The Darker Knight is a self admitted Batman Troll Fic by Cafe Hoax Zest, (revealed at the end to be an anagram of Zacoftheaxes, his common online username.). It starts out with Batman finding out that he's been accused of murder, and teams up with his suddenly appearing cousin "Betty Waine," aka Batcousin, to find the real culprit, Two-Face (or Too-Face, as he's regularly called in the story). From there the plot steadily becomes more and more insane - and hilarious. Features the appearance of more random celebrities than you can shake a stick at.
The fic itself can be found here, a dramatic reading can be found hereand an Animated Adaptation of the first chapter made in LEGO Stop Motion can be found here. Compare My Immortal, which does the same thing for Harry Potter.
This fanfic contains examples of:
- Aborted Arc: In the very beginning, Batman was accused of crimes that Two-Face committed. This is quickly forgotten about.
- And That's Terrible: Played for Laughs. A lot of characters love to talk about how "bad" things are.Batman: "I am coming Cousin and nowe I shall win because good wins because evill isn't good and you are evil right now being. Prepair to fail."
- Adaptation Name Change: Batman's parents are now Bob and Brittany, rather than Thomas and Martha.
- Alliterative Family: The reason why Batman parents were renamed, so their names would all start with a B.
- Animate Inanimate Object:
- After a news brief on Batcousin's misandrist rampage, the TV itself suddenly comes to life and joins the good guys.
- Also, a random helicopter can talk.
- Artistic License – Biology: In Chapter 1, Batman uses the Batarang on Two-Face, and it hits only "nonvital organs"...like his intestines and liver. Also, being stabbed in the shoulder with a fork nearly kills Batman.
- Artistic License – Economics: Killer Croc kidnaps various celebrities as he leaves a bar at the end of Chapter 2 & start of Chapter 3. This causes a depression before everyone else even leaves the bar.
- Battle Butler: Alfred.
- Bat Deduction: Well, this is both a Batman fic and a Troll Fic.Batcousin then grabe gun and enoby blade ans say "Riddler means there has zombies coming and now we must go find them because zombies are bad."
- Beige Prose
- Bread Milk Eggs Squick: When the depression starts in chapter 3, it's mentioned the economy needs the presence of bands such as Justin Beiber, The Jonas Brothers, Miley Cyrus, and Cannibal Corpse.
- Brick Joke: The bomb from Chapter 3 does absolutely nothing until Riddlercousin trips over it in Chapter 9.
- Bullet Catch: Played with. The Batmobile itself is able to deflect bullets by kicking them back.
- The Cameo: LOTS, most of them As Himself
- Tom Anderson (as "Tom from MySpace")
- Justin Bieber
- Cannibal Corpse
- Miley Cyrus (as Hannah Montana)
- Darth Vader
- Andy Dufresne (as Andy "Dufraine")
- Tyler Durden
- Gordon Freeman (takes Commissioner Gordon's place)
- The Jonas Brothers
- Charles Foster Kane
- Liam Neeson, who has a lightsaber
- Barack Obama
- The Punisher
- The Question
- Rorschach
- Will Smith
- Keyser Söze (as "Kaiser Soze")
- ...And Zoidberg
- Captain Obvious: Played for Laughs with a lot of the dialogue.
- Chainmail Bikini: Batcousin's Bat Bikini
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: After Chapter 6, Tom Anderson goes to the hospital and isn't heard from again after that.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Batcousin gets rid of Killer Croc by throwing him into a blender and turning him into ice cream
- Also, Miley Cyrus's death.
- Death Is Cheap: Villains randomly die and just as randomly come back later. Once in awhile, they'll come back undead.
- Department of Redundancy Department: Played for Laughs. Not only do the characters repeat themselves at times, the Freeman brothers have a rather...repetitive argument with Killer Croc in Chapter 2 (largely due to it being a parody of Bohemian Rhaspody)."I am coming Cousin and nowe I shall win because good wins because evill isn't good and you are evil right now being. Prepair to fail."
- Does Not Like Guns: Batcousin (she prefers RPGs instead!)
