Bruce Wayne, who we sometimes call Batman, is a lot of different things to many people. A philanthropist, a playboy, a father figure, a detective, a crime fighter, a vigilante...this is not an easy character to define with a single label. The fact is, he has a lot of different facets to his personality, and who he might be beneath the cowl is so often left unseen. Yet, none of his many facets appear to include being what we would define as being an ideal lifemate to his many partners, as he is already married to Batman.

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Famously troubled after the loss of his parents and spending much of his life in isolation, Bruce is decidedly unlucky in love. Indeed, he and Catwoman are such a great match due to their respective need for freedom, but that can be a double-edged sword. Falling regularly for women that either try to kill him, are killed by one of his many enemies, or both, Bruce has had a lot of loves, but none have managed to fully integrate into his strange, strange life. Still, some have succeeded more than others, and these are our underrated favorites.

Julie Madison

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First appearing in Detective Comics #31, actor Julie Madison was Batman's first love interest. Being engaged to beloved son of Gotham Bruce Wayne didn't do our girl many favors, though. She was not only unaware of his double life as Batman, she was also regularly put in danger by it quite often before being quickly written out of the book not long after her first appearance. Replicating the standard pulp trope, she felt that Bruce Wayne was a layabout while Batman was heroic and mysterious, leading to a series of misunderstandings that ultimately ended their relationship as she broke off the engagement.

Despite her early appearances not giving us much to run on, she has returned to the comics a handful of times, perhaps most notably in the New 52 reboot. Working at a clinic for youths living in poverty, an amnesiac Bruce joins her on the front lines by working under her. Naturally, none of this was destined to end well, and Julie vanished back into the background, but we're sure we haven't seen the last of this character whose personality tends to change to fit whatever a given story requires from her.

Chase Meridian

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Chase Meridian's official capacity was a psychoanalyst that worked in tandem with the Gotham Police Department, but she immediately crosses pretty much every professional boundary on the books within her first few minutes in the vicinity of Batman by aggressively coming onto him and misusing the Bat signal to flirt. Having made her first appearance in Batman Forever, she's had a surprising amount of staying power in that she's appeared occasionally in comics after the fact.

Though Chase's analysis was more hilarious than helpful, for instance when she deduced that Two-Face had some kind of fixation on doubles and that Batman surely had a deeply layered trauma underneath the bat costume, her appearances in one of the campiest of all the Batman films was not without its charm. Regardless of how fired she should be, she still manages to break through to Batman and nearly convince him to give up the suit forever only to immediately vanish at the close of the film. That's a Batman move right there, and we respect it.

Vicki Vale

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Several years after our girl Julie Madison had left the series, Vicki Vale made her first appearance in the pages of Batman #49 in 1948. She was a reporter that often engaged in hijinks attempting to uncover Batman's secret identity, making her a sort of redheaded mirror image to Lois Lane. Though she was dropped from the line in the 1960s, she's been around in various forms ever since.

Sure, Vale's early appearances posited her mostly as a Lois Lane double, but if that's all there was to her then we wouldn't have seen her pop up so regularly over the last many decades of continuity. The Tim Burton Batman (1989) reimagined Vicki and tweaked her image to keep it modern while she likewise made an appearance in the Batman: Arkham video game as well as The Batman vs. Dracula animated film.

Vesper Fairchild

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In the late '90s, Bruce had a short-lived affair with Vesper Fairchild, who flipped the script by quickly solving the mystery of Batman's secret identity not long after falling in love with Bruce Wayne. Though she was incredibly open with her feelings for him, he remains a fairly stand-offish guy, which frustrated her to no end. A major player during the earthquake that shook Gotham and led to the No Man's Land storyline.

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Vesper was ultimately fridged, as so many Batman love interests are. On the plus side, a lot of them eventually come back from the dead, so there's always hope we'll be seeing our beloved TV and radio personality again soon. Fans of the Arrowverse will be aware that she's popped up on the CW via the Batwoman series played by Rachel Maddow from time to time in the years since her demise.

