Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1939, Batman debuted on the cover of Detective Comics #27 swinging across the Gotham City rooftops to apprehend a bank robber.
In the decades since the Caped Crusader's comic book bow, the character has traversed almost every entertainment medium possible - TV, film, animation, video games - to cement himself as one of the world's most recognisable cultural icons.
Inspired by Zorro and the giant bat-like wings from Leonardo da Vinci's Ornithopter flying machine, Batman is the dark and brooding flip-side to DC's other marquee character Superman, who'd debuted a year earlier in the pages of Action Comics. Superman, the bright, hopeful and idealistic hero is who we strive to be; Batman, the brooding, angst-filled human, is closer to our reality.
With TV series Gotham due later this year and Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice in production for release in 2016, the Dark Knight is still at the forefront of the contemporary pop landscape.
A - Alfred Pennyworth
Bruce Wayne's butler and closest confidant, Alfred Pennyworth raised Bruce following the murder of his parents Thomas and Martha. Created by Bob Kane, Bill Finger and Jerry Robinson, the character was initially an overweight detective conceived as a comic foil for Batman and his sidekick Robin.
After the release of film serial The Batman in 1943, in which William Austin played the character as a slim-line, moustachioed butler. Austin's image then fed back into the comics and on the page Alfred has largely resembled him ever since.
Alan Napier, Efrem Zimbalist Jr, Ian Abercrombie, Michael Gough and Michael Caine have all portrayed the character in various forms, with the latter two serving as surrogate father figures across a combined seven feature films.
Caine said of playing the character in 2005: "I wanted to bring a very unusual, very tough butler for Batman. I didn't want the usual obsequious bobbing 'dinner is served' type of person. I wanted someone extremely tough so I did a backstory on myself.
"He was an SAS Sergeant, which is a very tough British Army unit, got wounded, didn't want to leave the Army, became in charge of the Sergeant's Mess in the canteen.
"He knew how to serve drinks and prepare stuff, which made him attractive to Bruce Wayne's father because he wanted a very tough butler. And that's how he came around. And I used the voice of the first sergeant I ever had in the Army."
Alfred will have a presence in both the forthcoming Gotham TV show, in which Sean Pertwee will take on the role, and Batman vs Superman with Jeremy Irons in the part.
B - The Batcave
Housed in the subterranean caves beneath Wayne Manor, Bruce Wayne's underground headquarters serves as his own personal sanctum as he plots his his takedown of Gotham's most dangerous villains.
The location is often accessed by hidden doors in the Wayne home - in the '60s Batman TV series the entrance was memorably disguised by a sliding bookcase, which moved to reveal sliding poles into the HQ. In two feature films - Batman Forever and Batman Begins - Bruce is seen discovering the location after falling down a well as a young boy.
Throughout Batman's long history, only Wayne, butler Alfred and sidekick Robin has known the location of the Batcave for long stretches of time. The location regular comes under attack from Batman's foes, but in a 1998 Batman: Shadow of the Bat the cave was rocked by an earthquake that saw Wayne Manor disappear down a fault line.
C - Catwoman
Created by Bob Kane and Bill Finger in 1940, cat burglar Selina Kyle was inspired by actresses Jean Harlow, Hedy Lamarr and Finger's cousin Ruth Steele. Selina's relationship with Batman has often been both adversarial and romantic, their paths crossing on the Gotham City rooftops at night. In DC's Earth-Two alternate universe, the pair had a daughter, Helena Wayne, who suited up to become crimefighter Huntress
Julie Newmar, Lee Meriwether and Eartha Kitt all portrayed the character in the Adam West TV show in the '60s, and Michelle Pfeiffer took on the role in Tim Burton's Batman Returns. The character had her own spinoff movie in 2004, but the Halle Berry vehicle was met with audience and critical derision and won its star a Razzie.
The most recent live-action incarnation of the character came in The Dark Knight Rises, with Anne Hathaway delivering a memorable performance opposite Christian Bale's jaded crimefighter.
