@Sep I know! Going completely out of my element on this one. Feels like I'm on shaky ground with this completely uncharted territory.
Master Bruce
Member
Winged Freak
- Last Seen: 1 hr ago
- Old Guild Username: Master Bruce
- Joined: 11 yrs ago
- Posts: 1151 (0.29 / day)
- VMs: 4
-
Username history
- Master Bruce 11 yrs ago
-
Latest 10 profile visitors:
-
Most recent →
Chronic,
Hound55,
thedarkness,
Half Pint,
Supermaxx,
Cyberlad,
Mao Mao,
Retired,
MST3K 4ever,
Ithradine
Status
User has no status, yet
Bio
Very well, where do I begin?
My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.
My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.
My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles.
There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking. I highly suggest you try it.
My father was a relentlessly self-improving boulangerie owner from Belgium with low grade narcolepsy and a penchant for buggery. My mother was a fifteen year old French prostitute named Chloe with webbed feet.
My father would womanize, he would drink. He would make outrageous claims like he invented the question mark. Sometimes he would accuse chestnuts of being lazy. The sort of general malaise that only the genius possess and the insane lament.
My childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons. In the spring we'd make meat helmets. When I was insolent I was placed in a burlap bag and beaten with reeds - pretty standard, really. At the age of twelve, I received my first scribe. At the age of fourteen a Zoroastrian named Vilma ritualistically shaved my testicles.
There really is nothing like a shorn scrotum... it's breathtaking. I highly suggest you try it.
Most Recent Posts
In
Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]
→
3 yrs ago
Forum: Casual Roleplay
In
Sensation & Wonder: An Absolute Comics Roleplay [DC & Marvel One Universe Style Game]
→
3 yrs ago
Forum: Casual Roleplay
T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N
T H E B A T M A N
"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy... and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne."
C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T _________________________________________________________C H A R A C T E R P O R T R A I T  _________________________________________________________ C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y _________________________________________________________C H A R A C T E R S U M M A R Y Bruce Wayne | CEO Of Wayne International |  _________________________________________________________ Gotham City | NJ | United States Of America C H A R A C T E R N O T E S C H A R A C T E R N O T E S P O S T C A T A L O G P O S T C A T A L O G | C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T Having lost his parents to a common mugger, Bruce Wayne dedicated his life to training himself in ridding Gotham City's streets of crime. At first believing he could accomplish this legitimately, pursuing a law degree, a career with the FBI, and even S.H.I.E.L.D. Academy, Wayne eventually realized that he had to go outside of the law in order to accomplish his goal. Eighteen years after beginning his traversal of the world, from the mountains of the Himilayas to the hidden jungles of Wakanda, employing a number of instructors from organizations such as The Court Of Owls, The Chaste, and The League Of Shadows, Wayne returned to Gotham City and became the vigilante known only to a superstitious and cowardly lot as The Batman. Having aligned himself with James Gordon, eventual Commissioner of the GCPD, aswell as his own self-styled 'family' of vigilantes such as Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Jason Todd, Timothy Drake, Stephanie Brown, Cassandra Cain, Kate Kane, Duke Thomas, Jean-Paul Valley, Helena Bertinelli, and even his own biological son Damian, The Batman's been operating in Gotham for the last fifteen years, living out his dual life as a billionaire socialite by day and the scourge of evil by night. P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ) Now in his mid-forties, Wayne's become reluctant to admit that his once perfectly honed body and mind are starting to show the signs of age and damage from half a lifetime spent waging his war on criminals. Employing a number of gadgets and vehicles to keep him ahead of the curve, it's become apparent that his days as The Dark Knight are now numbered, whether it be by many years or few precious months ahead. His sense of melancholy has only been strengthened by the death of his adoptive father figure and mentor, Alfred Pennyworth, making Bruce more determined than ever to lead a better example in remembrance of the man who believed in him most... My intention is to portray an older Batman who's lived out a more-or-less full career, with all of the sidekicks and rogues' gallery members you could imagine. The reason for this is because I want to explore the fragility of Bruce Wayne as a man, something that the comics often forget in their attempt to heighten the capability of the character against his superhuman contemporaries. He's one of the world's greatest detectives, one of its shrewdest warriors, and a legendary hero at this point, but he's still susceptible to everything that plagues humanity - age, disease, and even death. So to take a look at Bruce's mid-life crisis against