A few weeks ago, for fun and for practice, I wrote much of a 48-page script for #1 of a hypothetical 13-part "sequel miniseries" to Jeph Loeb's "The Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory." I know who's going to die, who's going to kill them, and for what motives . . . but I still got stuck on some details -- such as the exact murder method I should go with -- and then I got in a car accident in real life that kinda distracted me . . . but I still intend to finish up and post my sample script for "Batman: Double Dealing #1" one of these days, on a forum or forums where that won't break any house rules, once I have something reasonably coherent that I won't be completely ashamed to show other fans as I invite their comments on how it really ought to be done!
Meanwhile: As I was trying to iron out a few wrinkles in my plot, it occurred to me: "Hey, didn't I write a 'Recipe for a Big Batman Epic' about three years ago?" So I dug out a copy and looked it over for "inspiration." Granted, it was originally meant as a bit of a joke, so it may "inspire me" to avoid doing some of the silly things listed on it . . . but inspiration is inspiration, right?
As near as I can recall, three years after the fact, when I first wrote this I tried to "boil down" such previous Batman epics as the "Knightfall" and "Knightquest" and "Knightsend" trilogy, "The Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory", "No Man's Land", the combo of "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" and "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive", "Hush", various movies, and probably other "epics" that I'm forgetting at the moment. Then I took what I regarded as "essential ingredients" and wrote them down in my Recipe. Today I've added a few extra items at the end.
The Recipe from 2004
01. Past Continuity is Expendable. If you aren't retconning somebody else's story, you aren't trying hard enough!
02. Let's have some flashback scenes to Bruce Wayne's happy childhood with his parents, just to remind us of how saintly they were -- you know, in case our memories are so terrible that we've somehow forgotten all that since the LAST story that had lots of childhood flashbacks?
03. Might be a good idea to have someone learn Batman's secret identity and put some extra suspense and confusion in his life. That's NEVER been done before, right?
04. Romantic sparks are flying -- preferably between Bruce and Selina, and/or Batman and Catwoman -- but in the end it doesn't go anywhere. Got to preserve that Sacred Status Quo with Bruce Wayne as Gotham's most eligible bachelor, right?
05. For some reason that we probably won't bother to explain, lots and lots of Batman's old foes are making him effectively run a gauntlet before he can have a showdown with this epic's Master Villain. You may want to dust off a few foes that haven't been used lately to make your Epic stand out. (How long has it been since we saw him fight Captain Stingaree, the Spook, the Snowman, or Brains Beldon, anyway?)
06. The guy who will later turn out to be the Master Villain dies in the middle of the story, or so we are told and so Batman believes.
07. Batman being the brilliant detective that he is, he doesn't have a clue who the Master Villain really is or what he's all about until the guy takes pity on him and spells it out for him in detail in a face-to-face confrontation.
08. Even after the Master Villain takes pity on him and tells him, intelligent and skeptical readers STILL feel there are enough inconsistencies and ambiguities that Batman may not have gotten the full story on Whodunit and Why did they do it?
09. Be sure to have someone get Mind-Controlled somehow so they do things they normally would NEVER do. Poison Ivy is a good plot device here, but don't forget the Mad Hatter, or a variety of villains who aren't normally Bat-villains but could make a guest appearance for the occasion. And don't vampires have hypnotic powers too?
10. Ideally, someone should die. Someone longtime readers will recognize. Even if this Someone hasn't appeared in a Bat-title in years, it's all right to bring him or her back just long enough for that person to quickly become a corpse.
11. Failing that, put someone in traction, or have her mentally regress to her childhood and stay there for the next several years, or something along those lines.
12. No matter how bad things get in Gotham City, Batman would never dream of calling up his buddies in the JLA and asking for help in order to keep the entire city from burning down or whatever. Ditto for the Outsiders. And even though he almost always has at least one of his proteges currently hanging out with Young Justice or the latest version of the Titans or whoever, he'll adamantly refuse to ask them for help, either.
13. Remember to stretch the whole thing out to at least 12 or 13 installments. Maybe a heck of a lot longer! Stories that only last 1 (or 2, or 3, or 4) issues are for sissies who lack ambition.
The Extra Ingredients -- added in 2007
14. Have one of Batman's current or former trainees go bad all of a sudden. It lets Batman experience the shock of betrayal, the worry of how to beat someone who already knows all his favorite tricks . . .
15. Instead of killing off an old member of the supporting cast, bring one of the dead ones back to life! (Or if you want to go for a double-whammy, do both!)
16. Giving Batman some severe, potentially crippling or even life-threatening injuries, is good for a little suspense. It may force him to slow down, catch his breath, "wake up and smell the coffee," rethink his general attitude, etc. (Even though the reader knows he'll make a complete recovery eventually.) This can be very useful in setting the stage for the final ingredient on our list:
17. "The Epiphany." All of a sudden a great light dawns on Our Hero -- perhaps he's recently been just a tad excessive in his hard-nosed, grim-and-gritty, strict disciplinarian, professionally paranoid, unrealistically perfectionist, manipulative, and generally obnoxious attitude toward the allies, sidekicks, support staff, etc., whom he knows perfectly well all love him like a brother (or like a father-figure, or at least like a cranky old uncle with a heart of gold, or however they perceive him) . . . and maybe it's time for him to "turn over a new leaf" and "lighten up a little" and "open up a bit more" to his loved ones and so forth!
