He is vengeance. But he’s on TikTok and cleans, too. He’s Batman of Charlotte.
The Caped Crusader has been spotted in Charlotte, and he’s helping keep the streets of the Queen City cleaner — literally.
Whether it’s volunteering to pick up trash off the streets or battling members of his rogues gallery, Batman of Charlotte — D.J. Jones, as the man under the cape and cowl is known — is trying to make his city a better place.
“It’s my dream to make the best content,” Jones said. “But my real big dream is to have enough money that I can give back to the community and get people off the street.”
The 34-year-old Georgia native uses social media, mainly TikTok, to document his exploits as Charlotte’s version of the Dark Knight. Most of his videos, filmed in a local studio or sometimes on the streets of Charlotte, are high-quality shorts showing him in throes of battle with classic villains like Killer Croc or Bane.
But they also show him being charitable, including taking part in an Earth Day cleanup in South End on April 18.
It’s a dichotomy he hopes will launch him into more film opportunities, and maybe also inspire people to be more active in their communities.
Donning the Batsuit and crafting stories about Batman is fulfilling a lifelong dream. And putting on a yellow vest over his suit, grabbing a trash bag and using grab claws to pick up cigarette butts and bits of garbage is also important to him, Jones said.
He likes taking pictures with people who are excited to meet Batman, or kids who are happy to take a photo with their favorite superhero.
And it’s made all the more fulfilling by having his fiancée, Jessica Blair, there with him to film and give her thoughts on the different creative directions their videos should take.
Blair said she was immediately on board, helping purchase part of his first Batsuit as a Christmas gift.
“We both have videography backgrounds, so after we got the suit in, we took it to a local parking garage, and I was like, ‘I think this over here looks cool,’” Blair said. From the first day in January 2025, they made an effort to make the videos as high-quality as possible, she said.
Becoming Batman of Charlotte wasn’t exactly easy to achieve overnight. It’s costly to put together a high-quality suit and find studio space to film and people to help, Jones said.
And before being able to achieve any of that, Jones had his own struggles to overcome.
Spider-Man of Charlotte
Jones moved to Charlotte eight years ago from Savannah, Georgia, but not by choice. His father suffered from a traumatic brain injury, and Jones came up to take care of him after his parents’ divorce, he said. Then he found himself in a custody battle with his mom for his dad.
“My first two years in Charlotte, I started off homeless, living out of my car,” he said. “I did Uber full-time.”
He would drive for eight to 10 hours, sleep in parking garages for six, and then shower in gym locker rooms. Since he spent so much time at the gym, he found himself getting into bodybuilding and weightlifting.
He was able to slowly pull himself out of homelessness, he said.
“If you know anything about Batman, it’s about taking your biggest tragedy and turning it into your biggest triumph,” Jones said. “Batman was my motivational factor.”
His obsession with Batman began around 2005 when Christopher Nolan’s “Batman Begins” landed in theaters. One of the movie’s core messages, about learning to get up after being knocked down by life, became his mantra.
And with his educational background being in filmmaking, Jones decided to put his skills to work. But it would still be some time before he could become Batman of Charlotte. First, he did a photo-shooting session with Blair dressed as Spider-Man of Charlotte.
“You can get a Spider-Man costume for about $500 or less, and it looks legit,” Jones said. “Whereas my Batman costumes are $3,000.”
But the issue with Spider-Man costumes is that you can “literally see everything.”
A photo of him dressed as Spider-Man helped him meet Blair, Jones said. It was his photo on Facebook’s dating app. Blair’s was of a sword. He decided to message her to find out more. As it turned out, Blair has taught sword-fighting for nearly a decade, something he found impressive. And she was equally impressed with his Spider-suit and agreed to a date.
With the help of Blair, Jones finally found himself able to become Batman.
Becoming Batman
Almost every piece of a Batsuit — the cape and cowl, boots, belt, and body armor — has to be custom made to the person’s measurements. And many of the authentic pieces have to be sourced from around the world, Jones said.
He lucked out that he was able to get a discount on a Batsuit with similar measurements someone else backed out on, he said. That suit had to come from Mexico City.
His cowls are from Canada.
A person in Germany makes his belts and a person in Turkey makes his cape and gloves.
The only locally-sourced item were his boots, he said. The costs quickly add up.
The return on investment — followers — started off steady, and Jones said he’s begun to see a breakthrough in the last year-and-a-half. As he posts more videos and makes more appearances as Batman, his follower count increases.
He currently has 11,000 followers on TikTok and almost 5,600 followers on Instagram. The majority of those Instagram followers came all at once after a trip to Washington, D.C., he said.
Jones said he hopes the success of his TikTok and social media pages will launch him into a career in filmmaking and eventually making Hollywood-sized Batman content, as well as some original content.
However, for now, Jones said, he’s happy being able to create videos with his fiancee and other friends.
Not AI, no CGI
One thing Jones is especially proud of, and that he advertises at the top of his TikTok page, is that his videos don’t use any AI or CGI.
“There’s certain things, obviously, that Jess and I can only do with what we have right now,” he said. “We do Batmobile shots, but we do it on a scale set with a toy car, which is really cool.”
He’s inspired by the practical effects in movies he watched as a kid, such as Sam Raimi hiring puppeteers to use wires to move Doc Ock’s mechanical tentacles in “Spider-Man 2,” or George Lucas making many of the props that appeared in his original “Star Wars” movies.
Sometimes, when he’s supposed to be brooding or filming a fight scene, he’ll find he’ll have to refilm the entire scene because he was smiling throughout.
“I think what really works with us is the authenticity, like they can tell that I genuinely love what I’m doing,” he said.
After finding places like parking garages to film — and getting kicked out of a few — he can finally afford to rent studio space. But that can be costly.
As his TikTok page grows in popularity, other TikTok creators have reached out wanting to film scenes. One person in Atlanta has appeared in his videos as Batman villains, for free, dressed in homemade costumes that look like they were ripped straight from the television or movies.
Or in the case of Bane, straight from the comics.
One shot he’s particularly proud of is recreating the iconic cover of the Knightfall Batman comic series in which Bane is breaking Batman’s back over his knee. If one were to line up the shot from his video with the comic cover, they would match up exactly, Jones said.
Charity and volunteering
Like his favorite iteration of Batman, portrayed by Kevin Conroy in the 1990s animated series, Jones believes people deserve second chances. People who do bad things can be rehabilitated, he said.
He hopes that, like Bruce Wayne, he can earn money to start doing philanthropy and helping people experiencing homelessness.
Something he could have used when he was trying to get off the streets: a helping hand.
“He doesn’t just save you from the bad guy,” Jones said. “He sometimes saves you from yourself.”
