Batman
That is, the ability to see 1 second into the future. However, via his training and reflexes, he can exploit this to kick your ass. How? He sees you about to hit him a second early, and there for dodges right then, dodging your attack. He can only be caught off guard if you change a second before impact. Basically, he should be useless, but with training, he isn't.
Batman does not want to save Gotham. Gotham is a training grounds for his arms sales/holding cell for his army of villains.
- Wayne enterprises makes a lot of its money selling the weaponary to top-secret organizations; weaponry that Batman has trained with and tested against some of the toughest villains ever. Alternatively, Batman is "training" his nemesis to be nearly unstoppable, except by him. That way he can release them whenever he wants and have a rampaging, chaotic army. This threat keeps the money pouring in for him.
- He makes his villains stronger and stronger by sending them back to the hellhole that is Arkham. Every villain who has visited there has come back not rehabilitated, but even more dangerous than when they went in. Look at what happened with Destiny, Calendar man and Dr. Crane, not to mention Harley Quinn. Arkham asylum is not attempting any therapy on their patients; instead, they are a breeding ground for tougher and tougher villains. That's why Batman doesn't kill them, he needs them for testing and to hold as a threat against the world.
Batman will posses Joker and force him to help him come back to life
They will have to share bodies. Maybe there will be a
Sit Com. And Batman/Harley Quinn will become canon
via Batman tricking Harley while possessing the Joker.
All the Jokers are good friends
They have a pocket dimension where they have meetings.
Mark Hamill's Joker and Heath Ledger's Joker seem like they would get along.
This is how Joker knows Batman so well — he can talk about him with hundreds of himself.
He escaped the
Marvel Universe to escape someone, got plastic surgery and the next day became Joker due to some kind of accident. He went
nuts more nuts over this, and kept
his lack of the Fourth Wall.
Joker is Batman, and a god, and has pocket dimension meetings, and is Deadpool
One day, Deadpool got godly powers. He created many dimensions based on his dreams and then went into one of them. He can hop around. In those dreams, he plays Bruce Wayne/Batman, the good part of his mind. He also, unknowingly, splits off his bad part, the Joker. Their fighting is part of his moral problems. The bad parts meet up to plot and talk.
Joker is the love child of Deadpool and Death
As above, except the godly powers come built in!
Joker secretly came to our universe and read the
Joker Immunity page, somehow giving him immortality.
- This redefines Mind Screw.
- Well since Superboy:prime is supposedly from our universe it is possible.
Note how the Detective has many qualities that are ascribed to the
Furry Fandom. For example:
- He identifies himself closely with a particular animal.
- He spends significant amounts of time in a costume resembling humanoid version of said animal.
- He no longer identifies himself with his original identity as Bruce Wayne, believing that he is more "himself" when in costume.
- Of his adversaries, he is closest to Catwoman.
- He is always more interested in her when she is in costume.
- Of all his enemies, he is most likely to team up with The Penguin.
- I've seen him and Joker work together more. Also, he and Joker aren't that different. Just one went insane and one only went slightly insane. I'll leave the chose of which is which to you.
- He's generally reclusive except with others who share his interests.
- That last one describes almost everyone reading this page, regardless of fur.
- Well, extroverted people tend to be interested in people in general, regardless of their specific interests, while introverts prefer to only associate with those with similar interests.
- This theory is supported by Justice League Unlimited. When Batman is captured by Lex Luthor, he decides he needs create dissent among the villains and gain allies. He ends up making out with Cheetah (an anthropomorphic feline), and striking a deal with Ultra-Humanite (albino gorilla).
Bruce Wayne has crippling Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, self-medicated by being a vigilante.
This is practically canon, unspoken if not outright stated in many, many incarnations of Batman.
Gotham isn't the
DCU version of New York or Chicago. It's
Innsmouth.
Either Innsmouth started out named Gotham in the DCU, or sometime around the mid-thirties, when the city began to grow larger (enough to encompass Arkham and Dunwich as well), the new city was officially called Gotham and Innsmouth, Dunwich, Arkham, etc. became just boroughs. This explains the dark, twisted nature of the city, its architecture, people, mad scientists... not to mention Arkham Asylum. Related theories:
- In the DCU, Nyarlathotep is named "Parallax".
