OK, in the comics, how old are Batman and Nightwing supposed to be?

Question

Hey everybody, great answers! This is an extremely tough one to pick a single answer on. It's kinda cool to think that Batman is over 40 and still kickng butt.

Answer 1

I'd say Batman is over 40.

Nightwing is in his early 20's

Answer 2

Batman would have to be in his late 30s early 40s. Nightwing would be in his mid 20s.

Answer 3

Bruce Wayne was allegedly in his early 20s when he first encountered a 12 year old Dick Grayson.
Batman has been established in his very early 30s and Nightwing in his very early 20s now, but you do have to remember that comic book time is nowhere near as accurate as our time.
After all, Batman has been around since 1939 and as the first Robin, Dick has been in the comics since 1941.

Answer 4

Nightwing was supposedly between 19-22.

For Batman, no age is really given, true.... but if you do the math (the time between his parents were murdered and he became batman) he should be in his early-to-mid 30's.

Alfred doesn't really ever seem to age though, does he? He's got Dick Clark syndrome.

Answer 5

It depends. If you are talking the All Star Line Batman is younger.
Nightwing does not exists in AllStar Batman. And in some of the discontunitious stuff They are even older. But in mainstream continuity, the above answer is correct.Nightwing is not a teenager.

Answer 6

Bats = 35-45
Nightwing = early 20s

Answer 7

nightwing was a teenager -- no age ever given on Batman

Answer 8

mid 20's

Answer 9

Actually, like one Answerer already noted about Alfred, comic book characters in general get this "Dick Clark" syndrome going wherein they just *do not* age in real time. And this is just plain true of comic book characters in general, and the only way I can figure it out is that if you were to take any given issue of a comic, and say, "ok, this is the most exciting weekend of the month" of a characters life (assuming a monthly comic, with a bi-weekly it would be more like, "most exciting *day* in a two-week period"), and then just work from there, that comic time *can* pass up to four times more *slowly* than real time if need be (story arcs and all that)....

Still, having said all that. Batman has been around a *really* long time, even this particular version of Bruce Wayne. We *know* the man is "past his prime" courtesy of that back-breaking he got from Bane a while back (tongue-twister alert!).

So...given that and given the way *rich men* and *athletes* both have this obnoxious habit of looking way younger and better preserved than what they are...

I'll say it. Bruce Wayne is 50. This puts Dick Grayson somewhere around 27 I'd say. Why?

Check the clothes that ol' Brucie's parents *died* in, lately during retellings of the origin story, the parents are seen, they are looking like they are in their 30s to 40s, wearing the kinds of posh clothes folks *of that age* would wear back in the 1950s or 1960s, which is to say, somewhat *retro* for that day, more like clothes were in the 1940s.

Ok, now assume Bruce is about six or seven back then...how long *would* it take for Bruce to a) get through boarding school to get his education and *get legal access* to the Wayne trust fund, b) get access to the tech, training and experience?

We're talking a minimum, if he's seven on the day his parents died, of fourteen years to get *started* on his way to become the Batman....at the age of 21 he gets control of the money. Then you add in a minimum of five years to get in the martial arts training, assuming he trains twice a day, *seven days a week*, which would get him either black-sash rank in an *alive trained* school of gung fu, or multiple black belts in some Japanese systems....Add that he is likely building up the Wayne Corporation into a multi-billion dollar behemoth in his spare cycles at the same time to *switch gears* for the company, since his dad's company dealt mainly in pharmaceuticals where Bruce's company is mainly a military contractor.....

Add in another four years for that "journey of self-discovery" around the world to find out more about both himself and the darkness he faces....

And he *starts* being the Batman at age 30. At a minimum. Because it takes *time* to get that damned good, and having no real applicable superpowers[%] on the streets of Gotham/New York/whatever means you are taking a big risk as it is, and therefore not open to taking bigger ones by not knowing what you are doing.

Assume he finds young Dick Grayson, at the age of six or seven himself, two years in, after figuring out that yes, even the Batman needs a pair of eyes to watch his back....Say Grayson starts training five to seven days a week as well, gets to be Robin after his first year around Wayne Manor....This puts Batman at 33, Robin at around eight. Ten years in, Robin gets fired for being too old for the elf-shoes, so to speak, which puts Bats at 43, Robin at 18.

Now, how many years ago was it when Dick got kicked, and had to become Nightwing? Some 20 years ago real time, sooo....cut that in *half* let's say for comics time?

And there you go. And here I was low-balling how old those two freaks are. :p

[%]--and yes, the Batman *does* have *a* super-power. Exactly one. He has to in order to both *be* the Batman and also remain a successful businessman, to the point of *buying out Lex Luthor* as he did in DC's Superman/Batman, _Public Enemies_.

The Batman DOES NOT SLEEP. Period. Or to be more precise, his super-power is a Fiona Apple lyric, he doesn't need to sleep to dream. He does an esoteric Tibetan meditation for 30 minutes every 24 hours to get in his REM cycles, then once every 3 to 4 days he gets in 3-4 hours of bodily sleep to both keep from crashing due to exhaustion, and to pass for normal in his travels and/or exposure to the rare houseguest....

And that is it. :)