Origins
The origin of the signal varies between timeline and media. It made its first appearance in Detective Comics #60, February 1942. In the 1989 Batman film, Batman gave the signal to the police as a gift enabling them to call him when the city is in danger; in 2005's Batman Begins, then-lieutenant James Gordon creates his own signal light, inspired by an incident when Batman strapped the defeated mobster Carmine Falcone to a large searchlight, which created a roughly bat-like image from the light's beam due to Falcone's tattered coat.
In the comic's post-Crisis continuity, the signal has many different origins. It was either introduced after the Batman's first encounter with the Joker in Batman: The Man Who Laughs; or during the "Prey" storyline in Legends of the Dark Knight. In Batman and the Mad Monk, Gordon initially used a pager, but during a meeting with Batman he threw it away, saying that he could not sneak around in the shadows like Batman and wanted a more above-board means of contacting him.
On Batman: The Animated Series, it was introduced in the episode "The Cape and Cowl Conspiracy", though a makeshift signal was used earlier in "Joker's Favor". On The Batman, Gordon invented it to summon Batman in "Night in the City". The signal had already been alluded to in an earlier episode.
Read more about this topic: Bat-Signal
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