With each thrilling story arc and reboot, James Bond and Bruce Wayne heavily influence each other and the galaxy of other spies and superheroes.

They share much more than a love of fast cars, quirky gadgets, and designer watches. Both have been orphaned, traumatized, and exposed to maniacal villains, yet they are continuously drawn to the center of conflict.

In many ways, Bond and Wayne are still the young boys who lost their parents with their childhood tragedies driving them to protect and avenge. They’ve transformed into 007 and Batman - superheroes without supernatural superpowers - but remain defined by their history and dependent on villains who allow them to pursue justice in a world of inner turmoil and external chaos.

SPYSCAPE mined their rich backstories for the ultimate James Bond vs. Bruce Wayne exposé.

FAST & FURIOUS CARS‍

Bond and Batman both prefer power in their cars, driving precision vehicles they can push to the limits of their imaginations.

James Bond

Bond has a storied 50-year film history with his iconic Aston Martin.

First seen in Goldfinger (1964), then Thunderball (1965), the silver birch DB5 was absent from the silver screen in the 1970s and 1980s, but returned triumphant in GoldenEye (1995) when Pierce Brosnan showed up as 007. Racing his classic Aston Martin against a contemporary Ferrari F355 GTS piloted by the gorgeous Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen), the epic opening scene ends with the victorious 007 revealing the fax machine and champagne cooler in the armrest - all in service of Queen and country, and seducing the psychologist sent by British Intelligence to evaluate him.

In true spy story fashion, the Goldfinger DB5, which Sean Connery drove, disappeared from an aircraft hangar in Florida in 1997 and was never seen again. This made the GoldenEye DB5 the most expensive piece of Bond memorabilia ever sold when it was auctioned at Christie’s in 2001. The GoldenEye DB5 returned to auction at the historic Goodwood Estate in the summer of 2018 and was promptly acquired for the SPYSCAPE collection.

The Specs: Bond’s GoldenEye DB5 is powered by a 4.0-liter straight-six engine that makes 282bhp and 380Nm of torque. The car can hit 100km/h from a standstill in 7.1 seconds. Its top speed stands at 228km/h.

Bruce Wayne

To understand Bruce Wayne’s rich connection to Lamborghini requires a little bit of foreign language skills. Bruce Wayne drives a Lamborghini in all three installations of Christopher Nolan's Batman film trilogy. The connection starts with an open top Murciélago (which means "bat" in Spanish) in Batman Begins (2005); he graduates to a hard top Murciélago LP 640 in The Dark Knight (2008), and finally to the Aventador LP 700-4 in The Dark Knight Rises (2012). 

Wayne’s Aventador is a silver-screen legend driven by not one but two Hollywood icons: although the car belongs to Bruce (played by Christian Bale) it’s stolen by Selina Kyle aka Catwoman (played by Anne Hathaway). This sparkling piece of cinematic history is now on display at SPYSCAPE HQ in NYC suspended head to head 50 feet above the lobby floor opposite James Bond’s GoldenEye DB5.

The Specs: There's a 6.5-liter V12 with 700 horsepower in the LP 700-4, helping it gun from 0-100 km/h in less than three seconds and reach a top speed in excess of 350 km/h. Holy horsepower, Batman!

‍

THE YOUNG LEGENDS

While James Bond and Bruce Wayne have never met, there are intriguing ties that we discovered when both franchises rebooted their legendary characters in Casino Royale (2006) and Batman Begins (2005).
‍

James Bond

‍Born to a Scottish father and a Swiss mother, Bond spent much of his childhood in Continental Europe where James became fluent in German and French. His parents died in a mountain-climbing accident and Bond, aged 11, was raised by his aunt Charmian Bond. After school, he joined the British Secret Service, performing confidential work as a Lieutenant and later Commander.

Bruce Wayne

‍After eight-year-old Bruce Wayne witnessed his parents’ murders in Gotham City, he was raised by the family’s butler, Alfred Pennyworth who, like James Bond, was also trained by the British Secret Service. Wayne is a polyglot, speaking at least a dozen languages fluently. He also trained himself physically and intellectually to fight crime, swearing an oath of vengeance tinged with justice. Wayne’s vigilantism is his driving force. When Alfred asks how his parents would view his crime-fighting, Wayne replies: 'This is my family legacy. If I don't do this, then there's nothing else for me.” 

LIFE, DEATH & KILLING CODES 

Bond and Wayne have both faced life-and-death decisions and moral quandaries while battling their enemies for the greater good of society. 
‍

James Bond

‍In the novel Casino Royale, Bond said he earned his ‘00’ status in the Service after killing his first two ‘villains’. The first incident involved a Japanese cipher expert cracking British codes in New York and the second involved a Norwegian double agent working for the Germans.

“For those two jobs I was awarded a Double 0 number in the Service. Felt pretty clever and got a reputation for being good and tough,” Bond said. “A Double 0 number in our Service means you've had to kill a chap in cold blood in the course of some job."

