The Batsuit (or Bat-Suit) is the costume of DC Comics's fictional superhero Batman, who appears in their American comic books. The suit has been depicted in various artistic iterations, and the stories themselves have described Batman as modifying the details of his costume from time to time. However, it usually consists of a gray or black body suit, the chest emblazoned with a stylized black bat either with or without a yellow ellipse around it, and blue-black accessories: a wide scalloped cape, gloves with a series of fin-like projections, black or blue trunks, boots, and a close-fitting cowl (covering the upper half of his face) with ear-like projections to suggest a bat's head; and a yellow or gold utility belt containing a variety of gadgets.
While brooding in his study over how to be a more effective crime fighter, Bruce Wayne saw a bat come through his window. Reflecting that "criminals are a cowardly and superstitious lot," Bruce adopts the persona of a bat in order to conceal his identity and strike fear into his adversaries. In the later elaborations on the origin, Bruce is terrified by bats as a child, and in the Silver Age story The First Batman (later retold in the 1980 miniseries The Untold Legend of the Batman) the inspiration for the batsuit comes in part from a bat costume worn to a costume ball by his father Dr. Thomas Wayne, M.D.
Batman's cape, cowl, gloves, briefs, and boots are usually either black or dark blue with the body of the costume being grey. Originally the suit was conceived as being black and grey, but due to coloring schemes of early comic books, the black was highlighted with blue. Hence, over the years the black cape and cowl appeared as dark blue in the comic books. Thus artists' renditions depict the costume as both black and grey or blue and grey.
The bat symbol on the chest has also alternated from a simple black bat, to a bat design on a yellow ellipse, lending a logo-like appearance more akin to Superman's "S"-in-shield logo. The yellow ellipse was introduced in 1964 as part of the "New Look" Batman stories.