When the new Batman film, The Dark Knight, opens on July 24, Hollywood pundits expect it to break all box-office records - as well as attracting more female viewers. It arrives in a blaze of publicity of the most unfortunate kind, thanks to the untimely death of Heath Ledger in January. The star was chosen to play the super-villain the Joker after the director Christopher Nolan admired his “lack of vanity” in Brokeback Mountain, and his total absorption into the role of the gay cowboy. Some speculated, after Ledger's accidental overdose on prescription pills, that the absorption went too far.

This Joker is, in Ledger's words, a “psychopathic, mass murdering, schizophrenic clown with zero empathy”, far removed from Jack Nicholson's Cheshire Cat portrayal in the 1989 blockbuster. To achieve the necessary mental dislocation, Ledger spent a month alone in a hotel room, working on his character, his voice, and an unhinged cackle that sends a shiver up the spine. His inspirations included A Clockwork Orange and Pete Doherty, and his slowly decaying make-up, with a livid red lipstick slash and heavily blacked-out eyes, make him look like some doomed indie-Gothic junkie-poet.

Michael Caine, who again plays Batman's butler Alfred, said Ledger's performance was so frightening he sometimes forgot his lines. Christian Bale, who plays Batman, found a kindred spirit - another actor prepared to undergo an extreme mental and physical transformation for his roles.

It's all a long way from the Biffs and Pows of the 1960s TV series, so fondly recalled by those of a certain generation that an Italian newspaper referred to “the three Bs of the Sixties: Beatles, Bond and Batman”. Yet Nolan's vision reflects the Batman that has become one of the most flawed and fascinating icons in the comic-book pantheon. This Batman is a morally ambiguous loner, consumed with violent hatred for the criminals who shot his parents. He has no superpowers, and so is vulnerable and able to feel pain. However, he is rich enough to invent fantastic gadgets, and disciplined enough to train his body to tremendous feats.

Heath Ledger tipped for Oscar

Black carpet rolled out and talk of a posthumous Oscar at the unveiling of Heath Ledger film The Dark Knight

• The Dark Knight: the first review

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• Dark Knight trailer

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Background

• Final farewell to Heath Ledger

• Batman Begins

• Who is the best big-screen comic book hero?

Related Internet Links

• 10 things that make Dark Knight the best Batman ever

• Interview: Batman's Special Effects wizard

• Batman Begins: Blu-ray competition

Will the real Batman please stand up? Here, then, is a behind-the-scenes guide to the Five Ages of Batman. Like the Sixties series, it comes complete with shadowy corporate villains, seemingly fatal cliffhangers and, in the shape of the imminent Dark Knight movie, a happy ending - for everyone but the troubled actor playing Batman's nemesis.

THOSE FOOLISH FORTIES

Batman (1943) and Batman and Robin (1949)

These two 15-episode serials, made for the big screen, are so bad as to be hilarious. The costumes don't fit; special effects are non-existent; Batman and Robin drive around not in any kind of supercar, but in an ordinary black Cadillac (1943) and a Mercury convertible (1949). All in glorious monochrome. Yet a lot of key Batman elements began here: Commissioner Gordon; Alfred the butler; the Batcave; and most importantly, a gigantic jaw, good for jutting out forcefully from under a cowl. The 1943 series is the racier, a piece of wartime propaganda in which the chief villain is a Japanese agent called Daka. The 1949 series introduces the Batsignal, and the concept of a hooded supervillain (“The Wizard”).

WHOLLY CAMP, BATMAN!

The TV series (1966-68)

It's hard to believe that anyone could ever again think it wise to film a man and his teenage sidekick in panto costumes. And yet the 1960s TV serial owes its existence directly to those 1940s movies: an ABC executive attended some riotous late-night screenings at the original Playboy Club in Chicago, and deduced that a remake could attract a following.

Cashing in on Pop Art's obsession with comic-book stylings, the series was hip and knowing for grown-ups - and unbearably exciting for young kids glued to the cliffhanger endings: “Tune in tomorrow, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.”

Biff! Pow! To the batcave, Robin! Holly Halloween, Batman! The show that launched a thousand catchphrases actually had very high production values. When ABC cancelled the series after 120 episodes, NBC tried to buy the rights, but pulled out when it discovered the set had been destroyed. It would have cost $800,000 to rebuild it.

This was also the dawn of colour television and the show's garish costumes and backdrops were made for it. Finally, there was some top-notch hamming from the villains, notably Cesar Romero as the Joker, Burgess Meredith as the Penguin, and Eartha Kitt (who replaced Julie Newmar in series three) as the purringest Catwoman ever.

Batman (Adam West) and Robin (Burt Ward) also starred in a still entertaining big-screen spin-off filmed on an even bigger budget. Added to the Batmobile, which was a converted 1955 Lincoln Futura, was a Batcycle, Batboat and Batcopter. The Penguin got his own submarine, and Batman unleashed the most surreal of all the suspiciously convenient Batgadgets in his “utility belt”: a can of Shark Repellent Batspray.

GOING FOR A BURTON

Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992)

The Batman TV series made $80 million in merchandising in a single year - much more than even James Bond. Obviously execs were desperate to bring Batman back. But the 1960 series was still fresh in the mind: too camp, too hokey. Who could take the Caped Crusader seriously? One man changed all that. Frank Miller, now better known as the creator of 300 and Sin City, banished all thoughts of camp with his 1986 graphic novel Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. It posited an older and embittered Batman, bordering on the psychotic, engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the Joker.

