Despite being the poster boy for lonely, brooding superheroes, Batman has one of the biggest supporting casts of sidekicks and allies in comic book history. As The LEGO Batman Movie so insightfully pointed out, Bruce Wayne lost his biological family as a boy and so has built up his own surrogate family in adulthood.
But what constitutes a sidekick? For this list, we’re defining the term as any costumed character who routinely acts as Batman’s partner in crime-fighting. Thereby, plain clothes characters who don’t usually help in the field are disqualified – so commiserations to Commissioner Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth. Likewise, the same goes for those Batfamily-related heroes who are more known for operating independently of the Dark Knight, like Terry McGinnis’ Batman, Huntress and Batwoman.
But even with these exclusions, the Caped Crusader still has more sidekicks than batarangs. There’s Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael), Gotham Girl (Claire Clover) and most recently, Duke Thomas, the yelllow-suited sidekick who’s gone by the superhero names Lark and The Signal.
But if none of these characters made it into the top 10 Batman sidekicks of all-time, then who did? Read on to find out…