- Dirty Communists: "Commissioner" is spelled "Communist" a few times.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: The final story arc.
- Gendercide: Batcousin and the female villians (plus Justin Bieber) decide to do this after rescuing Morgan Freeman, Tom Anderson, and various musicians.
- Heel–Face Revolving Door: Batcousin turns on everybody after Morgan Freeman is saved, but then becomes good again after being bopped on the head by a brick.
- Heel–Face Door-Slam: In chapter 3, The Joker declares he wants to help Batman and is now a good guy. The police still shoot him because he's a criminal.
- Heel–Face Turn: Bane (after recovering from having his head blown off) decides to help Batman fight against Batcousin's war on men (and guns).
- Hypocritical Humor: Batcousin declares war on men and guns because she believes that they are to blame for all of the violence and destruction in the world, but women never kill anybody. Cue women trying to kill people. With guns. And then there's the man with a gun, who Batcousin brings in in Chapter 9.
- I Love the Dead: Zombie Joker/Death Joke is apparently Zombisexual, as well.
- Incendiary Exponent/Spontaneous Human Combustion: Batcousin sets the Joker on fire. By kicking him.
- Insane Troll Logic: The entire fic runs on this, but an in-universe example would be Batcousin's sudden decision to declare war on men.
- Joker Immunity: Played with. The Joker dies 5 times before he comes back to life as a zombie. He isn't a zombie the first four times he comes back to life, so one has to wonder what happened the fifth time.
- Knights and Knaves: Early on, Riddler and Riddlercousin claim that one of them always tells the truth and the other always lies. Batcousin immediately says both of them are lying, to which the pair apologise and die.
- Long List: So many people join in the fight against Zombie Joker that the last few chapters are mostly a laundry list of good guys.
- Ludicrous Gibs: When the Batmobile runs over Riddler Cousin, she explodes all over streetlights and people.
- Made of Iron: The good guys.
- Made of Explodium: The villains! They usually recover, though. Also, a bar explodes, both because everyone inside it was dead and because of gravity. One would think that if gravity has this effect, it would've exploded already.
- More Dakka: EVERYBODY, including the TV!
- Most Common Super Power: Batcousin has breasts "the size of melons that had vitemin d milk."
- My Friends... and Zoidberg: Done literally here, as Zoidberg actually shows up at the final battle (and is always mentioned last)!
- One-Hit Kill: Happens a lot to the bad guys, sometimes multiple times.
- One-Winged Angel: Two-Face becoming Four-Face.
- Also, Zombie Joker absorbing the other zombies and becoming Death Joke.
- Parody Sue: Batcousin
- Random Events Plot
- Redemption Equals Death: The Joker decides to help Batman rescue Morgan Freeman...before he's randomly gunned down by the cops.
- Rouge Angles of Satin: Played for Laughs, including an actual evil circle of satin.
- Shout-Out: Did we mention the immense amount of cameos, yet?
- In 2010, war was beggining.
- "We can't stop here." Jokore say. "This is Batman country".
- At the end of the story, Batman does his impression of Horatio Caine complete with music.
- The end of chapter 2 ends with lines lifted from Bohemian Rhaspody.
- Suit Up of Destiny: In Chapter 7. It involves Batman putting on another suit, Bane growing another head, the TV playing Die Hard and Rambo while grabbing a weapon, and Alfred putting a banana on his head
- Take a Third Option: Riddler and Riddlercousin try to trick Batman with one only telling lies and ones only telling the truth. Batcousin says they're both lying, and they randomly fall over dead.
- Take That!: While most of the villians die a random, quick death (and wind up coming right back), Miley Cyrus is brutally killed and stays gone.
- Troll Fic: Admitted at the end.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: Bruce Wayne drives the Batmobile to his cousin's house while not in costume.
- We Didn't Start the Billy Joel Parodies: The "Official song of The Darker Knight", posted in the final chapter, is "We Didn't Start the Fire" with new lyrics.
- Zombie Apocalypse: Zombie Joker tries to create one.