I’ve often been disappointed by infographics or articles entitled “The Evolution Of The Batmobile”, as they tend to be a series of pictures of just a few of the more famous Batmobiles.

For example, one article merely lists a solitary “One From The Comics” amongst the live action ones. They also often show little in the way of actual evolution. Although chronologically accurate, a picture of Neal Adams’ Corvette-based Batmobile, followed by one of the tank from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, then one of the 1989 movie Batmobile, doesn’t show an over-arching view of how the Batmobile evolved from an unmodified ’30s coupé to the low-slung, heavily-armoured, angular beast The Batman is driving in the latest Detective Comics. I have tried to express this in the following video, an animation of the shapes of 118 Batmobiles from the past 80 years.

This is not a completely exhaustive list of every Batmobile ever drawn, designed or built, but I have attempted to include as many as I can of the most iconic, influential and long-lived designs to illustrate each stylistic waypoint in the development of the design of the vehicle.

Huge thanks go to batmobilehistory.com for being the definitive source on the subject, meaning 99% of the preliminary research was already done for me, and to the kind strangers who edit DC Database wiki so that any research and comic-trawling I did have to do was relatively painless.

The Evolution Of The Batmobile

(The numbers in brackets indicates the time in the video being referred to. These are timestamped in the description if you view the video on YouTube.)

(0:00) The Batman’s first few vehicles looked like unmodified coupés and roadsters, usually drawn as an amalgam of the higher-end, sporty and classy vehicles of the time. These were often just Bruce Wayne’s personal vehicles used on an extemporary basis by The Batman. Indeed, in the first televised Batman serial in 1943, Wayne drove a convertible 1939 Cadillac, and when The Batman needed it for crime-fighting purposes, he’d merely put the roof up, ostensibly transforming it into the Batmobile.

(0:02) The name “Batmobile” first appeared in Detective Comics #48 in 1941, but this still just looked like a stock coupé, albeit not a specific real-life one. It seems to caricature the designs of a few real-life contemporary coupés, as well as adding a few bat-touches, such as the bat-shaped hood ornament which would become a recurring feature over the years.

(0:03) The Batman got his own comic in the early ’40s, and with it came a new look for the Batmobile. It no longer looked like a production car and was characterised for the next 20 or so years by a large battering-ram on the front grill in the shape of The Batman’s cowl, and over-sized bat wing-shaped fins on the rear.

(0:05) The iconic dome-shaped canopy appeared 1950. In 1954 this became a separate bubble-dome cockpit, another feature that would persist, on and off, over the years.

(0:07) As fashions changed in the real-world, The Batman had to follow suit. The Batmobiles of the mid-’60s eschewed the designs of the ’40s and ’50s in favour of the curves of contemporary sports cars, and while some iconic features such as the fins and bubble-dome remained, these were dialled back considerably.

(0:09) In 1966 the new live-action Batman TV series needed a new Batmobile design. It was based a ten-year old concept car, the Lincoln Futura, which already had features like fins and a bubble-dome. The striking angular design went on to influence the designs in the comics for the rest of the ’60s, and to a certain extent the design in the animated The Batman/Superman Hour.

(0:12) From 1969 there was a shift in tone of the comic books and The Batman moved away from the camp of the ’60s. In order to help him keep a low profile while moving around Gotham, he started driving a series of “nondescript” vehicles based on, and occasionally identical to, sports cars of the time.

(0:16) Occasionally, as the ’70s dragged on, the bat wing-shaped fins and bubble domes made an understated attempt at a comeback, appearing on otherwise relatively practical roadsters.

(0:18) The 1978 Challenge of the Superfriends cartoon’s Batmobile consolidated some of the easily recognisable hallmarks of the previously televised Futura-inspired Batmobiles with the sleeker up-to-date look of the ’70s roadsters, and this design endured in one form or another for around 9 years.

(0:19) It seems that somebody finally realised that the car of world’s richest crime-fighter, full of high-tech gizmos and jet engines and the like, might just look a little more advanced than a production car with a fibreglass bat wing on it. The Batmobile of the late ’80s comics took on a futuristic wedge-shape and started to look more like a spaceship on wheels.

(0:22) Pre-empted (just) by 1988’s The Killing Joke, the big-screen Batman (1989) saw a return an Art Deco aesthetic that would influence a trend which would balance the huge fins and bat-masks of the ’40s with the sleek designs of the late ’80s comics. The decopunk Batmobiles reigned up until the late ’90s and remain a touchstone today.

