What's your Batman Reboot?

Pretty simple. How would you handle a Batman reboot, from both a stylistc standpoint and a story standpoint?

Style and Portrayal of Gotham and Batman: I'm a post-Crisis Batman fan, so I'm of the opinion we get to see more of Batman as the veteran campaigner and mentor. In this world, Batman's M.O. is justified by the higher caliber and power threshhold of his enemies, who actually do include some straight up heavy hitters. As such, he is usually equipped in "light" gear for tackling more usual threats but a heavy duty Batmobile that hold his heavier arsenal. Batman has a feared reputation in the criminal underworld, which is split between the "freaks" and the "sneaks" (regular criminals, but with a slight edge of ambition and daring since they operate in Gotham). Despite this, the number one nightmare in Gotham is the Joker, who is whisperingly referred to as "the clown" in the same way Batman is "the Bat." Gotham itself is half-gothic landscape and hyper modern fiefdom of technology, with large parts of the metropolitan area insulated and isolated in their culture (Old Gotham vs the East End vs Crime Alley vs. the Narrows vs. the Glades). Each film has a theme in a manner similar to the Batman films, but the overall tone is much more sci-fi.

Plot coming soon.

 

I'm going to add the longer story treatment later today, but here's the summary.

Batman winds up taking on Prof. Strange after the evil doctor is involved in the death of the Flying Graysons, which leads to Bruce taking in Dick Grayson and slowly training him to be Robin. When he figures out that Strange is behind multiple murders and a consolidation of power in the criminal underworld, the Dynamic Duo assault his new headquarters, where one of Strange's test subjects turns out to be Poison Ivy, at full giant-plant controlling power, leading to an epic showdown against one of his strongest foes. Along the way, Cawoman and Vicky Vale serve as fun foils and flirt interests for Bruce and Batman while the Penguin also has a supporting role.

 

Parts 1 & 2. Have fun, if you want to read it.