the backdrop of a One Universe setting is an opportunity that I can't ignore. O N G O I N G ▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔ HOW THEY CAME TO BE A prominent figure from Gotham's history and Batman's past is found murdered, to the astonishment of The Caped Crusader. This person was believed to be dead already, and the method of their homicide strongly indicates that someone in Gotham has pieced together the truth of Bruce Wayne's dual identity. Determined to find the killer before they can claim another of his allies, Batman's journey through a past trauma will lead him on a quest through the Gotham underworld - to many of the enemies that he's made over the years - in an effort to discern who's responsible and why. SCORCHED EARTH The Joker has gone wild once again, this time targeting every past associate to ever hench for his horrific crimes and every hideout that's ever acted as his hideaway from the law. Something's got The Clown Prince Of Crime more on edge than ever before, and Batman's determined to figure out why - before The Thin White Duke Of Death's drive to scrape away all traces of his career can leave Gotham City itself in a state of disarray. THE HAUNTING OF ARKHAM Strange happenings and unexplained phenomena have begun to take place within the hellish halls of Arkham Asylum, leading to guards and inmates being murdered in increasingly brutal ways with no sign of escape or forced entry. Batman investigates the cause, having already concluded - based on the available evidence - that the responsible party may not even be of this earthly plane. Or, at least, that these crimes have been designed to appear that way... DASVIDANIYA The Black Widow has made her way to Gotham City, and Natasha Romanova's complicated past with Bruce Wayne suddenly comes into focus once the legendary assassin and Avenger arrives at the doorstep of Stately Wayne Manor. There's an international killer loose in Gotham, and Natasha's luck has run out in catching the culprit, forcing her to employ The Batman's skills in an effort to capture a mutual enemy. FAMILY REUNION Following a botched attempt to rescue his fellow vigilante and biological cousin, Batman and Batwoman find themselves trapped in a deadly game with Edward Nigma, aka The Riddler, acting as their tormentor. As the two work out all possible strategies to escape and the clock ticks away at their impending doom, the Dark Duo find themselves working out some familial issues that have plagued their relationship since the beginning, with one revealing a secret to the other that will change the course of everything. |
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T P R O P O S A L
B A T M A N
Bruce Wayne ♦ CEO Of Wayne Enterprises ♦ Gotham City, New Jersey, USA
C H A R A C T E R C O N C E P T:
"People need dramatic examples to shake them out of apathy... and I can't do that as Bruce Wayne."
.Basically, I'm running with the idea that every big media interpretation - all of the live-action fare, BTAS, the games, etc - has all happened and are canon, with the exception that none of the villains ever died. So Joker didn't fall off a bell tower, Penguin didn't choke on bile and drown, Catwoman never blew herself up, Two-Face never fell to the bottom of a well or fell off of a construction site, Ra's wasn't permanently killed in a train explosion, etc, etc, etc. But the general idea is that Batman's career has hinged on these moments aswell as many of the notable comic book storylines. As such, he's quite an older man and very experienced, with all of the sidekicks and the rogues' gallery members you could think of - not quite at the level of a Dark Knight Returns era, but enough to be showing signs of age.
Also, given recent comic events, I'm just gonna go ahead and say that Alfred is dead. Feels like he'd be better served in that regard at this stage of Batman's career than if he were waiting on Bruce with tea or something in the Batcave.
P L O T ( S ) & G O A L ( S ):
My idea for a story is to actually examine the fragility of Batman as a man rather than trump up his hyper-trained mind and physique. He's had all of those for a long time, but he's starting to notice that he's getting slower and his mind is getting foggier. He's always been shown as someone who struggles with his sanity, but he's never really written to experience simple things like arthritis, disease, and even the idea that he'll eventually get too old to suit up anymore. So what better time to lay a prominent murder mystery in his lap to try and sharpen the senses? Every member of his rogue's gallery is a potential suspect and the victim is a prominent figure in Gotham, in a sense - but with no clear M.O., it's going to take some doing on Bruce's part to piece everything together. Add to that any plots that villain players or players who want to take up the extended family (Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin, Batgirl, Oracle, ect.) can bring to the table and I can keep things going in Gotham for a multitude of different interactions. The only hard-set supporting character I intend to utilize is Gordon, so any other player has the freedom to jump in and work with me to their content.
Batman's an overarching shadow over Gotham, both literally and figuratively, so it shouldn't be hard to draw his attention if you're in the area.