- Martha Wayne is descended from the line of the Carters (such as John Carter Of Mars, Randolph Carter, etc).
- Killer Croc isn't mutated; he has a harsh version of the Innsmouth Look.
- No, Gotham is Arkham, which later grew to encompass other smaller towns; the resulting city got named Gotham.
- Thomas Wayne got his MD at Miskatonic University.
The Joker is Nyarlathotep's avatar.
Both seem to exist just to cause chaos for the sake of chaos, and both are good at manipulating people and pulling
Xanatos Gambits. Joker's makeup is like a mask, reference to the thousand-masked god, perhaps?
- He's more likely a worshipper than an avatar - one who has made a contract of immortality with him for as long as he keeps spreading chaos around him.
Batman is Siddhartha.
After leading a sheltered life, Bruce Wayne came face to face with the harsh realities of the world all at once. Instead of seeing a sick old man, he saw his parents murdered, leading him to embrace violence as a means of escape rather than the life of an ascetic. He is currently partway down his road to enlightenment, at about the point when the original Buddha passed out in the stream. Soon, thanks to the grace of a woman (Leslie Thompkins?) who nurses him from near death, he will renounce his path of vengeance and go into isolation. He will emerge having discovered the Middle Way, as seen at the end of Kingdom Come. He eventually lead the other superheroes to Nirvana.
This means he is also the
Maitreya
, the prophesied reincarnation of the Buddha.
As
Superman is clearly a thinly-veiled Jesus, this would seem to answer the perpetual question of who would beat whom in a fist fight: Buddha -– just barely -– beats Jesus, with prep time.
- That's not clear at all. Superman has had many interpretations, Jesus is just the one that lazy grad students slap into their thesis because Jesus is conveniently symbolic and doesn't require much thought; Hero = Saves people = Jesus. You could just as easily say Batman is Jesus, he was even crucified once.
Bruce
was shot in that alley with his parents, and the entire DCU is his
Dying Dream.
Just the fantasy of a boy who read a lot of sci-fi and fantasy as a kid. That's why it started simple and optimistic, but keeps getting
Darker And Edgier as his brain begins to lose function and his dreamworld falls apart...
The entire DCU is a delusion Bruce is having while locked up at an insane asylum for the rich.
... Think about it. All the villains are based on his fellow inmates (it explains their own issues). Superman is the kindly idealistic male nurse father figure, while Wonder Woman is the motherly psychiatrist. The Flash is the resident chemist, and Green Lanterns are the guards. It started so optimistic because he was sent there as a child, but he is getting older. The crisis was him hitting puberty...
- Ironically, Ambush Bug is real.
Batman will change his name to Bee-Man.
He is obviously deeply traumatized by the Amazons'
bee superweapon and will come to realize that the bees frighten people more than bats. He will change his name and thus become Bee-Man.
- He only called himself Batman because he's scared of bats. It doesn't matter what other people think of them.
Bees. My god.
He seems perfectly aware of his status as Batman's nemesis and, despite being roundly trounced, continues trying to kill him. He makes multiple
asides and comments about the inconsistency of history (for example, he
lampshades his own multiple backstories). His recklessness comes from being aware of his
Joker Immunity, but he knows it'll wear out if he stops trying to kill Batman. Joker's occasional refusal to kill Batman, his preventing other villains from killing Batman, and his habit of putting Batman in a
Death Trap are due to uncertainty over whether he'll disappear if the comic ends.
- This is probably due to his insanity, although Arkham: A Serious House On Serious Earth has a psychologist speculating that Joker is supersane.
- This may, thus, be the driving point behind many of his apparently senseless actions. His ability to change personalities allows him to "refresh" his character at will; his utter lack of empathy stems from the belief that his victims aren't "real" people anyway; and all of his lines about acting on a stage for a crowd become much more literal.
- The Joker is supersane. Everything Superman does is super-whatever. Superman is sane. Therefore, he is supersane. Therefore, Superman is the Joker. He's ... bipolar?
- This one's been played with often in the comics. He has referenced a Spider-Man/Batman crossover that's out of continuity before, much to the puzzlement of the other characters. He once even addressed the artist of the story. He also displays a certain amount of Medium Awareness, handling his own word balloons or turning the page for the reader.
