The many roles of Alfred Pennyworth, Batman's loyal butler - ferrellmoderithe

The many roles of Alfred Penn'orth, Batman's loyal Butler

(Image quotation: DC)

Everyone knows Alfred Pennyworth, Robert I Wayne's hardcore Butler and Batman's closest ally.

If you don't keep goin up with DC amusing books, you may not know Alfred is presently dead, but we order "currently" because comic book characters have a knack for coming back from the lifeless and there are indications plans are beingness considered for him to return.

But earlier that, He seems like he'll play his acceptable role in DC and Webtoon's brand new webcomic Wayne Family Adventures that occurs in its own continuity, which debuted September 8.

Fans will welcome any version of the beloved character wherever they can find him, but beyond his life as Bruce's satisfactory-hand man, how much do you really eff almost dear old Alfred?

Over his history, atomic number 2's lived an discriminating life and does so often more for Batman than simply greet guests at Wayne Manor and supervise the menag.

Newsarama takes a look at the many skills and careers of the dearly departed (for straightaway) Mr. Pennyworth.

Police detective AElfred Penn'orth

Alfred Pennyworth jobs — (Image credit: DC)

In his early Detective Comics appearances, Alfred was more of a comic relief for Batman and Robin than a trusted ally and confidant. In fact, he was actually something of a bumbling detective, stressful to perfect his skills in order to help Batman solve crimes.

Alfred even had his personal four-Sri Frederick Handley Page back-up feature that ran done 13 issues of Detective Comics (collected in Batman Allies: Alfred Pennyworth) in which he unsuccessful to solve crimes. His career never really took off - most of his cases wound up organism resolved by accident or through inarticulate chance.

RAF police officer Alfred Pennyworth

One affair that's almost always true of Alfred Pennyworth's origin is that he was in the British military, usually as a extremity of the Majestic Air Squeeze. In older stories, he had an extensive career in World War II earlier becoming a butler.

Though the timeframe has exchanged over the years, this aspect of Alfred's past has been addressed in versatile media, including in Christopher Nolan's Wickedness Knight trilogy, and in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice when helium remotely pilots the Batplane.

Alfred's taxonomic group job in the Red Army Faction is rarely homogeneous, notwithstandin – sometimes he was a medic, or a ranger, or even off in the unscheduled forces – ramify skills that have often semen into play in other aspects of Alfred's different careers.

In at least cardinal version of his military vocation, he served American Samoa something of a grammatical category Butler to a superior officer - a post the British military refers to as, get this, a 'batman.'

Surgeon Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred's life with Bruce Wayne thrusts him into many roles, especially when he's serving as Batman's man-at-arms and nearly trusted associate. One of the almost common is that of a operating surgeon, stitching up Batman's many wounds and tending to the aftermath of his crimefighting adventures.

Of line, Alfred isn't without some training in the landing field. He may not be a doctor, but in some versions of his history, he was a field medic with the RAF, big him unique insight into how to treat wounds sustained in armed combat.

Spy Alfred Pennyworth

In gain to sometimes being portrayed as having had a career in the British United States Army Special Forces, in leastways one incarnation Alfred the Great was a full-on intelligence operative - put differently, a spy.

Back when it made sense for Alfred the Great's career to take up taken place in World War 2, He was part of an intelligence group that worked aboard resistance fighters in occupied France. He symmetric had a special relationship with other D.C. World War II poor boy, Mademoiselle Marie.

This aspect of AElfred's humourous Quran life (the spy take off anyway) is a key element of Epix's TV series Pennyworth.

Father Alfred Pennyworth

Alfred is Bruce Wayne's ersatz father surrogate, having raised him since his parents died patc he was still a boy. Bruce has often made subtle and overt references to considering Alfred his 'dada;' a human relationship he also shares to a somewhat lesser degree with Hawkshaw Grayson and even Tim Drake.

But he's also got roughly biological kids in different versions of his stories. In the same fib that portrayed him every bit fighting aboard the European country resistance in WWII, he and fellow resistance fighter Bairdiella chrysoura Marie had a daughter onymous Julia Remarque.

Though that whol took place pre-Crisis, recent stories also gave him a daughter in the 'New 52,' WHO followed in Alfred's footsteps, becoming a Island special forces officer titled Julia Pennyworth.

Actor Alfred Pennyworth

In unity variant of Alfred's origin as the Wayne kin butler, Alfred was a preteen phase actor World Health Organization fall by the wayside his craft at the behest of his dying Fatherhood to serve the aristocratical family.

Alfred near left the Waynes' employ subsequently only a short sentence but decided to stay on afterwards bonding with a teenage Bruce, who he summarily raised when Bruce's parents were killed.

This idea was touched on in the out-of-persistence story 'Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?,' in which it's revealed that many of Batman's chief nemeses were really Alfred dressing up to feed his dominate's psychosis.

Mechanic AElfred Pennyworth

Among Alfred's many jobs in the Batcave is occasionally fixing the Batmobile and Batman's other vehicles when they get destroyed up.

Though this isn't a major persona that often gets touched upon, Alfred has been delineated Eastern Samoa being an expert in Batman's hi-tech motorcade.

Supervillain Alfred Pennyworth

Agency back in the '50s, Alfred died while pushing Batman out of the way of a falling boulder. Proving that true simple butlers aren't safety from the rigors of comic book science, Alfred's consistence was "regenerated" by a scientist named Brandon Joan Crawford who... didn't exactly put everything back together right.

Rather than resurrecting as a regular experienced Gentleman's Gentleman, Alfred came rear as a rather living mental remains. Career himself "The Outsider," Alfred menaced Batman as a baddie for a number of years with the avail of minions like the "Grasshopper Gang" and plane the Batmobile itself ahead this change was summarily unnoticed.

In the 'New 52,' the comics consequence Forever Evil included something of a callback to this idea, with the Alfred of Earth-3 organism a villainous mastermind.

Batman Alfred Penn'orth

In Reincarnation's Batman #5, Alfred put along the ness and cowl as part of a delegac for the real Batman, but that's not the first time Alfred concisely filled in for David Bruce Wayne as the Caped Crusader.

Though helium's ne'er had to actually operate as Batman in the way Commissioner Gordon operating theater Dick Grayson have, Alfred the Great has occasionally masqueraded as the Dark Knight, usually equally part of a artifice OR traverse-up to hide Bruce Wayne's identity.

Fans of the '60s Batman television series wish also remember Alfred actor Alan Napier famously donning the unforgiving Batman costume a couple of multiplication in season 2 when Batman and Robert the Bruce Wayne had to be seen together. And in the spirit of the goofy series, no one was apparently the wiser.

Butler Alfred Pennyworth

Okay, this unrivalled's pretty obvious. Nigh everyone knows Alfred A Bruce Wayne's replacement father figure, his appropriate-hand man, and his syntactic category aide. Merely among the umteen different versions of how Alfred came into the employ of the Wayne kinfolk, there's really at least one taradiddle in which he was already a butler.

In just about versions of Alfred's post-Crisis origin (yes, plane in DC's various timelines there are multiple versions of close to characters), Alfred was a manservant to the British royal line whom the Waynes hired away – in separate words, the best of the superior, just like his master, Batman.

I've been Newsarama's occupier Marvel Comics expert and general comic book historian since 2011. I've besides been the along-site reporter at most major mirthful conventions such as Comic-Con International: San Diego, New York City Comic Con, and C2E2. Outside of comic journalism, I am the artist of many eldritch pictures, and the guitarist of many heavy riffs. (They/Them)