(also apologies if this has already been said)

Excellent work anyhows. Fancy doing one for Clark Lent too?

You see, I do remember such a moment from some later story in the Byrne run, after he had already laid the foundations of his Superman Reboot with that “Man of Steel” mini to quickly bring readers up to speed on what sort of changes he was making. The way I remember it from the later story I vaguely remember rereading a few years ago: Superman makes it clear that he knows Batman’s other name is Bruce Wayne, and Batman thinks something like this: “Ouch. So much for all the time I spent inserting this layer of lead shielding into my cowl!” (That’s not word-for-word, but that was the general reaction he had.)

After doing a little quick searching through Google, I think I’ve pinned it down. “Adventures of Superman #440.”

According to http://www.supermanhomepage.com/comics/comics-index-lists/comics-slist-intro.php?topic=comics-slist-1988

the following things happened in that issue:
__________________________

Adventures of Superman #440 (May)
John Byrne/Jerry Ordway, Jerry Ordway, Dennis Janke
Superman tests another Superman robot with Emil, thinks of his upcoming date; Jerry White visits Jose; doctor tells Jose he won’t walk; in Gotham Batman hands Superman the Scrapbook and says he figured out he’s Clark Kent but hasn’t told Robin – Superman lets Batman know he knows Batman is Bruce Wayne; Luthor uncovers something to blackmail Maggie; Scientists are studying the Supergirl; Superman hands the scrapbook to Ma who confesses it’s hers, finds Wonder Woman (Diana) for their first date.

I still call complete and total b.s. on the Titans not knowing (I recall we had this conversation a long time ago), but I’ll go back and re-read Grayson’s Titans series to make sure because that’d be the most obvious connection.

Oh, wait, Roy Harper CLEARLY knows now (we have to assume a monumental level of stupidity for this not to be the case), as Dick figures out, in his presence, that Waynetech’s equipment is being used by the Outsiders, and therefore they’re being backed by Batman. Roy set up the deal. Roy doesn’t display any reaction to the connection, which is more than enough in my books to solidify it. Trust Winick to screw up background information.

(Unless you make the argument that Deathstroke was funding the operation the entire time in his guise as Batman, and made sure to buy all Waynetech equipment to screw with Dick, which I suppose is possible but almost senselessly convoluted. Again, Winick being Winick, I can’t rule that out as a possibility.)

On the subject of your list, I’ve been advocating a different theory for years. Namely, I think most everyone in Gotham (and probably on Earth-1) assumes that Bruce Wayne is Batman. OK, there’s a guy with high-tech gear running around Gotham City beating up muggers.

Who could he be?

Could it be the rich guy who owns the military tech company? Weren’t his parents killed by muggers?

Why doesn’t anyone do anything about it? Why don’t YOU do something about O.J. Simpson? Doesn’t everyone know he killed two people?

We don’t because that’s not our job. That’s somebody else’s job. And “doing something” about Bruce Wayne and Batman is somebody else’s job, too…

And don’t get me started about the two best investigative reporters in Metropolis being unable to see past a pair of glasses. Super-hypnosis, my foot!

Barry Allen didn’t know?

Well, remember that I’m only talking here about people who definitely knew in stories published after the transition to Post-COIE continuity happened.

Barry Allen has had very few appearances in any DC stories published Post-COIE (since he died during that Crisis), so offhand I’m not sure if any of those very few appearances (flashbacks and such) have ever “nailed down” the idea that in the revised Post-COIE continuity, Barry had definitely known Batman’s secret ID for awhile, prior to his death. It’s possible that there has been an explicit reference to his having known in the revised continuity; I just don’t remember seeing it. (Of course, I was never a regular buyer of Wally’s “Flash” title, so my knowledge of Post-COIE continuity about the Flash’s is not all that it could be.)

Jimmy Olsen knew about Bruce back in the 1980s (obviously pre-Crisis). At one point Robin used a machine to mind-wipe Barbara Gordon of remembering his or Batman’s identity. Letter columns lit up that it was okay for Jimmy to know but not a member of the Batman family.

Almost two years ago now, I actually wrote a lengthy post about that miserable moment in Pre-COIE Bat-continuity, and I even quoted passages from some of those same letters you mention that were reacting to that awful excuse for a story. So I remember the story pretty well, and I have to take exception to your summary of it.

Robin (Dick Grayson in those days) did NOT take it upon himself to mindwipe Babs. The story WAS miserably written, and Dick certainly behaved badly and illogically in it, but he wasn’t quite THAT bad!

A typical mad scientist character did the mindwiping. In the process, he learned all about the secret IDs of Batman and Robin. Then he conveniently got himself killed, but left behind a stack of audiotapes that had Barbara’s old memories dictated onto them. The gimmick was that if she listened to all the tapes, hearing each thing she had previously dictated under the influence of the mad scientist’s techniques would cause all the related memories on each subject to be restored to her consciousness (or words to that effect). Robin helped her play back most of the tapes, but asked her not to mess around with the one that had the secrets of himself and Batman. Why he felt this way was not terribly clear. He did, however, leave the tape with her so she could make her own decision as he left. Then Babs burned that tape of her own free will. Why she felt any need to do this just to oblige Robin’s paranoia was not terribly clear. (Well, except in the sense that I’ve always assumed their clueless and out-of-character behavior was ordered by Editorial Fiat.)

About three years later, as he was wrapping up his own run on “Batman” and “Detective Comics,” Gerry Conway (who had nothing to do with that abominable story with the audiotapes) apparently saw fit to do a “very quiet retcon” of the details of what Babs knew, and what Bruce and Dick thought she knew or didn’t know, and why the two guys had thought that.

If you want to see my full discussion of how things developed in those old stories, you can look at the thread I started on our local CBR Batman Forum:

http://forums.comicbookresources.com/showthread.php?t=101626

O’Neil’s alleged retcon would have served to eliminate ANY Justice League service for Batman, including the recent JLI stint (that Batman even references during the story when Jason Todd is killed).

Batman and Superman were both retconned out of being full-time founding members of the JLA into guys that just helped them out from time to time, but that actually represents their status in early JLA stories pretty accurately. A large number of them have Batman and Superman off on other cases, or getting sent off on wild goose chases that don’t have any impact on the plot. In the first Showcase Presents volume in particular, the number of stories that require their presence for the stories to work as written is fairly small.