#but I like the idea of Joker or Riddler being the villain

[wanderingmind867]

I promised I'd share my ideas for a hypothetical fourth season of batman 66. So here it is. All 60 episodes of my season four (although some episodes have more detail than others). I planned to write notes for a season five, six and seven. And I'd have each season introduce more and more characters. But I don't know if my attention span will last long enough for me to write all of that. Or if my fancasting website even works anymore. But at least I have all of this written down?

Season 4: Season Four would get 60-70 episodes, max. A full season of 60 episodes, split into part one and part two, or something like that.

Episodes 1 and 2: A two parter based on the events of the Batman '66 Comic, Issue #1. A story involving The Riddler (Frank Gorshin) and Catwoman (Julie Newmar).

Episodes 3 and 4: A story involving The Joker (as played by Cesar Romero). Not much else to say beyond that right now.

Episodes 5 and 6: A story featuring The Penguin (Burgess Meredith) and Mister Freeze (either George Sanders or Eli Wallach). They team up, only to get busted by the dynamic duo!

Episodes 7 and 8: Introducing Signalman to the world of Batman '66! Signalman uses his gimmicks to try and trap Batman and Robin, while stealing as many symbols of good fortune as he possibly can.

Episode 9: A Batgirl solo episode, focusing on her and her new partner (who she meets in this episode): Jason Bard. Together, her and Jason end up investigating the appearance of a new catwoman on the scene (Eartha Kitt). Together, Batgirl and her private detective partner manage to learn that this new Catwoman is an old friend of the first Catwoman, and they're friendly rivals who compete for the thrill of the chase.

Episodes 10 and 11: Batman and Robin are preparing to leave for London on Vacation, but they're held up by The Bookworm and his criminal gang, who planned to rob Gotham City of a priceless manuscript stored deep within Gotham City Hall. Only the dynamic duo can stop this marvelous mastermind before it's too late!

Episodes 12, 13 and 14: Batman and Robin end up in London on vacation, and they end up needing to bust up two different capers in England; one involving The Mad Hatter (David Wayne) and the other involving The Clock King (Walter Slezak). It turns out these two villians have some negative history together, but it's unclear just what this history entails…

Episode 15: While Batman and Robin are off in Europe, Batgirl and Jason Bard run into Cluemaster, a strange new villian who seems to have an odd vendetta against The Riddler. Although The Riddler doesn't actually show up in this episode, we learn that Cluemaster is a minor villain who's always held a grudge. He wants to take the title of world's biggest riddle/clue/puzzle themed supervillian away from The Riddler! Only Batgirl can stop him now!

Episodes 16 and 17: Batman and Robin end up on a cruise heading back to Gotham, but the cruise ends up being held up by Penguin, who's decided to take to high seas felony after being constantly foiled on land. But he didn't count on finding Batman and Robin on one of his captive vessels…

Episodes 18 and 19: Batman and Robin return to Gotham, just in time for a late september scheme hatched by Egghead, that diabolical master of eggs-pert larceny! Batman and Robin need to enlist the end of Batgirl and Jason Bard just to get him to be defeated before he commits the greatest crime of our time and era!

Episodes 20 and 21: In the brisk early October air, False Face steals a new chemical designed to make a human being shapeshift. But one of his men steals it away from him! Matt Hagen (Rich Little), a greedy henchmen of the dastardly False Face, uses the machine and turns himself into a hideous being made of Clay! Remembering the case of an old villian Batman tangled with named Clayface, Matt Hagen decides to embrace his evil side and become Clayface the second!

Episodes 22 and 23: Batman, Robin and Batgirl all end up tangling with The Scarecrow (Anthony Perkins) on Halloween Night! A washed up former psychology teacher with a love for fear, Jonathan Crane has come to haunt Gotham as the one and only Scarecrow!

Episodes 24 and 25: Batman and Robin tangle with Blockbuster, a menace who's too mindless to actually mean any harm to anyone or anything. He's being used by his mad scientist brother Roland, but the dynamic duo don't figure that out until it's nearly too late…

Episodes 25 and 26: While hosting a Gotham City Beauty Contest to mark the beginning of November and the subsequent colder season, Batman and Robin tangle with Poison Ivy (Ann Margret), that powerful sorceress of seduction! Using her brilliant botanical wisdom, she snares Batman and Robin inside of a horrible death trap. But they escape, and successfully bring her to Justice.

Episodes 27 and 28: Batman and Robin deal with the Polka Dot Man, a bizarre new criminal capable of using polka dots as tools for committing new crimes to bedevil and beguile the people of Gotham City!

Episodes 29 and 30: Batman and Batgirl have to work together to fight off a mad team up of The Penguin and The Riddler. Robin is sick with the flu, so he's unable to help them. So it's up to Batman and Batgirl to save the day this time around!

Episodes 31 and 32: A Christmas Special, featuring a mall santa who gets victimized by The Joker and Clayface, a bizarre new duo of cookery! Batman, Robin, Batgirl and Jason Bard all have to team up to defeat the foe this time. And in the end, it's rather unclear if the mall santa was just a mall santa, or if they were the real santa all along…

Episodes 33, 34 and 35: Batman is challenged by his most dastardly foes yet; a terrible trio of crooks from Gotham's distant past! The Eraser, The Getaway Genius and Killer Moth! Batman hasn't tangled with them in years, not since the days of… Batwoman. Back when Robin was younger (a few years before the show started), Kathy Kane was a rich socialite who teamed up with Batman to fight crime. But she retired after an awful case involving Killer Moth. Yet now, she may be Gotham's only hope for surviving the Triumvirate's terror!

Episodes 36 and 37: Batman was set on edge by the Triumvirate (and by Batwoman's return), so he's gone on vacation. While he's off on vacation, two different teams have to protect Gotham from ill will. Robin and Catwoman are who we're gonna focus on first. While Batman's away, they end up having to deal with Doctor Double-X, a horrible foe from years past, capable of creating duplicates of himself to fight his battles for him!

Episodes 38 and 39: While Batman is off on vacation, Batgirl and Jason Bard end up having to call a truce with Catwoman II (Eartha Kitt), as she's being pursued by an old rival. Catman, a big game hunter who prowled the jungles of africa. He feels that Catwoman gives the noble beauty of the jungle cat a bad name, and so he's out for revenge. Batgirl, Catwoman and Jason Bard have to save Gotham from the deranged anger of Catman, before it's too late!

Episodes 40 and 41: Batman was on vacation in Europe, exploring the beautiful balkans. But he accidentally stumbles upon a plot by Olga, Queen of the Cossacks, and he has to come back out of temporary retirement to stop her.

Episodes 42 and 43: Robin and Batwoman team up to fight against Shane and his wife Calamity Jan.

Episodes 44 and 45: Batgirl and Jason Bard team up to fight off Louie the Lilac and The Siren, a strange duo who've teamed up to try and take down Poison Ivy (for "stealing their gimmicks"). At the end of this two parter, batman finally returns from his vacation.

Episodes 46 and 47: Batman's first case after coming back from vacation involves dealing with The Sandman, Gotham's strange sultan of the sands, a man capable of putting people to sleep (and now even capable of messing with them as they sleep and dream)!

Episodes 48 and 49: Batman's newest case leads him to have to fight against Mister Freeze yet again, who's sprung himself from jail, all to work on an elaborate scheme involving freezing gotham in with perpetual winter!

Episodes 50, 51 and 52: Batman has to go up against The Riddler, Cluemaster and The Puzzler, all of whom have gone on the attack against each other. There can only be one king of puzzles/riddles/clues, and they won't stop until one of them has successfully defeated the other!

Episodes 53 and 54: While Batman deals with the three puzzling champions, Batgirl and Robin end up fighting against The Bookworm and Scarecrow, both of whom have teamed up to try and steal some rare manuscripts for old time classic horror novels. It might be in this story that we get the first hints that robin is beginning to feel stifled by batman's authority. He wants to fly somewhat independently. To prove himself to Batman.

Episodes 55 and 56: Batman and Robin have to defeat The Joker, when he decides to challenge them to a game of wits. He commits crimes using the gimmicks of other criminals, and thusly tries to lure them off his trail. It almost works, until Batman and Robin finally get wise to the scheme.

Episodes 57 and 58: Batman and Robin team up to fight against The Minstrel, their old musically inclined foe. He's come to Gotham to commit more musical thefts, and only the dynamic duo is capable of stopping him.

Episodes 59 and 60: Batman and Robin have to deal with King Tut, who's once again relapsed into his horrible criminal ways.

After this, Season Four ends. Then we'd have the two animated movies (The Return of the Caped Crusaders and Batman vs Two-Face), and we'd also have the third movie which we were promised but which Adam West died before he could film (we were promised a film project with Harley Quinn, according to the Batman vs Two Face wikipedia page). So we'd have the Harley Quinn story (which might also feature Hugo Strange), and then we'd have Robin leave Batman to go do his own thing, the same way he did in the mainstream comics. And that would be the lead in for Season Five, which is all about Batman on his own.