(0:30) After the excesses of the ’90s Batmobiles, the early 21st century saw a move back to practicality. Although still influenced by the decopunk Batmobiles, these designs were short enough to park, the fins more modestly sized, and there was at least a measure of ground clearance.

(0:32) By the mid ’00s, it seemed fairly well established that, in the comic books at least, The Batman had more than one Batmobile in active duty at any one time, with the designs varying sometimes wildly from month to month, sometimes even within the same story arc. Some appeared to be redesigns of ’90s Batmobiles, but the trend seemed to be leaning toward hulking sports cars that looked fast as well as fairly well armoured, although the impractically big bat wings appeared to be periodically back in fashion.

(0:38) In the third season of The Batman, the Batmobile is replaced by a faster, more streamlined car reminiscent of the classic design in the ’90s animated series. There were a few sleek designs similar to this around the mid ’00s before the comics returned to the armour-plated muscle car look.

(0:43) Although the idea had been toyed with before, Christopher Nolan’s Batman Begins dragged the idea of a half-tank Batmobile into the mainstream consciousness, as part of a more realistic and believable vision of Batman. The popularity of this ensured that a speedy but well armoured Bat-tank would occasionally appear as The Batman’s ride for the next few years, and the idea that The Batman would use a heavily armoured vehicle continues to influence, even on more traditional designs, to this day.

(0:46) Perhaps to contrast with the stark grittiness of the Nolan films, the 2008 TV series Batman: The Brave And The Bold featured a sporty new Batmobile inspired equally by the sweeping designs the of the ’90s and ’00s animated Batmobiles and the bubble-domed roadsters of yesteryear. This was reflected in the comics, too, as they returned to low-slung, cartoony racers…

(0:48) …Which evolved into the flying Batmobiles of 2009-2010.

(0:50) Other designs of the early ’10s sought to consolidate the modern designs with the toughness of the contemporary Tumbler still being used in the Nolan trilogy, and the instant recognisability of the Furst design.

(0:51) 2011’s New 52 established beyond a doubt that the Batman had multiple vehicles to cover every eventuality. Amongst some very familiar redesigns, this iteration of the Batman favoured modern takes on some classic elements that we hadn’t seen for a while: wedge-shaped roadsters or squat muscle cars with vintage bubble-domes or even the odd classic open-top.

(0:57) With Batman returning to the more mainstream media of cinema and video games, from 2015 onward we returned to what the general public might have viewed as the most ‘modern’ style of Batmobile: the tank. This generation of tank-Batmobiles tended to be more streamlined, and with more nods to the traditional Batmobile shapes than before.

(0:59) We finish with the current (at time of writing) Batmobile which has been used across the Rebirth comics since 2016. It is almost the quintessential Batmobile, being an update of the one used in the ’90s Animated Series, which itself was based on perhaps the most iconic of Batmobiles, Anton Furst’s design for the Tim Burton movies, which in turn was inspired by the Art Deco curves of Bruce Wayne’s coupés in the ’30s, and the large fins of the ’40s and ’70s. It has been brought into the 21st century with Tumbler-inspired open wheels and heavy armour plating, but retains a ’50s-style cowl-shaped battering ram on the front grill, giving a nice hat-tip to almost every decade of Batmobile design for the last eighty years.

Appendix

For those who are as obsessed as myself, these are the details of each Batmobile included in the video. For those with even a margin of sanity, it’s fair to say the interesting bit is over, and it’s probably best to stop reading. Maybe watch the video again, instead.