- In the recent miniseries Joker's Asylum, he's a Cryptkeeper style host.
- Maybe this is why the Joker doesn't want Batman dead. If he kills Batman, then the Joker and everyone else dies with him because there's no longer any reason for him to exist.
- Joker knows he is a fictional work, which is why he does what he does. Think of how much fun it is in games like Grand Theft Auto to throw caution to the wind and let loose and cause chaos for chaos's sake. Joke's Dangerously Genre Savvy nature is his powers (Super-Sanity as mentioned above); he can get away with what he does because he knows no one is truly killed, since they were never alive in the first place and are fictional characters that the audience hates. This is why he "fudged" the location of Rachel and Harvey in the movie: He knew that the fans felt that Rachel was The Scrappy and that they would much rather see Two-Face. Since this was a movie, she was in no real danger, just like his assistant for his magic trick. He would only seem dangerous to the "NPCs" of his Universe - the police, Batman, Alfred, and Harvey Dent. But to him, he's aware he's Oscar gold. His Super Power is to be the ultimate crowd pleaser!
- This brings up the question of what he'd do when faced with Deadpool or Animal Man.
- Joker not only has no fourth wall, but is also infused with godly powers. Oh, and I, err, he, goes on TV Tropes.
The Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come are in the same continuity.
Bruce Wayne's decision to retire from public (superheroic) life was just one step leading toward the events of Kingdom Come.
- Sure, the Joker dies in both books, but he's faked his own death before.
- Bruce wears the exoskeleton in KC because he was beaten up so badly by Superman in DKR.
- That was also part of the reason Superman went into retirement, allowing the new, darker heroes to rise up.
- Alternately, he had already retired. The "Superman" of Dark Knight is the Martian Manhunter, which would explain why he was hurt by a nuclear bomb (which we've seen the real Superman withstand before), why his appearance changed when the nuke hurt him, and why the Kingdom-era Manhunter is so shattered. The kryptonite arrow also contained an incendiary compound— that's Bats being prepared again.
- When Alfred "destroys" Wayne Manor in DKR, all we see is the roof being blown off — the main building could have remained standing, intact enough to be vandalized later.
Whatever Happened's main text takes place first. It's reasonable to assume that if Lois lied about Superman dying, then she lied about the Gold Kryptonite. In exchange for giving him a new identity, the government requested a few odd-jobs every now and then from Superman. Then, between Whatever Happened's main text and the
frame story, the Dark Knight Returns. This requires that you disregard the Dark Knight Strikes Again, but
would you miss it?
Helena Kyle's father will be retconned to be Bruce Wayne
Does this even need an explanation? Selina's her mom; and before the first Crisis, her dad was Bruce. Besides, her life was in danger just for being the daughter of Catwoman. If she was known as the daughter of Batman as well? Slam Bradley agreed to be the father to cover up Helena's true lineage for her own protection.
Billionaire playboy Bruce Wayne is The Batman!
Just think about it, fellow Gotham residents! Have you ever seen Batman and Bruce Wayne together in the same room? And yet all other high-ranking people in the community are either confirmed or rumored to have associated with The Bat, including Commissioner Gordon himself. The strange bruises and cuts we see on Mr. Wayne's face and hands sometimes. The evidence points to only one conclusion!
- Dude, that's retarded. For one thing, Bruce Wayne's an idiot who's into extreme sports. Seriously, my sister, who works for the Gotham Globe, has a friend who dated him this one time and she described him as, and I quote: "Like Michaelangelo's David - body chiseled perfection, head solid rock."
- Batman is a Ninja. Do you really think a scrawny billionaire like Bruce Wayne just climbed up a mountain and found the dojo of an ancient secret society of Ninja?
- Batman a ninja? What kind of weaponized hallucinogenic flowers are you smoking?
- Batman is a Robot
- No human could do those sorts of things, take and receive that level of punishment, Batman can’t be human. Batman is a highly advanced experimental combat android able to withstand bullets, jump across buildings, and punch through walls.
- Once again, the animated series apparently supports this◊.
- Next, you'll be saying that Clark Kent is Superman! What audacity!
- Well now that you mention it, they do look suspiciously similar....
- You must all be being deliberately stupid - HARVEY DENT ADMITTED HE WAS BATMAN! What more do you want?!
