Former billionaire Bruce Wayne has protected his identity as Gotham's Batman in many different ways, from doctoring records of his adventures to manipulating online message boards to frame the idea as a conspiracy theory, but it turns out the real key to his success so far is actually his iconic cape.

So ubiquitous to his look that Batman is often referred to as the Caped Crusader, Bruce's cape has had many different uses over his crime-fighting career. Often housing a personal glider so he can soar over Gotham, Batman's cape also functions as a fire blanket and even a personal shield depending on the costume. Batman has also confirmed the cape helps keep him indistinct in the Gotham shadow, making the outline of his body less certain to those wishing to gun him down. In Deathstroke #4, however, it turns out Bruce has been underselling how much his voluminous cape masks his body.

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Written by Christopher Priest with art from Mark Morales and Joe Bennett, Deathstroke #4 sees the assassin on a road trip to Gotham with his daughter Rose Wilson, aka Ravager, on the search for the identity of whoever put a price on her head. In a tense scene, Batman and Deathstroke spot each other, and a subtle war of information takes place. Deathstroke assesses the distant shape that he believes to be the Dark Knight while Batman uses cutting-edge tech to investigate the killer from every angle while trying to cut him off from his support staff. A report on the face-off by Deathstroke's right-hand man William Randolph Wintergreen reads, "The man had almost no heat signature, which meant he was wearing body armor. Slade couldn't get his definitive height or weight because the man had a cloak he kept rearranging. He kept his mouth shut so no dental records were forthcoming. And he maintained complete radio silence. The Batman."

Batman cape secret identity

Deathstroke is the best of the best, so the fact that Batman's cape outfoxes his ability to get an accurate idea of Batman's build is incredibly noteworthy. While Bruce's cowl is obviously essential to covering his face, it's this ability to obscure his build that has seemingly kept top-level operatives like Slade from discerning his identity. Working with the Justice League, Batman has been unable to avoid creating a public record of his existence, and over time such evidence piles up. Details as specific as height and weight might not mean much in the moment, but to an obsessive, well-financed genius like Lex Luthor or Simon Saint (who aims to fill Gotham with street cameras and surveillance drones), every record of Batman's actions would be a crucial piece in the jigsaw of figuring out his identity.

These small personal details are the methodology Bruce himself has used to catch countless killers and thieves, putting together facts like height, weight, and gait to eliminate possibilities until he's left with the truth. Having publicly confessed as Bruce Wayne to funding Batman, his excessive gadgetry isn't the smoking gun it seems, and with hacking and a few inadvisable AI workarounds deleting his personal records in databases worldwide, there aren't the usual breadcrumbs someone could use to gradually figure out the Dark Knight's identity - evidence is actively deleted or invalidated over time.

BATMAN HIDES SECRET IDENTITY AS BRUCE WAYNE

Ultimately, identifying Batman's secret identity has to come down to a significant revelation or independently collected evidence, and Deathstroke reveals that Bruce's cape makes the latter totally ineffective. Very little of the actual identifying information used by real-world investigators can be collected since Batman is a constantly shifting amorphous shape, meaning that Gotham's hero could - athleticism aside - genuinely be anyone, with even one of the greatest assassins in the world unable to rule out candidates no matter how many times they meet. With billions of dollars, futuristic tech, and even a cowl that electrocutes anyone who tries to remove it, fans could be forgiven for thinking Batman's cape is the one thing that doesn't go towards protecting his secret identity, but it turns out that in the most mundane way, it's absolutely essential.

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