Every Time Batman Died, Ranked

Batman has been around for longer than almost every other superhero and has risen to be one of the most popular figures in the entire world. He’s appeared in more comics than just about anyone, both mainline and alternate universe. Batman is an iconic hero, and there is almost nothing his fans love more than to see the Dark Knight claw his way to victory in a seemingly hopeless situation. One of the best ways to get us to that type of situation is to push Batman past his limits, or even show us that nobody is beyond consequences, even the Dark Knight. So today, we’re looking at all the times Batman died.

To clarify, before we get in, we should establish that we’re being very strict with what we consider a death. We won’t be counting fake-outs like when Darkseid sent him hurtling back in time in Final Crisis, no uncertain outcomes like the ambiguous death/rebirth in “Endgame,” no universal resets or potential futures as that feels like cheating, and we’ll only be focusing on the mainline universe, so no Elseworlds. With that settled, let’s get into ranking every death of the Dark Knight.

5) Dark Nights: Death Metal

One of Batman’s deaths came at the hands of Perpetua and the Batman Who Laughs. When the latter infused Perpetua with a constant stream of Crisis Energy from the Dark Multiverse, she used it to completely rewrite reality, creating a new world where all of DC’s heroes were either captured, on the run, or dead. One of those dead was the original Batman, who was killed early on in the war. His death allowed Bruce to return as a zombie with the Black Lantern Ring, though, so while terrible that he died, it gave us a sick powerset for Bruce. Still, this death ranks last because we don’t really see it happen, and it didn’t have any impact at all.

4) Justice League (2018) #75 — “Death of the Justice League”

As the title says, this issue saw the entire Justice League be killed by the Great Darkness and Pariah’s Dark Army, which was made up of amped up versions of all of DC’s most powerful villains. Even fighting stronger versions of the most powerful villains out there, the League managed to turn the battle in their favor. Seeing victory almost robbed from him, Pariah channeled the energy of the Great Darkness to disintegrate everyone. He killed the entire Justice League and trapped their souls in pocket realities directed by their desires to keep them out of the way. They might have all come back immediately, but Batman did die here. 

Read Next

This Batman Character Is One of the Most Important DC Characters Ever and Deserves More Respect

3) “Emperor Joker”

This storyline is one of DC’s true nightmare scenarios, as the reality-warping fifth-dimensional imp Mister Mxyzptlk was tricked into giving the Joker his incredible powers, becoming Emperor Joker. The Cosmic Clown Prince of Crime immediately remade everything in his image, then set about his favorite pastime: killing Batman. He tortured the Dark Knight in every imaginable way, from armies of undead ripping him apart to making his mouth disappear and having vultures eat him alive. Batman was killed and then immediately revived, only for the torture to begin again. There’s no way to know how many times Batman was murdered, but by the end, the torture was so great that Batman was left a shell of a man. This is definitely the darkest of the Dark Knight’s deaths.

2) JLA #74 — “Obsidian”

This issue shows us yet another time the Justice League died, this time killed in the distant past. They were lured to the ancient Atlantis with the promise of finding Aquaman, only to be slaughtered by a trap laid for them by the League of Ancients. Batman trusted the word of Manitou Raven, who realized that their leader, Gamemnae, had set up this confrontation with lies. The entire Justice League was killed, but their spirits were preserved for the next three thousand years and revived in the modern day to save the world once more. This is definitely the death that stuck the longest, even if it was only for a single story.

1) Adventure Comics #462 — “Only Legends Live Forever!”

This death, technically, could be considered an Elseworld, given that it follows the Batman of the original Earth-Two. However, given that he was the main Batman until the Silver Age, I’d say he counts for this list. With that said, this death is a truly tragic one. This Batman had long since retired, but came back for one final fight to stop Bill Jensen, an extremely powerful criminal who blamed Commissioner Bruce Wayne for his imprisonment. Jensen defeated the entire JSA, and only Batman could hold him back, until Jensen’s power burned them both out, killing both men.

Bruce was buried beside his long-dead wife, Selina, and his parents. Even if he wasn’t the main version of the character at the time, the truly permanent death of Batman was still a massive shock that nobody saw coming. Seeing him go out even after he finally had everything he wanted, a family and a happy life, only makes it even more tragic.

So there we have all the official, confirmed deaths of the Dark Knight. There are a lot fewer than you’d expect, given comic book characters’ penchant to come back from the dead. Which death stood out to you as the greatest, or saddest?

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!