Bond has reportedly killed about 600 baddies since tackling Dr. No (1962). His license to kill has never appeared to trouble him - or the impact is buried so deep he is numb to it.

Bruce Wayne

‍While The Batman follows a no-kill code, a moral choice that guides the modern-day superhero, it wasn’t always so. When Batman debuted in edition 27 of Detective Comics in May 1939 he punched a rival to his death into an acid tank, so it seems the no-kill code wasn’t always a hard and fast rule.

PLAYBOY HEROES, UNLUCKY IN LOVE 

Director Matt Reeves said he intentionally shaped Robert Pattinson’s The Batman as a Bond-like character backed by an enduring myth. “He looks cool. He’s got a cool car,” Reeves said. ”But there’s also something very relatable to the pain that he’s gone through.”

James Bond

‍For decades Bond was portrayed as a playboy who couldn’t settle down but he’s suffered heartache - initially when his wife Tracy is killed (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service) and later in Casino Royale when he loses Vesper Lynd. It's fair to say James never recovered from Vesper’s death and No Time to Die makes that clear when 007 visits her tomb in Italy. Vesper is the only Bond ‘girl’ who has pierced Bond’s armor.

Bruce Wayne

‍The billionaire socialite is portrayed as a super-rich playboy but in The Batman he dispenses with the social mask.

Bruce Wayne has been engaged at least three times and married at least twice but it is his relationship with Catwoman that endures. She is sometimes portrayed as being infatuated with Batman yet exacting revenge (Batman Returns) or betraying the Dark Knight to a villain before joining Batman’s crusade (The Dark Knight Rises). Batman can’t quite get over her feline charms. (Spoiler alert! Batman and Catwoman eventually marry in the alternate universe of Earth-2.)

PERSONAL STYLE

Elegant, timeless, and iconic, James Bond and Bruce Wayne prefer to look their best at all times.
‍

James Bond

‍Bond is always dressed to kill. Sean Connery preferred Anthony Sinclair tailored suits and George Lazenby initially copied his style before modernizing the look. Roger Moore - no stranger to Savile Row - brought his personal tailors Douglas Hayward and Cyril Castle on board before Timothy Dalton shifted Bond’s style to baggy, oversized designs by Jodie Tillen.

American designer Tom Ford’s classic pieces and 007’s muscle-hugging knitwear put Daniel Craig near the top of the Best Dressed Bond list. (And we couldn’t help but notice Pattinson following Craig’s lead by channeling his billionaire bad boy alter ego at The Batman premiere in a Tom Ford double-breasted cashmere topcoat.)

Despite the deadly competition, nobody quite matches Pierce Brosnan’s Bond in Brioni. As the internet legend goes, producers were so impressed with the way Brosnan wore a tuxedo they added a contract clause prohibiting Brosnan from wearing a tux in any other film.

Bruce Wayne

‍As GQ puts it, Adam West's Wayne is one ‘well-dressed swaggy bro’, with gold DB buttons and a skinny paisley tie. Christian Bale also nails it in his three-piece Armani suits, pinstripes, and crisp shirts - looking every bit the billionaire real-estate-developer-turned-crime-fighter. 
‍
We also rate Michael Keaton in Giorgio Armani and Gucci-prone Ben Affleck in Dawn Of Justice. As the film’s costume designer Michael Wilkinson said: “This is not the kind of guy who is swayed by fashion trends. You’re not going to catch Bruce Wayne in skinny jeans.”
  

TIMING IS EVERYTHING 

Ian Fleming instilled exquisite taste in Bond with the author’s preference for eloquent tailoring and sophisticated Swiss watches - style notes Bruce Wayne picked up on in 1995 when Val Kilmer’s billionaire cave-dweller began incorporating suave timepieces into his wardrobe.
‍

James Bond

‍Fleming, a WWII British naval intelligence officer who wore his Rolex Explorer model 1016 while writing On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, believed a gentleman’s choice of timepiece said as much about him as his Savile Row suit. In a salute to the author, SPYSCAPE traced the history of Bond watches and timepieces from Sean Connery’s Rolex Submariner to Daniel Craig’s titanium Omega Seamaster Diver 300M - one of which (the very one worn by Mr. Craig in A Quantum of Solace) is part of the SPYSCAPE collection.

Incredibly, Bond’s original Thunderball Breitling Top Time - which Q configured as a Geiger counter to detect nuclear radiation - was lost after filming but luckily discovered at a 2013 rummage sale in the UK. It was bought for $30 and auctioned off for $142,000.

‍

Bruce Wayne

‍Batman Forever’s Val Kilmer wore a Jaeger-LeCoultre (JLC) Reverso Grande Taille in the 1995 action-adventure movie but Kilmer’s Bat-watch didn’t just tell time. It doubled as a Bond-like gadget that allowed him to video conference with Alfred.