Batman's an overarching shadow over Gotham, both literally and figuratively, so it shouldn't be hard to draw his attention if you're in the area.
C H A R A C T E R N O T E S:
In the interest of specificity, these are the events that I'm considering canon alongside the comic continuity that ends with Tom King's run:
.
.
P O S T C A T A L O G:
A list linking to your IC posts as they're created. This can be used for a reference guide to your character or to summarize completed arcs and stories.
WITHDRAWN
These apps are past the window and good to go:
Batman, as written by @Master Bruce
TFW you're fishing out your bribe in cash while the bribe-ee watches.
Bruce Wayne, 28-29 (b. 1939)
Millionaire Playboy / Masked Vigilante
Gotham City, New Jersey
Active since Fall of 1963
Character Concept
In the shadow of the Great Depression, Gotham City fell under the control of a ruling class of mobsters looking to pilfer the once prosperous capital for all it was worth. From Boss Salvatore Maroni to Sal Valestra and his co-horts Chuckie Sol and Buzz Bronski, innocent citizens and proud patriots to serve in the first World War were all sent to the streets to beg. Some tried to leave, but the easy money made through the available rackets became all too alluring. And with the 1946 election of highly corrupt city councilman Hamilton Hill to the Mayor's office, the police, the DA's office, and everything in between were brought under the control of crime-lord Carmine "The Roman" Falcone.
What drew many outsiders to claim that Gotham was a lost cause, however, was the murder of a prominent doctor and his wife on the streets of the city's celebrated Park Row Avenue. Humanitarians to the very end, Thomas and Martha Wayne were both considered revolutionary in helping to reopen the long dormant Arkham Home For The Criminally Disturbed. But with all evidence pointing towards a peasant mugger being their assailant, and Mrs. Wayne's pearl necklace indicating the motive a robbery, all that could be said about the double event was that it was an act of random tragedy. Not even their orphaned son, Bruce, would be able to identify the culprit.
But a solemn vow would be made. The son's unfathomable despair would give way to an unshakable drive to see justice brought to Gotham's streets. Bruce Wayne would spend the earliest parts of his teenage years abroad in study before officially being declared missing in 1955. In reality, Wayne had left the public eye of his own volition, to master his mind and body in a preparation for a crusade against all crime - a veritable war on a different front.
At age 24, Bruce officially returned to Gotham to claim his multi-million dollar inheritance from the Wayne estate's sole and dutiful benefactor, Alfred Pennyworth. Spending months crafting a suitable public persona as an extravagant playboy, appearing at large social functions, dating fashion models and writing checks for any cause that suited him, Bruce donned a series of disguises to begin infiltrating the criminal underworld.
After a particularly harrowing encounter, however, Bruce found himself lying half-dead in the study of Wayne Manor. He'd somehow overlooked something. The scum he was putting away were back on the streets within hours of when he'd nail them, and the DA's office was powerless to stop the rampantly corrupt GCPD from falsely imprisoning the blacks, the hispanics, the gays, and anyone else who stood defiant against these crooks without looking a certain color. It disgusted Bruce, who felt particularly powerless, even with all of his newfound wealth.
But one of Kirigi's mantras echoed through his mind: that criminals were inherently "a superstitious and cowardly lot". He didn't want to take the lives of his enemies, but he definitely wanted them scared - and he wanted them to stay afraid, tormented by the mere idea that something as horrible as him could even exist. But to accomplish that, he'd have to be more than a man. Delving into the pulp magazines of his childhood, Wayne's long-admired fictional heroes of Detective Harvey Harris and The Grey Ghost were beginning to give him ideas. And the black and white movies that used to frighten him as a boy, the ones set in creepy castles with monstrous figures appearing out of the shadows to terrorize society, particularly began to take hold of his psyche.
It was while preparing to watch "The Mark Of Zorro", a 1940 swashbuckler about a man of wealth and privilege striking against oppression while wearing a mask, that a stray bat flew into Wayne's study and momentarily frightened him. But that fear quickly dissapated as a life-changing realization took hold. And in shadow of that encounter, the makings of a crusade would begin in earnest.
Weeks went by, preparations were made, and Wayne found himself dwelling atop the rooftops and the dark shadows of the city's alleyways. He had ceased to be a man, opting to instead immerse himself in his new role and become a creature of the night. He easily began dispatching purse snatchers and would-be murderers with his disguise's frightful appearance alone. Police Lieutenant James Gordon would dismiss the vigilante's existence as mere rumor, but columnist Vicki Vale would be the first to identify the figure with an appropriate monkier: The Bat-Man.
