- Batman shifts his patrol of the city, which the newspapers refer to as his “spot check on crime”.
- When Batman fights, he enters a state known in Japanese martial arts as mushin or mushin no shin, meaning “no mind” or “mind of no mind”. This means, to be able to focus on the task at hand with no distractions.
- One of the principles by which Batman strives to conduct himself was taught to him by Shaolin monks: “Learn the ways to preserve rather than destroy; avoid rather than check; check rather than hurt; hurt rather than maim; maim rather than kill; for all life is precious, nor can any be replaced.”
- Batman’s mask isn’t so much to hide an identity, as it is to create one.
- Batman employs a “Use-Of-Force Hierarchy” when he fights. He rarely skips levels, and only uses enough force necessary to subdue his opponent, though certain circumstances may escalate him through the levels more rapidly:
Use Of Force Hierarchy
1. Batman's mere physical presence ends the fight.
2. Batman tries to reason with criminal.
3. Batman is attacked and tries to subdue criminal hand to hand.
4. Batman uses non-lethal spray or knock-out gas.
5. Batman employs weapons.
- Batman always thinks he can take an opponent.
- The quickest Batman can punch is 140 milli-seconds. If he struck at this speed, in one second he could either hit one opponent seven time, or three opponents one time apiece.
- When Bruce is injured, he uses a meditation technique that allows him to isolate the pain and lock it away by putting it in a tiny box in the corner of his mind.
- The permanent mismatch between biological body clock and environment, virtually guarantees that Batman never fully adapts to his night shifts. Combined with his scant sleep schedule, this means that he is tired almost all the time.
- Bruce likes his steaks pink on the inside, not red, not grey. He eats an athlete’s diet – protein, carbs, low fat.
- One of the things he has the hardest time forgiving himself for is carelessness.
- Believes that anyone who says he fears nothing is a liar.
- Bruce is afraid of dreaming.
- When he needs to know something, sometimes the easiest way to get it is to make sure that every criminal in Gotham needs the answer to his question, too. He makes his business their business, and until he gets his answer, that’s the only “business” anyone will be doing.
- Batman synthesized the antidote for Smilex: it must be administered ASAP – the longer the delay, the shorter the chance for recovery. If given within one hour, the patient will be in a 24-hr. coma. After one hour, it’s touch and go.
- Batman does not like civilians to see him injured. He feels it breaks the illusion – not just for them, but for him, and he fears that if that happens, the next time, he might fail.
- Batman prefers not to go out in daylight unless it’s an emergency, or otherwise necessary. His set schedule is eleven o’clock PM (never before eight PM, unless it can’t be helped) and back by four AM, or before the sun comes up.
- Bruce Wayne rarely finishes his late-night ‘trysts’, either called away on business or some other reason of his devising. Though frequently seen by the paparazzi on the arms of starlets, sirens, socialites, divas, and cover girls, he is often known as “the one who got away” by a bevy of women ever more ardent to be the one who reels him in.
- Bruce Wayne is a teetotaler.
- In the event that a member of the Justice League should ever turn against mankind, Batman determined teammates’ respective weaknesses, secretly formulating fail-safe countermeasures to defeat each one of them.
Wayne Manor:
- The clock in the Wayne Manor entrance hall (or foyer), which leads to the Batcave, is known as a longcase clock, but is also known colloquially as a “grandfather” clock.
- To open the longcase clock, Bruce moves the hands so that the time reads 10:48 - his parents' time of death.
- There is no gym inside Wayne Manor, only in the Batcave.
- Rooms mentioned in Wayne Manor include: Billiards Room, North and South Drawing Rooms, Kitchen, Mud Room, Study, Ballroom, Attic, Library, Dining Rooms, Bedrooms, Foyer/Entrance Hall, Hall of Wayne Portraits.
Drake Manor:
- There is a cave shaft leading from a well on the Drake family property into the Batcave. To access it, Tim enters the shed behind the Georgian style mansion and goes into the cistern. Turning the knob, the water drains away. When the cistern is empty, Tim climbs in and places his palm against a stone and presses, making the bottom of the cistern slide away so that he can drop to the floor of the cave below and walk the distance between the two properties.
Gotham City:
- Bruce keeps many apartments around the city in case he collapses before sunrise.
- The safest neighborhood in Gotham, thanks to urban renewal, is Park Ridge.
- The crime rate in Gotham has gone down dramatically since Batman’s arrival.
- There are four hospitals in Gotham: Gotham Central, Gotham County, St. Thomas, Gotham General.
- Gotham General was the hospital which once employed Dr. Thomas Wayne.
- Gotham’s Neo-Gothic look was designed by architect Cyrus Pinkney. Judge Solomon Wayne, who commissioned the project, intended it to be a “bulwark against iniquity”. However, Pinkney’s numerous critics argued that his controversial constructions “effectively barricaded vice within the city”.
