Batwoman: Everything We Know So Far About the Arrowverse's Batman

He's one of the Arrowverse's first vigilante heroes - predating even Green Arrow

Long before Oliver Queen became the Green Arrow, the Arrowverse had another costumed vigilante hero: Gotham's Batman. While we don't know exactly when Bruce Wayne took up his Batman mantle, we do know that the hero was operating in the city as earlier as 2003. On January 26, 2003, Batman attempted to save his aunt Gabi Kane and his cousins Kate and Beth after their car was run off the road and left dangling on a bridge after being rammed by a school bus hijacked by the Joker. He thought he had secured the Kane car with his grapple before leaving the scene to go save the children on the hijacked bus, but unfortunately, the part of the car attached to the grapple separated, plunging Gabi and Beth into the river below. He never fully got over the failure.

Batman operating in 2003 makes him the Arrowverse's first costumed vigilante hero, at least until the events of "Crisis on Infinite Earths" which merged Earth-1 with the other realities of the Multiverse and, thus, brought Black Lightning into the shared Earth-Prime. In the continuity of Earth-Prime, Black Lightning is technically the first costumed vigilante hero, having begun his fight for justice sometime around 1998.

He may have killed the Joker

After serving as Gotham's hero for several years, Batman mysteriously just vanished between three and five years ago, leaving the citizens to wonder why the Dark Knight had vanished and left them vulnerable to the rampant, frequently violent crime in the city. The answer to that may be surprisingly straightforward: he broke his own moral code of "no killing". Luke Fox hints to Kate that the Joker hasn't been seen in Gotham for five years not because he's in Arkham, but because Batman killed him during an especially brutal encounter.

He clashed with the Gotham City Police

While Batman was largely beloved as a hero by Gotham, he wasn't exactly beloved by the Gotham City Police Department at least not early on. It's mentioned in Batwoman's Season 1 finale that Commissioner Loeb wasn't particularly fond of him and even sent the GCPD to capture him. Eventually, however, the GCPD began to rely on Batman and even began using the Bat Signal to contact the hero whenever the city was in distress and needed Batman.

He has a history with Talia al Ghul

Noted on the pages of Lucius Fox's journal, it's noted that Bruce eventually got the "Suit of Sorrows", an ancient suit of armor that once belonged to a splinter faction of the Order of St. Dumas known as the Order of The Pure from none other than Talia al Ghul. It's not clear how extensive Batman's history is with Talia in the Arrowverse, but it certainly opens the door to quite a few intriguing possibilities.

You can read more about the Suit of Sorrows as recorded in Lucius' journal here.

Gotham has mixed feelings about him

Batman's standing on Gotham is one that's a bit mixed, even years after his disappearance. Many of the citizens revere him and continue to do so -- the Bat Signal wasn't turned off until 2018, years after he vanished -- but others despise him, including Jacob Kane who considers Batman to be a nutcase who "brought out all the crazies in Gotham"

He's friends with Superman

Just like Batwoman and Supergirl are friends, so were Batman and Superman. It's revealed that Bruce had been keeping a piece of Kryptonite in the Batcave and that a super friend of his had given it to him. It's unclear how extensive their friendship was or how often the pair teamed up in the Earth-Prime continuity.

He's had plenty of allies - including a Robin

The Arrowverse's Batman also didn't work alone. Turns out, both the Dark and Scarlet Knights require some support in their mission to save Gotham. Batman had a number of allies, including Lucius Fox and, at a later point, Julia Pennyworth. It's also briefly noted that Batman also was associated with a young individual known to the public as Robin.

His identity isn't so secret

While the public at large has no idea who Batman really was, there are a few people who are well aware of Batman's real identity as Bruce Wayne. Chief among those people in the know is Tommy Elliot. Tommy was Bruce's childhood best friend, but after Batman saved Tommy's mother from a fiery car crash that claimed the life of Tommy's father, Bruce's former friend came to resent him as it meant he didn't get his inheritance and had to take care of her for the next 13 years. Tommy then made it his mission to destroy Bruce -- even as he still has some sort of strange hero worship of him. Yikes.

It's worth noting that Alice -- really Beth Kane -- also knows Batman's identity and it's possible that others do as well.

And about Bruce Wayne...

Of course, we can't talk about the Arrowverse's Batman without talking about the man under the cowl. In addition to everything we know about Batman, we also know that Bruce was himself beloved by Gotham. Charismatic and popular with the press, Gotham loved Bruce Wayne with Business Intuition even naming him "Playboy of the Year" in 2012.

Bruce was also a very successful businessman beyond being born into wealth, but after he left, his board of directors made some poor decisions and Wayne Enterprises ended up going bankrupt. While its subsidiaries continued to function, Kate was left in charge of Bruce's properties in Gotham while Lucius Fox's son, Luke, was left to watch over Wayne Tower -- and the Batcave that lays hidden underneath.