Spoiler

Story: (Sorry, this is going to be long)
Act 1
We begin with a chase scene. Batman is chasing down a highly acrobatic and highly-panicked cat burglar. He's introduced as a terrifying shadow, and we are given a fugitive's eye view of him as he repeatedly turns up in a flanking position on the thief. Since at this point he's just an inhuman force of nature, our attention and sympathy should be with the thief, who manages to very cleverly allude him right up until being cornered in an alley. Our thief, still frightened out of her mind, backs into a corner only for Batman to wearily and tiredly approach her to put her in Batcuffs. Now that he's up close, she actually acts surprised and quickly goes from looking like a scaredy-cat to an incredulous and gabby, and ever so slightly flirty, femme fatale. Batman, now very clearly human, underestimates her and winds up getting sucker-punched by her after she picks her way out of his handcuffs, staggering him just enough that she can escape minus her goods. He takes off after her, passing a sign for Haley's Cirque...
Midway through his pursuit, we hear a police channel voice come on over Batman's intercom. He continues his pursuit, obviously determined to catch her, until he hears "Shots fired! Officer down!" at which point he angrily leaves the chase to head for the crime in progress. He arrives at a hostage situation, where a small group of environmental extremists, led by a red headed woman, are attempting to force a fortune 500 CEO to confess to ignoring EPA regulations so that they can pass sentence on him for his "crimes against nature." Batman quickly and brutally takes out the majority of the group, only to be temporarily halted when the red head takes a TV crew hostage after distracting him with an explosive. Silhouetted against the flames, Bats stares impassively while the red head shouts that she's just following his example and taking the law into her own hands, but uses the timely distraction of a cop to hit her with a bata-rang.
An obviously irritated and tired Bats returns to the Batcave, slowly removing his armor to show just how badly beaten up he is and get us a chance to know him as a mortal human. Alfred arrives and activates the Batcomputer's TV monitors, which show both multiple crimes and tragedies that Bruce Wayne failed to stop and an interview by Vicky Vale with Professor Hugo Strange (our big bad). Here Strange and Vale discuss his theory that Batman is acting as a kind of monster maker, drawing various criminals and monsters to Gotham, citing the rise in costumed crimes by mentally unstable individuals, noting that the red head, Pamela Isely, prefers to go by her "real name" Poison Ivy and shows strong anti-social tendencies that he believes were exacerbated by Batman's fame. Alfred and Bruce discuss this idea as well, with neither agreeing with it but both admitting there are some relevant points being made.
Meanwhile, we enter Gotham Penitentiary, where “Poison Ivy” is seducing a guard so she can slam his head against the bars, take his keys, and try and make an escape, dismissing him as “stupid man.” Her escape is interrupted when she runs into Strange’s TIGER guards, who subdue her and bring her before Strange in the prison’s garden. Strange discusses a rare flower with her, highlighting its uniquely toxic properties and carnivorous capabilities. She corrects him on some of the facts he spouts, with him acknowledging her past career as a botanical scientist who had the unique ability to handle poisonous plants due to an unusual immunity to most toxins and poisons. Strange then reveals that he has been handling the plant with extreme care since it’s actually Ivy’s and he knows she’s been experimenting on it. She acknowledges she’s been trying to use the plant’s spores to make a very specific but powerful toxin that would only be activated upon the plant’s flowering. Strange briefly alludes to the power he believes the Batman has over individuals like Ivy and how he believes that his attempts to either replace him or destroy him will require certain weapons at his hand. He asks her how she’s been changing the plant’s chemistry and she reluctantly reveals how she’s been subjecting it to incrementally harder environments. Strange then has her forcibly injected with a chemical cocktail to enter her in a near death-state and follows it up with an injection of a combination of her plant and one of his formulas; he’s going to use her as an incubator for the toxin thanks to her immune system.
Two weeks later, Bruce, who is truly acting like an obsessive insomniac at this point, is pestered by Alfred that he has slept through the last whole week and how he's had little outside contact with anyone who wasn't a criminal and needs to get out more. Alfred convinces a prickly Bruce to go out to the Mayor's gala at Ice Berg Lounge and enjoy the Flying Grayson's performance as part of the touring acrobatic show Haley's Cirque. Bruce only agrees to go because the mayor will be discussing important topics with Prof. Strange and because it will give him more time to scope out the Lounge. Alfred insists he take a date, with Bruce sarcastically pointing to Vicky Vale in an attempt to avoid it.
Cut to Ice Berg Lounge, where Bruce is escorting Vicky Vale, who comments how persuasive his butler was. The gala features a few sequences where Bruce actually finds Vicky interesting and engaging and where he uses his reputation as a drunken playboy to insult the slimy owner of the Lounge, calling him Ozzy. The fuming Cobblepot is distracted by his own arm-candy, a Miss Selina Kyle, and any potential fracas is broken up after Vale leads Bruce away, warning him not to antagonize "the Penguin." At the mayor's table, Bruce continues to act drunk but manages to ask some very interrogative questions to Strange, who reveals he's planning a truly massive restructuring of the Gotham incarceration system, moving inmates from Arkham Asylum and Gotham Federal Penitentiary to a central location inside Gotham where he will use "revolutionary" new treatment techniques. Strange again expounds on his theory that Batman has a god like power to create these powerful criminals by his mere presence, expositing wonder at how the Bat could bring out his opposite number in the Clown, disconcerting Bruce for mysterious reasons.
