Have We Forgotten Batman Is for Kids?

Has the Dark Knight become too dark? If a new report about pop culture trends for the next generation is any indication, the answer might be yes. Another for kids might be, “Who’s Batman again?”

As per Variety, a recent scientific poll found that Gen Alpha (children born between 2010 and 2025) surprisingly enjoy going to movie theaters more than previous generations. The kids surveyed were also asked what some of their favorite franchises or characters are. The top five, unsurprisingly, consist of video game franchises such as Roblox, Minecraft, and Pokemon. Superheroes, however, enter the list soon afterward with the Avengers and Spider-Man at sixth and eight place, respectively. Yet coming all the way down in 20th and last place is Batman. That’s apparently beneath even Wednesday Addams these days.

That’s shocking to those of older generations. Batman, along with Superman and Wonder Woman, was one of the few Golden Age characters to survive the initial superhero bust after World War II precisely because he had visibility beyond comics. Batman has been an ongoing concern in not just comics, but on television, movies, toys, and even video games. Whether it was Adam West in 1966, 1989 Batmania, or the euphoric reception of Batman: The Animated Series in the ’90s, the character has long been an all-generations concern. So what changed?

The Fall of Bat-Media

Kid-focused media starring Batman is still in production. Any toy store in the country will have Imaginext play sets of Gotham City and the Batcave, all with soft-edges and hard-to-swallow parts. Batwheels, which applies the logic of the Cars franchise to the DC Universe, is slated to debut its third season later this year on HBO Max. And in 2022, Keanu Reeves voiced a cuddlier version of Batman alongside Kevin Hart‘s Ace the Bat-Hound in the animated movie DC League of Super-Pets.

Batman also continues to star in Lego games designed for kids. And just eight years ago, he was the star of one of the better Bat flicks, 2017’s The Lego Batman Movie.

Still, that’s a far cry from kid-focused Bat-media of the past. Long gone is the sophisticated but still kid-appropriate Batman: The Animated Series, replaced by the decidedly more young adult-focused Batman: Caped Crusader on Amazon Prime Streaming. The successor shows Justice League and Batman Beyond live on HBO Max, as do series for young viewers such as Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Justice League Action (well, they do until David Zaslav removes them for a tax break), but kids need to seek them out intentionally. They’re much less likely to stumble upon the shows on television or YouTube streaming.

When speaking in terms of broad visibility in pop culture, never mind the comic page or big screen, DC’s long deprioritized making Batman for kids. So why would kids be on the lookout for Batman?

No Bat-Kids Allowed

This isn’t to say that Batman has disappeared from the pop cultural landscape. On the contrary, he’s just as present as ever for the same folks who were watching TAS 33 years ago. Currently there are two Bat-movies in production, Matt Reeves‘s The Batman: Part Two and the mainline DCU movie, Batman: The Brave and the Bold. Batman’s as big as ever in the comics too, as DC just did a high-profile relaunch of the mainline series with A-list creators Matt Fraction and Jorge Jiménez. Moreover, Batman’s a mainstay of alternate reality tales, including the incredibly popular Absolute Batman, in which a economically poor but physically huge Bruce Wayne battles crime in a darker version of the DC Universe.

But as great as it is, Absolute Batman shows exactly why kids are losing interest in all things Gotham. Writer Scott Snyder and lead artist Nick Dragotta are putting their passions into the series, creating a storyline that generates new buzz each issue for the incredibly brutal images they put on the page. But Absolute Batman is decidedly not for kids, as the new origins of classic Bat-villains such as Penguin and the Riddler disturb even long-time comic readers.

The same is true of The Batman, a solid, deeply bleak noir take on the Dark Knight that does nothing to attract young viewers. Anecdotally it is difficult to imagine many young families enjoying a matinee out for a three-hour movie that opens with a Zodiac serial killer-coded Riddler beating a father to death on Halloween. But for further proof, look at one of the action figures made for the film, which depicted an unmasked Bruce Wayne with Robert Pattinson‘s signature pout and streaked makeup. Not exactly the sort of thing that inspires little ones to imagine new adventures.

The action figure highlights the bigger issue with recent treatment of Batman. It’s not just that The Batman and Absolute Batman aren’t for kids. That’s fine, not everything needs to be for every audience, and Batman’s appeal comes from the way the character can be reinterpreted for new generations and audiences. It’s that the stuff made for kids is treated as an afterthought, with none of the excitement that Snyder or Reeves, or Rocksteady’s M-rated Batman: Arkham Knight video game (meaning it was for 17+ only), bring to their work. Previous generations had Paul Dini, Bruce Timm, and others firing on all cylinders for Batman: The Animated Series. Today’s kids had Kevin Hart, Dwayne Johnson, and Marc Maron barely deviating from their standard public personae in DC League of Super-Pets. Can we blame kids for not caring?

The Dark Knight Returns… to Kids?

At this point, one might object and insist that Batman isn’t for kids. No, really, these folks exist. After all, they might argue, “The Case of the Chemical Syndicate,” the story by Bill Finger and Bob Kane that introduced Batman in 1939’s Detective Comics #27, ends with Batman glowering with satisfaction when a murderer accidentally kills himself. Batman has always been a grotesque creature of the night who strikes fear into the hearts of cowardly, superstitious criminals, right?

Well, clearly not. Just look at all of the Batman stories made directly for kids. And, you know, the fact that Batman is a guy who wears blue and gray tights and has a big cave with a giant penny and a dinosaur in it. You’re telling me that’s not for kids? Not even a little?

Obviously Batman stories for adults can be told. But so can Batman stories for kids. DC just hasn’t been telling them, at least not in any type of media that reaches kids with the kind of excitement and fanfare of, say, X-Men ’97 or Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse. And in the long term that ironically might speak better to the generational longevity of Spidey versus the Caped Crusader.

Of course all is not lost for Batman. As the recent response to James Gunn’s Superman demonstrates, it’s not that kids don’t care about Krypto. It’s that they had no use for the Rock half-heartedly mugging his way through a WB sound booth on DC League of Super-Pets. In other words, if DC actually puts some passionate talents and attention onto kid-friendly Bat-media, children will probably come along.

Signs are good that something like that may happen, as the DCU has two high-profile projects in the works starring the most kid-appealing character in the Batman universe, Robin the Boy Wonder. Robin will appear alongside Batman in the upcoming Brave and the Bold movie while two other variations of the character—the Dick Grayson and Jason Todd Robins—will star in the animated film Dynamic Duo.

Then again these projects all come under the aegis of James Gunn who, as much as he truly understands how to tell rich and compelling superhero stories, struggles to leave R-rated territory. Will Gunn and company be able to change their approach and show a new generation of kids everything great about Batman? Or will they keep the Dark Knight in the shadows, forever hidden from the eyes of youngsters? Hopefully, someone will find a way to shine a beacon.