has to inject himself with it in order to stop the outbreak, and in the after math,
he ends up lashing out at Superman before the toxins wear out.
Superman is forced to knock him unconscious in order to get him to chill the f*ck out.
8 Dawnbreaker Batman The recent Dark Nights Metal event introduced
us to a slew of evil alternate versions of Batman, some of which were the amalgamation
of Batman and another Justice League member.
Case in point: the Dawnbreaker, a Bruce Wayne who hails from Earth negative 32 of the dark
multiverse.
His origin story has a young Bruce discovering a green lantern ring when his parents are
gunned down in the alleyway.
After Joe Chill shoots his parents, Bruce loses his sh*t, and is filled with rage, which
is so strong that it catches the attention of the Green Lantern ring, sensing his willpower.
It enters his possession, and Bruce overpowers it’s restrictions, making him a Green Lantern
capable of murder.
He ends up murdering Joe Chill and goes on to wipe out all of the Green Lantern Corps.
7 The Devastator This one is a product of the same story arc,
and this time, it’s a Batman who mimics Doomsday.
You know, the fella who managed to punch Superman into a Krptonian coma that looked like death
but PYSCH, it really wasn’t?
Oh jeez.
Anywho, this is the Devastator.
He comes from Earth negative 1, and he’s the product of a Batman who was forced to
take care of a berserk evil Superman.
On Earth negative 1, Superman lost it, and went on a killing rampage, murdering the justice
league, killing Lois Lane and even completely obliterating Metropolis.
Batman was the last hero remaining, and with a Kryptonite spear in tow, his mission was
to stop the nearly invincible man of steel.
Superman was no easy match though.
Using his heat vision, he chops off Batman’s arm, the one holding the spear, and then mocks
him.
But this is Batman we’re talking about – he ALWAYS has a backup.
And his backup this time?
The Doomsday virus.
Batman injects himself and becomes the Devastator, looking like he’s Doomsday brother or son
or distant rocky relative.
He gains the monster’s regenerative abilities and strength, and has a nifty little trick
up his sleeve (or down his throat rather) called Kryptonite Breath that brought Superman
to his untimely end.
6 Man Bat Batman Man-Bat has been a foe of the caped crusaders’
since Detective Comics issue 400 in 1970.
Man-Bat is a zoologist who developed an extract that gave human’s a bat’s sonar sense.
He tested it on himself and turned into a humanoid bat creature.
In Batman Incorporated from 2013 though.
Bruce ends up becoming a man bat himself.
After the death of his son Damian, Bruce’s mental health ain’t the best, and he takes
a drastic measure to defeat Leviathan and his ex, Talia al Ghul.
He injects himself with the Man-Batserum and, with an army of bats at his side, takes on
all of Talia’s lackeys in an absolute rage.
It gave him the ability to lead those bats of his, to fly, it’s given him some intense
looking claws and echolocation abilities.
Although the serum does make one highly sensitive to extremely loud noises and bright lights.
5 The Drowned Bryce Wayne is yet another product of the
Dark Nights Metal event.
Hailing from the Dark Multiverse, on Earth negative 11, Bryce is a female version of
Bruce Wayne who was in a relationship with the male version of Selena Kyle, Sylvester
Kyle.
When Kyle is killed by metahumans, Bryce is enraged, and loses it.
In retaliation, she goes on a killing spree, systematically murdering any and all metahumans
she can find.
18 months after her rampage, Aquawoman, the female Aquaman, re-emerges from a self-imposed
exile and ends up trying to make a truce with Bryce.
Bryce doesn’t trust her though, and Atlantis and the surface world engage in conflict.
Bryce and the surface win, with Bryce killing Aquawoman with her own trident.
The Atlanteans aren’t happy about this, and swallow Gotham City into the ocean.
So Bryce steps up her game, gives herself biochemical augmentations, along with the
ability to breath underwater, heal faster, bolsters her muscle, skeletal and body tissue
destiny and ends up giving herself a darker version of hydrokinesis that lets her corrupt
and command her foes, making them ravenous sea beasts instead.
4 White Lantern Batman In 2010’s Brightest Day story arc, Batman
finds himself acquiring a white power ring of life after Deadman, the supernatural hero,
is tasked with delivering the ring to a person who can serve as the protector of Earth.
He firmly believes that Batman is that person (spoilers, he’s wrong), and while Bruce
is like I dunno man, Deadman forces it onto him.
This ring gives Bruce a whole lot of powerful abilities.
For starters, he learns the meaning of life, can see how everything in the world is connected,
and the Entity now speaks through him.
It’s a brief moment of power, and Batman gives it up almost immediately.
3 Red Death Batman Hailing from the dark multiverse and Earth
negative 52, we have the Red Death, a version of Bruce Wayne that has been amalgamated with
the Flash.
The story behind this one is a little close to home for our prime Earth Batman.
After years of fighting crime in Gotham, Earth -52 Batman has the terrible luck of losing
all of his Robin sidekicks on the job.
He becomes more extreme, putting more pressure on himself to stop crimes before they occur,
hating himself for not being fast enough.
Pushed to a breaking point, he seeks out the Flash and wants to use his access to the Speed
Force, believing he’s better suited to use it than the Scarlet Speedster is.
When the Flash doesn’t agree, Bruce kills off everyone in Flash’s rogue gallery, steals
their weapons, and then uses them against Flash in a battle for his powers.
He manages to defeat him, combines his bat mobile with the cosmic treadmill and then
drives it (and them) into the speed force, which amalgamates the two.
Forced to share a body with the Flash’s consciousness, he now dons a new red suit,
calling himself the Red Death as he uses his speed force powers to kill off all of his
own villains.
2 Amazo Virus Batman In Justice League volume 2 issue 38, Batman
is exposed to something called the Amazo Virus.
The Virus is a synthetic plague created by Lex Luthor that is capable of mimicking metahuman
abilities through the use of an artificial enzyme.
Luthor intended to use it to suppress metahuman abilities, specifically targeting metahuman
criminals, but, as you can guess, things got a little out of control.
The downside of this virus is that if you get it, sure, you get powers, but you also
become unstable and eventually die, which ain’t fun.
Batman contracts the virus, and gains the abilities of Daredevil, wait sorry, of a bat.
He becomes blind but can see via echolocation.
But aside from that, he learns another cool trick – he can unleash a force blast using
sound vibrations that can knock people out.
Eventually Lex develops a cure using Superman’s blood, Batman is healed and all is well again.
1 Mobius Chair Batman In the New 52, Batman became the god of knowledge
when he got his mitts on the Mobius Chair; a powerful throne that gave him the ability
to teleport across space and time, and near-limitless access to information stored within the chair.
He could read peoples thoughts, and even stop people from committing crimes before they
did them.
He managed to pretty much erase all crime in Gotham.
But the power began to corrupt him, and since he no longer needed to fulfill any human desires
or needs, he became consumed by the chair, never leaving it, up until Hal Jordan gave
him his green lantern ring in order to give him the willpower to stand up and step away
from it.