[obsessedwithstarwars]

FIGHT SCENE (that came to me while sick and slightly out of it so bear with me if it sounds CRAZYYYY)

Jazz is fighting some villain. Villain tries to use her dead brother as emotional collateral. She ignores it, seemingly unaffected, and continues to fight.

At some point the villain will be almost defeated, awaiting the final blow. They try one final plea to the red haired woman defeating them, “What would your brother say?”

At that moment, a boy falls through the ceiling, landing on the ground in front of the woman with a smug smile on his face. “I’D SAY -Actually wait hold on a sec.”

The boy gently tugs on the woman’s foot. “Jazz c’mere!” He loudly whispers.

She lets out an irritated sigh, says “Fine.”and hops over until her foot is lightly resting on his stomach. It’s almost picturesque. Her standing triumphantly on the boy who has now dramatically put his hand to his head.

He cries out (with a shit eating grin on his face), “OVER MY DEAD BODY!”

Villain: …

Danny: …

Villain: …

Danny: GET IT? Because I’m DEAD???

Jazz: “Ugh, you’re SO dramatic.”

Danny: Eh, it was funnier in my head.

Villain: …But he’s not dead?!

Danny: Would a LIVE person be able to do THIS? *does something completely normal and human*

Villain: …

Danny: …

Villain: yes.

Danny: Dammit. How about THIS? *does another completely normal human thing*

Villain: …

Danny: …

Villain: …also yes.

Danny: You’ve gotta be shitting me.

Jazz: Just soup them already!

Danny: No no! I will figure this out! How about THIS?

Villain: Yes but WHY would you WANT TO?!

Danny: Ugh Fine. What about this one??

Villain: …I personally don’t know how to do that, but yes that is something a person could do.

Danny: Really? It’s easy! Here, let me show you!

Jazz: …

Jazz: I’m going home.

[spicy-apple-pie]

You guys want another stupid fucking idea?

Bruce on taskmaster.

Sure he’s not a comedian, but let’s just say that the network was struggling to find comedians that could fit taskmaster into their schedule idk. The batkids are fans of the show so when Bruce is like “what’s taskmaster and why are they asking me to participate?” They are like “YOU HAVE TO SAY YES!!”

Anyways, imagine the inner turmoil Bruce would be in. I hc him as very competitive, so he has to juggle being the ditzy playboy and actually wanting to win the competition. And the thing is he’s fucking good. Like as Batman he’s constantly thinking outside the box for villains like Riddler and Joker. He tries to downplay it but because he’s surrounded by heroes he kinda… forgets?

Like one time, he has to climb a tree for some reason, and he gets a good way up until he realizes… normal people can’t do that. So he has to fake falling down.

Also, for one of the prize tasks, they have to bring in an item that is precious to them. So Bruce brings in his mother’s pearl, complete with the evidence baggy. Greg is bewildered, the crowd is going crazy. “My back up was my children’s adoption papers.” Bruce says once everyone calms down.

There’s not a soul on that stage that is not absolutely terrified of Bruce Wayne from that point on.

[blackbirdsblackberries]

Hey, Tira!! Anon that suggested Latina! Reader here. First of all, are you doing good? Remember to drink water, okay?

Secondly, for a neglected! Reader plot,(or maybe a one-shot, whatever you feel like writing) what do you think about magical girl! Reader? Like, there's this pink (or any other color) teenage girl/boy in gotham that fights some type of not really scary monster (maybe those from precure, as they don't look that frightening) with glitter and hearts and cute stuff and then the batfam is just flabbergasted because why?? Are they?? So cute?? And they become yandere because they just think reader is so so adorable and innocent

And maybe gotham villains have a soft spot for reader becuase they saved them for the monster thingys

And now reader has to deal with all the most powerful entities in gotham being obsessed over them

And IF it is a neglected! Reader they have to deal with the pain of being adored by the batfam as their magical girl persona, but not as their real self

OR MAYBE!! Star butterfly! Reader (i could elaborate if you want!)

Sorry for the long ask and any writing mistakes, and again, really self indulgent because I love love love magical girls!!

Hi! I love hearing from you again!!! I'm doing good, I just watched the Deadpool and Wolverine movie and it's taken a grip on me 😩

I love that idea for the plot! I was hoping to do a magical girl reader because my FYP on both Tiktok AND Tumblr has been magical girl batfam and I just finished watching Sailor Moon last night.

I'd love to incorporate that into the plot (as well as make a separate one-shot of it in a different instance).

I for sure think that the Batfam would have the mindset of "oh, they're dressed up in cute, bright colours and is fighting non-frightening monsters. That must mean they're an innocent teen playing dress up and doesn't actually know the truth about the real world"

Whether it's true or not is up to you to decide for now but I personally think that Reader would be in the middle, aware of the world around them but oblivious to how it affects themselves - or completely different then that, Reader would be completely aware of the world and struggles in real life but fights as a magical girl + with a smile on her face so she can give others hope.

For the villains I think for sure that the ones who have a proper soft spot (eg. Wouldn't get Reader involved in crimes, would work to protect Reader) would be Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, Riddler, Two-Face and Penguin.

For the villains that will let Reader get into trouble so they can save them I think it would be Bane, Catwoman, Clayface and Killer Croc. (Possibly Mad Hatter).

For the villains who would purposefully incorporate Reader into their schemes I think the main ones would be Joker, Hugo Strange and Scarecrow (for two different reasons however).

For Joker he'd see it more so as a bonding experience, a way to "hang out" and "catch up". Even if the Reader is held hostage, in the middle of the battle field, etc.

For Scarecrow I think it would come moreso from a sense of morbid curiosity. How far will Reader go to help people? How does their mind work? How will they react to Fear Gas? What is their fear?

I'd definitely think Harley would love the outfit and Mad Hatter would start to think of you as Alice with your colourful get-up.

If we're talking Batman villains who aren't in Gotham (Talia, Ra, Deadshot, Deathstroke) then I feel it would be a different kind of attachment.

It would be more like "what is this colourful child doing in such a dark place?" (Even if you are already in your adult years).

Talia and Ra would see Reader as someone to train, Reader has great strength to wield and if Talia/Ra can train them then Reader will be a great asset.

The difference between the two would be that Talia grows attached in a nurturing way while Ra grows attached in a condescending way.

Eg.

Talia would think of Reader as a child for her to protect

Ra would think of Reader as a lamb that will be slaughtered without him.

Deadshot has his own kid, he doesn't care much for another until seeing Reader hurt/sad. Reader would be a substitute for Deadshot's daughter while she's with her mother.

Deathstroke, I really don't like him (sorry if you do, he just makes me feel icky), but I feel he'd have a mix between Talia's headspace and Ra's headspace.

"Reader can't survive without me guiding them. Reader needs a father to help them grow" it doesn't matter if you have a dad, he won't compare to Deathstroke. If it's such a big deal for Reader Deathstroke will just remove Reader's father from the picture.

I'd love for you to elaborate on Star Butterfly!

Dw about long requests, I literally squealed when I saw it!!

[maxwell-grant]

I think it’s interesting, considering how most live-action superhero adaptations kill off the villains after their debut, that both The Batman and The Penguin end with the villains not just living, but set up to return and somehow cause Even Bigger Problems down the line. Is this just because it’s the first Batman film adaptation that’s a capital-F Franchise, so the writers need the villains to stick around long-term, or is something else going on?

Almost entirely comes down to the fact that The Batman was not meant to be Batman's origin story - by Reeves' own admission, it was the origin story of the Rogues Gallery. They got the Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes guy and he did a story about the boots-on-the-ground gritty perspective on larger-than-life terrors emerging from the ruins and failings of human civilization, taking the struggles and wars and laborious processes that others shy away from and putting them front in center. It's just this time, instead of kaijus and parasites attacking and destroying the city, instead of apes emerging as the Mad Max warlords rising from the ashes to fight over the world, we have Batman villains in that role instead.

To me, that was actually the conception - if we weren't going to do a Batman origin story, but we were going to do it in the early years, I thought well, in the comics, the rogues gallery characters often are creating their alter egos in response to the fact that a masked vigilante shows up in Gotham called the Batman.