Within the next five years, the vigilante earned himself a reputation as an unparalleled detective in addition to being a silent guardian and a watchful protector of the victims of criminality. He'd cultivated an ally in Gordon, who used The Dark Knight's shrewd cunning and dedication to rooting out corruption in order to partially clean up the department. It'd won Gordon the rank of Commissioner, eventually bringing The Batman that much closer in alignment with law enforcement - albeit in an unofficial capacity. Still, when summoned by the giant light in the sky that the Commissioner would go onto deny even existed, The Caped Crusader would appear to fight against threats that were beyond the GCPD's reach.
Threats like Dr. Death and The Mad Monk. Threats like Professor Hugo Strange and his scientifically enhanced Monster Men. Threats like jewel magnate Oswald Cobblepot, who'd not-so-secretly taken over The Roman's operations as the deranged, bird-like, trick umbrella carrying crimelord known by his loyalists as The Penguin. Threats like the deadly thrill-seeker Catwoman, who pilfered from the rich while using her feminine wiles to stay one step ahead of the law. And threats like the terrible Clown Prince of Crime, a harlequin of hate who seemed to sew chaos and disorder wherever he appeared - The Joker.
But there seemed to be some measure of hope at play. With Falcone having been nabbed by a joint effort between The Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and District Attorney Dent, organized crime seemed to be entering a downward spiral by the summer of '67. While what seemed to be replacing them was even more bizarre, such as the Alice In Wonderland-themed criminal Jervis Tetch, aka The Mad Hatter, aswell as The Scarecrow, an underworld bogeyman who kidnapped and tortured his enemies with a series of experiments that left them paralyzed with chemically induced terror, there were signs that Gotham was nevertheless beginning to see a brighter tomorrow. From a successful Mayoral campaign of the criminal reform-minded William Linseed, as publicly endorsed by millionaire Bruce Wayne, to the appointment of Dr. Jonathan Crane, a brilliant and widely recognized criminal psychiatrist, as the director of the newly minted Arkham Behavioral Rehabilitation Center.
Adopting acrobat turned orphan Richard "Dick" Grayson as his ward, Bruce began training the boy to be able to find and bring his own parents' killer to justice. This evolved into a full-fledged partnership, where Bruce, under a candlelight oath, swore Grayson in as one half of what was sure to become a Dynamic Duo. At the start of a new year, Batman is left unsure of himself: he doesn't want to discourage the boy from following in his footsteps, but he can't help but shake the feeling that he's made a grave mistake in allowing him to walk his exact path as Robin, The Boy Wonder. Add to it the reports from recent months of an amateur directly inspired by him, a Bat-girl, and Bruce is beginning to feel uncertain that his campaign as a Caped Crusader is beginning to do more good than harm.
Of course, he doesn't know the half of what's coming. The fifth year of The Dark Knight's crusade will be his most trying yet, giving him new enemies, a new romance, and a set of partners to contend with that will change the course of everything. Batman can brave the storm, but whether Bruce Wayne's soul will survive the eye of it is an entirely different matter.
When considering how to approach Batman in the late 60's, I looked towards the comics and discovered that despite his reinvention coming just a few short years later, the character was still mired in the campy adventures that the 50's had brought about. Not wanting to go in that direction, the Batman I envisioned for this game takes his cue from the timeless Batman: The Animated Series, which apart from references to more modern computers of the time could easily take place in any era. A detective, a crimefighter, and a morally unflinching hero who utilizes fear and intimidation - but also isn't afraid to let his humanity guide him - the Batman that I consider to be the greatest interpretation will basically be what I'll be mimicking. The difference being that I'll have the task of adding references to the struggles of race relations, gender inequality, and the domestic backlash to the Vietnam War to Bruce's regular activities as an avenger of evil. Basically, expect a noir-ish take that'll comment as much on the nature of good and evil as the events of the time.
Key Notes
References / Sample Post
December 30th, 1967
Gotham City
The wind hits his chin like needlepoints prickling at the muscles beneath the skin. Snow crunches beneath his boot, eliminating the possibility of stealth. He hasn't slept for two days, eaten for the last ten hours, or even stopped for a short respite and he's beginning to feel it all coming ontop of him like once. The thick winter fog forces him to wrap his insulated cloak around his body like a tarp. He's in terrible shape and he knows it, but it doesn't deter him. Just slows him down enough to take some kind of mental inventory of the elements he's fighting, and what kind of hindrance they might make when it comes to the fight that's about to come.