- Harvey Dent is dead. The Batman is not. Proof enough for me.
- But have you actually seen the body?
- I heard they're doing some kind of biopic about Batman, and guess who's playing him? CHRISTIAN BALE! Isn't that, like, the perfect casting choice?
- I read the cast listing, and he plays both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Maybe the producers know something we don't?
- You people are completely on the wrong track. The question is have you ever see Clark Kent and Batman together? Think about it.
- Hey! I haven't seen Clark Kent in the same room as Ambush Bug either...
- Ambush Bug is Batman!
- Ambush Bug is the Moon Princess!
- The Batmobile is a scrapped Wayne Enterprises military project, the Tumbler. The Tumbler was an experimental bridging vehicle abandoned by the military and only a handful of prototypes exist, and Batman somehow managed to get a hold of one? Chasing a Tank down the freeway you would think the GPD would think to look through a few back issues of Jane’s, given the current state of things Wayne is probably bribing the police.
- WHAT!?! The Batmobile is a former Ford concept car called the Futura, from 1957. It was spotted at George Barris' shop in L.A. shortly before the Batmobile first appeared.
- Which leads to a question: Why is Bruce Wayne covering for Dent's extraciricular activities and giving him so much free crimebusting gear?
- Oh, come on. How many people work for Wayne Enterprises? Okay, now how many of those hundreds (if not thousands) of people are not drunken idiots?
- But how many of them have access to scraped military projects?
- Lucius Fox is Batman! He could have worked for Ford when the Futura was designed, he can easily reroute the protoypes and materials from Wayne Enterprises, and it can't be Harvey Dent, because Batman's been around for half a century, and Dent can't be over 40. Unless Dent is Lucius' apprentice...
- Don't be ridiculous. Bruce Wayne's not Batman - Bruce Wayne's gay. All those supermodels are just a long line of beards. But he seems to spend a lot of time with his dark haired blue eyed wards, not to mention Clark Kent, and he was even seen with Lex Luthor, and everybody knows the rumors about him.
- And Batman isn’t? Anyone going around dressing like that is a bit off. “I don't want to kill you. What would I do without you… You Complete Me…”Anyone who has the transcript of Batman’s interrogation of the Joker is thinking Ho Yay/Foe Yay of the whole Joker-Batman thing.
- You're joking. Batman can't be gay, he's obviously some sort of ultra-right-wing lunatic! Why else would he go around beating criminals to a pulp?
- Clark Kent isn't gay. He's married to Lois Lane. Not that she's faithful. Hey, who could blame a gal for fooling around with a super powered muscle bound man in tights when her husband is so mild-mannered? And the worst of it? She uses this to get all the scoop on Superman and beat out her honost husband for a by-line! The nerve of some people.
- Are you kidding me? This was disproven◊ by the animated series.
- I can't BELIEVE you guys are going so far with this tourist trap thing. Helloooo? Batman's not real! You ever seen Batman? Hell no! All we have is the word of the news, the police, and the Council that there's ACTUALLY some kind of, I dont know, Uber-Hero running around, taking out the mafia with his amazing skills and stopping purse-snatchings on the subway, de-shitholing Gotham one alley at a time. Yeah, right! He's about as real as the Loch Ness Monster - you think anybody would visit Lake Ness if there wasn't a "monster?" Batman has more to do with the fact that only 29% of Gotham college graduates go on to get jobs here than some super-resourceful, super-athletic guy wanting to clean up crime all of a sudden.
- NO, Batman is real! My cousin's roomate has a friend who saw him! He's really out there!
- You're all wrong! Batman really is a girl! I mean, no self-respecting baddie would admit that he has been beaten by the girl, would he? So, this means that Bruce Wayne is not Batman, neither is Clark Kent. Lois Lane, on the other hand...
- Batman is Peter Parker, who is Spider Man, who is that dreamy Toby MacGuire. Unnaturally strong? Check. Can't fly? Also check. Doesn'tLikeGuns? Spot-on. If you cut him, does he bleed? Yep. Lastly, does he use grappling wire to get around the city? Totally, unquestionably the same guy.
- I always thought Batman was L. Biggest detective in the world, many aliases, creepy looks... So, that would make Joker... Kira?
