Reboot One Batman Character

[Aahz]

Reboot Duela Dent and go with her Pre-Crisis origin story, where she was revealed to be the Joker's daughter from an alternate timeline. Also, bring back her dad, the Jokester from Earth 3, and give him all of the positive traits of the Earth 1 Joker character.

Pre-Crisis she iirc simply was actually Harvey Dents daugther, the Earth 3 thing was a retcon in Countdown.

[Mr. White]

Bruce Wayne/Batman. In a fraction of a heartbeat.

The reboot will be to make him a hybrid of Adam West version and BTAS; with a lot more personality, a lot more humanity, and most importantly - a lot more Bruce Wayne.

[SiegePerilous02]

Pre-Crisis she iirc simply was actually Harvey Dents daugther, the Earth 3 thing was a retcon in Countdown.

She actually later revealed that she wasn't Harvey's daughter when Dick talked to her at Donna's wedding. He reasoned that the math didn't work, and she said "took ya long enough to figure that one out."

Bruce Wayne/Batman. In a fraction of a heartbeat.

The reboot will be to make him a hybrid of Adam West version and BTAS; with a lot more personality, a lot more humanity, and most importantly - a lot more Bruce Wayne.

I want so badly for this to happen.

[Gaius]

This could be very good!

Thanks, very much tired of Quinn as some attempt at an anti-hero so think it would be interesting route given her origins as an aspiring psychologist.

Bruce Wayne/Batman. In a fraction of a heartbeat.

The reboot will be to make him a hybrid of Adam West version and BTAS; with a lot more personality, a lot more humanity, and most importantly - a lot more Bruce Wayne.

Yes please. So tired of Batman set permanently on dick mode and the "Batman is real guy, Bruce is the mask" interpretation.

[bat39]

Tim Drake.

I'd actually rewrite his origin story a bit to stay true to the spirit of the original, while making him even more unique.

So in my version, Tim becomes Robin on his own, before he ever meets Batman, let alone becoming part of the 'family'.

The rest of the backstory is still the same. Tim is still a kid who witnesses the deaths of the Flying Graysons. He studies footage of Batman and Robin and spends years tracking them and figuring out their identities. He truly is a prodigy who hones his physical and mental skills all through his teenage years.

And then, after Jason dies, he decides to become Robin. Not necessarily just because 'Batman needs a Robin'. But also because he feels Robin was an inspirational figure for him, and many other kids in Gotham. He does eventually want to partner with Batman, but he feels he first needs to prove himself.

So he puts together a Robin costume and equipment based on Batman and Robin's stuff. He certainly has the funds for it. And then he goes out as Robin.

It doesn't take long for Batman to become aware of this mysterious new Robin. And here's the kicker. Batman doesn't figure out who the new Robin is because he really has no reason to suspect a random 16 year old rich kid (yeah, I'd age Tim up a bit in this version) of being Robin. He just wants to shut him down because he doesn't want another kid to die like Jason did. But he teams up with the new Robin once or twice and develops a grudging admiration for his skills.

Finally, the day comes when Tim shows up at the Batcave and reveals who he is, asking to be Bruce's partner. And Bruce hates the idea but agrees simply because he is impressed by Tim's skills and his dedication (even if he never admits it to Tim or even to himself...Alfred slyly points it out to him!) He's also swayed by Tim's argument about the importance of Robin to Gotham.

So there you have it. Its true to Tim's origin of being the one to proactively seek out Bruce. He's still the normal kid who could have chosen any other life but chose this one. But there's now a more plausible reason for Bruce to accept another Robin after Jason - more than the "Batman needs a Robin" argument. Instead, this reinforces the significance of the Robin mantle and its inherent inspirational quality to Gotham's youth.

Beyond that, stuff would mostly play out the same. Except that now it also makes a lot more sense that Tim branches out on his own fairly quickly and lets Damien take the position of Batman's sidekick - because Tim's Robin didn't start out as one.

[Tzigone]

I'd actually rewrite his origin story a bit to stay true to the spirit of the original, while making him even more unique.

So in my version, Tim becomes Robin on his own, before he ever meets Batman, let alone becoming part of the 'family'.

Dislike on the face of it. First thing I get out of this "he needs to be more special than all the others"

And then, after Jason dies, he decides to become Robin. Not necessarily just because 'Batman needs a Robin'. But also because he feels Robin was an inspirational figure for him, and many other kids in Gotham. He does eventually want to partner with Batman, but he feels he first needs to prove himself.

So he puts together a Robin costume and equipment based on Batman and Robin's stuff. He certainly has the funds for it. And then he goes out as Robin.

Also extremely insensitive at best to take an identity he has no right to and in way that is likely to cause emotional pain to Jason's loved ones.

Except that now it also makes a lot more sense that Tim branches out on his own fairly quickly and lets Damien take the position of Batman's sidekick

It wasn't quick originally - it was 4 years before Damian showed up.

Beyond that, stuff would mostly play out the same. Except that now it also makes a lot more sense that Tim branches out on his own fairly quickly and lets Damien take the position of Batman's sidekick - because Tim's Robin didn't start out as one.

