Trial Royale: The Best Batman Ever, Round One—20th Century Division

This week, Dave, Neil, and Joanna kick off another Trial Royale! In this multi-week series, they’ll be pitting several on-screen Batmans from over the years against each other to determine the best Batman ever. First up is the 20th century division.

First, they recap the results from the last episode on the greatest opening weekend double feature ever, check in on their 2023 Movie Bet, and explain what inspired this Trial Royale (1:58). Next, Neil gives a brief history lesson on the Caped Crusader and his comic book origin, before walking through a series of pretrial dismissals (25:08). Later, they reveal their picks for the best 20th century Batman, as well as choose a listener submission to add to the final poll (49:17).

Now it’s up to you to decide! Who is the best Batman of the 20th century? You can vote for the winner at TheRinger.com, on The Ringer’s Twitter feed, and in the Spotify app, where you’ll find ‘Trial by Content.’ The winner will be announced on the next episode!

You can send your picks for the next topic and a few sentences to support your pick to [email protected]. You can also submit suggestions for future ‘Trial By Content’ topics. Is there a great pop culture debate that you’d like us to settle? Send it on over!

Hosts: Dave Gonzales, Joanna Robinson, and Neil Miller

Production: Kai Grady and Carlos Chiriboga

Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal

Theme song and other music credits: Devon Renaldo

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