As the night winds down, everyone enters the theatre section, where they all sit at the VIP section, with Bruce maneuvering to sit between Vale and Kyle to both play up his playboy image and investigate Selina's purse-Cobblepott has been having trouble finding things all night, and Bruce surreptitiously finds that Selina's been picking his pockets. While Haley's Cirque begins, Bruce continues to annoy Vale by playing drunk and has some fun flustering her with his charm and stealing back anything that Kyle picks from him. He's obviously having fun, and his attention is taken away only briefly to watch a truly impressive performance by young Richard Grayson, and when he goes back to playing "who's the better thief" with Kyle, he is initially distracted from the horrible deaths of the elder Graysons, but a quick glance by him shows that the cords of their trapeze have been cut. While the rest of the crowd leaves, he stays and stares down at the now orphaned Dick.
ACT 2
In the Limousine after dropping Vale off at the news station, Bruce voices his desire to return to the scene as Batman and solve the crime to help Dick, but is discouraged by Alfred, who suggests he simply ask Gordon for information on the crime and try and see to it the boy has a secure future. A brief scene shows Batman ninjaing into Gordon's office to demand the report and getting out. Bruce also reviews a taped recording of the performance, getting frustrated because he notices clues that would suggest the lines have been tampered with, though Alfred notices they are very subtle and could easily be misconstrued into something else and they only really show the truth in hindsight.
Bruce shows some grave concern after looking through the evidence, as both he and Gordon have picked out two very dangerous suspects for the sabotage: the Penguin, for reasons unknown but having full access to the stage and control over the hired theater personnel, and Tony Zucco, mob boss who was snubbed by the Cirque when he requested a private performance for his daughter's birthday and with a history of previous sabotage. Since neither is known for being particularly sloppy, young Grayson's very calm and observant recounting of the night's event is the biggest clues that the sabotage is deliberate, so Bruce decides to have Alfred enquire child services for the boy’s state, since there’s a real chance that a corrupt cop may try and make fast money by leaking how important the kid is.
Grayson has escaped the children’s home, and is crying on top of the police station, where he overhears Detective Bullock and Montoya discussing Zucco and Penguin. We see him racing across Gotham’s rooftops towards Zucco’s address (he used his iPhone) when he is overtaken by Batman right outside Zucco’s hideout. The kid isn’t scared of Bats, but ends up subdued anyway. Batman places a tracker and then takes the kid back to child services, only to find small time thugs in the process of attacking the place. Batman, obviously pissed, sticks Dick in the Batmobile and tells it to go to “Location #3,” and proceeds to decimate the hired thugs with even more fire than before. He’s so focused on beating one particular thug, that he doesn’t realize that the cops have arrived to arrest him until they ignore his opponents and he hears they have direct orders from the mayor to take him down.
Meanwhile, Location #3 turns out to be the medical clinic of Dr. Leslie Thompkins. She actually comes out to collect Dick himself and the Batmobile takes off for Batman himself. She has him sit down in her waiting room, where he soon finds himself scoping out several newspaper clippings from her past on the wall, and also finds the clientele of the place to be varied, especially when Selina Kyle enters supporting her young friend Holly. While sitting in the waiting room, Kyle recognizes Dick and asks him how he knows Dr. Thompkins. Thinking quickly, Dick says his parents knew her. Kyle seems pleased by this, saying Thompkins must have met them while working for Doctors Without Borders, and even mentions how she first met her after she set up shop in Gotham. Their discussion ends up including how the clinic’s biggest patron is Bruce Wayne, with Kyle even revealing that Thompkins knew his parents and comforted him the night they died, pointing out an article where Bruce actually explains that himself alongside a small picture of him the night of the murder.
Interspersed with this scene we witness Batman escaping a siege by Gotham’s SWAT teams while waiting for his car, with him hearing an argument in the chain of command between the commanding Bullock and a group of TIGER guards attached to the group, and finding the TIGER guards to be a bit tougher than normal, pulling out some of his heavier gadgets to deal with them. After one particularly tough tussle, he takes a blood sample to see why the guard is so powerful. His Batmobile shows up, and an angry, tired, and edgy Dark Knight enters it, picks up Dick, and takes him to the Batcave. He tells Dick to stay there and contacts Gordon to let him know that he’s securing the only real witness to the Graysons’ deaths.
Batman analyzes the tissue sample, and when pestered by Dick, reveals it’s a specially designed neurological drug that increases the body’s base strength and resistance to Bane at the cost of a degraded neural system. He also reviews Dick’s testimony from that night, even asking him to repeat everything he remembers in detail. Dick does so, highlighting a suspicious looking stage hand and earning Bruce’s appreciation for his intelligence and bravery. Batman tells him to stay put, as there is just enough time before daylight for him to make one final interview.
We next have a scene where Batman infiltrates Gotham FP and interrogates one of the crooks he was assaulting, an event we see is witnessed by Strange through a hidden camera. Meanwhile, Dick is shown using his skills to make it to the hidden passageway to Wayne Manor, discovering who Batman is and meeting Alfred. The crook being interrogated dies suddenly from what seems to be a stroke. Batman makes his way home leading to three events: Dick and he talk and he decides to train the 14 year old how to fight crime, Strange uses the security breach to have the city council approve his plans for a central prison center called Blackgate, and Strange also visits the semi-lucid Poison Ivy to extract more of her deadly pollen, revealing her plant and her are intermingled and she is in great pain.
The next scene is one part training montage for Robin, one part detective montage as Bruce continues to track down leads and suspects continue to die, a reveal that Zucco is in hiding, and a continually pained Poison Ivy, who is further experimented on by Strange’s assistant, a the construction of Blackgate, which resembles a prison less and more of a fortress.

