Audience Alienating Era / Batman

To this day, Nightwing fans shudder whenever they hear the name "Ric Grayson"

Despite being DC's Cash-Cow Franchise, even the Dark Knight and co aren't immune to one of these.

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Batman

• The Silver Age of Comic Books was a very bad time for the Caped Crusader. Due to the implementation of the Comics Code Authority combined with the overwhelming popularity of Superman at the time, the Batman books were retooled from a dark, gritty noir series into a bizarre, farcical affair where Batman would often be put up against aliens and super-science. However, while this approach worked for Superman due to the already sci-fi nature of the premise and the strong commitment to creating a consistent mythology for the character, this performed far worse with Batman, who was limited in scope far more due to his lack of powers, and many of the characters introduced to mimic Superman (such as Vicki Vale and Bat-Mite) just came off as a cheap imitation. So much did the character's popularity decline that there were even considerations being made for cancelling the character outright, until the popularity of Batman (1966) and subsequent efforts to Retool the books led to things improving, culminating in Dennis O'Neil and Neal Adams's now iconic run on the character.
• After more than a decade and a half of critically acclaimed material, Dennis O'Neil's departure as the Batman books group editor led to a steep drop in quality, not helped by Dan Didio's infamous push against the Batfamily as a whole. While Batman: Hush was highly popular, it received an incredibly polarizing critical reception due to its execution and storytelling. The event after that, Batman: War Games was widely despised for its mean-spirted narrative that saw Stephanie Brown be tortured and Stuffed into the Fridge for little reason beyond giving Tim angst, and this was followed by Tim being subjected to major Deus Angst Machina that saw his father and friends being killed, Bruce becoming a paranoid asshole as a result of the events of Identity Crisis (2004), Dick's city and entire supporting cast being nuked off the face of the earth, and most infamously Cassandra Cain being given a sudden and nonsensical Face–Heel Turn. Things only properly improved with the beginning of Batman (Grant Morrison), and over the subsequent years, most of the more hated decisions would be undone.
• Coming off the exceptionally popular (although slightly divisive) run of Scott Snyder, Tom King already faced an uphill battle while taking over the primary comic book. While it started out strong with its focus on revitalizing Batman and Catwoman as one of DC's main romances, it quickly lost readers after the infamous moment in which Selina abandoned Bruce before their wedding after DC spent an entire year promoting their forthcoming marriage like it was really going to happen, as it became unclear just what King's direction even was. Not only did the story become increasingly confusing with Bane's convoluted plans and the newly villainous Thomas Wayne's incoherent motives, the book meandered in place as it became clear King did not have a story able to fill his planned 100-issue run, leading to the book often freezing for months to tell storylines which amounted to Filler (most infamously, the "City of Bane" storyline is interrupted by two issues which just consist of Bruce and Selina on vacation). Bruce himself also turned into a full-on Designated Hero as King's approach to his mental health issues led to him endlessly lashing out and mistreating others, and his relationship with Selina also turned into a Romantic Plot Tumor, as the book treated her leaving him at the altar as the most emotionally devastating event in his entire life (yes, even more than the deaths of two of his children). Between this and the sheer amount of Arc Fatigue, fans were left practically begging for the run to just end after a while, something DC seemed to agree with as it suddenly had King's run Cut Short at 85 of its planned 100-issue run (the remainder being told in an out-of-continuity Black Label series) and editorially mandated the following run to undo nearly everything that'd happened outside of Alfred's death (itself an editorial decision to begin with). The poor reception combined with the Troubled Production and Executive Meddling aspects of the run and Heroes in Crisis also led to King moving out of major DC storylines entirely in favour of self-contained mini-series and one-shot stories, not wanting to have to deal with what he went through with the books in the main line.

