Batman: The Animated Series remains the definitive version of Batman for many, but the series was surprisingly light on the famous gadgetry used by the Caped Crusader. Running for 4 seasons, Batman: The Animated Series was the driving force behind the DCAU timeline, putting Bruce Wayne at the center of a gloomy art-deco Gotham surrounded by dangerous criminals. To help him on his heroic exploits, Kevin Conroy’s Batman utilized batarangs, grappling hooks, tracker devices, and forensic spray to hunt down and bring to justice his enemies.
Yet compared to other animated versions of Batman, Batman: The Animated Series‘ Dark Knight was relatively light on gadgets and technology. Conroy’s Batman instead relied more on brains and brawn to get out of his numerous sticky situations, not overly relying on high-tech nonlethal weaponry as a crutch compared to many other versions. In fact, Lucius Fox, the brains behind Batman’s gizmos in many versions of the DC mythos, has something of a different role in the cartoon, serving as more of a business figurehead to run Wayne Enterprises while Bruce Wayne is away.
Batman can quickly find himself in hostile environments, particularly when traveling outside of Gotham as a founding member of the Justice League. One key piece of his utility belt that often sees a surprising amount of use in other Batman stories is the rebreather, a small device that cycles oxygen, allowing Batman to survive undersea journeys or gaseous attacks. This piece of gear is one of the most fantastically far-fetched pieces of tech Batman ever uses, completely disobeying real-world laws of physics.
Some versions of the rebreather even make a full seal with Batman’s cowl and connect to a larger oxygen supply, allowing the Caped Crusader to even take his adventures into space. This is usually done in an effort to allow Batman to easily keep up with the more interplanetary members of the Justice League, such as Superman and Green Lantern. Considering Batman in Batman: The Animated Series didn’t leave Gotham often, let alone team-up with any heroes not in the Bat-Family, it’s no wonder the rebreather didn’t see any use.
One of the most hilariously specific gadgets ever used by Batman, the infamous Bat-shark repellant needs little introduction. Used in the first of many live-action Batman movies, 1966’s Batman, Adam West uses this aerosol spray of shark-repelling chemicals to rid himself of an exploding shark that won’t let him go. The only thing more hilarious than this incredibly niche gadget existing in the first place is the apparent collection of other anti-ocean life sprays, including canisters for targeting barracudas, whales, and manta-rays.
While Batman: The Animated Series could certainly get campy at times, it tried to maintain at least a semi-serious tone, at least in comparison to the goofy Adam West universe. One episode featuring West himself voicing the Gray Ghost, a superhero Batman himself admires, would’ve been the perfect opportunity to reference the anti-shark spray. Another anthology episode centered around three young kids swapping rumors of Batman has a sequence paying clear homage to the 60s series, offering another great possibility for the gadget to make an appearance.
In Batman: The Animated Series, Batman got a lot of mileage out of the classic batarang. Even used in the very opening sequence, the iconic throwing weapons were used for all kinds of situations, from knocking guns out of the hands of hapless thugs to slicing through the ropes of various villainous contraptions and deathtraps. Surprisingly, the many variations of the batarang used in the comics and other media never got a chance in the spotlight in the original run of the show.
One of the most useful versions of the batarang never featured in Batman: The Animated Series was the heated batarang. By producing staggering internal temperatures, the heated batarang could both burn and cut at the same time, dramatically increasing the slicing power of the standard edged weapon. The gadget is usually depicted as being particularly useful against Clayface, whose amorphous skin tends to flake off and solidify in the face of extreme heat.
Perhaps the only “gadget” more infamous than the Bat-anti shark repellant, the Bat-credit card is one of the few Batman gadgets that could easily exist in reality. Introduced in the critical disaster Batman & Robin, Batman uses the card to outbid his sidekick on a charity auction date with Uma Thurman’s Poison Ivy. Not existing with any real-world bank or credit company, the card appears to be offered by the company “Gothcard”, and is good through “forever” according to the expiration date.
The audacity of the idea of a Bruce Wayne that took considerable time and resources to produce his own custom credit card for Batman is only outweighed by the puzzling questions of how using such a line of credit wouldn’t make it incredibly easy to uncover his identity as Batman. While Batman & Robin came out in 1997, two years after the last season of the original series ended, follow-up show The New Batman Adventures could’ve easily given a nod to the live-action film by featuring the card. Considering the film’s terrible reception, however, it’s no wonder they didn’t choose to.