 

Part 3. Thanks if you read it!

Spoiler

ACT 3
6 months later, 15 year old Dick Grayson is now in constant radio contact with Batman to help him monitor multiple police bands and their wire tapings, being anxious to take to the field against Bruce’s protests. They have developed an anti-toxin for the pollen toxin, but are finding the neurological steroid has been amped up. More TIGER guards-and even some common thugs- are increasing in strength and brutality at the cost of their overall intelligence.
Meanwhile, Blackgate receives it’s transfer of prisoners from Arkham Asylum, with one prisoner not even being allowed on a Hannibal-like gurney; instead they simply transport a full size coffin into his new room. The mayor, in attendance with Strange, wonders why Strange even wanted “the Clown.” Strange exposits how his theory of Batman’s creator aspect is no where better personified than this inmate. He invites the Mayor, Gordon, and Bullock to observe his first interview with the Joker. Gordon alone insists on staying because he doesn’t trust Strange or the Joker.
Dick Grayson, now formally allowed as Bruce’s ward, is showing considerably better humor since his training, as is Bruce himself. It’s established that they have a sibling-like repartee, including Robin teasing Batman about always letting the new “Catwoman” get away, though Batman insists he has his reasons, with Alfred snarkily saying one of them is probably tight leather and a whip. Dick’s phone goes off and he pulls it up to see that the Batcomputer has finally located a haggard looking Zucco, and that he is under attack from TIGER guards. Bruce immediately suits up, but forbids Dick from coming along, even locking down his costume.
At Blackgate, Joker gets his one big scene in a creepy interview with Strange. Despite being apparently doped to his gills, Joker manages to play Strange like a fiddle, especially by analyzing how he wants to replace the Batman and even suggests that Strange probably imagines running around in his own suit, and parenthetically threatens Gordon’s family even though he’s behind a one way mirror. Strange gets him to relate the events of his creation, though the only consistent bit in each version that he tells is how he winds up falling into acid at Ace Chemicals apparently at the instigation of Batman. Strange cites him as a true example of Batman’s ability to create monsters. Joker asserts that he was not created; he simply is. He had one bad day and became a supervillain. He laughingly states that you never really see it coming.
We visit Poison Ivy’s hospital bed, where she allows one of the guards to kiss her so she can headbutt him. He angrily grabs her for another kiss, only for her to bite him, and he angrily injects her with an overdose of Strange’s neurological toxin. As he walks away he notices a slight feeling of wooziness…
Batman arrives to find Zucco’s hideout already destroyed. He manages to fight his way through Zucco’s few remaining henchmen before the TIGER guards manage to fight their way into the room. When Batman manages to take them out while also protecting Zucco, we see Strange reluctantly order a wide dispersion of the pollen to kill him, telling the Mayor that the vigilante has obviously shown his true colors by protecting Zucco. The Mayor objects, so Strange quietly orders one of his men to take him prisoner.
Batman almost dies in the pollen attack, but Robin arrives to inject him with the anti-toxin, and after some hesitation does the same to Zucco. Zucco, in much worse shape than Batman, passes out, but not before semi-lucidly blaming the Penguin for the Graysons’ deaths.
Back in Poison Ivy’s room, the guard is showing signs of being much worse, and he is so far gone that he doesn’t hear the other guards yelling about how out of control the plants in Ivy’s room have gotten-they can’t even reach her anymore. Suddenly, the plant starts attacking them, crushing them all in a matter of seconds. The sick guard, now almost all gone, just barely manages to raise his gone when a giant flower opens in front of him, revealing the fully transformed Poison Ivy, whose body has in conjunction with the plant retrofitted the neurovirus to bond her to her plants and mutate them into powerful and mobile monstrosities. She teasingly tells him he was poisoned by her “kiss” and finishes him off with quite a painful looking repeat. She calls him “stupid meat” and leaves to find Strange.
