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Creativity is often a game of trial and error, just testing things to see what works, so sometimes that means trying things that are entirely different from what you’re used to. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but that’s not the point. For this list, we’re not looking at quality, we’re looking at just how absurd and strange some alternate versions of Batman have gotten. And oh boy, have they gotten strange. So without further ado, let’s look at ten of the weirdest, craziest, and strangest alternate versions of Batman ever created.
10) Goddamn Batman (All-Star Batman and Robin)
This version of Batman isn’t strange in the traditional sense. His backstory, design, and identity are identical to the main universe’s Batman’s, after all, but he earns his place on this list for how absolutely insane he acts. Every bad argument you’ve heard about Batman; that he’s a fascist, treats his Robins like soldiers, is obsessed with violence, and is crazy himself, all of these arguments easily apply to him. To give just a few highlights, this Batman locked the just-orphaned Dick Grayson in the Batcave for a month and forced him to eat rats to survive, doused several criminals in bleach then lit them on fire, and had sex with Black Canary about ten feet away from the burning criminals, in the rain. And that’s not even getting into how this Batman has the emotional intelligence and vocabulary of a thirteen year old in a Call of Duty lobby. He’s the Goddamn Batman for a reason. This might be the most “normal” Batman in concept, but he’s easily the craziest in personality and worst in story quality. The weirdest part is that somehow this psychopath becomes the hero in The Dark Knight Returns, which is crazy to think about.
9) Bat-Prince (Dark Knights of Steel)
In the fantasy-inspired world of Dark Knights of Steel, the entire El family survived Krypton’s explosion and became rulers of a country after the death of its rulers, the Waynes. The Waynes’ only heir, Bruce, was a bastard and thus ineligible for the throne, but still became a knight and dedicated himself to protecting his homeland. The crazy part came into play when it was revealed that the man Queen Martha had an affair with was Jor-El, making this Batman the half-brother of Superman. Batman and Superman have always been close, being as close as brothers in the actual DC Universe, but this revelation is insane because it gave Bruce Wayne all the powers of a Kryptonian, and created all kinds of familial drama between what are normally two best friends. It’s crazy to see Batman both with superpowers and a brother, especially when he and Superman are both so young, being around nineteen. The whole thing is made even weirder by the fact that all of the Robins are just a few years younger than Bruce himself. This version of Batman is at least consistent with the idea that he can’t have a dad, as Jor-El is killed in front of Bruce literally the second after he reveals he’s his father. The universe really waited for that revelation, didn’t it?
8) The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh (Batman #113)
This character is actually a special case on our list as he is the only one who existed in the main DC Universe. Tlano, the Batman of the planet Zur-En-Arrh, actually debuted three years before the multiverse was introduced in DC. One night, Batman woke up unable to control himself, flying the Batplane to the middle of nowhere, where Tlano teleported Batman to his home, saying he needed the Dark Knight’s help. Tlano is actually a near perfect replica of our Batman, except that he wears an outlandish costume and has far more advanced technology, and he abducted Bruce because on Zur-En-Arrh humans had Kryptonian-like powers. Regardless, Tlano earns his spot on this list because of how insane the idea that there exists a near perfect replica of Batman on a planet billions of lightyears away from Earth, having both evolved and come to the same conclusion in the same way. His existence highlights DC’s original multiple-world idea, which was that alternate versions of people we knew existed out in space due to cosmic probability, which is just kind of funny at how crazy it sounds.
7) FrankenWayne (Batman: Castle of the Bat)
This Frankenstein-inspired Elseworlds of Batman actually isn’t Bruce, but his father Thomas Wayne. After the death of his parents, Bruce became obsessed with death and resurrecting them, and rebuilt his father out of corpse parts. Eventually, he gave him a facsimile of life once again, but also a fear of bright lights and loud sounds. Bruce injected him with “bat energy” and made him a bat costume, but this transformed Thomas’s head into that of a bat. He was dubbed the Bat-Man, and wound up sacrificing himself to save Bruce and his fiance Julia at the end of his adventure. Mary Shelly’s foundational work has obviously been referenced a thousand plus times in comics, but this homage is particularly strange to see, given how obsessed with death Bruce was and how it transformed Thomas. It was a unique take on the character, even if the explanation for why he had a bat motif definitely felt tacked on.
6) Dr. Batman and Mr. Joker (Batman: Two Faces)
Much like our previous entry, this version of the Dark Knight takes inspiration from classic literature, specifically Robert Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. Bruce was obsessed with ridding himself of sin, and developed a potion to create an idealized version of himself. This manifested in Bruce becoming the Batman, but it had a distinct side effect of creating an alternate personality constructed only out of the evil inside his heart. So while Bruce became Batman, he also turned himself into the Joker. Batman battled himself, spending the whole book tracking down the pale serial killer, eventually realizing he was the villain and throwing himself off a building to save Harvey’s life, who drank the potion to become Batman himself. A Victorian-era Batman who is also the Joker is definitely strange to see, giving a lot more credence to the whole “Batman makes his own villains” argument. This is one timeline where it’s actually true.