- The Joker can't be Kira. That Japanese actress Misa something-or-other is Kira the news even said so and the Joker is definitely not a Japanese actress.
- What better disguise, then?
- The biggest detective in the world is Giant Boy Detective.
- I know who Batman really is. Has access to very expensive, custom made equipment, so he's clearly got wealth. Needs some kind of support crew— but kept to a minimum, possibly even just one, to avoid endangering his Secret Identity. But that one would have to be very competent as well as fully dedicated— a Battle Butler, if you will. And Batman would certainly need a cover identity which could explain away any injuries or criminal entanglements— but he'd also need to be extremely well-trained and well-educated to do what Batman does, perhaps a great deal of travel or combat experience... Ah-HAH! It can only be one man! Batman is... Roger Smith!
- We of the Union would like to add that Roger Smith is the Batman, and as such must be arrested and detained with extreme prejudice for daring to operate outside your... the law. We will hold his possessions until such time as he can retrieve them, particularly the giant mecha and the human-shaped robot girl he's keeping in his house. Our pinstripe-wearing, demonic-jester associate who is ''NOT'' the Joker will pick them up.
- You're all morons! Harvey Bullock is Batman! Think about it: Bullock always says he hates Batman, he's much fatter than Batman, he sounds nothing like Batman, he has a reputation of taking bribes and being a crooked cop, and he uses guns. It's the perfect disguise! Who would suspect him?
- Oh, come on everyone. It's obvious that Batman is Don Draper. Think about it: He's so mysterious, I don't think I've ever heard him talk about his past. Why does he disappear so often? He just leaves the office sometimes with no explanation. He disappeared for a whole two weeks just recently. And why does he live in a regular house? As head creative director, he should make more than that. I'll tell you why, all those gadgets are expensive. Even Harry Crane, head of the Television Department, guessed this once.
- Don't you mean Dan Dreiberg? Vigilantes got outlawed in one universe, so he just got Dr. M. to give him a lift to an alternate one where he could continue to fight crime. But Owlman was already a villain to the denizens of The DCU, so he needed a new theme to avoid confusion...
- Oh, whatever. You're all sheeple. It's obvious Christian Bale is Batman - he's got the voice, he clearly knows his stuff and what better cover would there be for him than actually playing Batman in the movies? None. Exactly.
- Okay, I've lost you all, here. I just want to say that it's obvious that Bruce Wayne's butler, Alfred - the one you occasionally see in pictures with Wayne - is totally Batman. I mean, you never see him, and you'd have to be a superhero to keep all of the Wayne mansion tidy! That logically means Bruce Wayne was the first Robin.
- People, people, do the math! What do we know about Batman?
- He's very, very rich—to get all those wonderful toys
- He's very narcisstic—a man with unlimited resources and ability whose only hindrance is that he believes justice must be meted out by man dressed as bat
- He's very sullen—all that black! Probably one of those emo teens when he was younger
- He's very, veeeeeery ugly—hence the mask
- And he can't get rid of a bomb! Look at the Adam West series; Batman is the only superhero who can go for nuns or school children and choose neither!
- Put it together! Who is very very rich, who loves himself terribly, who is very mean and ugly, and who keeps sinking money into Miss USA despite it losing money every year? He is... DONALD TRUMP!
- You're all wrong...Adam West is Batman! And Christian Bale is actually...the first Robin.
- What are you talking about? Christian Bale couldn't be Robin (of which I suspect there have been at least two or three, possibly as many as five), he's Nightwing. Some papparazzo for the Gotham Hype Machine got pictures of him recently wearing a battle suit without a mask (some time after the whole deal with the evac ferrys, with all the political stuff that was going down), and it's way too functional to be Batman. Batman can't even turn his head in that cowl! He doesn't even have a bright yellow "Batman" logo on, and Nightwing's chevron is almost invisible in the dark. I could easily see TV's Adam West as Batman, though. Playing him on TV is the perfect cover, especially since he also plays Catman, and everyone knows Catman is as much of an urban legend as Spider-Man.
- This troper is going to make a wild mass guess and say all of the above is the most epic string of comments ever. 'Nuff said.
Specifically, Burton-movie-Joker. More specifically, he decides to become Betelgeuse once he meets the
Celestial Bureaucracy after his hilarious cathedral-related demise. He used his new shapeshifting powers to make himself look just like Batman, just for kicks.