Then he should be someone else, not Robin. And this just seems like a way to declare him superior to all others.

[Gaius]

I'd re-write Bane's motivations for Knightfall, where instead of wanting to become the new crime boss of Gotham he thinks Batman sucks at his job so after "breaking Batman" he declares himself Gotham's newest hero who either cripples for life or outright kills Gotham's costumed villains.

[Dr. Victor Fries]

Joe Chill.

The murderer of Thomas and Martha should be the ultimate boogeyman to Bruce.

And he should be a complete mystery, forever.

Bruce will never find him, nor even find out who he really was, or what happened to him.

There are no revealing details, and Bruce never saw what Chill even looked like.

Bruce isn't even sure that Chill wasn't a woman (Joe/Jo?).

Actually, Maybe no first name for Chill is best.

"Chill" was the only word Bruce remembers the murderer responding to, coming from off-panel and stopping the murderer from offing Bruce before fleeing the scene.

Chill is never seen nor heard from, ever again. Bruce will spend the rest of his life wondering about this person, never to get closure.

Would make him have a feud with Freeze lol

[Dr. Victor Fries]

Mad Hatter: Jarvis Tetch is a scientist married to a woman named Alice. Alice is murdered in front of Tetch. Unable to cope with what has happened, Tetch enters a fugue state believing himself to be the real Mad Hatter. He becomes obsessed with the idea that he must find "Alice". Eventually returning to where his wife was killed, his memory of that night melds with his fugue persona causing him to hunt down his wife's murderer.

[godisawesome]

...I’m liable to do more than one of these, because I have fun doing stuff like this.

Talia Al Ghul:

- Reworked so she and Bruce had a genuinely positive relationship once, as they actually met when he was traveling the world Pre-Batman, and before she knew who her father was, being raised by her mother instead... and had a different name, Andrea Beaumont (I’d rather consolidate Bruce’s supervillain exes rather than have them operate independently.)

- Her mother is murdered, and she and Bruce part ways when she disappears throwing herself after the killers while he tries to investigate in his own way.

- Years later, he encounters her while thinking she’s still *just* hunting her mother's killers, and she comes to live with him in Gotham...

-... But of course, she ran into her father, has already largely avenged her mother by killing *everyone remotely involved with her death*, and is now looking to help Bruce achieve “final vengeance” and “move on,” spending a couple of months trying to coax Bruce into embracing his darker side.

- Bruce uncovers her deception, and this is where he finds out about her new name, her father, and they become (initially reluctant) adversaries... and this is when she becomes aware she’s pregnant with Damian.

- She ends up raising her son the way she does in out of a fierce protectiveness of “what’s her’s,” and her eventual break from her father and foundation of Leviathan is as much an expression of how little her father actually understands her as anything else.

- Talia’s overall goal is complete control of her life and the world, because she hated losing her mother, and hates being treated as a pawn by Ra’s.

[ngroove]

Killer Moth.

He's actually got several respectable stories, appearances - such as Detective Comics #359, #486, #526, Batman #400, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #7-9.

Most of the rest - many writers, teams, treat him as a joke.

Just give him a flying winged Killer Moth Costume, and a good shooting marksman eye, turn him into a hired underworld hitman - like Firefly at times.

No rising up, only to fall more humiliatingly - just make him deadly serious at what he does. To keep him atleast on Firefly-tier, would be better than reputation as a joke, lowest tier.

[Caivu]

Reinstate her background as a tennis champion.

It was never uninstated.

[godisawesome]

Here’s a two-fer, because I want to:

Killer Moth - Make him a former SWAT team member from Braden’s corrupt unit, who looks and acts like a meathead, but is actually fairly clever and intelligent... just goofy and painfully un-self-aware. Have him be a SWAT member who had to cut a plea deal to avoid deep jail time, got out, got a job as a security guard at LexCorp (to help explain *his* reason for having the green and purple color scheme), and have him break into GCPD headquarters to get gear that he knows he can use: a collection of “anti-Batman” SWAT armaments, like a grenade launcher that can fire gadget grenades, and one of Firefly’s jet pack protypes.

Make the whole idea of him be that his *is* a genuinely dangerous, persistent, and effective villain with a grudge against Gordon, but he can’t see how ridiculous he looks or how stupid “Killer Moth” sounds a villain name. Basically, make him a bad guy who Babs would both impress in defeating her first time out, but also act as endless fodder for Robin and Batgirl jokes about him.

Magpie- As I joked about on the Catwoman thread, make her similarities to Catwoman intentional ... but not her own. Margaret Sorrow is one of Hugo Strange’s patients and victims, and when he gets onto his usual Monster Men/Wannabe Batman modes, they combine with him trying to o see if he can create a better Batman rogue, in this case trying to create a “better” Catwoman. So he brainwashed and experiments on Sorrow to create what *he* thinks Catwoman is like - an overly-sexualized malcontent with severe kleptomania. Cue Catwoman having to survive an attempt by Strange and Magpie to “replace” her in Gotham’s “criminal biome”, and Batman having someone to try and find a treatment for to undo Strange’s actions.