D - The Dark Knight Returns
A seminal comic from Frank Miller and Klaus Janson, this four-issue storyline was originally released in 1986 and saw an ageing Batman come out of retirement to face old foes and confront a brutal gang of Mutants wreaking havoc in Gotham.
With the public consciousness still rooted in the camp and silliness of the '60s TV show, here was a tale that completely altered all you thought was possible with Batman. Arriving around the time of Watchmen, it also showed that comic books where capable of sophisticated storytelling and not just funny books for kids.
The Dark Knight Returns featured significant appearances from big hitters in Batman's rogues gallery - The Joker, Two-Face, Catwoman - and saw Robin re-invented as a 13-year-old girl called Carrie Kelly. It also saw one of the all-time great comic showdowns between Batman and Superman, setting the bar high for Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill in the forthcoming crossover movie.
The storyline was turned into an epic animated film by Warner Bros, who released it across two parts in 2012 and 2013 with Peter Weller voicing the grizzled grey Bruce Wayne.
E - Egghead
In an example of just how trippy and surreal Batman got during his '60s TV run, a new villain called Egghead was created for screen legend Vincent Price. With a pencil moustache and bulbous head, Price was apparently as mischievous on set as his alter-ego.
After a take was done Price would reportedly begin hurling eggs at co-stars Adam West and Burt Ward, igniting a full-on food fight. When asked to stop, he would respond: "With a full artillery? Not a chance!"
Egghead might have been the only foe Batman has come close to vanquishing permanently - he didn't endure as a villain outside of the '60s show (although he did make an appearance in animated series The Brave and the Bold) but the character underlines just how flexible the Batman universe is.
Over its 75-year lifespan we've seen polar extremes in tone; camp and silliness sits alongside gritty vigilantism, and Egghead most definitely belongs to the former.
F - Bill Finger
Born in Denver, Colorado in 1914, Milton "Bill" Finger co-created and developed Batman with Bob Kane but went unacknowledged for decades after Kane signed away ownership of the character in exchange for a mandatory byline. Kane later expressed regret that Finger - who died in 1974 aged 59 - didn't receive credit for his contribution to Batman.
"Now that my long-time friend and collaborator is gone, I must admit that Bill never received the fame and recognition he deserved," he said in 1989. "He was an unsung hero… I often tell my wife, if I could go back 15 years, before he died, I would like to say. 'I'll put your name on it now. You deserve it.'"
Finger was posthumously inducted into the comic industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1994 and the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1999. The Bill Finger Award is presented annually at the San Diego Comic-Con to honour excellence in comic book writing.
In 2014 a Kickstarter-funded Finger documentary titled The Cape Creator will be released to coincide with the 100th anniversary of his birth.
G - Gotham City
The fictional American city that's home to Batman and his sinister rogue's gallery, Gotham has population of around 10 million people.
The city have evolved with the times, embracing various architectural periods and styles such as Gothic Revival, Art Deco and Art Nouveau. Christopher Nolan brought it into the real world for his Dark Knight trilogy, using Chicago and New York as the backdrop for Batman's adventures.
One thing is a constant with Gotham, though: it's plagued by corruption - the only shining lights are Batman and Commissioner Gordon, who seek to rid the city of the criminals and bent officials that make it one of the most dangerous places in the DC Universe.
H - Harvey Dent
In many ways the clean-cut counter to Batman, Gotham's determined district attorney Harvey Dent wants to bring the city's criminals to justice within the letter of the law.
After mob boss Sal Maroni scars half his face with acid, Dent becomes villain Two-Face, basing all his actions on the toss of a coin.
Billy Dee Williams, Tommy Lee Jones and Aaron Eckhart have played the character in live-action movies, while Richard Moll voiced him in Batman: The Animated Series.
His defining comic book storylines came in The Eye of the Beholder, which followed on from Frank Miller's Batman: Year One, and the sprawling crime epic The Long Halloween.
I - Batman Incorporated
Celebrated Arkham Asylum writer Grant Morrison kick-started this ongoing series in 2010, which saw a presumed-dead Bruce Wayne return to establish Batman as a franchisable 'brand'.
The symbol transcended just one man as recruits from across the globe were hired and trained to vanquish crime on a mass scale.