And so I thought, oh well, what we could do is see all of the rogue's gallery characters in their origins, like Selina Kyle before she's Catwoman, and that we could go into, as we're looking for a suspect, we could go to a nightclub, a nightclub could be the Iceberg Lounge and we could see a pre-kingpin Oz, and we could see, you know, a Riddler who is declaring himself the Riddler sort of because there's a Batman. And so all of that was sort of built into the conception. - Matt Reeves

It's far from the first Batman film adaptation to be a capital-F Franchise, even if that aspect was there - Reeves initially pitched the movie as an HBO series, and throughout production pitched additional show ideas such as an Arkham show or a Gotham PD show, The Penguin being the only one that survived as far as we know. This pulls off an origin from the Rogues Gallery better than every other Batman media ever made, and there's a couple of reasons why it does so and why the villains get to take center stage here:

Part of the difference between the way Nolan tackled realistic Batman, and the way Reeves tackles realistic Batman, is that Nolan needs realism to explain Batman, and Reeves needs realism entirely in the service of making Batman weirder. Pattison Batman is the weirdest Bruce ever put on film almost entirely because he lives in our world while still being Batman in every way that counts - Keaton Bats slept upside down in a cave, but he lived in a Tim Burton world. Adam West Bats is weird, but everybody is like that or even weirder than he is, he is the comedic straightman to everyone else. And where as Nolan needs Batman to be the thing that makes sense, Reeves needs Batman to be the thing that doesn’t make sense.

Nolan wanted weird difficult irreducible villains opposite a logical pragmatically sensible Batman, and Reeves wants exactly the opposite. For Nolan, even besides the Joker who was defined entirely around the lack of a real explanation for him, you have his take on Two-Face, Bane, the Al Ghuls, characters that don't demand that much reasoning or explanation because they can act and exist in ways that defy logic, while Batman's the guy who has to hold the center of logic and reason. Where as here, Pattison Batman is the most interesting and complicated and larger-than-life figure this world is dealing with in much the same way that Ledger Joker was for his movie, and everyone else is in the position of starting out and having to deal with Batman and the paradigm shift he brings - nobody else in the movie is quite the character they were supposed to be, that's something they're all growing into in response to their nightmare city and what this titanic freak in armor represents to them.

Even The Riddler is ultimately explainable, human, reducible to his tantrums and vulnerabilities, even without you knowing in-depth his character and backstory that would be elaborated for Dano's Year One. Even The Penguin - he may be larger-than-life, he may be unexplainable on some level, but we know all too well all of his failings and feelings and life story and all the cracks in his persona that he killed Victor to try and bury. But Batman? Next to everyone else, he is still an anomaly, he is just Like That, even to his own detriment and that of the city, and he learns that he must apply being Like That to something better.

Reeves is not interested in doing "Batman vs [X]" movies, the movies are going to be focused on Batman's arc first and foremost, which means the villains will never really take them over the way they've usually done - this is a world where it's the villains who react to Batman, not the other way around. This frees them from the burden of having to exist in direct relation to how much they can directly menace Batman, and it makes it so that these are characters that can carry their own spin-offs, which is probably a lot easier for WB to work with because these are spin-offs that they don't really have to get Pattison to show up for, but they can construct in ways that don't even need Batman to be physically there. Even after The Penguin, they might not have to do that Smallville/Gotham song-and-dance of teasing a main character who'll never get to be here, there are a lot of other things happening in Reeves' Gotham besides the existence of Batman, even if the existence of Batman has changed all of them. So structurally speaking this series has a ton of room for reocurring villains, and building it has been one of their top priorities. In fact, this ONLY gets to do so because the movie already laid out the entire groundwork for them and how it all ties together.

See, the way Batman stories do the rise of a Rogues Gallery and how it affects the city and therefore Batman always follows a sort of a 7-step program:

Gotham City is ruled by crime, crime that takes away the Waynes (Falcone / Carl Grissom (89) / Falcone backed by the League (Nolan) / the Falcone-Hill-Wayne triumvirate (Telltale) / Gotham S1 and first-half of S2)

Crime begats Batman, who beats Crime

Crime + Batman = Weird Crime (Jack Napier becomes Joker after an encounter with Batman (89) / "we still haven't picked up Crane and those other Arkham inmates btw check out this weird card" (Nolan) / Black Mask and the international assassins + Joker's rise (Arkham) / Children of Arkham (Telltale) / the Indian Hill experiments and patients (Gotham)

Weird Crime Replaces Crime (The Long Halloween / Joker takes over the mob (89) / the mob is so impressed by the pencil trick they give Joker all the money (Nolan) / Joker literally replaces Black Mask in the process of becoming Batman's main enemy (Arkham) / Penguin assassinates Mayor Hill and the Children enter a war with Mayor Dent (Telltale) / Indian Hill breakout and Maniax cult and etc (Gotham)

Weird Crime is a Rogues Gallery now (Penguin and Catwoman and Max Shreck in the sequel (Burton) / Joker and Two-Face become separate problems, Bane + Talia + Crane + Catwoman in the sequel (Nolan) / after Origins a whole asylum full of them (Arkham) / Riddler + The Pact and John becoming Joker proper (Telltale) / Gotham S3 with Tetch and Riddler and the Legion of Horribles

The city is changed by the new paradigm

Batman responds / expands or retracts in response to this change

(4 and 5 don't necessarily always happen one before the other, mind you, frequently you do have a Weird Crime Rogues Gallery before Weird Crime replaces Crime at the head of the table)

And you can apply this to most other Batman stories that don't automatically start and stay at level 5. But where as all of these have to stretch the process across sequels and continuations, The Batman is the first Batman work that gets to do all 7 of them in one row. It gets 1 and 2 done offscreen before the opening act and shown to us how they happened throughout the movie's reveals, 3-4-5-6 comprise the Riddler's plot + the other United Underworld members roped into it, and it ends with 7. Even the Batmanless spin-offs follow the process: The Riddler: Year One covers Eddie's perspective on 1-2 as he enters stage 3 and prepares it for the movie, and The Penguin covers 4-5-6, leaving us waiting for Bruce's response back to stage 7 where The Batman ended.

And up until The Batman, the process behind the creation of a Rogues Gallery had never really been much of a process - comics that go into the transition like Long Halloween/Dark Victory just show the fall of Carmine Falcone -> the freaks waiting in the wings causing it or happening immediately after. Gotham tries to work that escalation gradually and it starts relatively "normal", but it's always dancing around the premise and the central black hole and the building blocks don't have anything to do with each other - the gang wars and Penguin have nothing to do with Bruce investigating a conspiracy, which has little to do with Gordon and Bullock investigating weird serial killers who keep escalating, and then eventually we get that Hugo Strange was building freaks in his basement at the orders of the Court/Ra's the whole time until they all just escape. You can piece together how Batman works that aren't about this transition ultimately touch on most of those 7 stages and have their own version of it as soon as they introduce Gotham City in a pre-Batman/pre-villain state, but the connections are always rather tenuous and not necessarily connected to each other (and it's fine, y'know, not everything in a story always has to come from the same source).

But everything in The Batman follows a long chain of dominos that had to happen for this system to become the way it needs to be for Batman villains to emerge. Everything started in that one night Thomas Waynes saved Carmine Falcone, everything started from that ensuing connection and Thomas' failures leading to a city ruled by mobsters for 20 years and the sheer level of rot and corruption and human misery that creates and justifies the existence of Batman, and thus The Riddler in his example. Everything we get in The Penguin is the result of this paradigm shift and total civic collapse, showing the destruction of Carmine's empire as well as his legacies torched and mutated by Sofia and Oz respectively. Everything is still connected. The United Underworld guys featured in the movie live and dwell in entirely separate spaces and represent entirely different things, and they're still all connected in the same chain of dominoes, which allows them to expand and cover entirely separate narrative real estate while still giving it all cohesion.

The movie never has to specifically establish a system full of supervillains or made for them, it has to establish a system so utterly fucked and dominated by Falcone, so utterly failed by every institution and body of government and system imaginable, that it creates Batman, and the minute Batman arrives and survives long enough to be a third power / a fifth state, people in his wake trying to respond to him or do the same things he does, as a response to the same afflictions he faced and to his example or influence, are the only logical thing. Without needing to literally show the other rogues waiting in the wings, The Batman established an entire world of possibility just by very smartly using the 4 big ones + Carmine and showing why and how this regular American city becomes a place where supervillains bombing city blocks and running for political office can become a facet of daily life. Joker, Penguin, Catwoman and Riddler - positioned as separate from each other as possible to show the ways in which this is, and maybe always has been, spreading fast out of Batman's control.

And now with The Penguin, reinforcing the chokehold of crime in the city in it's old ways as well as the corrupt mutated new ones brought on by our boy, as well as a new Batman Villain (possibly two, if Eve Karlo ever gets her hands on suspicious make-up) arriving from Penguin's side of things so that it's not just Batman who has a Rogues Gallery to deal with, not just Batman who has terrific enemies waiting in the wings for a chance to enact their own forms of justice and revenge, no, that's just what life is like in Gotham now, forever.

[batmanisagatewaydrug]

your post from yesterday about preferring Riddlers to be working class just reminded me of something that bothered me abt the one bad day issue (aside from like. everything else) and it's that OBD Riddler being from a well off fancy private school background just ..doesn't work as well? imo his 'edwardian gentleman but neon green' bit simply works better when he hasn't been raised in the dead poets society and instead leans more, well, carnival conman doing it for the aesthetic

OKAY thank you that reminded me that I need to get back to this

the Riddler is like SUCH an anomaly and an embarrassment of a character (and I say that with AFFECTION) because there's, like, no really good reason why he should have lasted long enough to become such a core Batman villain, certainly not part of a big four with Catwoman, Penguin, and the Joker. the fact that he's survived and stayed relevant so long is a HUGE fluke and now he's one of those elements that's iconic enough that people would complain if it was gone but problematic enough that writers feel like they HAVE to justify his existence.