#	First Appearance	Original Artist*	Notes
1	Detective Comics #27 (1939)	Bob Kane	First appearance, first car. Unmodified coupé.
2	Detective Comics #30 (1939)	Bob Kane	“Specially Built High-Powered Auto.”
3	Detective Comics #35 (1940)	Bob Kane/Jerry Robinson
4	Detective Comics #48 (1941)	Bob Kane	First appearance of the name “Batmobile.”
5	Batman TV series (1943)	1939 Cadillac
6	Batman #5 (1941)	Jerry Robinson
7	Batman #20 (1943)	Dick Sprang
8	Batman dailies (1943)	Bob Kane
9	Batman #47 (1948)	Dick Sprang
10	Detective Comics #156 (1950)	Dick Sprang
11	Batman #73 (1952)	Dick Sprang
12	Detective Comics #204 (1954)	Sheldon Moldoff
13	World’s Finest #77 (1955)	Curt Swan/Dick Sprang
14	Batman #156 (1964)	Carmine Infantino
15	Detective Comics #356 (1966)	Sheldon Moldoff
16	The Brave & The Bold #68 (1966)	Mike Sekowsky
17	The Brave & The Bold #70 (1966)	Johnny Craig
18	Batman TV series (1966)	1955 Lincoln Futura
19	Detective Comics #362 (1967)	Sheldon Moldoff
20	Detective Comics #364 (1968)	Sheldon Moldoff
21	Detective Comics #371 (1968)	Gil Kane/Sid Greene
22	Detective Comics #377 (1968)	Frank Springer
23	The Batman/Superman Hour TV series (1966)
24	Detective Comics #394 (1969)	Bob Brown
25	Batman #220 (1970)	Irving Norvick
26	Detective Comics #400 (1970)	Neal Adams
27	Detective Comics #430 (1972)	Frank Robbins
28	Batman #247 (1973)	Dick Giordano
29	Detective Comics #434 (1973)	Irving Norvick
30	Batman #258 (1974)	Irving Norvick
31	Batman #267 (1975)	Ernie Chan
32	Detective Comics #452 (1975)	Ernie Chan
33	Batman #272 (1975)	José Garcia-Lopez
34	Detective Comics #471 (1977)	Marshall Rogers
35	Challenge Of The Superfriends TV series (1978)	Hanna-Barbera
36	Batman #382 (1985)	Rick Hoberg
37	Batman #408 (1987)	Dick Giordano
38	Detective Comics #589 (1988)	Norm Breyfogle
39	Detective Comics #591 (1988)	Norm Breyfogle
40	Detective Comics #607 (1989)	Norm Breyfogle	Used for 7 years in the Detective Comics.
41	Suicide Squad #40 (1989)	Geof Isherwood
42	Batman 3D (1990)	John Byrne
43	The Killing Joke (1988)	Brian Bolland
44	Batman movie (1989)	Anton Furst	Also used in Batman Returns (1992) movie.
45	Legends Of The Dark Knight #15 (1991)	Paul Gulacy
46	Gotham Nights #3 (1992)	Mary Mitchell
47	Batman: The Animated Series TV series (1992)	Shane Poindexter
48	Legends Of The Dark Knight #29 (1992)	Matt Wagner
49	Batman: Run, Riddler, Run #2 (1992)	Mark Badger
50	Batman #484 (1992)	Tom Grindberg
51	Legends Of The Dark Knight #42 (1993)	Philip Craig Russell
52	Batman Annual #17 (1993)	Eduardo Baretto
53	Legends Of The Dark Knight #64 (1994)	Chris Bachalo
54	Batman/Judge Dredd: Vendetta On Gotham #42 (1993)	Cam Kennedy
55	Batman Forever movie (1995)	Barbara Ling
56	Batman: Manbat #1 (1995)	John Bolton
57	Batman #526 (1996)	James H Williams III	Used for 12 years in the Batman comics.
58	Batman & Robin movie (1997)	Barbara Ling
59	The New Batman Adventures TV series (1997)	Bruce Timm
60	JLA/WildC.A.T.s (1997)	Val Semeiks
61	Detective Comics #742 (2000)	Shawn Martinbrough
62	Legends Of The Dark Knight #130 (2000)	Sergio Cariello
63	Legends Of The Dark Knight #156 (2002)	Val Semeiks
64	Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #6 (2003)	Ryan Sook
65	Batman: City Of Light #2 (2004)	Arnold Pander/Jacob Pander
66	Legends Of The Dark Knight #175 (2004)	Chris Brunner
67	Detective Comics #788 (2004)	Mike Lilly
68	Wonder Woman #204 (2004)	Mike McKone
69	Teen Titans, Vol 3 #9 (2004)	Drew Johnson
70	Batman #629 (2004)	Dustin Nguyen
71	The Batman TV series (2004)
72	Batman #632 (2004)	Kinsun Loh
73	Gotham Knights #60 (2005)	Javi Pina
74	Batman #637 (2005)	Doug Mahnke
75	All Star Batman & Robin: The Boy Wonder #1 (2005)	Frank Miller
76	The Batman TV series (2005)
77	Justice #2 (2005)	Alex Ross
78	Legends Of The Dark Knight #198 (2006)	Chris Weston
79	Batman: Sectrets #1 (2006)	Sam Kieth
80	Batman #652 (2006)	Don Kramer
81	Man-Bat, Vol 3 #3 (2006)	Mike Huddleston
82	Detective Comics #823 (2006)	Joe Benitez
83	Batman Confidential #2 (2007)	Whilce Portacio
84	Batman #676 (2008)	Tony Daniel
85	Batman & The Outsiders #7 (2008)	Julian Lopez
86	Batman Begins movie (2005)	Christopher Nolan/ Nathan Crowley	“The Tumbler”; never referred to as a Batmobile. Also used in The Dark Knight (2008) and The Dark Knight Rises (2012) movies.
87	Batman And The Monster Men #5 (2006)	Matt Wagner
88	Batman And The Mad Monk #5 (2007)	Matt Wagner
89	The Batman TV series (2007)
90	Gotham Knight movie (2008)	Bee Train	Used in the “Field Test” segment.
91	Batman: The Brave And The Bold TV series (2008)	Art Lee
92	Batman And The Outsiders #14 (2009)	Ryan Benjamin
93	Batman #684 (2009)	Guillem March
94	Batman: Arkham Asylum video game (2009)	Rocksteady Studios
95	Batman: Battle For The Cowl #3 (2009)	Tony Daniel
96	Batman And Robin #1 (2009)	Frank Quietly
97	Nemesis: Imposters #4 (2010)	Cliff Richards
98	Batman: Odyssey #1 (2010)	Neal Adams
99	DC Universe Online: Legends #2 (2010)	Howard Porter
100	Batman: The Return #1 (2011)	David Finch
101	Batman: Noël (2011)	Neal Adams
102	Detective Comics, Volume 2 #1 (2011)	Tony Salvador Daniel
103	Batman: The Dark Knight #8 (2012)	Ed Benes
104	Batman, Vol 2 #9 (2012)	Greg Capullo
105	Batman, Incorporated #11 (2013)	Jorge Lucas
106	Beware The Batman TV series (2013)
107	Batman And Robin, Vol 2 #21 (2013)	Cliff Richards
108	Batman Eternal #25 (2014)	R. M. Guéra
109	Detective Comics, Vol 2 Annual #2 (2013)	Scott Eaton
110	Batman And Robin, Vol 2 #25 (2013)	Patrick Gleason
111	Detective Comics, Vol 2 #29 (2014)	Aaron Lopresti
112	Son Of Batman movie (2014)
113	Batman Vs Robin movie (2015)
114	All-Star Batman #10 (2017)	Sebastián Fiumára
115	Batman: Arkham Knight video game (2015)	Rocksteady Studios
116	Batman: The Telltale Series video game (2016)	Telltale Games
117	Batman Vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice movie (2016)	Patrick Tatopoulos	Also used in the Suicide Squad (2016) movie.
118	Batman, Vol 3 #1 (2016)	David Finch