The book was a critical and commercial smash, and plans were laid for a film. Adam West, now 58, lobbied to reprise the role, which would have suited the Dark Knight Returns storyline. I met him in 1988, when Britain was again gripped by Batmania (TV-am's ratings leapt 25 per cent after screening the Sixties episodes), and he sounded as though he'd given it considerable thought: “In the final scenes of the film, if it's bizarre and mysterious, you can still have Alfred the butler driving the old Batmobile to the rescue. We'd have been using all hi-tech, wonderful slick new stuff, and at the critical moment, there's Alfred, driving the old Batmobile. People would stand up and cheer.”

But no. The maverick director Tim Burton had other ideas, casting the indifferently chinned comedian Michael Keaton as the dark avenger, a decision that attracted 50,000 protest letters. It didn't matter. The film was the runaway blockbuster of 1989, and merchandise revenues alone topped $750 million. It had songs by Prince, then the hippest musician on the planet; extraordinary sets by the troubled Anton Furst, who two years later would leap eight floors to his death; and Jack Nicholson's famous grin.

Even so, it's not particularly good. There are strange holes in the plot where the producer Jon Peters and Tim Burton didn't see eye to eye, and Kim Basinger, then the producer's real-life girlfriend, is a waste of space.

Burton's sequel, Batman Returns (1992), is infinitely more watchable. Danny DeVito delivers a terrific performance as the Penguin. As for Michelle Pfeiffer, dressed in skin-tight rubber, licking Batman's face, and kick-boxing on a sloping roof ... we'll let one of the enthusiastic audience members at the first American preview sum it up. “She's hot! She's really hot!” came an over-refreshed cry from the front row, startling the convocation of European journalists. “Aooooow! Man, that chick is hot!”

Meanwhile, the men in suits made licensing deals with 130 companies, while conveniently merchandisable additions to the Batarsenal included computerised Batarangs, a Batglider and a Batboat.

SNOWED UNDER IN BASE CAMP

Batman Forever (1995) and

Batman and Robin (1997)

Oh dear. Oh dear oh dear. This is when the toy manufacturers and bean counters took over completely. The darker, more adult stylings of Burton's Batman gave way to a campy, colourful aesthetic, chasing a younger demographic. Batman's youthful ward, Robin, whom Burton had successfully fought against including, makes his first appearance. Jim Carrey is let loose to do his crazy Carrey shtick as the Riddler. And of course the Batsuits, Batmobile and Batcave had to be completely redesigned: how else could they sell new lines of toys, sorry, allow the new director, Joel Schumacher, to express his artistic vision?

For critics, this is the moment the Batman franchise went tits-up - literally. Schumacher, who had worked as a costume designer before becoming a director, added noticeable nipples to the new Batsuits as well as giant codpieces. But viewers lapped it up and the movie made even more cash than Batman Returns.

In fairness, Carrey is never less than watchable. Val Kilmer, replacing Keaton as Batman, was adequate, though famously difficult to work with. But Tommy Lee Jones never quite convinced as the coin-flipping villain Two-Face, and the film was further dumbed down by a late decision by the studio to cut half an hour of Batman character development from the film.

As for Batman and Robin (1997), not even the Great American Public could stomach this witless and pointlessly gadget-laden farrago. It did so badly at the box office that a projected fifth movie was summarily cancelled. Arnold Schwarzenegger, whose box-office muscle was already flagging, played the not-quite-evil villain Mr Freeze, complete with atrocious Austrian-accented puns: “You're not sending me to the cooler”; or “The Iceman Cometh”. As if you could believe he was a Eugene O'Neill devotee.

Uma Thurman looked uncomfortable to be just playing sexy as Poison Ivy, delivering innuendo-laden lines about her “honey-pot”. George Clooney, too, was unusually uncharismatic as the man in the sweaty rubber suit. He has since enjoyed referring to himself wryly as the man who killed the Batman franchise.

BAT TO BASICS

Batman Begins (2005) and

The Dark Knight (2008)

In the end, you can't keep a good multibillion-dollar franchise down. Strangely enough, before the men in suits changed his mind, Schumacher had wanted to make a Batman origin story based on Frank Miller's graphic novel Batman: Year Zero. This now helped to inspire a complete “reboot” helmed by Christopher Nolan.

Memento, a film told backwards about a hero with acute memory problems, made Nolan one of the most respected directors around. And Christian Bale, who signed up soon after, had long been a fan favourite to play Batman. Having starved himself to a skeleton for The Machinist, this extraordinarily versatile and dedicated actor now piled on 100lb of muscle in two months. Technological developments also permitted a Batsuit you could move and act in (previous suits had been stiff and weighed 90lb). The omens were good but could this talented team jump-start Batman's nearly lifeless body?

The resulting film, Batman Begins (2005), is close to a triumph. It takes the trouble to show Batman's origin in some detail: his hatred of crime after seeing his parents gunned down before him; his initial fear of, and eventual fascination for, bats; his apprenticeship in martial arts. For the first time you can really buy into what is otherwise, let's face it, a ludicrous premise for a film: that a millionaire playboy would dress as a bat by night and fight crime.

And now we can hardly wait for The Dark Knight, though Ledger's death has produced a buzz around the film that nobody wanted.

Katie Holmes, whose vapid non-performance as Bruce Wayne's love interest was a weak link in Batman Begins, is replaced by the feisty indie actress Maggie Gyllenhaal, and Christian Bale has more freedom thanks to further refinements in that hated Batsuit. And though Nolan is keeping the tone as dark as the title would suggest, even the men from Mattel are happy: there are many nifty new gadgets, including a new-look Batcycle called the Batpod.

The director and comics aficionado Kevin Smith has called Dark Knight “The Godfather II of comic-book movies”; every early review has been positive. So it's official. Nearly 70 years on, the bat is back. And this time, it really is for ever.

The Dark Knight is released nationwide on July 24

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