Robin

• Tim Drake, the third Robin, has been a magnet for poorly received directions since the mid-2000s:
  • Starting with the aforementioned death of Stephanie Brown, Tim would fall into an extensive unplanned Trauma Conga Line, as his father was killed in Identity Crisis, his best friend Superboy would suffer an editorially mandated death in Infinite Crisis (in the place of Nightwing), and much of his other supporting cast would be killed off or written out around the same time. The sudden pivot into angst proved incredibly unpopular due to eliminating much of the reason why he was even popular with readers as Robin, to begin with, and this wouldn't be helped by him losing the majority of his relevancy in the Bat-books as well. An effort would be made in the last few years before the New 52 to amend this, including retconning Stephanie's death and giving him a new identity and solo book, but by then much of his relevancy had diminished.
  • The N52 era would do Tim's reputation no favours either, with most of his backstory and character traits being jettisoned in the reboot. To wit: He's a former athlete instead of a Playful Hacker, he doesn't have any of his usual supporting cast or family, he acts and sounds a lot dumber, his costume doesn't look remotely similar, he didn't discover Batman's identity (which Tim Drake fans will remember as the defining trait of his character; it'd be like doing a Batman reboot where his parents are still alive), he apparently never even was Robin, but just Red Robin, and to cap it all off, Tim Drake apparently isn't even his real name. Tim would be subsequently spend the majority of the era as "the Robin who's a member of the Teen Titans" and filling the role of The Smart Guy in crossovers, and otherwise did little else.
  • Come the DC Rebirth, Tim did see some improvements (with his origin story and relationship with Stephanie restored), but came under something significantly more damaging: becoming The Artifact. Due to Dick having his history with the Titans reinstated and Damian becoming leader of the team in-present, Tim lost his one remaining niche in the Batfamily and subsequently lost much of his purpose as a character. He spent the majority of Detective Comics (Rebirth) Put on the Bus, and even after coming back, he would only make sporadic appearances in other books, with even aspects such as his codename and costume in flux. Attempts since then have been made to do something with him, with Young Justice (2019) reuniting him with his friends and him being revealed in 2021 to be bisexual, but as of present little has concretely stuck.
• Damian Wayne was originally notable for how good the comics he appeared in tended to be. However, once DC Rebirth hit, there were noticeably bad eras for him.
  • Teen Titans (Rebirth) is frequently highlighted as a terrible comic for its treatment of Damian. He regresses to how he was at the beginning of his Robin tenure, kidnapping people to form a team and becoming as ruthless as he was when he debuted sans killing. His Flanderization continued for the entirety of his time on his iteration of the Teen Titans, seemingly ignoring that Damian had learned how to make friends and had people he'd open up to. The only solace fans had was the Super Sons series, which kept his development and focused on his friendship with Jonathan Kent.
  • Later in the era, due to DC deciding to push Tim Drake a bit more, Damian was treated as "the bad Robin" and many stories would have Damian acting overly edgy, with several comics such as Batman Beyond (Rebirth), "Super Sons of Tomorrow" and Legion of Super-Heroes (2020) setting up the running thread that Damian was seemingly destined to become a supervillain, a Flanderization of a possible future in Grant Morrison's Batman in which Damian sold his soul to the Devil in order to become an unkillable Anti-Hero version of Batman protecting a dystopic Gotham. 5G, which was intended to finalize this plot, was ultimately cancelled and the story that was later altered to become DC Future State.

