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Of course if Batman is also a superhero like Superman etc, he should save the earth from dangerous enemies.

So why is Batman restricted to Gotham city?

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    Nitpick - Batman is not a superhero in the sense that he has mutant powers. He's "just" a fabulously wealthy, super intelligent, battle-trained gadget genius. A lot like Iron Man. :)
    – Reinstate Monica - Goodbye SE
    Mar 18, 2015 at 9:33
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    Batman is restricted to nothing! And why should he save the earth? I question all of your premises.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Mar 18, 2015 at 9:34
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    Bruce Wayne may focus his time in Gotham, but he set up Batmen all around the world..
    – phantom42
    Mar 18, 2015 at 11:54
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    Could it be because he has no superpowers (like fast travel, teleportation/etc.) and can only be present at one place at a time? He did travel around the globe when it was necessary, only he can't be present everywhere. You see supes can fly around the globe in a few seconds, the Flash is even faster, but even they operate mostly in their own territories.
    – mg30rg
    Mar 18, 2015 at 15:51
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    His insurance company won't cover the Batmobile outside the city limits.
    – Matt Gutting
    Mar 18, 2015 at 17:04

4 Answers 4

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Every superhero began from somewhere. Batman had his origins in Gotham because it was a city that needed a symbol, a savior who selflessly acted right no matter what. Superman began from Metropolis that way, etc.

But when you look at DC heroes from the context of Justice League, you see that they leave and save the planet from bigger problems. Batman too has his part (a big one) in Justice League. He has traveled to multiple planets, timelines and universes.

So, it'd be wrong to say he operates only in Gotham.

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I've never read any Batman, so I can only talk about the movies, however from The Dark Knight

JOKER: Batman has no jurisdiction.

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    And indeed in The Dark Knight he goes to Hong Kong to retrieve Lau.
    – Paul D. Waite
    Mar 18, 2015 at 9:46
  • The Joker says something very similar in the animated Batman/Superman crossover, regarding whether or not Batman will show up in Metropolis.
    – Zibbobz
    Mar 18, 2015 at 14:13
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    Good answer, but maybe add the previous lines because as written it could sound like you're saying "Batman has no jurisdiction in Hong Kong"
    – The Fallen
    Mar 18, 2015 at 20:31
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I agree with the answers above, but I think there are some legitimate reasons why Batman is restricted to Gotham city.

  1. Unlike Superman and other heroes of the Marvel and DC universe, Batman is "mortal" - he doesn't have superpowers, just finely honed human skills and enough resources to build tools to extend his skills.
  2. Given that Gotham is in enough trouble most of the time, Batman is probably busy enough keeping Gotham and its citizens safe.
  3. Gotham is a pretty major city in the DC Comics world (its reputed to based on the early 20th century version of New York City) with a large population, so keeping it safe is pretty important to not only the people who live in the city, but for others as well. (Proof: in "The Dark Knight Rises" film, when Gotham is under siege, the entire world pays attention to what Bane and his men are doing in the city.)
  4. As others have pointed out, Batman does go outside Gotham when needed.
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    I like the implication that smaller cities would be ignored if Bane cut them off and ran them as a warlord. "Tulsa? Eh. Let him keep it."
    – zeldredge
    Mar 19, 2015 at 3:24
  • A terrorist was threatening to blow up a city with a nuclear weapon. If it was a town in a minor country that they were threatening people would still listen as nuclear weapons are a big deal.
    – PointlessSpike
    Mar 19, 2015 at 12:52
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First of all, for the majority of the more character-based analysis part of this answer I'll concentrate on Batman's latest incarnation in form of Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy as an example, so it may only be a partial answer in this regard. But I'd wager those movies' characterization of Batman is not entirely without comic precedent either.

In those movies it is made pretty clear that Bruce Wayne has a very strong bond with his city and a conviction for its well-being, one that carried over from his parents and was strengthened by their death and thus the certain death of their legacy of trying to improve Gotham. This is what drives him to make the city a better place by fighting crime and injustice there. And afterall the Nolan movies are very much about the fate of Gotham City in general and Bruce/Batman as its saviour. He just does not have much interest in saving the whole world, it's primarily his city that he wants to salvage from its demise.

And as a more general answer from someone only superficially informed about superheroes, there are many instances of superheroes concentrating their efforts on the home town only, which has not only the advantage of the hero's familiarity with the sourroundings, but also the readers' and writers' of having a common ground and environment for the hero to work in. This is not so different for Superman and his work in Metropolis, to employ your specific counter-example.

And for further out-of-universe analysis, in this regard the environment of the hero contributes as much to the atmosphere and themes as the stories themselves. Compare for example the bright and optimistic Man of Tomorrow to the brooding Dark Knight scaling the roofs of his gothic nightmare of a city. Especially for Batman Gotham and its out of control crime has always played a major role in setting the mood of his stories, from the corrpupt organized crime controlling the city, to the much more "small-scale" and psychologically characterized villains fitting to a more localized setting. Neither should Batman battle Darkseid on another planet, nor should Superman smash mobster goons in a back alley. ;-)

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  • But what drives Bruce is his guilt over the death of his parents; the location is incidental. He would have become Batman wherever he lived, be it Gotham, Metropolis, Starling City or Smallville.
    – PhilPursglove
    Mar 18, 2015 at 9:56
  • @PhilPursglove Sure, but he lived in Gotham City, so what? The question isn't why the Btaman comics don't take place in Metropolis (or I didn't understand it this way), which would be quite a useless question.
    – TARS
    Mar 18, 2015 at 9:57
  • Heard of Red Son Batman? This one happened to originate in Russia and became most wanted 20 years after his parents were gunned down by the Russian police.
    – Ranveer
    Mar 18, 2015 at 11:04
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    @PhilPursglove: Sure - and to deal with this guilt, he feels the urge to fight the "entity" responsible for the death of his parents. That "entity" being petty and organized crime of Gotham. I think it's implied on various occasions at least during the (older and newer) films that it's not simply the "normal" degree of crime found in any larger city, but that Gotham is a particularly rotten place that is completely infested with crime. Thus, it could be said Batman's goal is not to "fight crime in some larger city", but to "fight crime in the criminal nucleus that is Gotham".
    – O. R. Mapper
    Mar 18, 2015 at 12:58
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    In Nolan's movies, Thomas Wayne was using his wealth to try to make Gotham a better place. The train in Batman begins is a part of this project. When Bruce comes back to Gotham after his training with Ra's Al Gul, Rachel (I think) tells him that criminality had reached an unseen level during his absence (basically, Gordon and her are the only persons that still fight to keep things under a semblance of control). In a sense, Batman is not fighting to save a random sin city, but continuing the fight of his father.
    – Taladris
    Mar 19, 2015 at 3:23