*In most cases, this is the original designer of each particular Batmobile. However, where I am unsure of where a specific design originated, I have included the name of the penciller who worked on the issue of the first appearance.

Please bear in mind these are my own interpretations of the designs. Sometimes exact details can change from panel to panel even in the same comic. Also, the drawings are not necessarily to scale with each other. This is mainly an aesthetic decision so that everything fits nicely in the frame. Some of the designs would seem quite insignificant if drawn to the same scale as the 33′-long Batman & Robin Batmobile (#58), for instance.

While I have tried to keep this list fairly chronological, I have tried to keep a certain thematic evolution, so there are a few omissions and anachronisms:

– The Batman Serial Cadillac (#5) should appear after the first of Robinson’s designs (#6), but as an unmodified ’30s sports car, it belongs alongside the earlier Batmobiles, while Robinson’s was the first design with the bat-mask battering-ram and ridiculously large tail fin that the rest of the ’40s & ’50s designs were based on.

– Bob Kane’s Design for the dailies (#8) was published before Dick Sprang’s version that it was based on (#7)

– The ’66 Live-Action Lincoln Futura (#18) should appear before some of the ’60s comic book designs (#15-#17), but as these were basically variations on the earlier comic book design (#14) and the Futura would go on to influence the designs in the comics after that, it belongs as the first of the Futura-based designs.

– I’ve completely ignored the ’73-’77 cartoon series Superfiends‘ Batmobile as it is virtually identical to the ones used in the comics 5 years earlier (#20 & #21) and to add it chronologically wouldn’t show a true evolution of the design as the comic books were slap-bang in the middle of their “nondescript” sports car wave of the ’70s.