Truth be told, there are a number of things that a man in his position could be doing the night before New Year's Eve. Harvey, the closest thing he considers an actual friend, suggested a night on the town to celebrate the end of a six-month-long trial negotiation to convict Boss Maroni's right hand. Lowering his profile for a night, grabbing a few brews at O'Neil's, bringing some women back to Dent's top floor pad in the West End. It sounded like a nostalgic trip down someone else's glory days - he vaguely remembers that at the time of what would have been his own college admission, he was learning how to master Kali from Master Yoru-Shen on some oxygen-stifled mountaintop in Hokkaido.
Of course, there were other available options. Alfred had informed him of an invitation to make a personal appearance at the 17th Annual Gotham City Gentlemen's Club beauty pageant. He was even told that the contestants were all jazzed to get a glimpse of the millionaire if for only a second. And then there was the added incentive that the winner would get to make a donation in Wayne Industries' name towards the charity of her choosing, with full reimbursements provided by the so-called generous board of trustees headed up by Freddy Stickley.
No, he told himself. This is where I need to be.
Bruce Wayne may have had all the options in the world for a night like this, but he only had one: to put a stop to the influx of weapons being smuggled onto the East Side Docks. For months, informants with connections to the black market had been touting that they'd managed to score a genuine batch of military ordinance directly from the Viet-Cong. Assault rifles, pistols, grenades, napalm - the list was a mile wide. Since Maroni's operation was still bruised, that meant that the first crack at the goods went directly to The Penguin. And knowing how Cobblepot operated, it wasn't a stretch to imagine that the bird's "benevolent brood" would pull out the stops to ensure their employer's discretion.
As it just so happened, there was to be a pre-imminent Iceberg Lounge-sponsored New Year's celebration for the citizens of Gotham Plaza - a whole affair featuring fireworks, live music, and of course, plenty of police protection bought with dirty money. The Commissioner had opposed such a public venue, as there was a blizzard warning in effect for the city for the next three days, but what really stood out in Gordon's complaint was the fireworks. They were to go off at 11:45 PM, then again at midnight.
Surely a safety hazard by itself, but The Batman felt there was a more deliberate purpose. If the stolen crates of the Viet Cong's arsenal were to be loaded and ready to go by 11:45, the fireworks would distract enough eyes to be transported out of the area without fuss. And it was a fifteen-minute drive, even with traffic, to a meat-packing plant in The Narrows that had been bought by a Cobblepot loyalist but never put into full operation. Plenty of space on the grounds to not only hide the crates, but ensure that Gordon couldn't spare the manpower to search the entire area before the heavy volume of snow dissipated.
Batman narrowed his eyes as he slowly approached the docks, his shoulders partially covered in frozen droplets of what had been condensation. True to his own guess, there were five trucks getting ready to be loaded for transport. His hand trembling from the cold, he nevertheless reached into his belt to pull out an air-gun. Usually meant to fire a flare on the high seas, this baby had been modified to fire a projectile of a different kind. Quickly screwing a silencer over the barrel, The Dark Knight inhaled a sharp breath. Aimed, steadied himself, and eventually fired. An electronic bug, retro-fitted by Hoover's CIA spooks under a contract with a Wayne Industries subsidiary to spy on political enemies, stabbed into the concrete wall just behind The Penguin's men.
Tuning a small radio transceiver sewn into his cowl to isolate the bug's signal, Batman listened in with intent. He had to pick his moment. After all, he was in no condition to stampede over the scene like something out of a John Wayne picture.
"---said don't drop it, you friggin' klutz! You want this place to go up like fourth of July?!"
"Geez-us, man! You been on us about every crate we've tossed into the back of this wagon. If
the cargo can't handle it, maybe we oughta reconsider. Roads are damned slippery tonight."
"You wanna explain that to the boss man, boy? I'm sure he'd be hip to the idea of us just flaking on a cool hundred 'kay's worth of product for the police to collect come the morning."
"The fuck'd you call me?!"
"Shut it, the both of you! You're gonna get us spotted before the show even starts!"
Peeling back his glove, Batman looked at his watch.
Six-minute window.
"Plenty of time..."