- Gotham City’s architectural and design eccentricities – the high, windowless walls, narrow streets, few light sources – make sneaking through it an easy pleasure.
- The theater district contains far more bars and topless joints and hotels that rent rooms by the hour than theaters.
- Gotham is not overrun by pigeons because although eregrine falcons are rare in urban settings, they are around. Falcons eat the pigeons alive and feed them to their young, then use the feathers and husks to build their nests. As falcons are EPA protected, they are let be.
Wayne Enterprises:
- Considered the backbone of Gotham, Wayne Enterprises and its various subsidiary corporations employ the largest portion of the city’s considerable workforce. From wealth amassed by the extensive real estate holdings of Judge Solomon Wayne, His Honor’s heirs established Wayne Shipping and Wayne Chemical, companies energized by America’s booming Industrial Revolution. As the 20th century dawned, WayneCorp and its fledgling aviation division ushered the city past the woes of the Great Depression and two World Wars. Today, WayneTech and Wayne Aerospace stand at the forefront of pharmaceutical and technological research and development. The charitable Wayne Foundation reinvests the fruits of the Wayne holdings’ labors in philanthropic endeavors at home and abroad.
- Erected in 1939, the Wayne Building is the headquarters of WayneCorp, the Wayne Foundation, and the location of Bruce’s penthouse (with a satellite Batcave beneath). At 78 stories (1,207 ft to the tip of its antenna), the Wayne Building is Gotham’s tallest structure. It’s the nerve center of the city’s financial district.
Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane:
- Established in 1921, Arkham’s history has been punctuated by blood and tragedy. The institution’s very first patient – Martin “Mad Dog” Hawkins – brutally murdered the wife and daughter of founder, Dr. Amadeus Arkham. Thus, Arkham “treated” Hawkins with an electro-shock therapy execution and was later committed to his own facility, which nephew Jeremiah now governs with mixed results.
- The incarceration of Gotham’s criminally insane necessitates specialized cells for each inmate. Serial killer Mr. Zsasz requires maximum restraints at all times, while Poison Ivy is kept behind shatterproof Plexiglas to avoid contact with her unusual pheromones. Arkham’s security monitors maximum-risk patients via closed-circuit TV. Batons and side-arms are standard for all guards, while orderlies are permitted tasers and pepper-spray.
- Arkham has an actual chef, named Edward Cheatley. Trained in Paris and Rome, he was highly regarded until he tried to poison his girlfriend’s husband with strychinine in his foie gras. He did a nickel at Blackgate, but his career never recovered, and so accepted a job from Arkham to cook for the asylum.
- Jeremiah Arkham was called by Vicki Vale of the Gotham Gazette “a bizarre combination of knee-jerk do-gooder and Torquemada”; he believed in insulin shock, electroshock, isolation, prolonged confinement in strait-jackets, sleep deprivation, and such original measures as putting three inches of water in a bare cell, removing an inmate’s clothing, and turning off the heat. But he also believed in second chances.
- The worst inmates at Arkham have their food sent through dumbwaiters. The corridor outside the cells is lined with heat detectors, motion detectors, pressure-sensitive flooring. There are monitors in the sewer and water lines. TV cameras line the corridors. If even a mouse gets in there, the alarm goes off, the whole place is flooded with gas. The ward is manned by two dozen guards on twenty-four-hour alert. Signals are sent to the police station downtown and the marine base. Everything has battery-operated backups in case the electricity goes out. (This, btw, is the description of Arkham’s security from the novelization of Knightfall)
- The only reason some of the prisons at Arkham are kept alive is that they are so deranged, psychologists demanded to be able to study them. Whole textbooks had been scrapped after the authors spent a few days in Arkham.
Blackgate Island Maximum Security Penitentiary:
- Formerly a Civil War gun battery defending Gotham Harbor from Confederate Ironsides, the stone fortress of Blackgate later found new purpose in keeping Gotham City’s criminal populace at a safe distance. Just a few degrees southeast of the sandy Chalfont Shoal, Blackgate is built upon 70 acres of rock in Gotham Bay and is separated from the larger Gotham Island by “The Rip,” a 30-knot current even more intimidating than the northerly swimming sharks basking offshore. Home to an incendiary mix of Gotham’s deadliest felons, Blackgate resides in infamy as perhaps the most dangerous prison in America, if not the world. Blackgate’s cells are reserved for Gotham’s “highest risk” prisoners; lesser offenders are sent to upstate facilities.
- Blackgate is surrounded by a 5-ft outer wall of steel reinforced concrete.
- With a population topping 2,000 inmates, Blackgate’s charges are watched over by a force of only 200 corrections officers – unsettling odds considering the significant ratio of dangerous costumed criminals incarcerated among them.