Talk:Batman/@comment-26816098-20160721232410

A lot of good ideas here, Zorceror, but also a lot that needs work and further discussion.

My primary concern is the sense of dating in this story. For example, in the current version of this history, Dick Grayson (b. 1940) serves as Batman from 1966 to 2012. That's a whopping half-century of crimefighting, and he'd end it as a 72-year-old man, which really threatens my suspension of disbelief. It's not just a biology thing (there's a reason plenty of athletes retire before 40, and being Batman requires a lot of intense physical work), but also a character personality thing: in my view, while Bruce Wayne was driven by angst and unresolved trauma to a "never-ending battle," Grayson served as a superhero out of a desire to do good. It's widely established that only death could stop Bruce from being Batman. Grayson would probably know when to quit. There are plenty of other people who could don the cowl if he, for example, retires after the death of Jason Todd. It's something we oughta discuss more.

Similarly, the Joker and Jason (occasionally both) are revived and killed and revived a few times too many. I hesitate at the idea of bringing back the Joker because Batman's "Rogues Gallery" is rather large and, in my view, the richest and strongest in superhero comics. There are so many interesting villains that we can use in this version of Batman's history instead of resorting to the same lot over and over. Characters like Harley Quinna can fill his place in some spots, and Jason Todd can hold his own as Red Hood rather than being a pale imitator.

On a semirelated note, I find that I disagree with the theory that the narrator of Fight Club becomes the Ledger Joker because it completely negates and goes against the spirit of the story's ending, which is all about the narrator getting rid of that side of himself. I kinda have my own ideas for what to do with Fight Club regarding its place in the FM, but I feel the need to read Fight Club 2 before deciding anything ...

When it comes to the way this article is written, we're gonna need to trim some paragraphs in the lengthy plot summations (i.e. the Arkham Knight section) and work on including some more references and notes. While much of the Batman lore will have to be reimagined to fit this non-flowing timeline, I think we should at least take inspiration from source material and include annotations describing where these details come from (i.e. I know about Batman: No Man's Land but to casual readers it might come out of nowhere).

Perhaps the easiest way to handle all of this will be one section of Batman's FM history at a time. I feel we oughta start by writing about the life of Bruce Wayne. It may take a while before the article is complete, but I'm excited to get to work on it!