How Would YOU "revamp the Bat-Family?"

[Aahz]

Which two? Is the Black Lightning Family selling enough to support more supporting characters?

It doesn't even sell enough to support the main character.

[king81992]

Which two? Is the Black Lightning Family selling enough to support more supporting characters?

Black Lightning's daughters haven't shown up in a while and were barely used when they were around.

[Jim Kelly]

The Tom King I want . . .

[SixSpeedSamurai]

The Tom King I want . . .

That's like a whole issue worth of dialogue in Batman.

[MajorHoy]

I think he is mentoring Orphan and Signal in 'The Outsiders'. So I assumed they would more become a part of that family. Never read any Black Lightning books, no idea how well it sells. But the character has a tv series - so I'd think he's probably, at least, fairly popular to have gotten a live action adaption.

The Outsiders is a team book, not the "Black Lightning Family".

Which "family" would the Justice League be?

[Aahz]

I'm also not sure if reducing the size of the Batfamily will really improve anything.

In the past years most of the writers were not really able to write them properly, if they only used a part of the family in their story. Just look at the Eternals.

[TheCape]

The problem with the Batfamily is that most of then have no direction, outside of Robin, Batgirl and to a lesser extent Nightwing, the rest are keep around because they are popular and DC wants those fans money, but they don't seem to care for what to do with then in the long term because they aren't important enougth (i assure you that if it wasn't for DC wanting to bring YJ again, Tim would still be on limbo). Jason is probably the only exeception because they allowed him at least a consistent writer that had found a moderate sucess in the current market, but he has little to no importance outside of his small corner.

Also i don't get why people said that they are too many of then in Gotham, most of then operate outside the city and Bruce barely interact with then or with eacth other for that matter, outside the Dick/Damian and Dick/Barbara combo.

[Godlike13]

I think part of the problem with this is that character standings and relationships have been degraded so much that the family just doesn't work as well with each other as they used too, or no one is even quite sure what everybody's exact relationship is.

Writers in general also just don't seem all that interested in building relationships back up or don't have the page space to actually do it in a believable manner (I think this was one of the biggest issues with Tynion's 'Tec run).

It’s not just their relationships. The characters themselves step on each other’s toes. They steal from each other, they unknowingly fight over the same spots, they even get fed to one another in efforts to get over.

[SiegePerilous02]

That seems like an odd retcon? I mean, just ignore it if you dont want to use it. They're not that close, and the majority of Kate's stories have nothing to do with Bruce being her cousin anyway.

Her being the cousin is the odd retcon.

Yeah, Rucka did not intend for Kate to be Bruce's cousin, I believe. Morrison made them cousins (and also Kathy Bruce's aunt, which is weird).
I think it makes it so she inevitably ends up more in his orbit if they are cousins, and I'd rather she be far removed from the core group. She's inspired by him, but not one of his people.

[phonogram12]

Every character is someone's favourite character. So killing/retiring/getting rid of members of the Bat-family is a terrible idea. Taking some of them out of Gotham and giving them their own space would be the only way I would like the Bat-family to be "retooled"

The Bat family isn't to big, the problem is that there are too many of them in Gotham. I'd move most of them to different cities or place them on various teams. The hard part is deciding who gets to stay in Gotham with Bruce and Alfred.

Yes, both of these. I mean, it's really not that difficult to have these characters occupied in other books or just not show up at all. I mean, Tim is likely f/t with YJ as Damien seems to be with TT. And how often has Batwoman, Batgirl, or Signal even appeared in the main Bat book since Rebirth started?

[MajorHoy]

Maybe they should all be color-coded and each would represent a different aspect of the "intellectual spectrum" (or something like that)?

[Timothy Hunter]

Okay, say if this sounds genius or unbelievably stupid because it could go either way:

I would limit the central Batfamily (having appearances in the main Batman title) to three characters:

Bruce Wayne:
Once more continuing the role of BATMAN, Wayne is determined to take the next step to redeem Gotham as the Mayor of Gotham City, with retired Batgirl Barbara Gordon as his Deputy Mayor. However in order to help Gotham from the top down, he must make compromises and kowtow to the highly corrupt political establishment and the organized crime leaders who control Gotham, while simultaneously trying to destroy them.

Selina Kyle
Newlywed aristocrat and reformed villain Selina Wayne is turning over a new leaf as Batman's female counterpart and partner, BATWOMAN. Her personal mission is to reform former criminals such as Mister Freeze, Poison Ivy, and Catman.

Damian Wayne
From ashes of Robin comes... BATBOY!

The monthly Batman comic will be the only title published by DC that will have Batman in a starring role, as for the creative team for 'Batman' not to be bogged down by parallel events occurring in other books.

Detective Comics will be an ongoing, black and white anthology series consisting of three, 15 page long ongoing features:

1. Nightwing and Flamebird
Starring Tim Drake and Cassandra Cain as the respective aforementioned monikers. A cold, hard detective thriller akin to David Fincher's Se7en and Zodiac, mixed in with the pulp zaniness of Grant Morrison's Batman Inc.

2. Hawkman
The original detective of the DC Universe. A bold, epic saga starting in Ancient Egypt and climaxing at the ends of time.