Being a port city, Batman’s adventures in Gotham often take him to the docks and shipping district, whether he’s tracking shady black market deals using the isolated shipping lanes to conduct nefarious business or going after the Penguin’s private submarine. The presence of aquatic villains patrolling Gotham’s sewers like Killer Croc also means that Batman is wise to literally stay on his toes when it comes to a good way to maneuver around in the water. Enter the propeller boots, a gadget built into Batman’s suit that gets a surprising amount of use in the comics.
As cool as the classic cape and cowl combination is, it isn’t the most conducive to normal swimming. This means that a tool for navigating the cloudy waterways of Gotham City doesn’t go underappreciated in the DC Comics, wherein the motorized propellers built into Batman’s boots get a surprising amount of use. For all the time he’s spent in the water in various episodes, The Dark Knight of Batman: The Animated Series would’ve appreciated this particular device.
Batman: The Animated Series re-invented Mr. Freeze as the modern audience knows him. The show retconned the character from a by-the-numbers ice-themed villain with a painful yellow jumpsuit to a thoughtful cold menace with a tragic backstory. Considering the timeline of Batman: The Animated Series did so much with Mr. Freeze, making him the subject of a made-for-TV movie in Batman & Mr. Freeze: Subzero and bringing him into the future with Batman Beyond, it’s a shock Bruce Wayne never got his hands on Mr. Freeze’s technology.
In some Batman continuities, the hero manages to incorporate Dr. Fries’ incredibly cyrogenic science into a gadget of his own, the freeze bomb. These devices are great for non-lethally subduing criminals by freezing them dead in their tracks, doubly effective against monstrous villains like Clayface or Killer Croc who have a unique weakness to the frigid temperatures. Both the Arkham Knight video games and the 2004 cartoon The Batman feature the icy grenades heavily, becoming a core part of Batman’s arsenal.
Restraining devices like nets and bolases aren’t entirely out of Batman’s wheelhouse in the 90s animated series, but the comics have taken his ability to easily capture standard goons to the next level. In DC’s Gotham After Midnight miniseries, Batman ups the ante on the technological marvels he carries in his standard equipment, showing off some new restraining devices in the form of Bat-net drones. These nonlethal automatic weapons are incredibly on-brand for Batman, allowing him to incapacitate low-level criminals without breaking a sweat.
The Bat-net drones function as tiny hovering robots, taking the shape of Bruce Wayne’s favorite winged mammal while hovering midair on mechanical wings. Upon activation, the devices fire a powerful entangling net at nearby bad guys, capturing them with the press of a button. The art style and overall technology level of Batman: The Animated Series may have made these drones feel out of place, not to mention they weren’t invented until far after the show’s final episode aired. Still, it would’ve been doubtlessly cool to see animated in the signature DCAU art style if the stars had aligned.
Though Batman: The Animated Series doesn’t take this approach, many versions of Batman’s suit in various movies and TV shows depict it as being bulletproof, impervious to at least small arms fire. The glaring exception is the square chin and pouty lips sticking out of Batman’s cowl, a single vulnerable fleshy target for Batman’s villains to exploit. One controversial comic managed to come up with an answer for this weakness in the form of a clear, bulletproof face shield that protects Batman’s mouth.
Premiering in the one-off comic volume Batman: Odyssey, the bulletproof face shield comes into play when a common thug gets the bright idea to shoot Batman point-blank in the mouth. This prompts the Caped Crusader to use the voice-activated system that triggers the shield to come down, deflecting what appears to be a hefty caliber revolver shot even at point-blank range. As cool as this technology is, it might be a little too farfetched for Batman: The Animated Series, suspending disbelief too far while making Batman feel too powerful.
Regardless of whether it’s the League of Shadows or Ra’s al Ghul’s League of Assassins, Batman’s background in martial arts typically includes some degree of bladework to compliment his hand-to-hand skills. This makes it all the more puzzling that Batman isn’t usually depicted wielding a blade of any kind. Batman: The Animated Series was sure to give Bruce Wayne the occasional shirtless swordfight against Ra’s al Ghul himself, but missed out on an incredibly cool concept weapon for Batman that would be used in another cartoon later.
In Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Batman is seen frequently using a collapsible sword hidden within his utility belt. When unbuckling the belt, the length of the famous accessory becomes a sheath to a flexible blade that can be quickly drawn, glowing with some kind of blue energy. Of course, Batman only uses this against non-human opponents like robots he doesn’t feel bad about slicing in half, but it’s still an undeniably clever and impressive bit of gadgetry. It’s a shame Batman: The Animated Series wasn’t able to come up with the concept first.