Before 1989 the only image of Batman that most of us had was good-old Adam West in his tights, silk pants and Bat ears - hardly an image to chill the hearts of wrongdoers. One man was to change all that, and that man was Tim Burton.

In one tragic moment he saw his world fall apart and his destiny set, as his inheritance allowed him to devote his life by day to philanthropic causes, and by night to defeating evil in all its dastardly forms, thanks to his awesome alter ego. And, just as the Salkinds had had to redefine Superman for a whole new audience some ten years before, so Burton and his crew were looking to make a Batman for the 80's and 90's.

Tim Burton's analysis of the criteria for the role perhaps unwittingly foresaw the dispensable nature of any star taking on the role - a character often hidden under layers of latex and rubber. As it was, Burton pulled a major surprise by casting Michael Keaton, a popular light comedian whose only significant foray into drama came when he played a yuppie drug tortured character in the little seen Clear & Sober. Here he was another tortured character, but in a tone and genre a world away from Batman.

''Our Batman is not someone from another planet who has superpowers,'' Burton stated at the time, ''he's someone who's just very uncommon. It would have been easy to go for a square jawed hulk, but if some guy is 6' 5'' with gigantic muscles and incredibly handsome why would he need to put on an armoured Batsuit with an arsenal of weapons and gadgets? Why wouldn't he just put on a ski-mask and beat the living daylights out of the bad guys?''

With Batman's worldwide popularity today, it may be difficult to believe there was a time when he had a low profile, but the Dark Knight took about 25 years to reach icon status. This is not to say that Batman did not get off to a good start. After only eight appearances, he became the mainstay on covers of Detective Comics, then earned his own title in 1940, had his own newspaper strip in 1943, and surfaced on movie screens with two 15-chapter serials, in 1943 and 1949.

A major portion of Batman's appeal stems from the fact that he is a regular guy. Maybe an unusually well-disciplined regular guy, he nevertheless remains earth-bound like the rest of us, even if he is a millionaire. Batman is not interplanetary, nor does he possess traditional superpowers, yet vast knowledge, resources, and finely tuned skills make him a highly determined and virtually unconquerable opponent.

It is generally acknowledged that cartoonist Bob Kane developed the character, although the Dark Knight that first appeared in print (''The Case of the Chemical Syndicate'', in Detective Comics#27) was actually a collaborative effort between Kane and Bill Finger, who wrote Batman's first two adventures and later chronicled some of the most memorable villains, plots, and sets.

The comic books chronicle the adventures of Bruce Wayne, who as a boy experienced the trauma of seeing his parents murdered on a dark city street. The orphaned Wayne developed his detective skills over a 15-year period, until a bat flew into his study one evening - the omen he needed to adopt his crimefighting persona. Combining a strong sense of honesty and justice, the Dark Knight became an obsessed, relentless, and potentially lethal fighting machine (although later interpretations assumed a personal code against killing). An unequaled tactician and strategist, he is also expert at disguises and a master of nearly all forms of physical combat. With a variety of high-tech equipment and weaponry at his disposal.

Batman fought crime solo for 11 adventures before Robin was introduced. Like Wayne, Dick Grayson suffered the loss of his parents, who were murdered by gangsters. Grayson became Robin the Boy Wonder and, alongside Batman, brought his parents' assailants to justice. Although Bruce Wayne's bachelor status made adoption impossible, Grayson became his legal ward. Significantly, Robin was the comics' first super-hero boy sidekick, soon to be followed by Bucky, Toro, Sandy and other imitators.