"problematic" here doesn't mean, like, politically distasteful, just that he's. I mean. you know. he's a guy in a green leotard doing bad riddles. unlike most of Batman's most iconic villains he doesn't have any particularly well known backstory, he doesn't have any deep personal connection to the Bat, he doesn't even have any unique powers or abilities or horrific inhuman appearance he's just. he's just some fucking guy who's kind of refused to fade into obscurity an accidentally became an staple of the lore along the way.

so there's this like metatextual need to justify him as a plausible threat by styling him as a highly educated super genius. One Bad Day was an especially egregious example because King made him so damn near omnipotent that it genuinely stopped making sense, not to mention trying to make him seem scarier by trying to say the plot of the Killing Joke was actually the Riddler's idea that he just? passed off to the Joker?

like stop. doing this. stop trying to make him scary stop trying to make him serious he's just a guy. he's just a silly goofy little guy who's Like That because he sucks. I'm just. I'm tired. let him be fun.

[igotanidea]

Fourth floor: Jason Todd x reader

Imagine Jason having a target.

A new gothamite villain pretending to be a regular, common civilian, living in a tenement house, having his little happy famliy that had no idea of his real proffesion.

Real profession being the most bloodthirsty, ruthless crime boss that Gotham has ever seen.

Yes, worse than Black mask, Joker, Bane, Riddler or whoever else.

And being who he wa Jason made it his personal mission to eradicate the rodent.

And since while gathering intel he learnt that his family (his wonderful, clueless wife and his innnocent princess of a daughter) were out of town, the best way of dealing with shit was to get his target alone in his apartment.

After all, in his lair he was always surrounded by his minders. And why bother making it harder than necessary when Jason could have a clean in and out in villain's flat.

Well-

Jason had intel, had preparation, skills and a perfect plan.

But what he didn't have is a little bit more of an orientation.

Becuse by some crazy accident he confused the flats and instead of entering the crime boss's one?

He broke into yours.

Not realising it at first.

At least not until he got hit with a baseball bat and met with a fuming girl that looked a lot like rabid squirrel.

"the fuck!?" she struggled against the grip Jason had on her wrist while holding her arm up, almost making her legs dangle in the air "who the fuck are you?!"

"You're not him." Jason, the-smart-cookie-Todd stated watching her fight against him despite having zero chances.

"Him? The hell! Look I may be a little disheveled but I think it's obvious I'm a woman."

"Yeah... sorry..." he let go off her wrist trying to calm the girl down. The last thing he needed was a hysterical female making a fuss in the entire building and startle his quarry "I was looking for..."

"Oh, yeah, he lives on fifth, this is fourth."

"What? How are you--"

"Common mistake. Unlike many other buildings in the city we have ground story, so-" she shrugged

Jason grunted in some sort of appreciation, but before he could leave she called his name.

Not his real name, obviously, the vigilante one!

"Be careful, Hood."

"I know how to handle myself." he almost hissed in annoyance at those stupid words.

"Yeah I know. Just thought you haven't heard those for a longer while and you look like you need to know someone actually care and appreciate your work. Not just Bats' one."

Good thing she didn't see him blush under the helmet.

And even better thing she didn't know that after dealing with his mission, Jason actually stalked her a little.

Learning her name and profession.

Making it his other personal mission to hear those words from her again.

Maybe not only as a Red Hood.

And he smiled to himself, when in the middle of some other cold, dark Gotham night he subconsciously found himself standing on the rooftop of the opposite building.

Staring right into her window.

Fourth floor.

Noted.

[nepobabyeurydice]

Am currently obsessed with the idea of annabeth returning to Gotham and becoming a crime boss allied with red hood/like an adviser of sorts to him partly because if she’s the princess of Gotham, she’s running it her way, and partly as revenge against bruce, because if a 7 year old he neglected could kill to survive, he could kill to avenge his son. She’s very strong on the no messing with kids rule for obvious reasons, and she doesn’t see robin as an exception to that because she is not plagued by pit rage. She has a very confusing (to them) relationship to the bats cuz she openly hates Batman, and will taunt him by putting robin in supposed danger, but never actually hurts him and anyone who does hurt him is made to see the error of their ways through somewhat violent means.

She acts mainly as damage control to Jason when it comes to Tim, because he’s her big brother and she’s trying to subtly break the influence of the pit over time. She either stops Jason before titans tower when she learns what he’s planning or goes to confront him there. Then, later, when Damian joins the family, she taunts Bruce about his dead daughter, using details no one else should know, and dramatically reveals herself. (Sadly, I am the only person who can write it the way i want it to be written, and will not ever write it)

Annabeth getting a call from Talia (incredibly alarming to her btw) and seeing Jason doing his vengeance shtick: Maybe I should go back to Gotham and check that he’s okay.

Grover who’s about to set out on his Percy Supervision Mission in Yancy Academy: Please for the love of all the gods be good.

Luke would be fine with letting her go since while he’s a bit weird about her it’s still a sibling-like bond and the idea of 12-year old Annabeth with beefed up Jason standing in front of the world’s worst criminals brings me joy.

Annabeth, walking into Jason’s apartment after six minutes of making sure his neurosis were the same: Damn bitch you live like this? After all my architecture rants too??

Jason: Are you a fucking ghost?

Annabeth: Are you?

Annabeth is very clear about being Annabeth and doing her whole leaving the Wayne name behind forever to Jason who kind of struggles to wrap his head around cute and shy Anna being this terrifyingly smart monstrosity. She makes his plans even more sick and twisted, plays around with the ambiance and the clues and makes sure that it can only be traced back to the Red Hood and not Jason Todd. Which means she tortured Dick psychologically at several points in the middle of other villain fights to see which reactions she can use against Bruce more subtly so that’s fun.

Dick, on his third mental breakdown of the month about Anna: I miss her so much I wish we tried harder to find her!

Annabeth, writing it down from where she’s hiding: Making the cases be increasingly similar to what happened to me has produced results. Find a demigod and recreate case with Bruce to torment his further.

Tim was originally barely a factor to Annabeth because she doesn’t really care for him unlike Jason and Jason’s plans on what to do with him seemed sane enough but after he mentioned that he wanted to get into Titan’s Tower Annabeth arranged for something on the Drake’s end to pull Tim away for a while and convinced Jason to focus on the Joker plan again. Annabeth is extremely against involving anyone who isn’t Bruce, Joker, Alfred and Dick in her plans and only occasionally considers adding Barbara. So when Jason shows clear interest in hurting Tim as a way to get back at Bruce she moves up her whole timeline and has ten different plans running to keep Tim out of the country at first then away from where Jason would be by orchestrating a few YJ fights until Jason tells her to fight Tim herself since he can’t get there in time.

Annabeth: Fight him? By myself?

Jason: Yeah, I believe in you *cuts the call*

Annabeth:…Fuck it, I’ll do a Riddler impression and hope for the best

said impression is completely terrifying and taken out of a saw movie basically and Tim is now wary of ever approaching a truck (which was actually a monster) since it. somehow threw him into a building and shattered three of his ribs. Annabeth continues running interference like this as she tries to keep Jason on task with ‘make Bruce kill the Joker’ scheme.

Eventually she’s called back to Camp after Percy shows up and Annabeth decides she needs someone to keep an eye on Jason and the whole plan thing so she sends Julieta, her godly half-sister, to keep him on track.

Julieta infiltrating Gotham Academy during the last three weeks of classes: This is so stupid.

Jason: I don’t care, tell me his habits and schedule.

Julieta: Do you get off talking to me like that?

Jason:…I’m sorry.

Basically all of TLT happens and Annabeth returns to Gotham immediately after the summer solstice which enrages Luke who speeds up his plans a bit and Percy is saved by the naiads and Annabeth is now double heartbroken and back in a city that encourages her to fester in her rage.

She lets Jason loose on Bruce and the Joker as she kidnapped Tim and uses him to torture Dick and Babs as she uses references to all of Jason’s career as Robin to guide them while taunting that she knows who they are and making another Saw trap. Meanwhile Tim has been given a slice of ambrosia and feels like he’s dying, he’s not but his godly heritage is diluted by four generations so it’s real bad pain.

Annabeth: It’s this or processing my emotions, Timothy, and I’m a Wayne, so down the hatch!

Tim, writhing in agony and shaking as Ares pretends not to notice him for six hours before helping him: Am I on drugs?