The worldwide heroes include The Hood (Great Britain), El Gaucho (Argentina), Nightrunner (France), Blackbat (Hong Kong) and Dark Ranger (Australia).
J - The Joker
No superhero and archenemy have a rivalry quite as toxic as that of Batman and The Joker. A purple-suited, cackling criminal with alabaster skin and a rictus grin, he is perhaps the undisputed king of all comic book villains.
Across various interpretations he's been a failed stand-up comics, a crook responsible for the death of Bruce Wayne's parents and a bank robber shrouded in mystery - each time he's pushed Batman to the bring and, in Alan Moore's comic story The Killing Joke, it's even suggested that Bruce broke his own code and murdered the Joker by snapping his neck.
Cesar Romero played the character in the '60s TV series, Jack Nicholson chewed scenery opposite Michael Keaton in the Tim Burton-directed 1989 blockbuster and Heath Ledger won a posthumous Academy Award for playing him in The Dark Knight. Mark Hamill has had a lucrative career voicing the villain in multiple animated and video game incarnations.
K - Bob Kane
The co-creator of Batman alongside Bill Finger, Bob Kane studied art at New York's Cooper Union before working at the Max Fleischer Studio and contributing to Wow, What A Magazine! in the '30s.
After the success of Superman a year previously, DC tasked Kane with to come up with a similar hero for their comic book pages. What emerged was "The Bat-Man" on the cover of Detective Comics #27 - a masked hero with a cape inspired by Zorro, Leonardo da Vinci's ornithopter, a flying machine with large bat-like wings, and the 1930 movie The Bat Whispers.
Kate and Finger developed Batman's universe early on, establishing mainstays such as Robin, The Joker, Two-Face and Catwoman.
He passed away in 1998, but not before seeing his character traverse mediums and become a blockbuster movie franchise thanks to Tim Burton's 1989 hit Batman.
L - Lego Batman
It says a lot about the malleability of Batman that he's able to transfer seamlessly into an entirely new format and prove a success.
The Dark Knight debuted in Lego form in 2006 after DC Comics licensed out the character to the Danish toy firm. Batman himself translated into minifigure form alongside the likes of Robin, Catwoman and The Joker.
Lego Batman: The Videogame arrived in 2008 and sequel Lego Batman 2: DC Super Heroes followed soon after, while 2014 saw the character (voiced by Will Arnett) provide one of the many highlights of The Lego Movie.
M - Michael Keaton
Tim Burton took a gamble when he cast his Beetljuice star Michael Keaton - at the time known predominantly for comedic roles - as Bruce Wayne in 1989's Batman.
The actor didn't have the height of square jaw of the comic book drawings (and was met with fan hostility when he was announced), but he brought a brooding intensity to the part that instantly lent credibility to Burton's Dark Knight universe. This was a mile away from the Adam West Batman of the '60s.
Keaton returned for Burton's Batman Returns, however when the director stepped aside for Batman Forever Keaton hung up his cape and was replaced by Val Kilmer.
N - Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan, the British-born, American-raised filmmaker, was on a Hollywood hot streak when he was tasked with breathing life back into the Batman franchise.
Memento and Insomnia demonstrated a knack for delivering big screen entertainment with psychological depth, and in Batman Begins Nolan rebooted the series by exploring the younger years of Bruce Wayne (played with dogged determination by Christian Bale).
The film was a box office hit, and went one better in his follow-up with The Dark Knight, a sprawling crime epic that won an Academy Award for the late Heath Ledger. The curtain came down on Nolan and Bale's Bat-tenure with the release of The Dark Knight Rises in 2012.
With $2.4 billion in box office earnings and a new generation of Bat-fans, Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy put the character back on the map and helped pave the way for Warner Bros to make Man of Steel and Batman vs Superman.
O - Batman Of The Future (Batman Beyond)
The success of Batman: The Animated Series series prompted Warner Bros Animation to further explore the Dark Knight universe, and they did so with a series that saw an elderly Bruce Wayne mentor a new, younger Batman in the form of Terry McGinnis.
