Batman #1
Bruce Wayne — a millionaire who witnessed his parents' murder as a child — becomes a bat-costumed vigilante operating in Gotham City's criminal underworld. The first issue introduced both the Joker and Catwoman in a single publication, establishing Batman's iconic rogues' gallery as a defining element of his mythology. Unlike Superman, Batman had no superpowers, making his intellect and physical training his only tools.
Batman established the archetype of the dark, non-powered vigilante hero motivated by personal trauma rather than alien origins, a template that has proven as durable as Superman's. His absence of superpowers grounded him in plausibility, making him more identifiable and enabling storytelling grounded in human psychology and crime drama. The character became the template for Frank Miller's 1986 reinvention and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy.
Batman's creation in 1939 was driven by DC's demand for more Superman-like heroes after Action Comics's commercial success. Bill Finger — who wrote most of the early stories but received no creative credit until 2015 — drew on pulp fiction crime narratives and the visual vocabulary of German Expressionist film to create a hero defined by shadow and obsession rather than sunlight and virtue.