Harvey does have the build and is one of the most visible people fighting to make something good out of Gotham. And someone working on law enforcement would have the access to the information needed, and as someone not in the payroll of some gangster, enough frustration to look for a more hands on solution. And does have his own mountain of issues, but no one knew that before the scarring.
Edited by Blueace on Sep 8th 2025 at 3:51:24 PM
Wake me up at your own risk.Yeah, a big part of it is that personality-wise Harvey was exactly the kind of person you'd expect to be Batman, at least on the surface - an obsessive crusader who might do anything he can to stop the evil in the city.
On the flipside, the same traits are also why people suspected him of being Holiday.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 8th 2025 at 12:55:15 PM
Yeah even in the Arkham games, you had mooks talking about how they thought Dent was Batman before he got pretty.
And Dent along with Bruce were also Riddler's top two suspects for who Batman was in Origins.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Damn. Harvey has crazy timing, with his own crusade from the legal end corresponding with Batman's appearance and tackling things as a vigilante.
Yeah, with that, and combined with the superficial similarities in body type, and I can see why people thought he could be Batman. Hell, I wonder how long people would have believed it if Harvey didn't get Two-Faced in the face.
Would Villains and the Mob have started targeting him thinking they were taking out Batman? Would Bruce have been forced to do an appearance with Harvey as Batman just to take off some of the heat, or would have have wondered if it was too useful having an unintentional body double?
How long would people have been in the dark?
One Strip! One Strip!That The Batman episode where the Joker tried to be Batman sure was great. It's the kind of offbeat thinking truly random an insane Joker would actually have.
If the Bat family and the villains reversed mortality how would Gotham be affected? You might say Batman has the edge because Batman but the Rogues outnumber him a lot and part of why they don't just use that is to stomp him is because they're amongst the Rogues galleries with lousiest teamwork.
Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Sep 8th 2025 at 2:07:36 PM
Please remember that, ultimately, fictional works of entertainment are just that.Yes, there was.
It was part of a series of Elseworlds annuals DC was doing in 1994.
Edited by Anicomicgeek on Sep 8th 2025 at 2:26:14 PM
Troper Wall * DeviantArtWhat happened there?
I remember the one where Scarecrow raised Batman.
EDIT: Wait a minute, is this the story where Bruce Wayne was basically Jameson?
Edited by RedHunter543 on Sep 9th 2025 at 7:56:07 PM
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"The Bat-Joker episode was one of the best episodes of that show, too. A really cool, inventive Joker plot.
Plus it reminds me of an artbook I had as a kid, way back in the 90's. I think it was art used for a set of commemorative cards? Had a bunch of amazing art from various artists of Batman and all his different villains, plus a few Elseworlds homages, and there was a Bat-Joker one there too.
◊ So I double loved it when I saw way later The Batman turn it into an episode.
The same set had my favorite piece of Joker art of all time.
◊ That book made me a huge fan of Carl Critchlow.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 9th 2025 at 8:27:02 AM
The Batman had a lot of creativity with their Joker plots.
Don't forget, the Bat-Joker episode also had Joker trying to be Batman in his own way, and that is an underrated part of that episode.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"Over in absolute batman Waylon begs Bruce to kill him and when Bruce refuses, Waylon tried to kill himself and Bruce stops him. Waylon then swims away while telling Bruce he shouldn't have saved him. Bruce returns home and learns that bane fucking up Ozzie so bad he will be permanently two feet shorter and his hands and feet are so disfigured they are like a penguins. Harvey got third to fourth degree burns across his body and his skull was crushed and cracked down the center. He knows has a half poker chip he used in his games with his friends where he could forget they were on the wrong side on the law in ways while he was an attorney. He tells Bruce he only hates him half the time for bane coming after him. Bruce then sees Eddie who says bane challenged him to a battle of wits and when Eddie lost bane grabbed him through the eyes from behind and shook his head banging his brain against his skull and suddenly all of eddies facts became questions. We see that Eddie has his brain exposed with wires connecting to his computer and the front part of his head is covered by part of his old robots body but it makes a question mark logo on it. Eddie is also missing his eyes. Bruce goes back to his HQ and is ready to give it up before Alfred convinced him to fight and and then get ready to fight the intruder who they thought was bane but they see it's Selina in her Catwoman costume.
"and his hands and feet are so disfigured they are like a penguins"
This feels very narmy.
The Protomen enhanced my life.It's kind of... disappointing, you know? If they'd butchered half of Oswald's face and turned Eddie, the proud intellect, into a crocodile brute it'd at least feel like there's a real twist.
The real long-term problem with Absolute is it feels the eventual logical outcome is to just put it out of its misery.
Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Sep 10th 2025 at 3:34:04 PM
Please remember that, ultimately, fictional works of entertainment are just that.It does feel a lot like a “and then X thing happened that suddenly turned all these characters who were charmingly different than their main universe selves into their main universe selves all at once” sort of them when it’s out and described like that. It’s a bit disappointing, feels like a waste to just have all just dumped on us like that.
I guess half the Bat rogues’ origin is just “Bane” in this continuity.
Edited by KnownUnknown on Sep 10th 2025 at 2:47:35 AM

Remember that Batman worked with Harvey in the early days of his career so Harvey would conveniently know things only Batman would know so that caused the rumors.
"The Black Rage makes us strong, because we must resist its temptations every day of our lives or be forever damned!"