- Or, Beetlejuice could possibly be what the Joker turns into upon death. He [Beetlejuice] was dead/a spirit/etc. after all.
- No, the film White Noise is the prequel to Beetlejuice.
- Nah, I've seen them together before.
- Also, the Joker is Ryuk.
- Mayuri Kurotsuchi is the Joker in the afterlife.
There's some evidence that Batman is using requisitioned military equipment. But what if it wasn't requisitioned? What if it was
issued to him by the Government? He's clearly an experimental weapon in the War on Terror, surgically or chemically enhanced to superhuman levels (hence the superhuman feats). Five years from now, assuming the experiment is successful, every city will have its own Bat.
The Joker is not human.
The Joker is more than one person, both sequentially and simultaneously. The DC Universe is bordering on insane - normal people just can't cope with alien invasions, gods and demons, and superhuman battles on a daily basis - and it needs a safety valve. The Joker exists to bleed off insanity and is more of a psychic entity than anything else. Every time he "dies", a new manifestation emerges, either full-blown out of nowhere or, perhaps, possessing someone and transforming their body. This explains how he never stays dead for long and his wild variations in sanity, stated origin, methodology, purpose, appearance, motivation, and attitude. This also explains how sometimes, very different versions of him can appear simultaneously in different storylines in a short period of time. Either that, or it's just Gotham City that's insane, and the Joker is how
that manifests.
Riddler, The Question? Same person
Let's see:
- Both redheads (in most continuities).
- Both wear similar clothes, with bowler hat and domino mask instead of fedora and synthetic skin. (Remember, the Question can change the color of his clothes.)
- Both use question mark-based calling cards.
- Both are obsessed with superiority, each one in a different way.
So, Edward Nigma, attempting to develop "the ultimate question/riddle", creates this other personality that's a superhero. He's so committed to the act that even his thoughts are always "in character". He probably has some devious plan; but what could it be?
- Oh, and if those two characters have already met in person, one was a robot or something.
- The Riddler was nearing sanity bey the time Vic entered the scene. Hm...
- The above criteria sound rather similar to Rorshach.
- That can't be helped — the Question is similar to Rorschach...
The Riddler and
Rorschach are the same person
Same scheme as above, more messed-up result.
This is the simplest explanation for why he can "take a licking and keep on ticking", even after what should have been Certain Death. It's not even
Power Seep Power Creep: in his
first appearance, the powers that be realized that this character was too good to kill off and, at the last minute, they inserted a final panel where a doctor examining the fatally-stabbed Joker shouts, "This man is going to
live!!"
Batman is Patrick Bateman.
Come on! Just drop the "E" and that's "Batman"! Could he make it any more obvious? Bateman's wealth would allow him develop all kinds of devices. And why else would Bateman work out so much? Or wander the streets late at night? How else can we explain the mysterious bloodstains on his clothing and person, except that he is fighting criminals? The Batsuit is as exquisitely tailored as any of Bateman's Armani. And the Batmobile - sheer style. Bateman is regularly mistaken for other Wall Street men - useful if one has an identity to conceal.
Alfred has magic powers.
How else could a single senior citizen take care of an 80-room mansion?
- Cleaning service. Bruce never notices the charges on the household account because Alfred's the guy who originally taught Bruce how to launder money.
Batman is a former supervillain in Purgatory
Because we need to have at least one Purgatory theory. And because he's that morally ambiguous.
- Alternately, he was a former hero who either went Too Far and became a Knight Templar or who have up attempting to do good altogether, believing that if he gave up it wouldn't make a difference. Now he's in Purgatory, and whether or not he'll make it out depends on whether or not he can keep fighting despite Gotham City showing no real improvement despite his efforts.
- If Bruce Wayne had not seen his parents shot, he would have grown up to be Lex Luthor.
- And Superman would be dead.
- Alternately, if Bruce Wayne's parents had avoided being shot altogether, he would have turned out like Tony Stark. The Superman/Batman reality-hopping arc demonstrated this: In the world where Thomas and Martha lived, Bruce is a party-all-night playboy who scores the hotties while lounging poolside with Tommy Elliot, his BFF.