[godisawesome]

Okay, and here’s *my* idea for rebooting Tim Drake... though it’s more trying to fine tune his origin, then firmly attach certain events to his career:

Tim Drake, Robin III - There was one single element of Scott Lobdell’s otherwise bad origin story I liked; the idea of Tim’s parents being in Witness Protection. I actually kind fo like the idea of using that to play around with Tim’s differences and similarities to Bruce.

So:

-Tim saw the Flying Graysons as a kid (though maybe it was less a live circus event, and more like a backstage pass to a more Cirque d’Solei show).
-Tim’s family grew up well outside of Gotham, actually, like St. Paul, Minnesota, or Kansas City, though he did have a somewhat complicated relationship with *sometimes* distant parents growing up, including a few private schools that weren’t quite true boarding schools but were pretty close.
-Tim’s dad wound up becoming a witness to a crime the Penguin committed, and the Penguin ordered someone after the family...
-...And young Tim got to witness graduated Dick Grayson *and* rookie Jason Todd in action as Nightwing and Robin alongside Batman when they rescued his family.
- The family is given a Witness Protection Plan in the suburbs of Gotham; the idea being that Penguin is looking for them where they were, and wouldn’t smell them under his nose.
-Tim, now with an added incentive to stay out of public, becomes a computer geek, though not an Oracle level hacker - he focuses mostly on just using it for amateur detective work, and especially his interest in Batman and growing grudge on the Penguin.
-Tim becomes one of Jason’s online resources; he’ll do a lot of the data mining Jason doesn’t like to do, and Jason helps him figure out how to be a better detective, especially once “Red Bird” figures out that he’s communicating with Robin and expresses his thankfulness for it.
-Jason’s death and Robin’s disappearance are the last bit of evidence Tim needs to feel certain that he knows who the Batfamily is; his detective work was good enough to make them the clear suspects, run into Bruce’s false trails, red herrings, and misdirections, and still remain convinced they were the clearest suspects, so Jason’s death is just a melancholy confirmation.

-Lonely Place of Dying happens again, but this time with the caveat that Tim is also aware that Penguin’s hit man, the Obeah Man, is closing in on his family.
-The family gets attacked, but *both* Tim’s parents survive with severe injuries, and it turns out that Penguin, now gone full Iceberg Lounge businessman, actually called off the hit because a) the lesson was learned in his opinion, and b) he can’t take that publicity right now. So Obeah Man was working on his own to settle his old business, but Penguin is still Tim’s #1 enemy.
-The events of the first Robin Mini-series happen against King Snake, though updated.
-Tim’s family emerges from hiding now because of Penguin calling off the hit, but his parents get divorced due to the stress, with Tim staying in Gotham with his dad.
-The rough events of the Robin series happen. Stephanie Brown is introduced to Batman’s world by Tim, and he truly does act as Batman’s partner for a solid three or so years. His father ends up having his injuries aggravated by an attack and ends up in a coma, so Tim’s mother is his connection, and she comes back to live with him, though their relationship is strained because of her reaction towards him being a Robin.

Red Robin
-His “graduation to Red Robin is less cleanly demarcated than Nightwing’s or Red Hood’s. He was already trying out different armor with a cowl after Jason returned and they had a few scrapes, and he was already beginning to operate more as an associate of Batman than as his sidekick when Damian appeared.
-Batman’s death and Damian's assumption of the mantle, leads to him taking the Red Robin moniker more as a formality on his part; he’s effectively Damian’s senior peer, even though they don’t get along very well.
-Tim operates similar to the Fabian Nicieza version, varying between being a Peter Parker type, and sometimes being a more control freak Bruce Wayne type, with the latter being a bad thing.

[Oberon]

Betty Kane. I would return Babs to Oracle only status. Betty returns to being Bat-Girl even using her original color scheme of red and green. Babe and Betty would be a bit of a Birds of Prey type vibe. But I would definately make Betty a strong and capable Bat-Girl. Reinstate her background as a tennis champion. Maybe reignite a romance between Dick and Betty. But keep her a lighter personality type than most of the dark and shadowy Batfamily.

Another person mentioned Duela Dent / Joker’s Daughter. If you really wanna go pre crisis, she was the daughter of Harvey Dent and his ex wife. Maybe make her a niece instead. She went thru several ‘child of Batman villain ‘ identities. Make her Harvey’s niece. She starts playing with various identities for fun. But really loves Joker’s Daughter! But she like playing hero. Before she became Harlequin as a Teen Titan member. That name is now sorta taken. So she becomes Funny Face!

She is one of my favorite DC characters. They just never mention her tennis thing. Personally, I like your ideas, with the exception of most (!). Babe should remain as Batgirl once more, but I think Dick and Bette's connections to the Kandorian/Krptonian legends could be emphasized or embellished somehow. Yep to a possible romance for NW and FB. Yes to her lighthearted character. Give both NW and FB new costumes with colors and connections to their previous pasts - but not like a psychedelic puke thing.