– Frank Miller’s ’87 The Dark Knight Returns‘ Bat-Tank has also been omitted as, at this point, iconic as it has now become, as it was not part of any immediate evolutionary arc for the Batmobile, other than perhaps inspiring the following year’s monster-truck Batmobile in The Cult. Its influence can, however, be seen in more recent heavy-duty Batmobiles such as the Tumbler from Batman Begins (#86), the Arkham Knight tank (#115) et al.

– Things start to get a little confusing as we move into the ’90s, as the comics, graphic novels, films and animated series all start pulling in in different stylistic directions. The Batmobile has undergone almost three times as many redesigns in the last 30 years since 1990 than it did in its 50-year existence preceding that. As the late ’80s comic book Batmobiles were evolving into a futuristic wedge, other contemporary media such as Brian Bolland’s graphic novel The Killing Joke and Tim Burton’s Batman movie were returning to the style of the classic ’40s large-finned Batmobiles, though these went on in turn to influence later designs. Therefore, I have bunched the wedge designs of the ’88-’90 comics (#39-#42) together, then returned to ’88 and ’89 for the Killing Joke (#43) and movie (#44) Batmobiles respectively.

-I’ve had to ignore the Batman: Shadow of the Bat series of comic books as Breyfogle was sticking with his wedge-shaped retro-futurist spaceship-looking Batmobile during ’93 to ’96 whilst the Batman comics (with the exception of Mike Manley’s design in Batman 503) and the Legend of the Dark Knight comics, along with the animated series and later movies, were sticking with the Neo-Art Moderne stylings of the ’89 movie Batmobile (#44). Stylistically, the Shadow of the Bat Batmobile carries on from Breyfogle’s ’89 design (#40) but chronologically is contemporary with designs #48 through #54.

– The Vendetta in Gotham Batmobile (#54) would actually have appeared ten months before the Legends of the Dark Knight issue 64 version (#53). I have swapped them round for purely aesthetic reasons. (The Vendetta… Batmobile is a slightly less extreme version of Simon Bisley’s design in Judgement on Gotham, two years earlier.)

– A few of the Batmobiles in the comic books throughout the ’90s really went all in for the retro look. For the most part, these designs have been ignored as they are mostly just re-drawings of previous designs from the ’40s and ’50s. Similarly, into the ’00s every different comic or graphic novel seemed to have a different take on the Batmobile, so where these are just minor re-designs of earlier vehicles, they too have been omitted.

– When Batman Begins popularised the tank-like Tumbler (#86) in 2006, it didn’t immediately change the world around it like Anton Furst’s design had in 1989. For a while around ’06-’08 the comics stuck to a simpler muscle car look, so I have grouped these together (#80-#85), and placed the more tank-like designs from the same ’06-’08 period after them (#86-#90). In way of compensation for the earlier omission of the archetypal Bat-tank from The Dark Knight Returns, the very similar tank from “Artifacts”, the heavily DKR-influenced episode of The Batman which aired in 2007, appears amongst them (#89).

– Batman: Noël (#101) was published after the introduction of the New 52 (#102 onward) but stylistically it acts as a bridge between these and the earlier movie-influenced designs.

– I have swapped #106 and #107, again for purely aesthetic reasons.

– The Batman Vs Robin Batmobile (#113) is a natural progression from the one used in Son Of Batman (#112) so I have put them together, even though the Batman Eternal car (#108) strictly speaking appeared between them, rather than a year earlier where I have put it just because I think it looks better there.

– Another swap just for aesthetic reasons, #117 was seen by the public a few months before #116.

– The most recent “new” Batmobile is the one from All-Star Batman issue 10 (#114) however I have not placed it at the end, because I wanted to finish on the Rebirth Batmobile (#118) which is still being used in the Batman and Detective Comics as Batman’s main mode of transport, appearing most recently (at time of writing) in Detective Comics issue 1009. As it was no longer in order anyway, I took the liberty of pushing the All-Star Batmobile back a bit further to where it fits in nicer with the animation.

– I finished the animation a few months ago, so a couple of the most recent Batmobiles have been missed off, most conspicuously, the one from 2018’s Titans TV programme. Other interesting recent Batmobiles are the retro ’60s looking one from the flashback in Batman Volume 3 Issue 64 and Thomas Wayne’s Batmobile which appears in issue 75 of the same run.