In every universe, there is a Batman/Bruce Wayne. Because he's aware of all of his realities, he's able to adapt to any situation because chances are he's already experienced it (in another world) or he's gone through something that's close enough.
Since this includes the worlds where he's failed or become evil, his driving guilt - which has often been labeled as overblown, all things considered - extends to
all of his lives, not just the one we're familiar with.
This could be conscious or subconscious, by the way; if it's subconscious, then that explains why he's always surprised to meet his alternate selves.
- This is true, according to "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" by Neil Gaiman. Every time Batman dies, he is reincarnated as Bruce Wayne to become Batman. The funeral stories were all stories of his past lives as he had lived them.
- Alternately, his real power is to adjust all nonliving matter to another timeline that splits from his own at least several hours in the past. He can't bring back the dead because his power can't handle the more drastic changes of a death being undone or change anyone's memories, and he only has the concentration to either land in a random timeline or find a timeline exactly like his except for the contents of his utility belt.
- Part of his angst is almost certainly from seeing worlds where Batman is just a guy who put on a bat-suit and proceeded to punch evil in the face. Deep down he wants to be that cheerful guy who's friends with the other superheroes instead of their silent partner, but he knows it wouldn't work in this universe, and that makes him sad.
Schrodinger's cat lives in Batman's tool belt and hands him stuff.
That's why he always has the right tool for the job, no matter how random. (And yes, this does mean that his tool belt is
bigger on the inside. That also explains how he went back in time to meet
Neils Bohr.)
The Joker has escaped.
One link above demonstrates that the Joker killed Heath Ledger. It doesn't mention that he did it on purpose, but he did. Why? He wanted to escape the fictional universe into the real world. He used Ledger's death as a springboard out. Where is he now? Secretly running Anonymous.
- Wouldn't that mean that Batman's running the Church of Scientology?
The Joker is black.
It's not like we know his backstory. Everything is speculation. Maybe it was going from black to albino that really drove him insane.
If/When
fan outrage about Bruce Wayne being dead occurs, he will be brought back...
...via a
Black Lantern Ring. Because
Grant Morrison and Geoff Johns influence each other, this could very well happen.
- Jossed by Final Crisis #7.
- If Black Lantern rings act by animating the body and not the soul, it could still work...
- If so, then it's entirely possible that we could get Zombie Batman vs. Caveman Batman.
- Jossed by Blackest Night #1: Black Hand only took his skull.
- Also, and most definitively, Jossed in Blackest Night where Batman is just about the only supposedly dead hero not to be brought back as a Black Lantern with just something that looks like him being created by Nekron to induce an emotional response from the other heroes.
Simon Hurt was a reincarnated New God intentionally sent by Darkseid to break Batman.
The whole purpose of the Black Glove (or if you prefer, the Club of Villains) was to break Batman so that he could be taken in by Darkseid to become the new soldier template. Why was he chosen? Because of his actions when
Supergirl was reintroduced in Superman/Batman: he
may have frightened Darkseid with a threat. (Darkseid admitted that he believed that Batman
could blow up Apokalips.) Impressed, Darkseid wanted Batman's qualities for his minions.
Batman is a descendant of Sherlock Holmes.
Let's face it, it's just too improbable that the two greatest detectives of their own time who also happen to be highly badass aren't connected.
- In Silver Age comics canon, Holmes trained Batman. What, you think the original world's greatest detective couldn't find a way to extent his lifespan?
- It's the bee juice.
- Come to think of it, one of the Sherlock Holmes stories has Sherlock investigating a man who's dabbling in the quest for an elixir of perpetual youth. Holmes could indeed have found a way to extend his lifespan.
Batman is a metahuman.
Undiscovered by all, including himself, Batman has
luck powers that were activated by the stress of his parents' deaths. He gets hurt or traumatized, but only in ways that eventually make him stronger. The metagene is not discovered because doing so would shatter his self-image as a
Badass Normal and make him a less effective fighter, resulting in his getting killed; thus, it always produces a false negative when tested.
After taking up the mantle of Batman, Dick has been upset with how the suit hinders his fighting style and capabilities. While he wants to live up to the visage of Batman, he'll eventually come to realize he needs to be his own Batman, not a copy of Bruce. This will lead him to develop the Batsuit seen in Batman Beyond (which, at least in design and idea of being a "future" Batman, is canon in the DCU), or at least a recognizable prototype. When one takes a good look at the suit, it really does look like the Nightwing suit, but with slight changes to make it distinctively a Batsuit.