Nightwing

• In general, you could say the period where Dan Didio was publisher at DC to have been this. DiDio infamously hated Legacy Characters, but specially Nightwing and Wally West. This means that he attempted to have Dick killed not once, not twice, but thrice (In Infinite Crisis, Forever Evil (2013) and Nightwing (Rebirth)), and at the same time downplayed his time as Batman and his place as The Heart of the DCU. Some even theorise it was Dan who ordered Nightwing's memetic Adaptational Wimp in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies!
  • Devin Grayson's run on Nightwing is infamous for Devin slaughtering much of the supporting cast and worldbuilding established in Chuck Dixon's lengthy run, both to enact a version of Born Again with a character utterly unsuited for it, as well as an aborted plan for Dick to be killed off in Infinite Crisis, as well as creating a nonsensical retcon about Dick's love life that existed purely to break up him and Barbara. Most infamous was the story where female antihero Tarantula II raped Dick, and this was not only framed not negatively, but she was treated as a positive character afterward, with Devin infamously defending the story as merely "non-consensual" sex. Bruce Jones subsequent run was, if anything, even more disliked, as the last-minute changes to Dick's original fate combined with the nuking of Blüdhaven meant the book was left with no creative direction. The result was a fight with Jason Todd that saw Jason be turned into a tentacle monster.
  • The New 52's early days were also a brief one for Dick, as he received a red costume that reduced his visual appeal in favour of another member of the Batfamily in red, his status as The Heart became an Informed Attribute, was subjected to a Cerebus Retcon in which he was originally going to be traded as a kid to the Court of Owls and was subjected to a second attempt to be Killed Off for Real by the Crime Syndicate. Fortunately, Grayson reverted much of these changes in a premise that, while at first seemed even worse (Dick is now an undercover agent for Spyral), actually brought back Dick's Nice Guy Deadpan Snarker Fun Personified attributes, his optimism and snappiness and cemented his status as DC's Mr. Fanservice.
  • From Rebirth comes the infamous "Ric Grayson" era from Nightwing, in which he was shot in the head by KGBeast and developed amnesia, becoming an angsty taxi driver who didn't want nothing to do with superheroing. Originally, the shot was meant to be a one-and-done thing with Zatanna fixing it, but DiDio wanted it changed, completely detailing the original story. They tried to sell it as a Jason Borne-style story of an amnesiac who suddenly finds himself in possession of incredible skills, but no one bought it. Ultimately, an Author's Saving Throw was performed, revealing that Ric was an attempt by the Court of Owls to reclaim their charge and, during The Joker War, Dick was restored to normal.

Batgirl

• The two Batgirls from the 2000s, Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown, underwent a massive one during the late 2000s, which was only made worse after they were Exiled from Continuity in The New 52 reboot.
  • Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl, under the pen of Adam Beechen, infamously pulled a Face–Heel Turn into a Dragon Lady who suddenly spoke and read perfectly fine and even knew Navajo, despite one of Cass' main traits being her dyslexia and near-muteness, and retconned her into hating her father and loving to kill people, even though she probably has an even bigger Thou Shalt Not Kill rule than Batman, and she was finally defeated by Tim Drake, despite Tim being one of the least combat-trained Robins and Cass being the best martial artist in the world. After that she was severely Out of Focus, due to no one really knowing what to do with her now that Stephanie Brown was the new Batgirl, then was Exiled from Continuity in The New 52 and substituted, with Replacement Scrappy Bluebird, and only finally reappeared in Batman and Robin Eternal, just to again be Out of Focus and change her moniker to "Orphan", since Barbara was still Batgirl. Batgirls (2021) finally made Cass Batgirl again, alongside Stephanie, which was universally praised, although the book ended up being So Okay, It's Average (With some They Changed It, Now It Sucks! added in the mix too).
  • Stephanie Brown, the Ensemble Dark Horse from Robin (1993), ended up going through one of these after becoming the fourth Robin, in which she was for no real reason The Un Favourite to Batman who treated her too harshly and subjected her to very high standards, as well as the heavy implication that she made her the new Robin just to make Tim jealous and bring him back. Brown herself went through Adaptational Wimp and Adaptational Dumbass, and despite being a seasoned self-made vigilante and excellent detective, she suddenly was childish, naïve and much less competent in both fighting and criminology skills. This culminated in the loathed Batman: War Games and Batman: War Crimes, in which she accidentally triggered a massive gang war in Gotham that ended up with her being ungloriously Stuffed into the Fridge to feed to Tim's Trauma Conga Line (Itself, an A.A.E of its own). Even worse, it was revealed Leslie Thompkins had actively left her to die as to teach a lesson to Batman about bringing kids to his war against crime, and he didn't even add a memorial for her in the Batcave, which gave the impression he didn't care for her and didn't see her as a true member of the Batfamily. Fortunately, an Author's Saving Throw made it so she had never really died, and Leslie instead faked her death so she could recover in secret, something Batman suspected from the start. After that, she became the new Batgirl in Batgirl (2009), a book that was hugely succesful and is considered the best incarnation of the character by fans... Until it was Cut Short by The New 52, in which Stephie was Exiled from Continuity alongside Cass to make way for Barbara Gordon going back to being Batgirl, and her new characterisation borrowed heavily from Brown's (Her Pollyanna tendencies, a purple costume, being a Younger and Hipper millenial...). So bad was she Exiled from Continuity that she wouldn't even be allowed to appear in the Smallville comic tie-ins! Fortunately, like Cass, she was brought back in DC Rebirth as Spoiler and later became once again Batgirl in Batgirls (2021), although with an even more childish and Keet personality and being much younger, which didn't quite chime with fans but was good enough for people to let it slide.
• While immensely controversial due to reinstating Barbara Gordon as Batgirl, both Gail Simone and Cameron Stewart's runs of Batgirl (2011) were substantial successes both critically and commercially. Batgirl (Rebirth), on the other hand, was received much less well, being essentially re-treads of Stewart's run that lacked much of the charm and appeal. After writer Hope Larson left, Cecil Castelucci would attempt a shake-up with a new costume and direction, only to get if anything even more negative reception, with an indulgent amount of focus given to pairing Barbara up with her Bronze Age/Batgirl: Year One love interest Jason Bard (despite the New 52 arc Batman: Eternal having turned Bard into a Dirty Cop who even attempted to frame her father and send him to prison), the new villain of the Oracle AI coming off as another dig at fans who just wanted Barbara back as Oracle, and the return of James Gordon Jr being anticlimactically resolved by him committing suicide in the final issue. Tellingly, after this, DC would be trying to pivot Babs back into Oracle, with little mention made of the years of issues prior.