The Batman-Reverso connection carried on when Christian Bale slipped on a Reverso Grande Taille for The Dark Knight (2008). JLC created a limited-edition Reverso Tribute, a nod to its 1931 piece (originally created for polo players), with a bespoke engraved image of a bat filled with black lacquer on the case back.

When Ben Affleck took on the role of Bruce Wayne in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016) he pivoted toward the Breguet Fusée Tourbillon Tradition 7047, a large platinum timepiece with a heavyweight price of $190,000.

 Robert Pattinson’s The Batman Tourbillon was released publicly as a limited-edition luxury timepiece in 2022 with a design inspired by the reimagined Bat Signal and a price tag suitable for Bruce Wayne: $100,000.

GADGETS & GIZMOS

Gadgets are as much a part of James Bond and Bruce Wayne’s lifestyle as beautiful women and baddies.
‍

James Bond/007

‍Who hasn’t fallen for Bond’s quartermaster Q? Bond’s kit is in a class of its own, from his deadly briefcase and cyanide cigarette to a jet-propelled scuba tank, explosive toothpaste, pen gun, and laser beam Rolex wristwatch. There’s no denying the allure of 007’s gadget-laden sports cars either. Bond’s (Sean Connery’s) ejector seat in Goldfinger (1964) ranks high on the list alongside his cherished GoldenEye DB5.

Bruce Wayne/Batman

‍From Batman’s utility belt - boasting more than 25 items - to his Batcave’s anti-crime laboratory, the Caped Crusader knows his way around gadgets. His utility belt first appeared in Detective Comics issue #28, when Batman drew a silk rope from his belt, using it to swing from one rooftop to the next - the precursor to the Dark Knight’s grappling gun. Much like Bond’s Goldfinger DB5, the Batmobile also boasted an ejector seat in a 1966 episode of the camp TV series.

INTELLECT & AGILITY 

Neither Bond nor Batman has supernatural superpowers, but their dedication, intellect and physical training are distinct advantages.
‍

James Bond

Bond’s IQ isn’t known, although ScreenRant ranks Craig as the most intelligent Bond. Craig’s physical prowess is equally impressive, particularly his incredible ability to freerun in Casino Royale.

Sean Connery was working on his physique long before he was cast as Bond. At the age of 22, Connery entered the 1953 Mr. Universe pageant in London where he came in third and caught the eye of a casting director.
‍

Bruce Wayne

Meanwhile, Bruce Wayne has an IQ of 192, somewhat higher than physicist Albert Einstein who rated between 160 and 180. Bruce’s fitness is Olympic-level. He began training at 12 years old. By the time he was 18, Wayne had mastered nutrition, training, and weight lifting.

According to Christian Bale, Nolan wanted his Batman to be lean but muscular, which led to Bale visiting the gym six times a week for three hours at a time, doing cardio exercises every day.

VILLAINS & ARCH-ENEMIES

Bond villains aim high - nothing short of world domination will do. They’re an ambitious lot, a trait Bruce Wayne’s larger-than-life arch-rivals share as they test their nemesis’ strengths, weaknesses, and superpowers.
‍

James Bond

‍Bond villains often mirror the state of the world’s paranoia from WWII and Cold War anxieties to modern-day crime syndicates and fear of Big Tech. When 007’s enemies aren’t playing havoc with nuclear missiles, they’re disrupting the US Space Program, plotting a cataclysmic raid on Fort Knox, or manipulating the stock market.

Just when we think Bond’s seen it all - from a tight squeeze with Xenia Onatopp to a deadly laser beam ("No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die!”) - trouble rears its head again, often with a flash of humor and a well-turned ankle.
 

Bruce Wayne

‍The list of Wayne family enemies is long and dark, reflecting Bruce Wayne’s/Batman’s psyche and that of Gotham City. Classic rogues include Riddler, Poison Ivy, and Penguin. Joker, a mentally troubled stand-up comedian on a downward spiral, has been brilliantly portrayed over the decades by Jack Nicholson, Heath Ledger, and Joaquin Phoenix.

What are we to make of Batman’s enemies? Are they villains, or simply victims of a heartless society? Henri Ducard - aka Ra's al Ghul, a mentor-turned-baddie - once told the Caped Crusader: “A criminal is not complicated. What you really fear is inside yourself. You fear your own power. You fear your anger, the drive to do great or terrible things.”

Relatable heroes ‍

While James Bond and Bruce Wayne have not crossed paths, they share surprising traits that can be traced back almost a century to Wayne’s comic book debut in 1939 and Bond’s literary origins in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale.

Bond and Wayne are, at times, lone wolves, introverts with powerful personalities who are self-motivated and confident of their place in the world. They are also vulnerable, however, with struggles born out of personal trauma and weaknesses.

It is the nuanced and fundamentally flawed nature of their characters that make James Bond and Bruce Wayne relatable and inspirational characters in a complex universe teeming with superheroes, spies, and secrets.