Danny Elfman’s score for Batman (1989) is one of the most iconic and defining works in superhero cinema. Before Elfman, comic book movies rarely had such a dark, operatic soundscape — but his music for Tim Burton’s Gotham changed everything. Elfman approached Batman with the instincts of a storyteller, using leitmotifs to represent duality — the dark menace of Gotham, the tragic loneliness of Batman, and the chaos of the Joker. His background as the frontman of Oingo Boingo gave the music an edg