Dr. Shondra Kinsolving

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Batman had a tragic childhood, but Shondra Kinsolving gave him a run for his money in that department, having been orphaned and then adopted by an abusive family. She changed her name and became a physiotherapist. After Bruce Wayne had his back broken by Bane, she helped him heal, and politely ignored the fact that Alfred lied and told her it was a car crash that left him nearly paralyzed. It's best not to go into what happened to Shondra after that because it's not pretty, but their fleeting attraction was great while it lasted.

There's no two ways of saying it, this character was treated incredibly badly, and she deserved a whole lot better from the franchise, especially after helping Batman recover from one of the most traumatic injuries of his life. Written out long ago, she was still an iconic character despite her brief appearances with a fascinating backstory and a level of resilience that few full-out superheroes possess. Here's hoping she'll show up again soon.

Lois Lane

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After Vicki Vale and Vesper Fairchild, Bruce Wayne dated another famous journalist you may have heard of that goes by the name of Lois Lane. Back in the made-for-TV animated film World's Finest, Bruce found himself visiting Metropolis and ended up forming a brief but mutually passionate interest in the Daily Planet's star reporter.

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Before she became the glue holding Superman & Lois together, Lois Lane was out here playing the field, and that meant ending up on a hot date with none other than Bruce Wayne. She and Clark were far from officially an item through the animated series, though Clark's reaction to Lois sliding out the door with Bruce shows that there is something more at play. In the end, Bruce loves Gotham like Lois loves journalism, so this love match was not meant to be.

Silver St. Cloud

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Batman has a lot of great love interests, but Bruce Wayne's best might have been Silver St. Cloud. A fun party girl known for hosting killer parties, she ultimately became a successful event planner. Silver is very much the one that got away, in that she discovers who Bruce really is and then breaks things off with him, knowing that she couldn't stand to worry about him night after night. This led to Bruce briefly losing his way and wondering if he should hang up the cape forever.

Silver is one of those characters that is so breezy and charming that she could easily lead up her own series, though it would likely not be a superhero book. She appeared briefly via the Gotham TV show, but this is another one of those characters we miss and would love to see more of. Infusing a sense of genuine fun and joy in the Batman franchise takes a particularly talented character, and whether she's romantically involved with Bruce or not, she's an asset.

Kathy Kane

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Before there was a Kate Kane Batwoman, there was Kathy Kane. This absolute charmer was part of the same family, but stood apart in that she was very rich and just decided to spend her fortune on setting up a neat circus that she performed in as a stunt person. Debuting in the 1950s, she was very much a match for the stoic, complex Batman.

Though things were not meant to be with Bruce and Kathy, their love affair was revisited later in writer Grant Morrison's run on Batman. He tells her she can't be Batwoman and she disagrees, telling him she's better at everything than he is and asking if he wants to team up. This move is pure excellence, and Kathy remains one of comics' unsung greats.

Rachel Dawes

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The Christopher Nolan Dark Knight films are some of the most influential takes on the hero, and it's true that they gave us a different Batman than we'd seen before. Leaning into gear and pushing a love story with his childhood friend Rachel, this was a much more repressed Bruce than the one we'd last seen on the big screen with Batman & Robin. A major part of the personality shift was his responses to Rachel, who often called him out for his hubris in a way that was both gentle and strict.

Bruce pined for Rachel endlessly throughout the trilogy, but the two always had a complicated relationship. For her part, Rachel seemed happier working on the side of the law, fighting corruption from within, and generally disapproved of Bruce's bat fixation. Naturally, anyone who has seen the films knows that things didn't end great, but Rachel was a major part of what made those movies great.

Nocturna

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Going against type for a bit, Batman dated a full-out vampire for a while. Nocturna was adopted by a criminal as a child, but declined to carry out his life of crime after he passed, choosing instead to become interested in STEM pursuits. After getting hit by a laser, she developed a skin condition and an aversion to sunlight, making her the rare vampire that was turned by being zapped.

Nocturna later returned to the pages of Batwoman with little of the nuance that made her such a compelling character in her early days. Because the two had fairly little in common, it's easy to regard this character as a new one entirely. Still, in either version, she was still a cool-looking vampire who dated a Batperson, and that's just neat.

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