- Also, the newest Batmobile is a FLYING Batmobile by default! I can hear the techno-metal now.
- Also note, in the episode of Batman Beyond where Terry has to take down his suit when it gets possessed, it is in fact Nightwing's mask he takes to disguise himself.
The Bat-Shark-Repellent is really...
Ground
stout-punching fish. Hell, it makes as much sense as anything else in that movie.
Batman is deadly allergic to bees.
That's why he was so freaked out by the Amazon superweapon. One bee-sting swells him up like a pufferfish. It's not like there is anything that says otherwise. And every superhero needs a
Kryptonite Factor.
- "Suit! Get me an epi, stat! ....Suit? SUUUUIT!"
Poison Ivy secretly has a thing for
plant vore.
Aside from her frequently using giant man-eating plants of some sort, there's also a story where Poison Ivy happened to have been feeding a number of people to...well, a giant man-eating plant. When confronted about it by Batman, she even refered to it as a "guilty pleasure". So...
yeah.
There are multiple Arkham Asylums around Gotham City.
Ignoring all of the
Depending On The Artist designs there are, it seems that the Asylum doesn't have a set location. It might just be outside of the city or a relatively long drive. The Arkham Family actually bought a bunch of locations to be used for the insane, but due to the numerous jail breaks that occur, at least one is open while the others are being fixed.
Batman is a member of the Wold Newton family.
Think about it. How else can he be so
Crazy Prepared? Its because he comes back from the future,
knowing exactly what is going to happen, and is able to determine exactly what he needs to counter it. The Batcave is his TARDIS, and Alfred and
the Bat Family are his companions.
The Joker is 100% sane.
Think about it, no doctor has ever been able to diagnose his actual mental illness, and he seems to be almost as
Crazy Prepared as Batman himself. He's just pretending to be mentally insane to disguise his true nature and make himself harder to stop. Why is he doing this?
Because it's fun!
Dr. Chase Meridian from Batman Forever is an Elseworld Harley Quinn
Let's see. A blond haired romantically obsessive psychiatrist? Where have we seen that before? Dr. Chase Meridian is a Harley who never met the Joker, and hence became obsessed with his nemesis. Remember, in that universe, the Joker died a long time ago. It's possible she changed her name from Harleen Quinzel ironically to avoid association with the late Mr. Napier.
Batman is a cat person.
Which is why Schrodinger's cat lives in his tool belt.
The Joker is a Timelord.
Obligatory.
- Harley is his latest companion; his Regenerations explain his varying appearance and inconsistent personality traits.
- There are at least two incidents which may have been regenerations. In his first appearance, The Joker died by stabbing himself in the chest. Moments later it's declared he somehow survived, even after Batman himself, and everyone else involved had already declared him deceased. Only problem is, there really wasn't that much of a personality change between the First and second Joker, though The second Joker lacked some of the nigh invincible quality of the original. In a later appearance he get's himself executed, only to return campier and considerably less murderous.
He practically spells it out in
The Dark Knight.
Joker: I just do things. I just did what I do best. I took your little plan and I turned it on itself... Introduce a little anarchy. Upset the established order, then everything becomes... chaos.
- That speech could have come from any Chaotic Neutral character in any universe. No gods were mentioned.
He's crazy. And he's an anarchist, as said above about his statement in
The Dark Knight. The reason he lost is because he is fighting against the wrong government (democracy instead of dictatorship), allowing morality to take effect.
Joker is Alfred
Both are thin and fit. Both super-smart. Both know Batman to his very core.
Batman did kill people at first.
From
Batman Forever:
Bruce Wayne: Then it will happen this way: You make the kill, but your pain doesn't die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won't know why.
Dick Grayson: You can't understand. Your family wasn't killed by a maniac.
Bruce: Yes, they were. We're the same.
Is Bruce speaking from experience? (Though probably not starting with his parents' murderer, unless the 1989 film is discounted from canon
and "I don't remember much that happened back then" is interpreted creatively. But this
is WMG,
So Yeah.)
