I’m plotting a hostile takeover of DC Comics with @kuttithevangu and we’re going to start writing Batman ourselves. Here are some of our plans:
–The Joker Goes to Clown College. The Joker has become tediously overused, unfunny, and ludicrously dark and gritty. He’s so fucking boring that we’re putting a ban on stories in which he’s a major villain for several years. In the meantime, Dick Grayson starts visiting him in Arkham with very special visitors in tow: professional clowns from Haly’s Circus. They offer constructive criticism and then help him get accepted to a four-year clown college, where he can get a degree in clowning, improve his comedy potential, and learn to execute jokes with fewer executions. Clown college in this world is just like regular university so The Joker has to like… write essays on Buster Keaton and stuff. [Alternative: The Joker accidentally turns himself into a hamster (with a Joker face) and has to live in a cage in the Batcave while they research ways to turn him back.]
–New Original Character: Brad. Damian Wayne isn’t Bruce’s only illegitimate biological son! Brad is a perfectly normal, well-adjusted teenager whose mother had a one-night stand with Bruce at a party years ago. Brad decides to reach out to his biological playboy father after tabloids confirm a paternity test. Damian finds this very threatening but there’s nothing he can do about it because Brad is an oblivious civilian who only visits every few weeks and has no idea that his father and half-siblings are vigilantes.
–Tim Drake Gets What He Deserves. Tim has been written darker and grittier with every passing year, a far cry from the fun dweeb he was when first introduced. As he becomes more and more like Bruce, he picks up another of his mentor’s traits: the ability to attract plucky youngsters who insist on cheering him up. Previous unsuccessful attempts to introduce Carrie Kelley to the main DC canon are scrapped; she’s BACK and she’s a 14 year old tacky gay genderfluid snoop who figures out his identity and passionately believes that Red Robin needs a Burger King, or something. She gets what she wants and she wants to play DnD. HOW THE TURNS HAVE TABLED, TIMOTHY.
–Batfamily camping trip. IDK, maybe Brad is responsible for this. It goes poorly because no one (except perhaps Babs) has any experience in legitimate outdoor recreation beyond hardcore wilderness survival.
–#batmanchallenge. The Batman Challenge starts trending and young people start coming to Gotham in an attempt to get Batman to punch them on video. Jason Todd gets in on it.
–The Secret Life of Alfred Pennyworth. Alfred has a whole secret social life that Bruce doesn’t know about because he has never once contemplated that Alfred is a sexual being with considerable game. He’s very popular among the ladies at the bridge club and Old People Who Love Shakespeare Club, which is for old people.
Ok but I’d read all of these and am legit intrigued by Brad, who has the potential to grow up to be like Bruce, if the whole incident in the alley hadn’t happened- well adjusted, charming, possibly with a strong sense of Justice anyway, and could be an example of how to go about heroing when you’re a normal dude.
in superman adventures #19, there’s a villain named multi-face who can convincingly disguise himself as anyone, even tricking dna tests and x-ray vision. Superman initially can’t stop him
and the only reason he gets caught is because multiface decides to disguise himself as, of all people, CLARK KENT i’m screaming
why do villains always mess up so badly
Clark Kent attending Bruce Wayne’s yacht party where Bruce told Clark to wear his clothes and……
Ta-Da!
Sard borken
calling the people at the party Bruce’s “fake friends” as if he’s Bruce’s only real friend and he’s low key jealous
Okay I absolutely love this comic but I gotta offer a correction because I got the chance to read this recently and the real context is even better:
Clark and Bruce have never met at this point. Clark ended up on this yaught by accident and the people there just assumed he was Bruce Wayne making an entrance because none of them have ever met him. Clark isn’t even Superman at this point, he’s still just a twenty-something from kansas with super powers trying to figure his shit out, and he just stumbles into a billionaire’s yaught party and then foils an assassination attempt on accident.
The best part is that Bruce finds out about this incident bc he obviously has surveilance on the parties he never attends and he’s just completely fucking baffled. I’m pretty sure this incident is why he knows Superman’s secret identity. What a fucking first impression. Absolutely legendary.
Seeing John Mulaney do his ‘Robot Test’ bit has given me a strong desire to see him play a live action Riddler.
But not like, as any character other than John Mulaney? Like, let’s make a John Mulaney version of Edward Nigma. Just this socially awkward disaster man who somehow becomes a supervillain because of a misunderstanding he couldn’t correct without ‘seeming rude’. And now supposedly he’s committed to killing Batman but he doesn’t actually want to be the cause of a man’s death so he just obfuscates things with ‘clues’ and ‘riddles’ and ‘battles of wits’ until Batman inevitably defeats him and he’s just like ‘oh thank god please don’t hit me’.
Batman’s like ‘you need help Nigma’ and he’s just like ‘yeah that’s fair, I should probably look into seeing somebody at this point, I became a supervillain because of social anxiety and that might just be a red flag you know?’
“Hey, Batman, think you’ve seen everything, huh? Well, figure out how to deal with this! You know Gotham General Hospital? Yeah? Well you’ll never guess what I let loose in there!”
“Riddle me this, what has four hooves and presents a massive health and safety violation?”
dc fandom has been redeemed by 99% of the fandom siding with riddler over joker
to be fair its kinda like being asked to choose between a delicious slice of cake and a kick in the crotch with ice skates
I bet even Batman likes Riddler. He gets the call that Riddler’s broken out of Arkham and is terrorizing the city, and he’s like “Oh, good. I get to give my mind a workout and keep Eddie from doing anything too stupid. I’ll bring the kids. They could use some critical thinking training.”
Ahh, the riddler. Just remember, in the Arkham games, he’s just “hey batman, I hid question marks. Can you find them?” And then just wandered off. No murder no mayhem. Just puzzles.
There are plenty of night, probably the majority, where Bruce is 100% committed to the role of Batman. Just living and breathing the pursuit of justice and crashing through the skylight of the latest hideout and just snarling the villain-of-the-night’s name all “RIDDLER!”
But then there are nights where he’s just so fucking done. He’s still out there giving 110% but radiating exhaustion and exasperation the entire time. The villain’s waiting for his inevitable arrival, all the henchmen’s eyes trained on the windows and the roof, but instead Bruce just slams the door open one-handed, casually knocking out a henchman, and glowers wearily. “What the fuck, Ed?”
backup blog in case tumblr explodes 