the bat family is a network of like-minded crime fighters who operate in and around gotham with batman as its head but just who makes up the bat family i'm adam anders with top 10 nerd and let's break it down as i attempt to explain the bat family tree alright so as the whole name of the bat family might suggest this group of like-minded individuals surrounds itself around one central person batman first appearing in detective comics number 27 in may of 1939 batman as most of you know has been a key player in the dc universe pretty much since it began as for his family well let's start off way back in the good old first days the golden age of comics this is the bat family as it was before the whole dc universe first got reorganized the first time so it's also technically in the modern continuity the bat family of earth 2. so when batman first showed up he was caped crusading all by his lonesome no parents no butler no nothing bob kane and bill finger the batman creators alongside jerry robinson decided that batman needed someone else and so they created the very first member of what would become the bat family in the form of richard dick grayson as robin the boy wonder robin first appeared in detective comics vol 1 number 38 in april of 1940 when his birth family the flying graysons were accidentally killed and bruce wayne took in the young lad and trained him on how to fight crime batman and robin operated as a solid two-player team for a long while now back in those early golden age days batman actually became an honorary member of the gcpd and with that commissioner james gordon who also first appeared at the same time as batman in detective comics number 27 became part of the batman family now you can kind of count him you can kind of not it really depends on the error that we're talking about but not too long after these three were operating as a well-oiled unit we were introduced to another pivotal figure of the batman family quite possibly the sticky goo that holds these traumatized and broken crime fighters together alfred pennyworth alfred beagle or simply alfred the butler was introduced in batman number 16 in may of 1943 acting as the number one supporting member of the team or group whatever you want to call them now following this period of time we start to shift towards the silver age of comics and that's when thanks to public pressures and scrutiny at the time batman robin and the bat family were given four more allies in the form of a dog ace the bat hound appearing in batman volume 1 number 92 in june 1955. a batman worshiping magical fifth dimensional imp called batmite who appeared in detective comics vol 1 number 267 in may of 1959 and the dynamic duo were given female love interests in the form of catherine cathy kane batwoman first appearing in detective comics number 233 in july 1956 and betty kane kathy's niece and the first ever batgirl appearing in batman number 139 in april 1961. now these additions to the bat family didn't last incredibly long as editor julia schwartz took over control of the batman comics in 1964 and got rid of batwoman who was seemingly de-lifed that girl who retired ace who also retired and batmite who was expelled from this dimension as he thought the characters were too silly especially for the new stories he wanted for the batman character so instead schwartz worked alongside the 1996 batman tv show producer william dozier in order to introduce a new female character barbara gordon who first appeared in august 1951 was introduced as the new batgirl in detective comics vol 1 issue 359 in january of 1967. as the daughter of police commissioner gordon it improved upon the previous batgirl and batwoman and let barb kind of stand as her own character not simply as a love interest which is usually a good thing and that kind of makes up the silver age the current bat family members all start to make moves in their own ways throughout the bronze age other characters like the villain catwoman or selena kyle on earth 2 the golden age character's earth became a solid romantic interest for batman joining the bat family alongside their daughter helena wayne who would go on to become huntress but again this would be on earth 2 and therefore doesn't really count for what we're talking about now richard grayson who was robin at the time started to become a very important member of the teen titans but that caused dc some problems as the batman and robin dynamic was also starting to become popular again in order for the two things to be able to happen and work simultaneously early on in the 80s dick grayson became the leader of the teen titans and took on the name of nightwing and the new robin was introduced in the form of jason j todd in batman number 357 in march 1983. jason was the son of another acrobatic circus family inspired by the flying graysons can you guess what their name was yes that's right it's the flying todds the todds passed away at the hands of killer croc leaving little jason to be taken under the wing of batman and join the bat family now the issue of the two robin's extremely similar backstories left jason being a little overlooked but luckily for him and for any other continuity or character issues that dc was dealing with at the time the crisis on infinite earth's event had arrived in april 1985. luckily the family still remained largely the same after this event jason's story was worked to be a bit better and both alfred and commissioner gordon became more frequent supporting cast members batgirl barbara gordon seemed to kind of fall to the wayside though as writers couldn't really figure out what to do with her it is in the late 80s that batman's stories really hit a turning point with both batman the killing joke in july 1988 and batman a death in the family starting in december of 1988 where the joker crippled barbara gordon and took the life of jason todd respectively from this point the family surprisingly seem to actually grow more with tim drake being introduced as the new robin after he deduces the true identities of batman and robin which took place in the batman a lonely place of dying storyline from batman number 440 to 442 in october to december of 1989 and barbara became an information broker and batman's girl in the chair as oracle fully revealed in suicide squad vol 1 number 38 in february 1990. the next addition to the bat family would be introduced in batman's sword of asriel number one in 1992 where we meet john paul valley otherwise known as you guessed it asriel who becomes batman's apprentice and even takes over his role in the three-part batman nightfall crossover event starting in batman number 492 in may of 1993 that sees the venom enhanced bane break bruce wayne's spine azrael really stirred things up as batman he was much more violent and unethical than bruce is and as such caused the bat family to kind of break apart temporarily tim drake went off alone jim gordon stopped