Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight franchise is composed of a live-action DC trilogy and a secret fourth movie that provided a perfect explanation for how Batman recovered from his grievous back injury four years prior. The trilogy opened with Batman Begins in 2005, followed by The Dark Knight in 2008, and concluded with The Dark Knight Rises in 2012. Before retiring Christian Bale’s Batman, The Dark Knight Rises saw him defeated by his most physically intimidating adversary yet, Bane, and broken his back on his knee.
However, the movie does not explain how Batman was able to recover from his severe injury within a matter of weeks. Thankfully, an animated anthology movie, Batman: Gotham Knight, provides a canon explanation for Batman’s speedy recovery. The movie, which takes place between the events of Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, depicts Batman establishing himself as Gotham’s protector.
One of the short films in the anthology, Working Through Pain, shows Batman taking a bullet to the stomach and cauterizing the wound. The flashbacks depict how Bruce Wayne, with the help of his mentor Cassandra, learned to subdue pain to a degree where he had control over it. When Bruce’s vertebra is fixed by a fellow prisoner in a procedure that causes significant pain in The Dark Knight Rises, his mastery over pain must have hastened his recovery.
The events of Batman: Gotham Knight occurred at least four years before Batman’s serious injury in The Dark Knight Rises, making it canonically possible for Batman to withstand immense pain and recover quicker than most other people. Despite this, most audiences are only familiar with Batman’s more obvious abilities, such as his genius intellect and hand-to-hand abilities. The explanation for Batman’s recovery in The Dark Knight Rises is not well-known, as the animated anthology was released straight-to-video and not widely publicized.