Batman's Most Iconic Line Hits Hard 20 Years Later

For every costumed superhero recognized and adored around the world, there is guaranteed to be a spoken line, a motto, or single quotation fans celebrate above all others. Spider-Man has his "great responsibility," and Captain America "can do this all day," but the greatest line uttered by Batman did more than just embody his values or mission. When it was dropped in 2004, it helped redefine the nature of Bruce Wayne's famous "mask" for the coming century.

Batman Is Bruce Wayne's True Face, Not A Mask He Wears

The Dual Identity is Now Famous, But A Shockingly Recent Concept

In the long history of costumed superheroes, the genre or concept itself spelled out the nature of the story: an ordinary man or woman who put on a costume to play the role of a superhero. Bruce Wayne dressed up to play Batman, Peter Parker dressed up to play Spider-Man, along with countless others who treated their costumed alter egos as a uniform, adorned for a different duty. While there were few exceptions (Superman chief among them), the nature of the escapist fantasy demanded the heroes were, more or less, relatable to readers.

But the dark and tormented nature of Bruce Wayne blurred the lines more and more as the 21st century approached, as more and more storytellers questioned not just where the billionaire playboy felt most useful, but most like himself. And in Batman #624 (2004) by Brian Azzarello and Eduardo Risso, the concept of Batman's mask was rewritten through Bruce's own internal dialogue:

"I wear a mask. And that mask, it's not to hide who I am, but to create what I am."

The nature of a 'secret identity' has been in flux almost since it was introduced even prior to the superhero formula launched in the 1930s, but no superhero has so directly challenged the idea like Bruce Wayne. A man who created a terrifying identity as a beast of the night, not to simply scare criminals, but to outwardly reflect who he really was. A true face, since his real one no longer showed who he was deep down.

How The 'Mask' of Batman Was Rewritten in Modern Pop Culture

It's hard to believe for current fans, but this subversive idea of Bruce/Batman's dual nature was not yet formalized, set in stone, or widely agreed upon (let alone 'canon') when Batman Begins (2005) put the concept into words. As Rachel Dawes (Katie Holmes) suggested to her old friend Bruce (Christian Bale) in the film's final scene, the billionaire's clean-shaven, smiling face "...is your mask. Your real face is the one that criminals now fear." Not a new idea, but the first time it was alleged to millions of fans around the world so concisely.

Ironically, many could argue this duality was actually less true of Bale's incarnation version than most, with director Chistopher Nolan deconstructing the 'Batman' identity to an engineered, refined, and theatrical performance like never before (and concluding his trilogy by directly refuting the idea). But if anyone helped prepare fans for the idea that 'Bruce is the mask, Batman's the real person,' that honor must belong to Kevin Conroy.

The late voice actor embodied Bruce Wayne first in Batman: The Animated Series, followed soon after by almost every incarnation of the hero in TV, animated films, video games, and more. And it was Conroy who not only executed the dichotomy between Bruce and Batman to perfection, but did so by emphasizing Wayne, the billionaire socialite, as the theatrical disguise. Even without the words to describe it, millions of children, young adults, and parents came to understand Conroy's assertion: Batman is what Bruce created to be completely himself, making it less of a costume than his beaming smile and tuxedo.

This brilliant distillation of a powerful notion from Batman's comic history changed the character forever. And just as Azzarello's dialogue wrote down on paper what so many fans were now thinking, the reversed nature of Batman would soon be echoed louder and louder, eventually becoming all but canonical for the modern age of Batman. Not as costume to scare criminals, but Bruce Wayne's attempt to "create what I am" at heart.