Freshly sharpened batarangs at the ready, The Caped Crusader tossed out a thick climbing rope into a nearby alley. Securing it tightly over a frozen pipe, he slung himself over the ledge and began to descend into the dark. The plan was simple; infiltrate, execute a suitable distraction, and keep the driver from leaving long enough for him to take down fifteen of Cobblepot's heavies. The rest was as simple as a flex of muscle memory.
There were enough weapons on the streets of his city.
By the time the fireworks would begin, they'd have learned that lesson - the hard way.
B A T M A N
Bruce Wayne, 28-29 (b. 1939)
Millionaire Playboy / Masked Vigilante
Gotham City, New Jersey
Active since Fall 1963
Character Concept
In the shadow of the Great Depression, Gotham City fell under the control of a ruling class of mobsters looking to pilfer the once prosperous capital for all it was worth. From Boss Salvatore Maroni to Sal Valestra and his cohorts Chuckie Sol and Buzz Bronski, innocent citizens and proud patriots to serve in the first World War were all sent to the streets to beg. Some tried to leave, but the easy money made through the available rackets became all too alluring. And with the 1946 election of highly corrupt city councilman Hamilton Hill to the Mayor's office, the police, the DA's office, and everything in between were brought under the control of crime-lord Carmine "The Roman" Falcone.
What drew many outsiders to claim that Gotham was a lost cause, however, was the murder of a prominent doctor and his wife on the streets of the city's celebrated Park Row Avenue. Humanitarians to the very end, Thomas and Martha Wayne were both considered revolutionary in helping to reopen the long dormant Arkham Home For The Criminally Disturbed. But with all evidence pointing towards a peasant mugger being their assailant, and Mrs. Wayne's pearl necklace indicating the motive a robbery, all that could be said about the double event was that it was an act of random tragedy. Not even their orphaned son, Bruce, would be able to identify the culprit.
But a solemn vow would be made. The son's unfathomable despair would give way to an unshakable drive to see justice brought to Gotham's streets. Bruce Wayne would spend the earliest parts of his teenage years abroad in study before officially being declared missing in 1955. In reality, Wayne had left the public eye of his own volition, to master his mind and body in a preparation for a crusade against all crime - a veritable war on a different front.
At age 24, Bruce officially returned to Gotham to claim his multi-million dollar inheritance from the Wayne estate's sole and dutiful benefactor, Alfred Pennyworth. Spending months crafting a suitable public persona as an extravagant playboy, appearing at large social functions, dating fashion models and writing checks for any cause that suited him, Bruce donned a series of disguises to begin infiltrating the criminal underworld.
After a particularly harrowing encounter, however, Bruce found himself lying half-dead in the study of Wayne Manor. He'd somehow overlooked something. The scum he was putting away were back on the streets within hours of when he'd nail them, and the DA's office was powerless to stop the rampantly corrupt GCPD from falsely imprisoning the blacks, the hispanics, the gays, and anyone else who stood defiant against these crooks without looking a certain color or acting a certain way. It disgusted Bruce, who felt particularly powerless, even with all of his newfound wealth.
But one of Kirigi's mantras echoed through his mind: that criminals were inherently "a superstitious and cowardly lot". He didn't want to take the lives of his enemies, but he definitely wanted them scared - and he wanted them to stay afraid, tormented by the mere idea that something as horrible as him could even exist. But to accomplish that, he'd have to be more than a man. Delving into the pulp magazines of his childhood, Wayne's long-admired fictional heroes of Detective Harvey Harris and The Grey Ghost were beginning to give him ideas. And the black and white movies that used to frighten him as a boy, the ones set in creepy castles with monstrous figures appearing out of the shadows to terrorize society, particularly began to take hold of his psyche.
It was while preparing to watch "The Mark Of Zorro", a 1940 swashbuckler about a man of wealth and privilege striking against oppression while wearing a mask, that a stray bat flew into Wayne's study and momentarily frightened him. But that fear quickly dissapated as a life-changing realization took hold. And in shadow of that encounter, the makings of a crusade would begin in earnest.
Weeks went by, preparations were made, and Wayne found himself dwelling atop the rooftops and the dark shadows of the city's alleyways. He had ceased to be a man, opting to instead immerse himself in his new role and become a creature of the night. He easily began dispatching purse snatchers and would-be murderers with his disguise's frightful appearance alone. Police Lieutenant James Gordon would dismiss the vigilante's existence as mere rumor, but columnist Vicki Vale would be the first to identify the figure with an appropriate monkier: The Bat-Man.