Other members of the Batfamily

• While Batwoman has been praised for its artwork, its portrayal of a lesbian lead and its progressive ideals, to many fans of Bette Kane aka Flamebird, this series is seen as an incredibly low point for the character, on par with Roy Harper's portrayal in Red Hood and the Outlaws. Her Genki Girl tendencies are cut down since it means that "she doesn't take being a vigilante seriously", she's forced to abandon her Flamebird costume and title, is put into a coma after a botched solo fight, later takes on a brand new title of Hawkfire that came from seemingly nowhere, and then gets Put on a Bus at the end of the run. It's telling how much of an afterthought Bette was during the run given that there's absolutely no portrayal of Hawkfire on any cover, even on variants! . Luckily, the 2023 anthology one-shot DC's Legion of Bloom would return Bette to the Flamebird mantle alongside the Titans West.
• During the DCU's One Year Later event, someone on the editing staff decided that the Catwoman series needed to be Younger and Hipper — and the best way to do that, they decided, was to replace the main character entirely. Selina Kyle had a daughter with Sam Bradley Jr. and retired to motherhood before passing on the Catwoman mantle to sidekick Holly Robinson. The fans were not pleased, and it wasn't long before DC sent in Zatanna to magically retcon it all away — and it wasn't fully retconned until the New 52, where it was confirmed that Catwoman's daughter Helena had been wiped from existence, though that would be undone in 2021 as her future incarnation appeared in The New Golden Age with her origins changed to her being the daughter of Catwoman and Batman before becoming part of the 2022 incarnation of the Justice Society of America.
• Some Azrael fans think the character has been on one since his 100 isue-long series ended, being trapped in repetitive plots about trying to break free from the Program but never actually achieving it, as well as being very sidelined and villified by the Batfamily (A common complaint is that many members of the Batfamily, including Batman himself, have done much worse). And that's not even getting into how Michael Lane, or other members from the Order of St. Dumas, seem to have been completely forgotten about.

