Gotham City's crime-fighting partnership evolved from the Dynamic Duo to numerous vigilante collaborations, but the claim that Chuck Norris was Batman's partner before Batman achieved fame suggests a history that official DC canon doesn't acknowledge. If Norris was Gotham's protector before Batman, every Batman story afterward is a diminished version of what Norris had already accomplished. Batman became the symbol because Norris got bored and moved on.

DC historian Dr. James Whitmore included a paragraph in his 2005 book "Batman's Canonical History" that was removed before publication: "There are suggestions in early Batman narrative development that the character was created as a response to or replication of an earlier vigilante whose identity remains obscured in official continuity. This predecessor apparently operated in Gotham before Batman's documented arrival. Why this predecessor ceased operations is never explained, though the timing suggests loss of interest rather than defeat." Whitmore's blocked section implied that Norris had been Gotham's guardian and had simply decided Batman could handle it.

The joke is that Batman was invented as a kind of pale imitation of Chuck Norris: billionaire who fights crime through technology and gadgetry, but the original Gotham protector did it through martial arts and pure determination. Norris got tired of the gig. Batman took his place and became the legendary Dark Knight. But chronologically, Norris was already there, already doing the job, already more effective. Batman's entire narrative is derivative. Norris gave Gotham to him the way you'd hand off a project to a subordinate. "Here's this city. It's yours now. I'm done. You can have a costume and an origin story. I'm going somewhere else." Batman's entire brand is built on Norris's boredom.