With 80 years of stories across thousands of comics, keeping track of everything that makes Batman so special can be tough. Add in all the retcons and reboots, and you're looking at a lot of forgotten or overwritten history of one of literature's most beloved characters. Thankfully, with Dark Nights: Death Metal, DC has returned to a neverending Multiverse - now known as the Omniverse - and every Batman story is back in continuity in some form.
Still, some things appear to be a part of every version of Batman. In the least, a few of these details have never been directly written out after a reboot, and a few have had minor references over the years. These are the pieces of the Dark Knight that don't get talked about too often, but still help explain the hero behind the mask.
10 Batman Lifts, Bro
Everyone knows that Batman is strong, but just how strong is he? Since a young age, Bruce Wayne has worked to make himself the perfect human in both physicality and mentality, and while he may not be able as strong as some of DC's other heroes, the Caped Crusader is pretty buff.
Batman has been known to overhead press lift 1000 pounds and bench-press slightly more than a ton. And all of that was before he was exposed to dionesium, the supernatural liquid metal that can revive dead tissue.
9 Birthday Of The Bat
Batman isn't the kind of guy who celebrates his birthday with a big party. In fact, as seen in Detective Comics issues #994-999, the Dark Knight Detective spends his birthday in a specially made sensory deprivation tank that forces him to face his greatest fears. No ice cream and cake for the protector of Gotham, only pain.
But what day is it that Batman spends locked inside a nightmare machine of his own making? According to the 1976 DC Comics Calendar, it's February 19, which just so happens to be the day after the Reverse-Flash's birthday and the day before Hal Jordan's.
8 Bruce Was Not The First Batman
Bruce Wayne may have made Batman into a household name, but he wasn't the first one to use it. As seen in Detective Comics issue #235, when Bruce was just a boy, his parents attended a masquerade party and Thomas Wayne went as a "Bat-Man". At the party, a group of thugs barged in demanding a doctor help their boss, Lew Moxon. Thomas Wayne agreed to help, but only so he could get close enough to the mob members to beat them up and turn them over to the police. Sadly, it was this action that would lead to the death of Thomas and Martha Wayne - Lew Moxon wanted revenge on Thomas Wayne and sent Joe Chill to kill the doctor.
7 Batman Is A Drop Out
Bruce Wayne was a brilliant child, but the murder of his parents left him filled with rage. In his younger years, Bruce took out this rage on authority figures - namely teachers - which led to him being expelled from Gotham Academy. Bruce went through a number of schools before finally dropping out and choosing to travel the world, learning from experts across the globe.
By the time he was 21, Bruce was an expert in Criminal Science, Computer Science, Engineering, Biology, Mathematics, Physics, Mythology, and Geography, not to mention a number of martial arts. With an IQ over 200, Batman is one of the smartest heroes in the DC Universe.
6 Batman Is Spiritual
While Batman is known for having a finely tuned mind and body, he is also well versed in all things spiritual. Believing that a healthy spirit was as important as a healthy body, Bruce Wayne traveled to Nanda Parbat, a hidden city in the mountains of Tibet, where he trained with monks who pray to the goddess Rama Kushna, learning to control his mind and spirit as one, allowing the Caped Crusader to better handle mental attacks and control his heart rate to an astonishing degree. Batman has returned to Nanda Parbat a number of times over the years in order to recenter himself when needed.
5 Batman Loves Soup
While Batman doesn't do much cooking himself, he has a definite love for good food, and lucky for him Alfred Pennyworth was a wonderful cook. While the Caped Crusader is one of the few people who can eat Green Arrow's super spicy chili without overheating, his favorite food, as told in Batman issue #701, is mulligatawny soup. A curry soup usually made with chicken, apples, rice, and a variety of vegetables, mulligatawny soup became popular in India during the 18th century and is one of the soups offered by the Soup Nazi in the famous Seinfeld episode.
4 The Bat-Billionaire
Everyone knows that Bruce Wayne is rich - or to be more in line with the current comics, was rich - but just how much money the heir of the Wayne fortune had is hard to figure out. In 2015, Forbes placed Bruce Wayne as the sixth richest fictional character in history with $9.2 billion dollars. This put the Dark Knight Detective just ahead of Richie Rich and just behind Charles Foster Kane. Of course, with Bruce's mom being a Kane herself, it's possible that Bruce is related to the famous media mogul on whatever Earth Citizen Kane happens to take place in.
3 Batman's Bat-Naps
As part of his training to become the greatest crimefighter in the world, Bruce Wayne has conditioned himself to go days without sleep. When he does sleep, Batman has mastered the ability to power-nap. Also known as micro-sleeping, a power-nap is a way to catch up on sleep throughout the day without spending the usual eight hours in bed. Many geniuses throughout history like Leonardo Da Vinci and Thomas Edison were known to partake in polyphasic sleep cycles - meaning they would sleep in 20-minute increments throughout the day. For Batman, an hour of sleep is enough to keep him going for up to four days.
2 Bruce's First Love Was A Robin
While the greatest love story in Batman's life is the on-again-off-again romance he has with Catwoman, Selina Kyle wasn't the first woman Bruce Wayne was engaged to. That honor goes to Julie Madison, a Gotham socialite with dreams of being an actress. Julie was enamored by the new vigilante running around the city and wished that her spoiled fiance was more liked the masked crimefighter. Of course, Bruce only pretended to be lazy, while he was, in reality, that very vigilante that Julie had a crush on.
Julie and Bruce decided to call things off in Detective Comics #49 after Julie got a contract with a movie studio. When Clayface attacked the movie that Julie was working on, Batman showed up to save the day and Julie donned a Robin costume to help out, making her the first woman to wear the red, green, and yellow tights of Batman's sidekick.
1 Batman's Secret Online Handle
Everyone is on the internet in some fashion, and for the World's Greatest Detective, connecting to the dark web can be a very helpful way to keep tabs on the criminals of Gotham City. Of course, Batman isn't going to sign on as "Caped_Crusader" or some other screen name that will give him away. When he has to check in on message boards to see what his least notorious foes are up to, Batman uses the name "JonDoe297". It isn't very inventive, but it also isn't a name that will stand out if anyone goes looking.