Batman Beyond (titled Batman Of The Future elsewhere) saw Kevin Conroy return to voice Wayne and Will Friedle as the new iteration of Batman. The series spawned direct-to-video feature film Return of the Joker, which featured Mark Hamill reprising his role as the clown prince of crime.
The animated show ran from 1999 to 2001 across 52 episodes and three seasons. Although a fourth season was announced, Batman Beyond was put on hold as Warner Bros instead chose to focus on developing a Justice League animated series.
P - The Penguin
Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot first appeared in a 1941 issue of Detective Comics as a short, squat mobster with a love for birds. His tuxedo and top hat style combo was inspired by the advertising mascot for cigarette brand Kool.
The character transitioned to live-action in the '60s with Burgess Meredith (later, Rocky trailer Mickey Goldmill) memorably portrayed the villain across several episodes and the movie spinoff. Danny DeVito took on the role for Tim Burton's Batman Returns, playing him as a more grotesque, fish-eating sewer dweller who was abandoned by his parents.
Penguin's memorable comic book appearances include The Long Halloween and its follow-up Dark Victory in the late '90s.
Q - The Question
The Question was created by Steve Ditko in 1967 for Charlton Comics and later revamped by Dennis O'Neil and Denys Cowan. The character became part of the DC Universe and served as the inspiration for Alan Moore's Rorschach character in Watchmen.
Both Vic Sage and Renee Montoya have both adopted the identity, and the character's search for philosophical meaning has seen an examination of Objectivism and Zen on the comic book page.
The Question crossed into Batman's world in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Strikes Again and cartoon series Justice League Unlimited and The Brave and the Bold.
R - Robin
Batman's crime-fighting sidekick Dick Grayson (aka Robin) debuted in the pages of Detective Comics #38 in April 1940. The youthful 'Boy Wonder', decked out in green, red and yellow, was designed as a way to attract younger readers to the comics - a figure of audience identification.
Over the years the Robin mantle was passed on to Jason Dodd, who died brutally at the hands of the Joker in 1989's 'A Death in the Family', Tim Drake, Carrie Kelley, Stephanie Brown and Damian Wayne.
The character was played by Douglas Croft and Johnny Duncan in the Batman serials of the '40s, while Burt Ward portrayed him in the '60 TV series. In 1995's Batman Forever, Chris O'Donnell played Dick Grayson, an orphaned circus acrobat, opposite Val Kilmer's Bruce Wayne. O'Donnell version of Robin, seen again in 1997's Batman & Robin, was more in-line with the older Nightwing interpretation of the character from the comic book pages.
The Dark Knight Rises re-envisioned the character as John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a cop poised to don Batman's cape and cowl after Bruce Wayne's heroic last act in saving Gotham.
S - Superman
Batman and Superman's first crossover came with the 1940 issue of New York World's Fair Comics. The pair, alongside Robin, shared the cover but had separate adventures in the anthology book. It wasn't until 1952's Superman #76 when the characters met for real, sharing a cruise liner cabin and duelling over Lois Lane.
After the duo's goofy first meeting they were teamed for their own comic, World's Finest, which ran from 1941 to 1986. The stories got progressively more complex as the years progressed, as the pair's clashing ideals frequently brought them to blows, most memorably in Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns.
In June 2013 a new DC Comics series titled Batman/Superman launched following the two heroes early in their careers before the formation of the Justice League. The pair represent two sides of the same coin - the Man of Steel being the ideal we all strive towards, the Dark Knight the tortured reality.
Zack Snyder's Batman vs Superman, starring Ben Affleck and Henry Cavill, will mark the first time the characters have met in a live-action movie.
T - The Tumbler
Batman's favoured mode of transport, the Batmobile appeared in Batman's first appearance in Detective Comics #27. Then a red sedan, the car has gradually evolved into a slick, hi-tech moving weapon for the Dark Knight.
In the Adam West TV series the vehicle was a customised 1955 Lincoln Futura concept car, and for the Tim Burton Batman movies the Anton Furst-designed car used a Chevy Impala chassis as the base for a slick Art Deco-inspired machine.
