A Batman Request/Prompt.
I wanna see more stories in the “Batman Nobody Knows/Legends of the Dark Knight/Have I Got a Story For You“ model.
Some Possible Variations:
-Native Gothamites trying to fill in a new arrival.
-A bunch of low-level crooks in Blackgate sharing stories of how Batman nabbed ‘em.
-A bunch of cops trading stories about sightings.
-Several doctors at Arkham, recounting what they’ve reconstructed from their assorted patient’s rambling.
-People on a cryptid website, none of whom have ever set foot in Gotham.
-A team of D-list heroes (actual characters) gossiping.
-A team of D-list heroes (invented for story) gossiping.
–Several academics share theories.
BONUS: At least one person in each case is an incognito member of the Bat-fam, lying outrageously.
(I’m sure there’s existing fanfics of all of these, aren’t there?)
So, I’m reblogging my old post cuz it’s the last thing I’ll be posting ‘til after Yom Kippur and I’m kinda hoping someone will have done something with it by then.
This will not occur, but I am hopeful.
Yeah, I’m re-reblogging this, because I’m still hopeful.
I am somehow still hopeful and thus am not only self-reblogging this again, I am pinning it.
Self-Reblogging before Rosh HaShana.
Also, a question; should I include an explanation of what The Batman Nobody Knows, etc. is in the pin?
That’d probably be a good idea
OK, here goes!
The Batman Nobody Knows! is a short from the Bronze Age, in which Bruce, in his persona as a billionaire philanthropist, takes three under-privileged inner city kids on a camping trip as some sort of Big Brothers mentorship dealie. The kids, being kids from Gotham City, inevitably end up talking about the city’s most famous cryptid, with each having a very different (and to Bruce’s increasing dismay, very wrong) idea:
-One kid asserts that, being both a stone-cold badass and objectively cool, Batman has to be a Black man, painting him as hi-tech Blaxploitation hero.
-Another declares that no, he’s an inhuman monster, like Man-Bat actually is.
-The third relates a story he heard from an ex-con who’d been captured by the Bat. Bruce’s hopes for some accuracy are quickly dashed, as said ex-con embellished the story to make himself look better, depicting Batman as a ten-foot tall giant with ludicrously huge ears, who caught him more by dumb luck than anything else.
The story concludes with Bruce donning his costume, and claiming that that’s what Batman actually looks like. The kids tell him to stop making a fool of himself.
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“Legends of the Dark Knight“ is an episode of The New Batman Adventures, in which several Gotham City kids gossip about the latest criminal menacing the city, which segues into them talking about how Batman will inevitably kick said villain’s butt, and then segues into an argument about what Batman is like. One kid says he’s some kind of “pterodactyl monster”, but the substance of the episode is taken up by two other kids, who’s stories are depicted as homages to past takes on the Gotham Gladiator; one to the Silver Age Batman, in the style of Dick Sprang, the other a homage to The Dark Knight Returns.
After telling their tales, the kids manage to witness the final battle between the Dark Knight and the mystery villain, who turns out to be Firefly. In the conclusion, all of them crow at having been vindicated, prompting another argument.
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“Have I Got A Story For You“ is the first segment in the DTV animated anthology Batman: Gotham Knight. In a skate park, four kids, each of whom claims to have witnessed a portion of Batman’s confrontations across the city with a criminal frogman, tell their tale. One depicts Batman as a sort of living shadow, one as a monstrous Man-bat-style creature, and one as either a robot or an armored Iron Man-type. The fourth, who actually saw the end of the fight, tells what really happened, and describes Batman accurately.
So, this post has over a hundred notes, which is flattering.
But, has anyone actually written anything based on it?
One month shy of almost two years since I posted this, someone actually found some!
...
Crap, I forgot to ask if I can talk about them publicly. Gaah!
