Bruce Wayne to hand the cowl to a black man?

[Nite-Wing]

Its Bronze Tiger's time to shine
Make it happen DC he's the closest person to Bruce who actually trained with him when he was learning to be Batman

[Frontier]

...I can barely muster up the motivation to even think about this.

I mean, I like Luke probably more then most people but I'm not sure I see him as Batman considering how little he's factored into the stories lately and how he's nowhere near as close to Bruce or the legacy as the Robins are. You could make a stronger case for Cass becoming Batman, even though current Cass isn't as close to Bruce as she used to be. And beyond his race I'm not sure if he'll really stand out that much considering all the other successors there's been to Bruce over the years, but I guess this will make him more visible even if I don't expect he'll get a long Batman tenure. Well-received will probably depend on your feelings about Bendis.

And getting mentored by Bruce? Are they really trying to make him black Terry McGinnis? I mean, the Batwing suit was basically the Beyond suit pretty much, so I guess it's not that surprising, but still.

I don't know. I just don't really care at this point. If this is what Bendis is doing when he takes over then he either wants to try and repeat himself with his Marvel work with Miles/Riri or he wants to write Batman Beyond.

[Nite-Wing]

If its gonna be Luke they need to get rid of his black tech nerd personality asap and go back to the mma fighter personality nobody is gonna buy his as a threat outside of the batwing suit otherwise

[Frontier]

If its gonna be Luke they need to get rid of his black tech nerd personality asap and go back to the mma fighter personality nobody is gonna buy his as a threat outside of the batwing suit otherwise

Unless he's a really teched-out Batman. I mean, the Beyond implications seem obvious.

[Scott Taylor]

I'm down with it. Why wouldn't it be Duke?

[Korath]

I'm down with it. Why wouldn't it be Duke?

I'd prefer Duke to be the Batman of the day he was hinted to be in his mini. Plus, Signal has a lot of potential for his own stuff, more so than hands me down from Bruce.

Bronze Tiger would be awesome : he was in King's run, was really skilled and his a friend of Bruce. I'm not sold on the mentoring, but I've a hard time Batman teaching anything to Luke as we saw him in 'Tec during Rebirth, honestly. He seemed rather competent already.

[Godlike13]

I really hope they go with someone else, cause Luke is the most boring choice they could pick. Luke’s Batwing is already a Batman Beyond prototype.

[Kaijudo]

I'd rather they bring back Charlie Bullock from the old pre-Crisis Huntress backups in Wonder Woman. Earth-2 guy who went by Blackwing and had a kind of cool Batsuit of his own. Hasn't been seen since Crisis.

blackwing.jpg

[Frontier]

I'm down with it. Why wouldn't it be Duke?

I don't think Duke wants to be Batman. I mean, he's young and still relatively new to this so I don't think he's ready for that kind of role and I don't see why he'd want it.

Unless we want to really go Batman Beyond by making Batman a teenager.

[Vakanai]

Ugh, blegh, and other words meaning nope to this idea. Not about a black man being Batman, I'm cool with that, but Bruce handing over the cowl to someone else. I mean, I'm not even a fan of Dick being Batman. Bruce doesn't need a replacement, Bruce is Batman.

[Frontier]

Ugh, blegh, and other words meaning nope to this idea. Not about a black man being Batman, I'm cool with that, but Bruce handing over the cowl to someone else. I mean, I'm not even a fan of Dick being Batman. Bruce doesn't need a replacement, Bruce is Batman.

I also think we've basically told succession stories with Batman. Everyone knows it won't be permanent and Bruce will be back in probably a year or two.

I guess there's the novelty and optics of having a black man as DC's biggest and most popular Superhero but I don't know if that will work as well as DC might be hoping it does. Especially when it just seems to be riffing on other legacy stories.

[Sacred Knight]

They're not seriously considering threatening their one guaranteed seller, are they? For Marvel's failed diversity replacement initiative?

There's been success before when Bruce isn't under the cowl. But there's a huge caveat to that. It succeeds if its Dick Grayson. There's no precedent that it'll work for an outlier character whose not that popular and you're doing it just because he/she is black. If DC thinks fans will accept Luke Cage any more than they accepted the temporary robotic Jim Gordon they're crazy.

If you want to push diverse characters that's fantastic. But how about trying to make the guy work as Batwing? Or, if the aim is more standalone diverse characters, which we could definitely use, have him branch out into something more his own lore. This is not the way to push diversity though. It already failed at Marvel.

Or even better, for the love of freaking god bring back Milestone.

[yohyoi]

Meh. Who ever it is. What ever his race is. He will be forgotten after a few months. I said multiple times before "Dick Grayson cannot be erased". He will always be Bruce's heir to most people. DC tries so hard with this Ric nonsense and now this Black Batman wannabe. But they will fail again and again as seen in the New 52 and Ric Grayson. For the meantime, I will be watching the trainwreck with popcorn on hand.

[Derek Metaltron]

The most idiotic part of this is the apparent idea that because of Miles only Bendis can tell this story, who honestly I think is the most bland and predictable choice to handle something many people will take issue with for various legitimate reasons but will no doubt be drowned out from cries of various Isms... until Bruce comes back. Again.

[Kingcrimsonprog]

In any non elseworlds continuity, has anyone else been Batman other than Bruce, Dick, Jean Paul and Jim Gordon ?