Within the next five years, the vigilante earned himself a reputation as an unparalleled detective in addition to being a silent guardian and a watchful protector of the victims of criminality. He'd cultivated an ally in Gordon, who used The Dark Knight's shrewd cunning and dedication to rooting out corruption in order to partially clean up the department. It'd won Gordon the rank of Commissioner, eventually bringing The Batman that much closer in alignment with law enforcement - albeit in an unofficial capacity. Still, when summoned by the giant light in the sky that the Commissioner would go onto deny even existed, The Caped Crusader would appear to fight against threats that were beyond the GCPD's reach.
Threats like Dr. Death and The Mad Monk. Threats like Professor Hugo Strange and his scientifically enhanced Monster Men. Threats like jewel magnate Oswald Cobblepot, who'd not-so-secretly taken over The Roman's operations as the deranged, bird-like, trick umbrella carrying crime-lord known by his loyalists as The Penguin. Threats like the deadly thrill-seeker Catwoman, who pilfered from the rich while using her feminine wiles to stay one step ahead of the law. And threats like the terrible Clown Prince of Crime, a harlequin of hate who seemed to sew chaos and disorder wherever he appeared - The Joker.
But there seemed to be some measure of hope at play. With Falcone having been nabbed by a joint effort between The Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and District Attorney Dent, organized crime seemed to be entering a downward spiral by the summer of '67. While what seemed to be replacing them was even more bizarre, such as the Alice In Wonderland-themed criminal Jervis Tetch, aka The Mad Hatter, aswell as The Scarecrow, an underworld bogeyman who kidnapped and tortured his enemies with a series of experiments that left them paralyzed with chemically induced terror, there were signs that Gotham was nevertheless beginning to see a brighter tomorrow. From a successful Mayoral campaign of the criminal reform-minded William Linseed, as publicly endorsed by millionaire Bruce Wayne, to the appointment of Dr. Jonathan Crane, a brilliant and widely recognized criminal psychiatrist, as the director of the newly minted Arkham Behavioral Rehabilitation Center.
Adopting acrobat turned orphan Richard "Dick" Grayson as his ward, Bruce began training the boy to be able to find and bring his own parents' killer to justice. This evolved into a full-fledged partnership, where Bruce, under a candlelight oath, swore Grayson in as one half of what was sure to become a Dynamic Duo. At the start of a new year, Batman is left unsure of himself: he doesn't want to discourage the boy from following in his footsteps, but he can't help but shake the feeling that he's made a grave mistake in allowing him to walk his exact path as Robin, The Boy Wonder. Add to it the reports from recent months of an amateur directly inspired by him, a Bat-girl, and Bruce is beginning to feel uncertain that his campaign as a Caped Crusader is beginning to do more good than harm.
Of course, he doesn't know the half of what's coming. The fifth year of The Dark Knight's crusade will be his most trying yet, giving him new enemies, a new romance, and a set of partners to contend with that will change the course of everything. Batman can brave the storm, but whether Bruce Wayne's soul will survive the eye of it is an entirely different matter.
My take on this is pretty simple: in the comics, or whichever continuity you subscribe to, Batman goes through a generally dark period in his first year before lightening up considerably and taking Robin on as his partner. This... will not be that, as the realities of late 1960's America will keep Bruce perpetually hardened and crime-oriented despite the fact that he's all but eradicated the mob.
Equal parts Sam Spade, James Bond, and all of his pulp contemporaries wrapped into one, this Batman will have to contend with a rogue's gallery that will reflect the madmen, sociopaths, and murderers ripped out of the headlines of both the period he'll exist in and the two decades to follow. If you thought The Joker was creepy on his own, think of what a version of the clown can do with a bit of that Night Stalker flair for random, brutalized insanity. Or a Riddler who operates closer to The Zodiac Killer.
There'll certainly still be plenty of room for the superhero elements, but this version of Bats isn't going up against anyone looking out to play games. These are matters of life and death, every single night, and will be treated with the same gravitas as a 70's crime thriller. Some of this stuff is gonna get downright raw, which I think is still vastly uncharted territory for a child-friendly character like Bruce Wayne, despite many writers' attempts to push those boundaries.
Buckle up.
Key Notes
TBD
References / Sample Post
Coming soon...
cough
© 2007-2024