Things go down, Jason reveals himself, Bruce in a fit of desperation tries to cut his throat open but Julieta who helped in said Joker kidnapping stabs him thought the arm and Joker who was wisely knocked out by Julieta’s during the jokernapping is rescued by his henchmen while Jason has a mental breakdown and Bruce is dumped in the Batmobile by a truly done Julieta

And that’s all I can think of right now.

Thank you for telling of your idea, it’s actually a lot of fun, and since I was thinking about making a fic dedicated to 13 What-If scenarios in the Annabeth is a Wayne Universe this is definitely going on the list of you want it too.

[batmanfruitloops]

Happy 1st Anniversary to the Batmanfruitloops!!! 🎉

Whoo! This is such an achievement, but also it's such a crazy thought that it's been a WHOLE YEAR??? It means a lot that so many other people like our au as much as we do, and even more that we've been able to make friends; we want to thank all of you new and old for joining us here to have fun and enjoy the journey of our au!

With that said, I'd like to share some old art that's "behind the scenes" stuff from out time since we started our au.

also if you've been here since these were the profile picture and banner, you're a real one;

Fun fact, I (Sarsee) don't like fruit loops, but it was the first thing I thought of to name the blog, plus it was memorable. The au name being "Batman: A New Gotham" came later! Double plus, the abbreviation is BANG and I find that coincidence just delightful.

One of favorite changes that happened out of nowhere was John's eyes changing from more round to almond. He used to look a lot more like the Telltale Joker, but I feel like his current eyes fit better with his personality in our au. This also isn't going to show up because it's file names, but I had originally wanted to call the Joker "Jbird" like Batman calls him in the Lego Batman movie. (for context, it's the scene where Joker is tied to a bunch of balloons - you know the one - and side note, I want to redraw a screenshot from that with our Joker eventually) I don't have any pictures with a "Jbird" design because I never got the idea to work, I just thought it could have been interesting considering Joker works with Batman in our au and that would put him on theme with the Batfam being flying mammals/avians.

Most of the other original designs aren't too drastic either - or at least it doesn't feel like it to me. Scarecrow and Riddler have changed a lot though. And I think the changes that came about with Fluffy joining on board were much needed (Scarecrow's costume was always done by Fluffy, but I designed him out of costume originally -I was originally making the au myself, but that didn't last long when we started yapping about ideas to one another and never stopped) She also couldn't understand how I stylized his hair, so it became puffy and unruly instead of curly and gelled back. Ed can still gel his hair if he wanted to, just for special occasions.

Some old sillies as well from Fluffy;

we find the contrast between Batman vs. Scarecrow and Joker vs. Riddler very funny because it's so drastically different. The Joker and Riddler never really try to hurt each other, they just like to play into the dramatics and vibe while still on their separate sides. Batman and Scarecrow want to tear one another's throats out and watch them suffer for it because they have no idea what's going on in their heads.

with the villain!joker timeline, there's an alternate version of the Goon squad (Dork Squad + Joker) where it's Harvey instead of the Joker. Or as well, there can be all five of them. Harvey is the only person who can scruff Jo like the gremlin he very much is and he'll just let it happen.

I don't know if this will show up in the comic anymore, but at one point the Joker was going to refer to Scarecrow and the Riddler as Samhain and a leprechaun because they're both partially Irish - couldn't really be that specific with voice claims, and they'd be offended

and lastly, Ed gets cranky when he's tired

Batman and Riddler are the only two to get digital references at the time and man, do I much prefer how streamlined the final ones look. I mean, what was the dingy brown I had behind Batman? For a split second, Ed's coat was almost purple, but thankfully, Fluffy convinced me otherwise and suggested his shoes be purple. This is also before his vest, and now there's an in story reason for why he doesn't have it in the beginning. Also look at how skinny and tall Ed looked!! (he was still short, he's not allowed to be tall in our au)

That's all I have for now, we'd love to hear any thoughts/memories/etc. in the comments!

Love, Sarsee and Fluffy, your batmanfruitloops creatures

[nightmare-foundation]

Hero/villain batfamily swap AU

Okay so I really wanna infodump about my au that I've recently made, which puts the batfamily in the Gotham Rogues' places. I haven't thought through all of them yet, and I haven't accounted for all the batfamily (i.e. Kate Kane, Luke Fox, etc), but this is what I have

The Rogues

Bruce- The Penguin

Dick- Two-Face

Tim- The Joker

Stephanie- Black Mask

Damian- the Demons Head/Ra's Al Ghul

Barbara- The Riddler

Duke- Mr. Freeze

Cass- Lady Shiva?

The Heroes/good guys

Jason- Batman

Nightwing/Robin I- Jacob 'Jake' Grayson

Red Hood/Robin II- Thomas Grayson

Raven/Robin III- Jonathan Crane

Spoiler/Robin IV- [name] Brown (she hasn't been named yet, but she's Stephanie's daughter!)

Robin V- William Todd

Black Bat- Rose Wilson

The Signal- TBD (feel free to suggest ideas)

Seer- James Gordon Jr.

Harvey Dent

Edward Nygma

Jack Napier

Oswald Cobblepot

Waylon Jones

Jervis Tetch

Basil Karlo

Admittedly, the ones I've thought through the most are Dick, Jason, Tim and Damian. Some characters i haven't thought much about at all or I have an idea of what I want them to be (like Harvey having a role similar to Jim Gordon, or maybe Edward works with Lucius?).

BUT- this is an au where an outside force fucked with the timeline (haven't decided who/what or how) and, after regaining their past timeline memories, the batfamily (now Rogues... except for Jason lol) have to work together to figure out how to fix the timeline. The problem being their current states make that task much harder than it'd usually be, especially with their current history with each other, even despite their memories returning. So there's a whole slew of issues, not just internal, but with each other and dealing with heroes. And they have... very complicated histories with each other.

I'll explain a few of them under the cut :)

Dick Grayson aka Two-Face

What differs in this AU is that Dick is, of course, never taken in by Bruce and is instead passed around from abusive foster home to abusive foster home in Gotham. Thanks to a mix of the circus having been not a safe place and the abuse he endures in foster care, Dick develops DID, BPD and OCD from the trauma. He grows up with a close friend in Jason Todd, and while they separate for a while (Jason going to train to become Batman, Dick going into law school), they come back together as adults.

Dick becomes a lawyer because Tony Zucco had used legal loopholes to get out of facing the consequences of murdering the Flying Graysons, and Dick fully intended on trying to fix the legal system in some way and to try to prevent something like that from happening to others. At some point, Dick ends up having 2 sons, Jake and Thomas, who are 8 and 3 respectively when Dick eventually becomes Two-Face.

Since he's very close to Jason, he's actually aware that Jason is Batman. When Dick gets more unsatisfied with the justice system, he joins Jason in crime fighting as the vigilante Robin. Unbeknownst to both of them, Two-Face (not yet called that, but i haven't thought of a name yet lol) is not only unsatisfied with the justice system, but also how Jason and Dick fight crime. (Two-Face believes in the anti-hero kind of lethal justice. No, he's not 'evil')

One day, I imagine something happens and Dick, in his civilian form, tries to defend someone from someone else, but the fight results in the attacker slamming a glass container full of acid into Dicks face. This is obviously deeply traumatizing, and not only that, it solidifies Two-Faces belief that vigilantes should adopt a more lethal form of justice.

This is, obviously, how they become Two-Face :) they're deemed too mentally unstable to care for their two sons, so Jason is the person who takes them in and cares for them.

Jason Todd aka Batman

Honestly, I haven't considered exactly how he gets the idea of becoming Batman, but I'm considering that the catalyst is similar; he witnesses his father's murder. Essentially Willis got on the bad side of some mob boss and gets killed in front of Jason and Catherine. Eventually, after that, Catherine succumbs to a drug overdose.

Jason grows up close to Dick, with them supporting each other throughout their childhoods and helping each other escape foster care. Eventually Jason comes under the care of Oswald Cobblepot (who is the surprisingly kind but tough CEO of Cobblepot Industries) after attempting to steal the CEOs tires. Through him, he gets into training, and he supports Dicks lawyer endeavors financially.

After he comes back from all of his training, he refamiliarizes himself with Gotham and then becomes Batman. There's a lot of stuff he's way more lax about than Bruce is, like killing or temporarily working with criminals if it yields better results, but he still has his limits.

Jason also has his own Robins, but his relationship with them is far more healthy.

Tim Drake aka The Joker

Tim wasn't actually all that unique prior to becoming the Joker. He grew up in and out of boarding school with somewhat absent parents, in a middle class then upper class household. Tim became a photographer and journalist as an adult.

How he became the Joker is simple: he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Because of who he was, he was framed, and dropped into a vat of acid.

What came out just... isn't Tim Drake anymore.

Misc.

This is essentially what I have for the others that I haven't fully figured out yet:

-Duke becomes Mr. Freeze not long after his parents are hit by a lethal form of Joker Venom. He keeps them frozen so that they stay alive while he tries to search for a cure.

