He’s been around for the best part of a century but how old is Batman supposed to be in the comics? Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939, Batman is one of the oldest superheroes in comic book history. His first-ever appearance in the DC Comics came in an issue of Detective Comics published on March 30, 1939, which is now officially recognized as his birthday. In real-world terms, this means that the Caped Crusader just turned 81 years old. Happy birthday, Batman!
Working out how old Batman is supposed to be in the comics, however, is a little less straightforward. Comic book characters don’t age in the same way mere mortals do, and comic book time doesn’t work the same way as real-world time either. Add in all the different continuities and universes in DC Comics – plus its many retcons and reboots from Crisis On Infinite Earths to The New 52 – and keeping track of how old DC superheroes are isn’t that easy.
While there are many different iterations of Batman that can be found in the DC Comics – and his age is often ambiguous – it’s generally accepted that Bruce Wayne was somewhere between the ages of eight and twelve when he witnessed the murder of his parents, and then in his mid-twenties when he became the Defender of Gotham City. Certain Batman comics offer more firm answers in this regard, though.
In Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One series, for example, it’s explicitly stated that Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City aged 25 after spending 12 years overseas. Just like Batman: Year One takes place over the course of 12 months, it can be deduced that Bruce Wayne was approximately 26 years old when he became Batman. The series also reveals he waited 18 years to become Batman, placing him at around eight-years-old when he saw his parents being killed.
In Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns series, Batman is 55 years-old in the mid-1980s which broadly mirrors his real-world aging. However, with The New 52 revamp in 2011 Batman’s age was tweaked yet again to make him – according to various fan guesstimates – in his late twenties or early thirties, approximately. In DC Rebirth – a continuation of The New 52 – Batman is thought to be in his mid to late thirties. So how old is Batman exactly? Truth be told, Batman’s age is flexible – basically, he’s whatever age DC writers and artists paint him to be at any given time to fit with current storylines.