Note: This Epiphany will last at least another month or two after the epic is over, but later he can backslide into the snarly attitude he's so often had in the Post-Crisis era, so that someone else can write another story arc in which he has his Epiphany (all over again!) and decides he ought to lighten up and be a bit more sensitive and all that, and then he'll backslide from that and go back to his old ways so that even later he can suddenly realize . . . you get the idea!
Just remember that wise old French saying: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Meanwhile: As I was trying to iron out a few wrinkles in my plot, it occurred to me: "Hey, didn't I write a 'Recipe for a Big Batman Epic' about three years ago?" So I dug out a copy and looked it over for "inspiration." Granted, it was originally meant as a bit of a joke, so it may "inspire me" to avoid doing some of the silly things listed on it . . . but inspiration is inspiration, right?
As near as I can recall, three years after the fact, when I first wrote this I tried to "boil down" such previous Batman epics as the "Knightfall" and "Knightquest" and "Knightsend" trilogy, "The Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory", "No Man's Land", the combo of "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" and "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive", "Hush", various movies, and probably other "epics" that I'm forgetting at the moment. Then I took what I regarded as "essential ingredients" and wrote them down in my Recipe. Today I've added a few extra items at the end.
The Recipe from 2004
01. Past Continuity is Expendable. If you aren't retconning somebody else's story, you aren't trying hard enough!
02. Let's have some flashback scenes to Bruce Wayne's happy childhood with his parents, just to remind us of how saintly they were -- you know, in case our memories are so terrible that we've somehow forgotten all that since the LAST story that had lots of childhood flashbacks?
03. Might be a good idea to have someone learn Batman's secret identity and put some extra suspense and confusion in his life. That's NEVER been done before, right?
04. Romantic sparks are flying -- preferably between Bruce and Selina, and/or Batman and Catwoman -- but in the end it doesn't go anywhere. Got to preserve that Sacred Status Quo with Bruce Wayne as Gotham's most eligible bachelor, right?
05. For some reason that we probably won't bother to explain, lots and lots of Batman's old foes are making him effectively run a gauntlet before he can have a showdown with this epic's Master Villain. You may want to dust off a few foes that haven't been used lately to make your Epic stand out. (How long has it been since we saw him fight Captain Stingaree, the Spook, the Snowman, or Brains Beldon, anyway?)
06. The guy who will later turn out to be the Master Villain dies in the middle of the story, or so we are told and so Batman believes.
07. Batman being the brilliant detective that he is, he doesn't have a clue who the Master Villain really is or what he's all about until the guy takes pity on him and spells it out for him in detail in a face-to-face confrontation.
08. Even after the Master Villain takes pity on him and tells him, intelligent and skeptical readers STILL feel there are enough inconsistencies and ambiguities that Batman may not have gotten the full story on Whodunit and Why did they do it?
09. Be sure to have someone get Mind-Controlled somehow so they do things they normally would NEVER do. Poison Ivy is a good plot device here, but don't forget the Mad Hatter, or a variety of villains who aren't normally Bat-villains but could make a guest appearance for the occasion. And don't vampires have hypnotic powers too?
10. Ideally, someone should die. Someone longtime readers will recognize. Even if this Someone hasn't appeared in a Bat-title in years, it's all right to bring him or her back just long enough for that person to quickly become a corpse.
11. Failing that, put someone in traction, or have her mentally regress to her childhood and stay there for the next several years, or something along those lines.
12. No matter how bad things get in Gotham City, Batman would never dream of calling up his buddies in the JLA and asking for help in order to keep the entire city from burning down or whatever. Ditto for the Outsiders. And even though he almost always has at least one of his proteges currently hanging out with Young Justice or the latest version of the Titans or whoever, he'll adamantly refuse to ask them for help, either.
13. Remember to stretch the whole thing out to at least 12 or 13 installments. Maybe a heck of a lot longer! Stories that only last 1 (or 2, or 3, or 4) issues are for sissies who lack ambition.
The Extra Ingredients -- added in 2007
14. Have one of Batman's current or former trainees go bad all of a sudden. It lets Batman experience the shock of betrayal, the worry of how to beat someone who already knows all his favorite tricks . . .
15. Instead of killing off an old member of the supporting cast, bring one of the dead ones back to life! (Or if you want to go for a double-whammy, do both!)
16. Giving Batman some severe, potentially crippling or even life-threatening injuries, is good for a little suspense. It may force him to slow down, catch his breath, "wake up and smell the coffee," rethink his general attitude, etc. (Even though the reader knows he'll make a complete recovery eventually.) This can be very useful in setting the stage for the final ingredient on our list:
17. "The Epiphany." All of a sudden a great light dawns on Our Hero -- perhaps he's recently been just a tad excessive in his hard-nosed, grim-and-gritty, strict disciplinarian, professionally paranoid, unrealistically perfectionist, manipulative, and generally obnoxious attitude toward the allies, sidekicks, support staff, etc., whom he knows perfectly well all love him like a brother (or like a father-figure, or at least like a cranky old uncle with a heart of gold, or however they perceive him) . . . and maybe it's time for him to "turn over a new leaf" and "lighten up a little" and "open up a bit more" to his loved ones and so forth!
Note: This Epiphany will last at least another month or two after the epic is over, but later he can backslide into the snarly attitude he's so often had in the Post-Crisis era, so that someone else can write another story arc in which he has his Epiphany (all over again!) and decides he ought to lighten up and be a bit more sensitive and all that, and then he'll backslide from that and go back to his old ways so that even later he can suddenly realize . . . you get the idea!
Just remember that wise old French saying: "The more things change, the more they stay the same."
Y-you're kidding right?
