DC and/or a Hollywood studio hires you to write “Batman: The End”. How would you end his career? Death? Retirement?
I’d have him lose control of his anger, and kill the Joker. Once that line is crossed, he starts offing all the big bad guys. After all the super-villians in Gotham are dead, he reveals himself to Commisioner Gordon as Bruce Wayne and turns himself in.
A jury finds him guilty of murder, but the judge takes into account all the good he’s done and only gives him a sentence of thirty years (perhaps only the Joker’s murder sticks). Of course, he handles whatever shit the punks in prison try to give him easily, and does him time.
The aged Bruce Wayne is released and becomes a recluse in Wayne manor, permanently retired. Someday, he dies of old age.
First off, I think we have to admit the notion that DC keeps pushing, that Batman is surrounded by an air of “Urban Legend” that has most people uncertain that he even exists, is ludicrous.
Someone, not Batman, probably just some average Joe, gets lucky and kills the Joker. During his resulting fifteen minutes of fame, he accuses Batman of being just as responsible for the Joker’s hundreds of victims as the Joker himself.
As if the Joker’s continued existence were the only thing holding it back, this inspires a violent public outlash against the caped crusader. The Bat-Signal is vandalized, people throw things at the Batmobile whenever they see it passin through the streets of Gotham. Public outcry leads Jim Gordon to step down as police commisioner in order to avoid being removed from the position for his long time association with the vigilante.
Questioning his usefulness and the worth of the rigid morality that prevented him from ending the Joker’s life, Batman retires in shame and Bruce Wayne leaves Gotham City forever.
I’d pitch a meeting:“Batman” meets “Citizen Kane.” Follow Batman’s career posthumonously, see him from the perspective of a dozen or so secretive allies, powerful enemies and prominent Gothamites. Chart his first appearence, rise, fall and mysterious end. His “Rosebud” will be a whispered “Diego” – which will set off speculation that Diego was his killer, an informant, a lover, etc. – until its revealed its an oblique reference to Don Diego, who was Tyrone Powers’ alter ego In The Mark Of Zorro (1940) – the basis of the Batman legend, and markng one of the happiest moments of his childhood – going to the movies with his parents – the same evening when they were tragically killed. Instead of an intrepid newspaper reporter hunting the truth, it would be a luscious and ambulatory detective Barbara Gordon, daughter of the ex-Commissioner, who discovers Batman’s death was just a stupid accident and that his last words had nothing to do with his death.
I think it could work. I would also fight the studio so that the movie wouldn’t be called, “Batman: The End” or even “Citizen Wayne.”
A dark ending for a dark concept: make clear that Batman’s years of work and sacrifice have had NO lasting effect whatsoever on Gotham City.
Have Robin, Nightwing, and anyone else who might take on the role get killed early in the story. Thus, the Bat legacy dies with the man himself.
The last few panels (or last scene) involve a little kid and his parents coming back from seeing “Finding Nemo 2” or whatever. They get mugged, the kid gets to watch his parents get blown away… and then one punk says “Hey, man… no witnesses”… he walks back to the crying kid, puts his gun to the kid’s head, and the very last thing we see is an extreme close-up of the hammer dropping, with sound effect: “Bang!” Everything goes black.
I’d make it a storyline like any other, him taking to the streets of Gotham fully prepared to foil the Joker’s latest plot, when all of a sudden some random thug just puts a bullet through his brain. Abrupt, nothing he expected or planned for, and him dying doing the same thing he always does. Nothing extraordinary.
He’s standing on the edge of a rooftop. He shifts weight slightly and slips. As he’s falling, his cape gets caught on a flag pole and rips off. He pulls out his rope gun and fumbles it. It’s just an inch out of reach as he and it fall. He lands on his head and dies instantly.
As two rogues start to leave a dark alley after violating a woman, the dark knight drops in front of them all menacing like. One of the rogues takes out a gun and empties it into Bats’ bullet proof vest. The other takes out a gun and kills Batman instantly with a face shot.
A supervillain with incredible strength is terrrorizing Gotham. Batman swings in with a drop kick that the super-strengthed nasty shrugs off. The goliath then picks up Batman, and, instead of throwing him, pulls him apart. Limb from limb. Head from torso.
Superman has gone rogue (again). Batman comes to stop him armed with Kryptonite. From a distance, Batman says, “Clark, this must stop.” Superman says, “Agreed,” and uses his heat vision right then and there to slice Bruce in two.
Batman becomes a recluse in the batcave for over thirty years before dying of natural death. As he keels over, his hand drops a piece of paper. On it is a riddle he couldn’t figure out for over thirty years.
How would I write it? I wouldn’t. I’d get Frank Miller to write a treatment to put The Dark Knight Returns into movie form. It essentially ends with Bats killing the Joker, kicking Supes’ pansy ass, retreating into the Batcave to train an army of Bat-followers, and shutting off the outside world.
Batman discovers the SDMB. He spends all of his time now fighting ignorance and due to the incredible capabilities of the Bat Computer he can barely keep up with all the open threads. He ignores the sirens and the Bat Signal, wastes away to Potatoman, and loses all knowledge of personal hygiene. He no longer has any desire to fight crime. Robin becomes a network administrator and Alfred secretly tries on all of the outfits and funky gadgets. He dies in a bizarre grappling hook incident and utters a last word, “Bats!”, which no one is around to hear.
Well, I think the most “likely” scenario (like if DC went bankrupt, and was sold off to a Japanese tractor company, or something), Batman and the Joker would kill each other in a grand, battle royale.
I’d probably have them locked in a death-grapple on the (burning) top floor of the tallest building in Gotham, and have Batman hurl himself—and the Joker—off a balcony, doomed to fall to their deaths 200+ stories below. While we see the Joker’s face on the way down, wearing an expression of sheer mortal terror for once in his life, we see little of Batman’s face .until after they hit the ground…on the very spot of sidewalk where Bruce’s parents were murdered. There, we see that Batman’s cowl has been torn away by the impact, and although his face is battered and bloody, his expression is as serene as a sleeping child, and he’s smiling…The Batman is gone, along with whatever of Bruce Wayne that hadn’t already died on that very spot. Bruce is at peace…happy at last.
…Or, failing that, I’d just have him go insane and try to take over Earth. All of Earth’s villains, and most of the JLA gets wiped out trying to stop him. But, after nearly beating Jim Gordon to death while trying to get to the BatDoomsday Machine, Batman realizes the monster that he’s become, and commits Seppuku with a sharpened Batarang.
Or maybe have the Joker regain his sanity somehow and, seeking to atone for his sins, makes a suicidal trip back through time to un-kill Batman’s parents. Unfortunately, the trauma of seeing a zoot-suited clown and a mugger stab each other to death outside of a movie theater warps young Bruce’s mind, and in his teenage years, he develops a clown-white fetish. (Well, “omlettes and broken eggs,” and all that.)
Fibber. Tsk. Please! It’s “homage”. Ooo. My tender sensibilities.
I think “Citizen Wayne” was the name of an ‘Aftershocks’ chapter prior to the No Man’s Land storyline… (although it might be “Mr. Wayne goes to Washington.” I just figured I could come up with something cleverer or completely left field so’s not to tip-off the plot beforehand. (I mean, did you know the movie, The Hudsucker Proxy would have anything to do with the Hula-Hoop?)
