By Phil Perich for Before the Bat: The Gotham Podcast
Hello class, professor Phil here again to finish our history lesson on Batman. So take your seats and lets begin. We finished the 1980’s last week so we begin this week in 1990, when teenager Tim Drake figured out Batman’s secret identity and became Robin #3. 1992 saw the premiere of Batman: The animated series, which was MANY people’s first exposure to Batman and changed the Batman mythos forever (Harley Quinn’s first appearance was in the animated series, see week #7 of this blog for more Harley!) This was also the year the 2nd Michael Keaton Batman movie debuted, Batman Returns. 
1993 was the year the first (and one of the greatest) movie based on the animated series came out, Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
This movie delved into the pasts of Batman and the Joker and was a suspenseful murder mystery. 1993 also saw Bane break Batman’s back and put him out of commission for about a year and Jean Paul Valley, known as Azrael take over for Bruce Wayne.

1995 was when Batman Forever hit movie theatres with Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face and Jim Carey as the Riddler. It was, uh, a decent attempt. 1996 was the beginning of the year long miniseries Batman the Long Halloween which was the story of Batman in his first year trying to catch a serial killer that killed once a month on holidays. 1997 was the year of Batman & Robin debuted in theaters. Uh, lets not go there. 1999 had a new animated series, Batman Beyond. Set 50 years in the future, an elderly Bruce Wayne trains teenager Terry Mcginnis to be a new Batman. Meanwhile in the comic books, Gotham City is reduced to rubble be a 7.6 earthquake and quarantined from the rest of the country in the year long “No Man’s Land” storyline. The 2002 comic book storyline “Hush” introduced a new foe for Batman, Hush, who was revealed to be Bruce Wayne’s childhood friend, Dr. Thomas Elliot.
2004 saw a new animated series, The Batman.

Stephanie Brown, Spoiler, took on the Robin identity when Tim Drake quit (temporarily).

2005 was the milestone first Christopher Nolan movie, Batman Begins followed in 2008 by what I consider to be the Godfather of comic book movie, The Dark Knight. 2008 was also the release of the Lego Batman game. 2009 was a huge year for Batman. The first of the Arkham video games, Batman: Arkham Asylum comes out, and in the comic books, Bruce Wayne meets his son Damian.
2011 is the year of the second Arkham game, Batman: Arkham City and the beginning of Scott Snyder’s run on the rebooted Batman #1 with the “Court of Owls” storyline (see week #3 of this blog). 2012 were the debuts of the Dark Knight Rises movie and Batman: Year One graphic novel. 2013 was the year of Batman in all media, with Batman: Arkham Origins (video game), Batman/Superman (comic book), and Lego Batman the movie.
And of course 2014 is Batman’s 75th anniversary. With a lot of Batman goodies coming up including Batman: Arkham Knight video game, new Bat-related comic books, the Gotham TV show, Batman vs. Superman: Dawn of Justice movie with Ben Affleck as Batman in 2016. There! You all now have your P.H.D.’s in Batman history. Were the last 2 weeks informative enough? Let me know.
(and remember to listen to my Podcast, Before the Bat: the Gotham Podcast!)
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Until next week, be good. Remember, Batman may be 75, but he’s VERY feisty!