-Barbara becomes the Riddler not long after Jim Gordon dies. There's a bunch of stuff that causes her to go villain mode, but her father dying is the catalyst, or the straw that broke the camels back so to speak.

-Damian is not centuries old like Ra's is, but he is on the older side (50s? Maybe older?). Really, a lot of characters are aged up lol. He is still related to Bruce and Talia. He has kids too! William (<- placeholder name, I'm having trouble naming him, I might give him a name that reflects his heritage. He's gone through several iterations already LOL) Todd is his grandson.

-Edward Nygma works under Lucius Fox and helps make things for Jason! He also totally makes escape rooms on the side. Cringefail malewife vibes, as he should always have

-Harvey Dent has a role similar to commissioner Gordon, though I'm debating if he's actually a police commissioner or a Private Investigator.

-James Gordon Jr. Is Seer, and i imagine part of the reason he became a vigilante was to prove people's assumptions of him wrong. He's physically disabled (not sure how yet, but he uses forearm crutches) and is diagnosed with ASPD. He works as a hero both in the streets and behind a screen. I'm not sure yet what kind of day job he has tbh.

[leoruby-draws]

Posting some more art, these dealing with the other half of the superhero game, some villainous proteges! When the kids aren't helping Batman fight the bigger villains, they deal with the younger minions!

Duela Dent, Joker's Daughter, has a very confusing history despite the fact that she barely appears in any comics. And the few that she does appear in, she keeps changing looks and personality. I wondered if I should split her between her per-crisis and post-crisis self( her post would have elements of new52). It would be one way to deal with her. She's something of an antagonist to the batkids, tho its more light-hearted fun than any actual maliciousness from her. She's kind of the leader of this little gang.

Enigma, sidekick to the Riddler also has very few comic appearances. I thought she would make a fantastic enemy to tiny vigilantes, being a tiny villain herself. She's much more vicious than Duela, tho Duela keeps her in line a bit.

As for the Scarecrow 'distaff counterpart', she's spun from the Batman Family comic, where Duela was running around as all the villain's daughters. So I got the idea to actually make a 'scarecrow's daughter' oc, her name could be something like scaregirl or something. She's quite the creepy girl huh? OC's are pretty fun to make!

There's also Kitrina Falcone, Catgirl. Catwoman has been shown to mentored girls here and there but there's only been one catgirl to my knowledge. I thought her design looked interesting and obviously wanted to make a younger version for my au. I think she should be around Tim's age maybe? She's very playful and kinda selfish, like her mentor but not too malicious. The batkids mostly just find her a bit annoying (she keeps stealing random stuff off them).

Finally theres Cleo Cazo, daughter of the Ratcatcher. I just call her Ratgirl tbh. While I have read the comics for Ratcatcher, I have not watched the movie Cleo appears in (barring some youtube clips of her). So her history is more in line with the comics, considering her father has been in jail for years, she probably lives with her mother or other family. She's mostly harmless, and doesn't really have interest in fighting the heroes, she just wants to play with her rat friends and sleep. She seems to have some sort of narcolepsy disorder.

Anyways, that was a lot, hope you liked all that!

[via-the-cryptid]

Gotham Ghost AU, let’s go.

Ellie wakes up in an alley in Gotham after the whole Portal Incident Part II: Electric Boogaloo goes down. she’s fully stabilized now, but she’s also in a whole new universe because, y’know, you put a half-finished halfa in the middle of an opening portal… things get kinda weird.

she’s lost in a completely new place with no idea what’s going on, and worse, she’s in Gotham. one wrong turn in this place and you’ll end up worse than dead (or half-dead, as it may be), so obviously Ellie has to invoke Murphy’s Law and wander right on into the current disaster zone, thereby gathering the attention of none other than the Joker. she panics, maybe mistakes him for a ghost or something, and instead of running or freaking out like any ordinary gothamite would, she… punches him in the nose.

and now there are rumours.

I mean, you don’t just deck the Joker and get off scot-free. the Joker himself is now interested, because her entire color palette inverted (much like his and Harley’s), but she’s in greyscale? the Joker wants details now, which is Bad. his sudden interest in a girl with white hair and toxic-green eyes also incurs the attention of half the rogues’ gallery, meaning that most of Gotham’s villains are now keeping an eye out for poor Ellie.

including, of course, a certain E. Nygma. in true Riddler fashion, he sets a trap to catch a runaway girl in need of a hiding spot, and she falls for it hook, line, and sinker.

like most of the Riddler’s traps, Ellie is presented with a puzzle to solve if she wants to escape. Ellie being Ellie, however, she simply phases through the wall to get out (hooray for ghost powers) and then continues on her merry way.

and that’s what truly captures the Riddler’s attention, because for the first time since maybe Batman, someone has actually managed to cheat one of his traps.

And it was a random little girl who did it.

[artemismoorea03]

DP x DC Prompt: IT'S LIKE YOU DON'T LISTEN

(Inspired by the song: Don't Listen (Amanda The Adventurer Fan song)

So, we've all see Danny interacting with the Joker in fanfics (I love them so fuckin' much). He's just an absolute menace but I think we're missing on other interactions with the DC villains. (I've explored some of these in my fics but ignore that I just love this idea so much I use it a lot)

Scarecrows whole thing is making people see their biggest fear which as far as we know Danny's biggest fear is hurting those he cared about. Literally he's faced his biggest fear and because his powers prevent him from being affected by drugs he's going to really piss Scarecrow off. No matter what mixture, how dangerous, how deadly he makes it he can't get it to work on Danny and it's driving him crazy.

Killer Croc is a whole threat, but this 5'5" teen who hasn't slept in four days and just poured five-hour energy and monster into his coffee is ready to brawl and can catch his fist with a single hand all while cracking jokes or complaining about how he was hoping to take a nap. It's not just Croc either, Bane is having the same issue with the white haired kid who just showed up out of the blue one day and it's pissing them both off.

Penguin and Cat Woman will steal something just to get home and realize the damn thing is gone! But who the hell could have stolen it from them? AND HOW THE HELL IS IT BACK FROM WHERE THEY STOLE IT FROM?! It's becoming more and more difficult to be a hard working thief these days.

But then there's the Riddler. He sets up puzzle after puzzle, countless traps, countless counter traps. He's planned them out and made sure that there's no way he can lose. At least that's what he thinks until Phantom shows up and suddenly just deactivates all his shit without bothering with his riddles. Then the one time he gets him to actually do a riddle he doesn't seem to care that his life is in danger! Or that other lives are in danger - turns out a duplicate saved the hostages and he was literally just messing with the Riddler who just got a bit too invested in the fact that he finally caught Phantom.

Villains are getting more and more frustrated and they're starting to get desperate.

[magicrainbowkitties]

I know the game is forever old at this point but I'm still so damn pissed that Arkham Knight still ended up being all about Joker instead of Scarecrow. Like. The fucker's DEAD. The writer that came up with that should've been absolutely MAKING OUT with themselves cause HOLY CHRIST that frees up so much to explore with the other villains!

Instead he upstages fuckin SCARECROW from beyond the grave! That's fuckin stupid! There is SO. MUCH. To do with Scarecrow, or other Batman fears! Here's just a few off the dome:

- Vulnerability, be that emotional, physical, mentally, ect. Bruce has been hurt so many times by so many people, and his inability to give and receive trust and lay down guard is one of his biggest character flaws. Bruce Wayne is a very deeply loving, caring man that FORCES HIMSELF to stop trusting people because he is afraid of what will happen if he lets too many people (or the wrong people) into his world and life. Fuckin explore that, nerd!

- Losing everyone he loves. He's got the Batfam in this timeline, and Jason Todd went through WAY more this way round than in other settings (seriously that was a little bit fucked tbh, more on that in a minute). But in this game, he's dismissive of them, cold even, when they try to reach out. THE WRITER THAT CAME UP WITH THAT SHOULD'VE KISSED THEMSELVES FOR THEIR GENIUS, and then BLATANTLY MADE THAT COLDNESS A RESULT OF HIS FEAR THAT HIS KIDS ARE GONNA GET HURT AND HE'S SCARED OF WATCHING THEM DIE LIKE HIS PARENTS, rather than having it come across as the stoic badass attitude he's had throughout the series. We're told he loves his kids, but maybe show that a little more!

- Failure. They talked about this a little with the whole Arkham Knight plotline, but it could've (should've, really) been the focus (given it's THE FUCKIN NAME OF THE GAME). In fact, that scene where he finds out what happened to Jason should've been a fear gas dream, Joker's presence relegated to these hallucinatory scenes of Jason being violently tortured, the reality of the situation being only hinted at or brushed off because Jason, surprisingly enough, doesn't wanna talk about it. This all can encapsulate Bruce's innate fear of failing in his duty as both Batman and as a father, and his fear of confronting his past failures in the form of Jason Todd. And given this is FUCKING SCARECROW'S GAME, the guy who's all about plucking on fear and setting people against each other because they're afraid, he should've figured out how to exploit the fear of failure from the very beginning.

