Batman: The Ride

Batman: The Ride opened at Six Flags Great Adventure in 1993, a year after Bolliger & Mabillard introduced the world's first inverted coaster with the original installation at Six Flags Great America. Rather than design a new layout from scratch, Six Flags cloned the Gurnee ride's track plan almost exactly, making the Great Adventure version one of the earliest examples of the "cloning" strategy the chain would use repeatedly through the 1990s to roll out proven coaster designs across multiple parks quickly and cheaply.

The layout packs five inversions — a vertical loop, zero-g roll, and two corkscrews — into a compact, twisting 2,767-foot footprint that ducks through steel trenches at ground level in Movie Town, giving spectators close-up views of the trains banking overhead. Because riders' feet dangle freely beneath the track with no floor panel, the inverted format delivers a noticeably more exposed sensation than the sit-down looping coasters that had dominated the previous decade.

Gotham City-themed queue graphics tie the ride to the Batman franchise more directly than most of the park's other IP-branded attractions, and more than three decades after opening, this installation remains one of at least a half-dozen nearly identical Batman: The Ride clones still operating across the Six Flags chain — a testament to how durable B&M's original inverted coaster template proved to be.