Joel Schumacher pimped Bruce's ride with extra tailfin additions and decorative lighting in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin before the vehicle got a hard reboot in Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight Trilogy. Dubbed the Tumbler, this was a former military vehicle developed by Wayne Enterprises that was a cross between a tank and a Lamborghini.
U - Utility Belt
"Where does he get all those wonderful toys?" asks Jack Nicholson's Joker in 1989's Batman. We may never know the exact specifics, but the bulk of the Caped Crusader's gadgets are housed in his all-purpose utility belt.
Frequently depicted in yellow to stand out from his dark costume, expect batarangs, grapple hooks, exploding gas pellets and maybe even Kryptonite among the many pockets and pouches.
Also, who could forget the shark repellent spray used by Adam West in 1966's Batman: The Movie?
V - Video Games
Of all the mediums Batman has infiltrated, the one that's seen the most drastic evolution is surely the video game. First up came 1986's Batman, an isometric action-adventure for the ZX Spectrum before Batman: The Caped Crusader (with comic book panel-style graphics) two years later.
The success of the film franchise in the '80s and '90s, coupled with the emergence of Nintendo, Sony and Sega consoles, led to movie tie ins galore and increasingly sophisticated visuals (if uninspired gameplay).
Games such as Batman Vengeance and Batman: Dark Tomorrow failed to capture gamers' imaginations in the early '00s, and the character even cropped up in his own Lego-based console outing.
2010 saw the arrival of Arkham Asylum and a dramatic shift in the perception of what Batman games were capable of. Just as Christopher Nolan had lent credibility to the film franchise, Rocksteady Studios positioned Arkham as a dark, intense action-adventure game that won over fans and critics. Sequels Arkham City, Arkham Origins and Arkham Origins Blackgate followed, and the latest series instalment - Arkham Knight - will be released this October.
W - Adam West
Part of the success of the pop art-inspired '60s Batman TV series was down to the man at the centre of it all: Adam West.
His dry, laconic delivery - deliberately drawn out so as to maximise camera close-up time - made him an instantly memorable hero amid the show's cartoonish antics.
For many, West is still seen as the definitive live-action Batman. He spent longer in the role than his successors, got more exposure than his predecessors and never really re-defined himself as an actor after departing the role.
His Batman may seem lacking in emotional depth when stacked up next to the rest, but within the ultra-silly framework of the '60s show he absolutely made the role his own.
X - Red X
The character of Red X is the villain identity conceived by Robin in order to get closer to assassin Slade (aka Deathstroke). The character is not a fixture in the DC comic book universe, however, instead appearing in the animated series Teen Titans.
Created by Glen Murikami, the character wore an all-black body suit with a red X logo emblazoned across his chest and skull-mask forehead.
Dick Grayson stored away the Red X suit after failing in his mission to capture Slade, only to see an unknown figure take on the Red X persona. His identity has never been confirmed, but many suspect it to be Dick's Robin successor Jason Todd.
Y - Batman: Year One
After telling the 'final' Batman story with The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller went back in time to tell the first in 1987's 4-issue Year One comic book run.
The story saw a twenty-something Bruce Wayne returning to Gotham after years abroad to take on the city's corrupt institutions and seedy gangsters in the guise of Batman. At the same time, James Gordon arrives with his family from Chicago to join the police force and the two quickly forge an alliance in the hope of saving Gotham.
Miller's story, often lauded as one of the greatest Batman comic runs of all time, was adapted into a animated feature in 2011 with Benjamin McKenzie voicing as Bruce Wayne and Bryan Cranston as Gordon. In an ironic twist, McKenzie will play Gordon in the upcoming Gotham TV series on Fox.
Z - Victor Zsasz
Batman's rouge's gallery is so rich and varied it could almost warrant an A-Z of its very own. Landing at 'Z' is Victor Zsasz, a serial killer who keeps a tally of his murders by carving a mark into his own skin for each victim.
Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle created the character for the first issue of Batman: Shadow of the Bat in 1992, and the character has since appeared on film (played by James frontman Tim Booth in Batman Begins) and in the Arkham video game series.
Subject: Batman 75th anniversary: An A-Z of The Dark Knight 