If the whole point is that Joker needs Batman but Batman doesn't need Joker, then why is it that the fear of becoming Like Joker Batman's fear gas hallucinations here? Sure, he can tangle with the fear of killing and wanton violence, even the fear that were he to intentionally kill someone, he wouldn't be able to stop.

But let's be so fucking for real: This Batman would not enjoy it. This Batman barely enjoys beating people up for Riddler info. He certainly wouldn't take the explicitly carnal pleasure in death that this Joker did. He couldn't stomach the idea of killing random people, he could barely stomach the idea of killing fucking Edward Nygma, and even THAT is stretching it HARD. Bc this Batman believes STRONGLY in punitive justice (despite 3 gamesworth and a whole career of experience to the contrary at that point), as shown in all previous entries. Now, he'll certainly LET people die (FUCKING HELL, DUDE, TYGER IS COMMITTING A LITERAL GENOCIDE RIGHT NOW AND YOU WANNA GO AFTER JOKER!? BE FOR REAL!), and is obviously ok with life-alteringly disabling people in settings where that would kill them (looking at you "if you're done eating solid food" in City, where people talk about quite literally starving in the cold all game long), but refuses to even kill a guy HE KNOWS WILL JUST RESURRECT IN 3 HOURS.

And his big fear is becoming Joker bc he has left over Joker Juice in his system?

Be so FUCKING for real.

Let Scarecrow Scarecrow in the goddamn Scarecrow game. That shit they did in Asylum? Shoulda been a whole game of THAT. Because that was fucking awesome.

[rpking99]

So I came across a video where they put Batman against Spider-Man's villains but I ended the Video early cause for the very first villain (the Scorpion... so not even one of Spidey's biggest enemies) they said Batman would just call the Justice League for help... which really go against the idea of putting one Super Hero against anothers Rouge Gallery

So I wanna ask... how would Batman do against Green Goblin, Kingpin, Venom, Doc Ock and Kraven the Hunter?

And for Spider-man... how would he do against Joker, Mr. Freeze, Bane, Ra's al Ghul and Scarecrow?

Okay I'm gonna say this to start

Spider-Man? Walks through Batman's rogue gallery. Peter has to roll with any punch that hits him so people's hands are not SHATTERED. He can CASUALLY punch Scorpion's jaw off, who is MUCH stronger than a normal human.

Joker? Looses instantly against basic jokes at his expense. And he would not be able to effect Peter the same way some of Peter's own villains can. Because... Well Joker is no match for Peter physically or mentally, and the equivalent to the Joker for Peter has all the resources in the world

Anyone who is normal human levels like Two Face, Ra's, Riddler, Penguin, Anarky, Black Mask, Court of Owls, Killer Moth, Firefly, the mob bosses. All of them are easy to be taken out. Heck BANE would get his ass handed to him because Peter would still be too strong for him. Same with Killer Croc.

Mr Freeze would also be an easy win. But also Peter would be more than happy to help him and save him/Nora

The ones who would give Peter the biggest issue are the ones with chemical weapons or inhuman abilities. Clayface is the main inhuman one here, but even then Peter is use to fighting Sand Man and Hydro Man.

Some people claim that with his experience with Mysterio, Scarecrow would be easy. .... Mystero focuses on lights and sound and illusions. There is nothing tangible there, there is no hallucinations in play. Fear Toxin could potentially trip Peter up, as well as fuck up his Spider-Sense. He'd have to the will to power through, but it's catch him off guard.

Poison Ivy would probably be his biggest issue with the phermones and vines and Peter's weakness for lovely ladies and red heads. Especially since, most of the time, she's not a bad guy just doing things the bad way.

Spider-Man sweeps Gotham

But.... On to Batman?

Kingpin and other mob style/human level villains? Bruce wins against. Him, Vulture, Shocker, guys like that. Same with Doc Ock on most days (those days when Dan Slott isn't giving Otto god mode)

Kraven? Kraven is like Bane without the venom weakness. Bruce is getting hunted, exhausted and more than his back broken.

Sand Man and Hydro Man, and kinda Electro, would give him a LOT of problems. But problems he could handle, ones he could overcome. They'd be hard but he could do it

Venom? Carnage? Any Symbiote? Spider strength, spider speed, spider reflexes, spider sense, webbing, wall crawling. All of that, enhanced, alongside tentacle attacks and being able to turn invisible? Sorry, Bruce is dead. The only way he'd win is with fire and sonic attacks, but he'd need to know their weakness BEFORE the fight to do so. Which goes against this idea. But even if he didn't, symbiotes have fluctuated so much with what they can and can't take when it comes to fire and sonics that might not even work.

And Green Goblin?

....

Green Goblin?

Sure, let's give Joker enhanced strength and speed and all the tech he could ever want. Let's give him as much, if not more, money than Bruce Wayne. Let's make him vindictive, angry and petty instead of just a sadist jokester

...

Bruce is either dead or broken by the Goblin. He can't keep up physically, Norman matches if not exceeds his gadget usage, Norman plans just as if not more than Bruce and he is just as cruel and evil as Joker without anythig that makes him hold back for Batman

[maxwell-grant]

Didn't realize you've read Riddler: Year One, any thoughts on it ? Also, in a more general way, what are your thoughts on the Riddler ?

Someone sent me an ask the past week or so saying that The Penguin is everything that the Joker movies should have been, and I don't think I agree on that in regards to The Penguin specifically. But if we're talking about a "Batman-less Batman villain origin story about a lonely suicidal man struggling with poverty and mental illness exacerbated by child abuse, who is pushed down through the cracks of society deep into the pits of his own mind until he can only save himself by becoming a horrible force of social upheaval and political terrorism, finally discovering joy and a reason to live at the expense of everyone around him, and now he will be Batman's problem someday", well this just completely embarasses Joker (2019) on every level. Impressively drawn, impressively written, impressive on it's own and as a prequel to the movie, WAY better than a movie actor's comic book tie-in has any right to be, and one of the greatest Batman comics ever made. Issue #5 in particular is one of the best and most harrowing comic issues and format breaks I've ever seen in the medium, and even if it's entirely self-contained, it very much belongs in the exact same conversation and should be considered inseparable from The Batman and The Penguin.

We spens 4 issues boiling the frog over every painful corner of Edward's childhood and humanity and misery, taking us through painfully intimate views and perspectives inside his headspace, seeing how and why he justifies his worldview and how easy it even is to do so, feeling truly sorry for this hopeless wretch even though we know he's losing it bad bad baddy bad bad and is going to step off the deep end forever. And then Issue 5 happens and suddenly you are one of the people in Gotham City tasked with sifting through this serial killer's personal diary and you can hear that creep shouting with that distorted voice, you can feel the final death rattle of Edward Nashton's soul ending where The Riddler begins to scream in your head 'I NEVER KNEW I HAD A REASON TO BREATHE", and by Issue 6 you fully understand why and how nobody was prepared for him, and why what he is and does and embodies is going to drag the city into an abyss it may never recover from, and why this was never going to stop even after his arrest, even after his defeat and humiliation in the movie. Everything here adds layers of sympathy and tragedy and heartbreak to the character, while simultaneously making everything he is and does in the movie so much more harrowing and disturbing, holy shit he really staked EVERYTHING, everyone's lives included, on being noticed by his savior.

I was already very much on board with Dano Riddler in the movie, whose execution absolutely sold what should have been, on paper, a storm of unadvisable fandom pitches and uninspired trends and straight-up bad ideas ("What if The Ridder was the Zodiac Killer", "What if The Riddler was a 4chan mass-shooter type", "What if The Riddler was a political terrorist with legitimate grievances but whose final goal was to kill off scores of people for little reason", "What if The Riddler was a creepy fascist responsible for a QAnon cult that ends the movie by metaphorically storming the capitol", "What if The Riddler was really, really, really obsessed with Batman", "What if The Riddler was another Dark Opposite Batman", fucking "What if The Riddler was Hush" even) worked into just this miracle magic bullet of a new take on the guy, fully capturing a lot of the essential bullet points of what makes The Riddler tick as a character while spinning them into new and significant ways befitting this increased role he has in the movie. Rereading the story now, so much of the movie even feels like it's specifically referencing the first Riddler story - The Mayor of Gotham City as a target, Riddler misdirecting Batman with a big target while his real plan involved a flood, Edward putting on a costume and naming himself The Riddler specifically because he wants to get Batman's attention, the glass maze, the written letters to police headquarters, The Eagle's Nest that is a nightclub and also the home of a millionaire with a bird last name (Falcone), a driverless vehicle careening wildly into a public place, even how the very first thing we learn about this fucker is that he cheats to win.