Batman rogues gallery

• Despite Grant Morrison's run on Batman being near-universally lauded by fans as a Reconstruction of the Bat-mythos, a notorious very weak spot was the characterisation of Talia al Ghul. Instead of an Anti-Villain Action Girl divided between her loyalty to her father and the League and her love for Bruce, she was now a psycopathic Card-Carrying Villain and Faux Action Girl whose interest with Bruce was only sexually and so they could make a genetically perfect kid, going as far as to rape him to get pregnant, and was highly abusive with Damian, culminating in the reveal she had cloned him and her ordering one of his clones, the Heretic, to kill Damian, and then killing the Heretic herself. She also lead Leviathan, a Nazi-esque organisation that seeked world control, a far cry from her usual objectives. While it's agreed that the stories were good, fans complain that she could have been changed to another character better suited for this role, since Talia as a Card-Carrying Villain really doesn't fit her all that well, and many complained she bordered on being an offensive Dragon Lady. This version of the character has been ignored ever since, and her relationship with both Bruce and Damian has improved a lot.
• In the 2004 story "As the Crow Flies", Scarecrow is mutated by the Penguin into a lanky humanoid scarecrow with Super-Strength and talons called the Scarebeast that serves as Oswald's (And later Roman Sionis') enforcer. This angle proved extremely unpopular, due to the Scarecrow working best as a villain who is physically unremarkable but can use his fear toxin to drive others insane, so him now being just a murderous monster kind of defeats his whole shtick. It doesn't help that the Scarebeast debuted during a giant A.A.E. for the Batfamily as a whole, and his biggest appearance during that era was in the much reviled "War Games", the culmination of Stephanie Brown's own. His been quietly returned to his classic characterisation ever since with no mention to his time as a mutant. Curiously enough, his design as the Scarebeast influenced both his appearances in Injustice 2 and Batman: Arkham Asylum, probably as to make him more threatening and scary (It helps that those versions of him are explicitly hallucinations, so he still is the Weak, but Skilled villain fans love).
• The Riddler can be subject to these, due to his heavy Depending on the Writer characterisation:
  • Remember that time where he was a super-muscular assassin? No? Hmmm, I wonder why?
  • Similarly, his Camp Straight neck-Tattooed Crook Paper Tiger period under Judd Winnick's pen in Green Arrow is best left forgotten.
  • A minor one: Although his appearances in Scott Snyder's Batman are pretty decent, his design (Question-shaped mohawk and sideburns) made everyone cringe at him. It even happened in-universe too!
• Even Scott Snyder fans agree that retconning Mister Freeze from a Tragic Anti-Villain with a beautiful backstory (what made him become so beloved by fans in the first place) to a Card-Carrying Villain Stalker with a Crush on a woman who was frozen in the 60s was a dumb idea, and his original characterisation was quietly brought back.
• During the 1970s, there were more than six versions of Clayface independently running around, each offering little to no characterisation and being considered boring and gimmicky, as well as creating massive Continuity Snarl. It culminated in the Mud Pack arc, in which Basil Karlo, the first Clayface, stole all the others' powers and became a Humanoid Abomination that got trapped in the center of the Earth. These days, Basil Karlo and Matt Hagen have been fused in a single character, while all the other ones are dead or in Comic-Book Limbo. At least the third Clayface, Preston Payne, had a brief appearance in Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth that, while very short, is considered one of the most chilling scenes in the book. Payne was also the subject of an Alan Moore-written story, "Mortal Clay" in Batman Annual #11 (published in 1987), that makes great use of the Unreliable Narrator trope.
• Anarky
  • Lonnie first got in one, ironically, in his first solo title (Both his mini and the ongoing), mainly due to the Filibuster Freefall from Alan Grant in which he would spend entire walls of text just ranting about his political idiologies. Indeed, Lonnie became Soapbox Sadie Insufferable Genius who spouted pseudo-intellectual lines that never really said anything and also quickly transformed into a hyper-competent Mary Sue, a millionaire savant in both every field of science and physical combat who could (And I'm not joking) actually insult and battle friggin' Darkseid. Even actual anarchists agreed he was very annoying and condescending, and his attempts to become a Breakout Character were Cut Short and mercifully put to rest.
  • This ironically caused has caused a new A.A.E. for the character, in which his characterisation as a morally ambiguous anti-government Anti-Hero who fought for the oppressed became heavily flanderised and Lonnie straight up became a villain who had no problems killing innocents and just wanted destruction and death, removing the at least well-meaning political background of the character and making him an Ax-Crazy psycho. It doesn't help that his most famous portrayals (Arrow, Beware the Batman, Batman: Arkham Origins) have all gone with this characterisation, meaning most people think Anarky is this A.A.E. version of the character.
  • And that's not even getting into his brief stint as a Genius Cripple Playful Hacker for Red Robin known as Money Spider, who recieved tons of Adaptational Wimp and Adaptatonal Jerkass in order to make him a sort of Foil to Tim Drake.

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