working with the bat and bruce stopped being interested in recovering from his injuries forcing alfred to walk away from his position but bruce obviously recovered and took the batman mantle away from john paul and temporarily gave it to dick grayson during batman prodigal from november 1994 to january of 1995. everyone went back to their original places and azrael came back and would team up with batman from time to time two more members to the bat family became introduced around this time as well helena bartonelli the daughter of a crime boss eventually became the new huntress in the post-crisis mainstream universe first appearing in huntress number one in april of 1989. there was also stephanie brown who was a friend of tim drake and daughter of the super villain clue master who started off her vigilante career as spoiler appearing in detective comics vol 1 number 647 in august of 1992. gotham was struck by an earthquake and became a no man's land for criminals to run amuck in in detective comics number 719 in march 1998 and with that the bat family sprung into action helena took on the role of batgirl to strike fear into criminals but it resulted in a confrontation with batman that helena failed so batman instead handed the batgirl costume and title over to a friend of oracle who proved helpful in the start of the no man's land event that would be cassandra kane cassandra is the daughter of assassins david kane and lady shiva and was bred to become the perfect killer and she is actually one of the greatest martial artists in the world even rivaling batman alongside this new batgirl batman called on all members of the current bat family that's dick grayson as nightwing tim drake robin barbara gordon as oracle azrael and even selena kyle catwoman alongside the bat family supporters of commissioner gordon alfred pennyworth and gotham city physician leslie tompkins together they all successfully wrestled back control of gotham city so yay that's good after this point though the team remained unchanged until the death of azrael which was really a turning point for the family batman distanced himself away from the team and started working with sasha bordeaux bruce wayne's personal security and eventually batman's crime-fighting partner introduced in detective comics number 751 in december of 2000. the two are framed for the death of vesper fairchild though and go to prison where bruce escapes and sasha gets blackmailed into becoming part of the secret organization called checkmate now after this a gang war breaks out in gotham and batman gets help from former league of assassins assassin onix adams who helps out becoming another member of the bat family in 2004. this is also when stephanie brown rose to and fell from the robin mantle and was seemingly killed but not really this led directly to batman number 635 in february of 2005 otherwise known as the start of batman under the hood which saw the shocking return of an actually not dead jason todd as the extremely violent red hood who joins the bat family after causing them a whole hell of a lot of grief from this point we don't see any new additions to the bat themed family until batman number 655 in september 2006 and the beginning of the batman and sun storyline which introduces damian wayne as the son of bruce wayne and talia al ghul so yes the addition of a surprise son left things a little tense in the bat family and when batman was quote unquote killed and sent to battle through time by darkseid in 2008 to 2009's final crisis it left a vacuum that became a battle royale across gotham in the storyline batman battle for the cow some of the bat families struggled to find the missing batman while others fought to take over the mantle a final battle between dick grayson jason todd and tim drake ended up with a victory for dick grayson who became batman once again promoting damien wayne to the mantle of robin and forcing tim drake to become red robin it's around this time we get an all-new bat woman in 52 number 7 in august of 2006. now while the silver age batwoman was cathy kane the new batwoman mantle is taken up by the army brat kate kane who is a lesbian expelled from west point due to her sexuality now she is bruce wayne's cousin through her father jacob kane who is martha wayne's brother it is after this that stephanie brown is indeed still alive and she steps into the new position of bat girl from cassandra kane who went on to become black bat and haunts my nightmares and batman and robin number 16 in january of 2011 bruce finally realizes that despite all of his loan work and brooding he was never actually alone so he decides to expand and as bruce wayne he reveals that bruce was the beneficiary behind batman's technology and then batman's reach would go worldwide as batman incorporated but then we got the new 52 in september 2011 and it all didn't matter anymore essentially new 52 for batman sets him back to being an undercover urban legend only being publicly active for five years he has an alliance to jim gordon but the gcpd are still hostile towards him dick grayson still operates as nightwing and was the original robin but never took on the batman role barbara gordon is batgirl again no longer wheelchair bound tim drake is red robin and founding member of the teen titans jason todd is still red hood and he leads his own team called the outlaws and damien wayne is robin but now to make things more confusing in dc rebirth in 2016 and dc infinite frontier in 2021 a lot of history is reworked back into continuity so to clean things up for the bat family during bain's takeover of gotham city he snapped alfred pennyworth's neck in front of damien wayne it broke the robin and he went rogue leaving and eventually returning again as robin but while damian was gone tim drake took on the robin role yet again barbara who became batgirl stepped down to become oracle again as the physical strain was too much on her spine stephanie brown and cassandra kane stayed as spoiler and orphan respectively but they were collectively known as batgirls which is confusing and kate kane stayed as batwoman a new hero the metahuman duke thomas became the signal and came into the bat family starting as the leader of the 2015 we are robin gang john paul valley stayed as asriel helena bartinelli became huntress once again and what may be a surprise to some of you harley quinn also joined the bat family making amends from her time as a villain and under the very watchful eye of batman and with that my dear friends we have reached the end now i know there are a few minor bat family characters i have glossed over so why don't you eager little nerds jump down to those comments and fill us in on any you wish i mentioned as always don't forget to drop a like if you liked it and subscribe even if you don't want to here at top 10 nerd i've been your host adam andrews and until next time peace out my lovely nerds [Music] [Music] you