Gordon and the cops show up to help Batman out of the wreckage, revealing how Strange has kidnapped the Mayor and being surprised at Robin. Batman tells Robin to make sure Zucco goes to jail safely, then takes off for Penguin. He arrives to question Penguin, who somewhat nonchalantly is taking cover in his private bunker and reveals that Strange had Zucco sabotage the lines to punish Penguin (through bad publicity and setting his base crawling with cops) for failing to provide him with man power for Blackgate.
Batman’s comm. System begins buzzing with the reveal that Gordon’s men are taking heavy casualties and even being captured by TIGER guards at Blackgate, then Robin reports that a giant plant monster is attacking city hall with a weird woman shouting about how she’s going to see to it the whole city burns for destroying plants.
Robin engages Poison Ivy while Batman tries to save the cops, evacuate the prison, and get inside Strange’s stronghold. It quickly becomes clear they are both outmatched by their opponents despite their gadgets. Robin tells Batman he has an idea and manages to enrage Ivy by killing some of her plants with his anti-toxin, then gets in the Batmobile and leads an angry Ivy on a chase that leads them to Blackgate , where she realizes Strange is holed up in and immediately begins attacking it, allowing Batman to get inside and leading to a massive battle. Strange and Batman briefly engage with Strange getting his butt kicked but managing to have his monstrous TIGER guards overpower Batman, and takes off Batman’s mask.
Distracted by all the implications of who and what Batman being Bruce Wayne means for his enemy, an ecstatically fascinated Strange ends up being pulled away by Poison Ivy’s plants, and she feeds him to one of her plants, though we can still see him struggling through the plant’s sides. When she turns her attention back to Batman, she seductively approaches him with a Cheshire grin, clearly setting him up to be killed by her kiss while he quietly taps something on his gauntlet computer to Robin, who opens up a valve while closing another, so that when she “cutely” asks him what he’s doing he tells her to smell the air. She screams when she realizes its gas, and Batman lights a match, setting the whole place ablaze. While she tries to finish him off with her burning plants, Robin shows up , and they manage to double team her enough for Batman to reach her and knock her out. Batman and Robin emerge from the inferno, carrying Ivy out wrapped in Batman’s cape to protect her from the flames.
Our last scene shows Batman and Robin talking to Gordon atop the police station about how Strange’s body wasn’t found-and neither was the Joker, though his cell was melted around him, so there might not actually be a body to find. They prepare for a night out, with Robin catching a glimpse of, and being seen by, Barbara Gordon. When Gordon tells Robin to dream on and Batman chastises him for being distracted on the job, Robin says his girlfriend is calling when a report comes over their comms that Catwoman has been spotted making off with Cobblepott’s money.
We end on a short scene showing them chasing her down while she says “This should be fun!”

 

Not going to lie, I wrote that all down once without any real review and I wasn't focused all that much on this story as much as my goals-I wanted to cover Dick becoming Robin, have a mastermind style bad-guy like Strange as the main antagonist, build up poison Ivy as a high level meta to help Bat's credentials, and establish Catwoman as both a flirtatious repeat offender and Batman's favorite past-time.

And all that is because my next ideas end up including the other three main Robins, making Catwoman a major supporting cast member, and building the whole Batfamily up for an awesome battle royale between the united Gotham Knights and the slightly more powerful Al Ghul family to contrast true familial loyalty versus Ra's's corrupt legacy.

So I might have bit off a lot more than I could chew, but I had fun writing it, and I hope whoever handles the reboot errs on the side of overly ambitious versus cautious.