3 Razorwolf
A new era for Dick Grayson, the premier hero of New York City, the Metahuman capital of the world. One of the few places where humans are the minority.

[Arctic Cyclist]

One of the problems with the current Bat Family is that too few of them actually compliment one another. They have created this character eat character environment where the characters actually hurt and diminish one another. Even Batman.

An excellent point.

But why not run with that? One of the old Detective Comics just released digitally introduced the Wayne cousins, which oddly enough was nodded to back in Gotham Academy 7, and they all loathe each other. It's fantastic, and they should show up occasionally to add an Arrested Development vibe to the Batfamily.

Stop with the engagement stories. It doesn't matter who she is. Batman|Bruce Wayne has been engaged three separate times since 2011. None of the women had any sort of involvement with his children except for two very thin and poorly written stories with Catwoman; the one from the New Talent Showcase being quite obviously a response to parents screaming at DC about how toxic and abusive the entire BatCat relationship is in regards to Damian, which it is. DC needs to knock it off. Batman is capable of being a strong, independent man who doesn't need a woman to rectify his existence and bring him happiness. He can be a complex male character without romance shoved in, and honestly, there's a reason why Selina regularly gets retconned/brainwashed into not knowing his identity: she works better as an obsessive stalker with abundant fetishes. Having her as part of the family does diminish the family and potential stories, just as any redemption of Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy does.

We know what a Bruce and Selina marriage looks like. It's been done before. Multiple times. It's cliche and boring. Enough with it, let's move on to actual crime fighting and detective stories.

Third: keep Flashpoint Thomas Wayne in existence and bring in Flashpoint Martha Wayne. I know she died in theory, but really, given who she is, does anyone believe it? I realize most people have never read Flashpoint, so I won't spoil their characters but those who have will understand why introducing and incorporating them is fantastic. Martha in particular would create an abundance of stories and angst, especially for Kate, Bruce, Jacob, Alfred, Alice, and Damian. Who wouldn't want to read about Martha and Alice teaming up? Anyone? Accept that they feed on each other and bring in the wolves.

The biggest thing is DC needs to overhaul their editorial. It's not that the writers are bad necessarily, but a writer is only as good as their editor. A good editor can make a bad writer good, a good writer excellent, and an excellent writer legendary. Of course they have to be able to follow continuity, have a phenomenal grasp of the characters, a feel for what readers that are in the shadows and not on Twitter or at cons want, and no issues whatsoever crushing egos which is not what DC has right now. I don't read romance, but I've started paying attention to the industry because it's the only one where producers, be they writers or otherwise, make high five figures to six figure incomes and it boils down to assuming that the readers are smart and trying to be as accurate and realistic in characterization and details as possible.

For example: many people are aware that parental DNA testing is so easy a seventh grader in Florida* can do it. As much fun as Deathstroke vs Batman is, in the romance industry Tim and Damian would have run their own gels and analyzed the results. Or they would have pointed out that Bruce historically runs his own DNA tests, and Batman & Robin already addressed that.

Lastly the biggest revamp that needs to happen is Tim's being eternally 16 needs addressed. Either bounce him back up to being eight years older than Damian or acknowledge that he's actually a series of clones that Alfred keeps bringing out. I don't care which. I kinda prefer the idea that Tim is a robot or a bunch of short lived constantly replaced and reset clones that Alfred created because he couldn't handle Jason's death. It would be a great explanation for why every major story or soft reboot Tim's age and personality have regressed.

*One of my favorite TA's in college ended up getting out of academia and taking a job as a biology teacher in Florida. His students all get to do DNA testing and analysis, and they start with parental testing because it's easy sequencing. By the end of the year they're up to identifying finding diseases, identifying species and hybrids, and getting into CRISPR which is significantly harder. Needless to say, his kids tend to get into top colleges. I feel like I'm a disappointment to him. It's a part of why I dislike Poison Ivy and the whole Green plot: it's based in outdated science from the seventies with no understanding of any biology breakthroughs of the last thirty years.

[Zaresh]

Honestly, I think the problem isn't that the Batfam is too big. The problem (in my opinion) is that it seems that everything has to be connected to Batman at some point. The problem is Batman himself, not the other characters that, to be honest, rarely show up in Batman's own books, and are perfectly Ok in their books when they had them (or in their team books).

But people like Batman, Batman sells; so at this point, even the Marvel family is going to be included within the Batman and allies brand.

If people stops buying the books in which Batman shows even for one panel, then maybe, the characters will be free from the Batman, and Batman will stick to his own cases, not going saving the multiverse or solving the problems of some other character because he's the most popular character of his publisher. And maybe that way the characters from the batfam will grow from his shadow.

But as far as Bruce is popular, nope, not going to happen. Everything will be connected to him and he will show up in their books now and then with a relevant role. It kind of reminds me a bit of how everything had to be connected to King Arthur in Middle Ages' literature in certain places.

[Bat-Meal]

The Outsiders is a team book, not the "Black Lightning Family".

Which "family" would the Justice League be?

In most Team books all team members are equals with a designated leader. In Outsiders Black Lightning is clearly setup as a mentor. When the Gotham Knights were active Batman and Batwoman were the mentors, hence they used to discuss the well being of their students and progress (and even make plans to take them on outings).