The guy in the movie is a version that fully works on it's own, but it clicks SO much more strongly and cohesively when you read this comic and what it establishes for him. It's the scene in the movie where the section of his diary reads "I must become something more" while Bruce finds the panicked desperate bat rattling against a cage, the thematic parallel between them that is the scariest thing he finds in the entire movie, but developed across six issues. This even begins with Eddie living through his version of the Wayne murders, with the first time he's felt anything other than crushing despair and misery, in part because he's seen the first hint of the puzzle he needs to solve, and where he needs to go. The moment the world stopped making sense for Bruce is the moment that the world started to make sense for Edward.

We understand, around the same time he understands, the childish nightmare that must become the pattern of his entire life from that moment onwards, how Edward Nashton would have killed himself, and no one would have cared, had he not become The Riddler, and how the only alternative to "Hey Edward why don't you crawl into the black hole inside yourself" is to, in fact, find this black hole inside of you and shaped like you and push other people into it instead. Become the creature of the night who can punch crime forever, become the avenging force too great for the Falcones to handle, become the kingpin whose name alone will live forever, become someone that the entire city will never again ignore or forget.

We see how it's less that he's been planning for this for so long, and more that his entire life has been broken and hammered into a Riddler shaped hole, and then when Batman dropped into it, he could start to understand what it is and put a name in it, in the fact that he's been training his entire life for this without knowing. Getting comfortable with flushing rats and making bombs at the orphanage, getting intimately and painfully familiar with self-loathing and alienation and misanthropic contempt for this city and it's people who sit by and allow all of this to happen, surviving his suicide attempts without being able to explain why, searching for answers as to why it hurts so much to live broken and unfulfilled and miserable and why he even bothers to keep on doing so, having nothing to love in his life but numbers and puzzles, spending his entire life invisible while trying to get Thomas Wayne and then his boss to notice and praise him, and then being the wrong man at the right place to begin his campaign, a little nobody accountant who noticed an inconsistency in the numbers, put the pieces together, and then decided he was gonna do something about it because he knew it could be done, because there was someone out there who showed it could be done, and if Eddie joined in, maybe this someone would notice him, let him be his friend.

Batman and R, forever.

(People don't talk nearly enough about how this Riddler's entire life ambition was to recreate Tim Drake's origin story, and they should, it's pretty funny)

And to be honest, I think this is the first Riddler origin story I've ever really liked. Some of the others, particularly the first, have their charms, and this one certainly wouldn't fit most takes on the character, even most of the ones I like, but I've never really been fully sold on the idea of a Riddler origin story until this one, he's always been a very backstory-proof guy to me. This doesn't have any particularly obvious shorthand moment as to why Edward became The Riddler, so much as an entire life twisted and torn and abandoned and rotten in ways big and small until this is what came out of him. No immediately abusive fathers or test cheating scandals or major company backstabbings as defining tragedies, just life for a poor orphan in Gotham City who can't figure out the answer to what's missing from his life until he does.

Still a horrible nerd hopelessly trapped in a life of trying to intellectually one-up everyone as the only thing he lives for and, like every horrible nerd, knowing that one day he will be recognized for what he is and then they'll all see how wrong and stupid and savage these stupid savage idiots all were to look down on him. Still a man driven to impose order on the world the way he believes it has to be. Still a cheater who loves puzzles and answers and the thrill of intellectual stimulation and victory more than anything else (and in this case, having had absolutely nothing else to even love about his life), and still very much this guy at the end:

I do have a lot of thoughts on The Riddler, and I think part of why I might not talk about him as much is because he's not a character I tend to have really exclusive or particular preferences for. There are a LOT of Riddlers out there, maybe more so than there are Jokers out there, and there's not really with him the definitive must-be-like-this that the other Batman rogues have. Everybody approaches the puzzle differently if they do so at all, and I like a lot of these Riddlers! They connect with each other surprisingly well even, in spite of being incompatible as the same person.

He's gone through some real ups and downs over the decades: given stardom in the Adam West show that made him a definitive Batman villain and spread his modus operandi across all the others, sacrificed in the altar of camp insecurity along with fellow snooty oddball Penguin, defanged and turned into a parody of himself, refitted for joke status, re-refitted for surprise baddie status, given a whole new lease on life and his own gimmicks with the arrival of computer puzzles and the internet and given his fangs back and then amplified, pushed back to the big leagues more horrible and topical than ever before and exponentially increasing as such until his next big movie showing, torn in multitudes across multiverses of takes and ideas, almost too many to even consolidate them all.

I like the first Riddler of Bill Finger's original story in Tec #140, this curious satisfaction-seeking master cheater growing exponentially more dangerous and more varied and more assured the more he fades into his endless barrage of traps and toys and puzzles,. I love Frank Gorshin's Riddler, and everybody loves Frank Gorshin's Riddler, he is the reason The Riddler became an iconic Batman villain overnight. I like John Glover in TAS, and I like Robert Englund's cold ghostly showman in The Batman (2002) much more. I love the Arkham games version of Riddler, probably because I never actually played the games and had to collect his dumb trophies. I love Paul Dini's Detective Riddler, and I especially love Brent Spiner's take on the guy for Justice League Action. I LOVE the more classic take on Riddler as played by John Leguizamo in The Batman Audio Adventures, and I LOVE Paul Dano's Riddler in The Batman, and they couldn't be more incompatible with each other.

I love the Riddlers who continuously undermine themselves in the name of criminal artistry and who look down on the profit-seeking rubes who think any of this is about money, and I love the Riddlers who are ultimately con-men doing money heists because they want to be the only crooks in town smart enough to have something to show for all their work at the end of the day. I like Riddlers who are widely despised and regarded with annoyance and disdain by the city and their fellow rogues, and I like the Riddlers who have good professional relationships with the other rogues, and the Riddlers who managed to become darkly inspiring figures in their own right. I love the Riddlers who've subsumed themselves into the mysteries and horror they embody, and I love the pathological pattern-finders trying to find a way out of this weird pathetic life, even if their efforts will be doomed to failure - The Riddler couldn't out-think his way out of Batman's toybox no matter how much he tried, and he has no desire to - where would it leave him? Down there with all the troglodytes? Please.

I can get on board with very human, conversational Eddies, the Eddies that did stints as sideshow carnies, that can tell on some level that they should be doing better things than this, who'll do bored stick-em-ups to fund the attention-seeking tantrums they're actually passionate about, and I can get on board with Eddies who are truly uniquely vile and scary even compared to the other Rogues in the room, who uphold this terrifyingly cold perversion of fairness, imposing a stark and utilitarian worldview on the city by which the penalty for falling short of his games is murder, that sheer calculated murderous menace that Frank Gorshin brought when he ended his first episode leering on a helpless Robin strapped to an operating table. And if I ever thought I couldn't get on board with the Riddler as a major serious scary existential threat to life on Gotham, well, The Batman sure proved me wrong. I may not love him as passionately as I do The Penguin or Hugo Strange, but I love too many versions of this guy to ever be able to narrow them all down, and there are even more still to be discovered.

Endlessly adaptable, able to change and mutate with the times on the same kinds of grand orchestral shifts and minute beats that Batman does, a greater variety of personalities than the Joker if not quite the same versatility (and where would we be without these two always pissing each other off or making out or both, living in each other's respective negative spaces), always an enduring and entertaining opponent regardless of whether he's the most pathetic man alive or a malevolent genius beyond understanding who routinely puppeteers an entire city and it's greatest hero into putting on their greatest performances for him. Always an adapting puzzle box, always leading into the next version of himself, always beguiling, and always becoming the most frustrating thing that Batman has to deal with, whether he's systematically destroying Batman's rationale and will and ability to be Batman or just being naturally the worst guy to deal with at the most unfortunate possible moment, in itself another key to his endurance. The Joker can murder sidekicks and torch the city and routinely try and drive Batman to breaking points of rage and indignity and despair - but sometimes The Riddler can get Batman there just by being himself, as anyone who's had to deal with this asshole in the Arkham games can attest.

It is imperative to believe in and understand Batman's worldview that his villains can be saved because everyone can and must be saved, just as it is to understand that, out of everyone in his Rogues Gallery, if The Riddler was drowning, Bruce would be inclined to throw him a cinderblock, and The Riddler would be glad to receive it, so long as his last gasps of breath could be spent laughing at Batman's inability to match wits with him.

For a villain who is meant to be fixated on knowing the one correct answer to every riddle, he’s uniquely able to be reinterpreted in endless new ways. He’s gone from being a camp and colorful performance artist to one of the most sadistic and sinister villains Batman can ever go up against. There is no one way to write a Riddler. There’s no single solution! And writers will always like the challenge that presents.

Just when readers think they’ve seen everything the Riddler has left to offer us, and the character is finally exhausted… a new lime-green envelope pops through the door of Wayne Manor to challenge us all once again. It seems we’ll never get tired of trying to unravel the Riddler, and writers will never give up on unraveling the character’s fullest potential. It unites readers, writers, and caped crusaders alike: this time, surely, we’ll crack him. - Batman's Greatest Enemy is...The Riddler, by Steve Morris