Batman of Zur‑En‑Arrh

Introduced in a 1958 Silver Age tale (Batman #113) as Tlano, an alien from the planet Zur‑En‑Arrh who decides to become a version of Batman for his own world and who, during that story, grants Earth's Batman temporary Superman‑like enhancements on Zur‑En‑Arrh. Decades later Grant Morrison and subsequent writers reworked the phrase into an in‑universe mnemonic and engineered backup personality: Bruce Wayne created the Zur‑En‑Arrh persona as a contingency against mental compromise, embedding the trigger (partly represented in continuity as arising from a childhood mishearing of 'Zorro in Arkham') and later using machines and procedures to lock or unlock that personality during storylines such as Batman #655 and Batman R.I.P.

Two linked visual templates appear in sources: Tlano, the Silver Age Zur‑En‑Arrh Batman, is depicted as an extraterrestrial heroic analogue (original story frames him as the Batman of Zur‑En‑Arrh). The modern Bruce Wayne–created Zur‑En‑Arrh persona dons a distinctive, ragged costume made of red, yellow, and purple rags referencing Tlano's outfit; this costume contrasts with Bruce Wayne's standard dark Batman gear and is used to signal the backup persona's emergence.

In the Silver Age tale Earth's Batman temporarily acquires enhanced, Superman‑like abilities while on the planet Zur‑En‑Arrh due to that world's conditions; Tlano functions as an allied heroic analogue in that narrative. In the modern reinterpretation Zur‑En‑Arrh is primarily a post‑hypnotic/engineered backup personality: it can take control of Bruce Wayne under certain triggers or when Bruce's mind is compromised, acts with greater violence and willingness to torture or kill than standard Batman, has created contingency devices (for example, the robot Failsafe in later narratives), and can be contained or 'locked' by technological and psychological means. Bat‑Mite appears as a hallucinated counselor to the Zur persona in Morrison-era storytelling.