What happens to all the Batarangs? (Batman)

[FaxModem1]

Only the Batman is a man, and me and Gordon decided to let him be corrupted at the end of TDK because it was either that or expose Harvey Dent was, and letting Batman take the blame was the lesser evil.

... Which they could have just as easily pinned on the Joker. The Joker and his gang were known cop/mob killers and he was known to be going after Dent in particular. If Gordon said that some of the Joker's gang had managed to kill the cops and Dent while everyone was busy with the ferries, I'm sure everyone would have believed him. And all he'd have to say was that he had learned about Dent's whereabouts but he and Batman were too late to save him. Which is technically true, from a certain point of view.

I mean, given everything that happened the idea that Batman just started randomly started randomly killing people on a whim seems less plausible than "the Joker did it" IMO.

But I digress

That depends on the very much alive Joker not going, "No, I murdered these people, but not those people. I may be a psychotic, but I'm not a heel, and I don't take credit for someone else's work."

[The Romulan Republic]

Also that Joker was also very visibly in custody (at a different location) at the time Dent died, so Dent's death still requires explanation and can't be just put on the Joker.

[Elheru Aran]

The Batman subset never made sense as part of the larger DC universe. Nevermind the pathological do-gooders like Clark or the Marvels (or whatever they're called these days), Wally has been flat out bankrupt at times. You think he'd say no to a million or three every month for the 30 seconds or so it'd take him to clear out all street crime in Gotham?

As for uncostumed loved ones the only one coming to mind is Lesley Thompson (yes, nominally neither Alfred nor Talia wear costumes but Alfred is basically an uncredited sidekick and Talia can go toe to toe with Lady Fucking Shiva).

Part of the status quo fixation for superheroes. It really makes me want to write story where we take the premise of DC and then try to actually explore what the consequences of that would be.

Been done, a few times. Not often because it suffers from a common flaw of utopian fiction, either it's actually a dystopia or it's boring. One example that comes to mind is the Planetary/JLA crossover, which wasn't as much a crossover as it depicted an AU JL dealing with the outcome of the Planetary team uplifting the world. Bats, Supes and WW got their asses handed to them in that one. Turns out Warren Ellis isn't a fan of supers I guess?

[The Romulan Republic]

The Batman subset never made sense as part of the larger DC universe. Nevermind the pathological do-gooders like Clark or the Marvels (or whatever they're called these days), Wally has been flat out bankrupt at times. You think he'd say no to a million or three every month for the 30 seconds or so it'd take him to clear out all street crime in Gotham?

As for uncostumed loved ones the only one coming to mind is Lesley Thompson (yes, nominally neither Alfred nor Talia wear costumes but Alfred is basically an uncredited sidekick and Talia can go toe to toe with Lady Fucking Shiva).

Part of the status quo fixation for superheroes. It really makes me want to write story where we take the premise of DC and then try to actually explore what the consequences of that would be.

Been done, a few times. Not often because it suffers from a common flaw of utopian fiction, either it's actually a dystopia or it's boring. One example that comes to mind is the Planetary/JLA crossover, which wasn't as much a crossover as it depicted an AU JL dealing with the outcome of the Planetary team uplifting the world. Bats, Supes and WW got their asses handed to them in that one. Turns out Warren Ellis isn't a fan of supers I guess?

Then they're not doing it right. Superheroes doesn't mean a perfect utopia, nor does it mean a hellish dystopia. It means simply a society that is different from our's.

[Elheru Aran]

Part of the status quo fixation for superheroes. It really makes me want to write story where we take the premise of DC and then try to actually explore what the consequences of that would be.

Been done, a few times. Not often because it suffers from a common flaw of utopian fiction, either it's actually a dystopia or it's boring. One example that comes to mind is the Planetary/JLA crossover, which wasn't as much a crossover as it depicted an AU JL dealing with the outcome of the Planetary team uplifting the world. Bats, Supes and WW got their asses handed to them in that one. Turns out Warren Ellis isn't a fan of supers I guess?

Then they're not doing it right. Superheroes doesn't mean a perfect utopia, nor does it mean a hellish dystopia. It means simply a society that is different from our's.

It's mass market comic books, you think they DARE to "do it right"?

Realistically though. You're not going to see the major publishers change the status quo anytime soon. As part of a plot that resets to normal once everything is done, yes. As an independent graphic novel or alternate universe, yes-- see Superman: Red Son for one example.

In general the easy assumption is that high tech combined with superheroes keeping world peace and suppressing the occasional mugging means an utopia... but on the other hand, if supers are so omnipresent that they're controlling crime on an individual level, wouldn't that feel a bit scary to the average citizen? Many supers are mind-readers, or use tech for much the same purpose; how can you be sure they're not reading YOUR mind? And so forth...

What you propose is possible, I suppose, but I think you would have to do a bit of world-building. Have to get the reader engaged to start with before you start info-dumping on them.

[Tribble]

That depends on the very much alive Joker not going, "No, I murdered these people, but not those people. I may be a psychotic, but I'm not a heel, and I don't take credit for someone else's work."

Assuming the police didnt kill him afterwards (we have no idea what happened for obvious reasons). And/or assuming they gave him the chance to make a statement (given how the last interrogation turned out I have my doubts).

Even allowing for both, why would anyone take his word over Gordon's? The police certainly wouldn't, if for no other reason than the fact he killed a whole bunch of them (and some via tricks like his "phonecall"). And everyone knows he was doing his best to try and bring as much chaos to the city as possible.

Also that the Joker was very visibly in custody (at a different location) at the time death died, so Dent's death still requires explanation and can't be just put on the Joker

The Joker was in custody at the time the bombs went off which killed Rachel and he was clearly in on it and/or orchestrated the whole thing. Just because he wasnt there in person doesnt mean its implausible for him to have still been responsible.

"The Joke's gang killed Dent and more cops" is at the very least as plausible as "Batman did it," especially if it was coming from Gordon.

[Sea Skimmer]

Considering how wealthy Bruce Wayne is it wouldn't be very hard for him to have bought a small industrial forging press somewhere that just punches out Batarangs as needed, followed by a quick heat treatment in a kilm and then sharpening. A chemical cleaning process followed by a bluing process would eliminate all fingerprints and other biological traces that might exist and link them back to Batman, and the odds of linking the raw material to anything are nearly zero if the material was ordered in bulk at some point from one of the worlds bigger steel mills. You order steel that came from a 100 ton melt.... nobody is ever tracing this based on chemical analysis. Technology does not work that way.

The best anyone could do is figure out yeah... these all came from the same forging die. That tells you nothing about who made the die, which is a plausible do it yourself job for someone with functionally unlimited money.

Honestly it would be nowhere near the technical problem of building and maintaining the batmobile, which even ignoring the jet engine part any custom automobile is a lot of work. Evne if the batmobile was all stock parts internally.... those body panels... that's not something you can just do it yourself without an immense amount of time and very specific skills.

The bat helicopters and bat jets that have existed... good luck with just Alfred for staff simply in terms of keeping them operational. Batman and Robin was always a kinda you know, weird situation, but having even just one more person around who unlike Bruce Wayne, could devote a serious amount of time to maintaining/testing this kind of equipment would be a huge boost.

The new batman movies were pretty well thought out on those subjects, the items already exist, someone in the company actually notices one is being used by Batman, Batman never uses them enough to create a serious maintenance problem assuming they had been kept in a serviceable condition prior. Typical bat man movies and comics though.... nope.

[Raw Shark]

The mob are just nice good fellas doing a job so we can feed our... What?

[Elheru Aran]

The mob are just nice good fellas doing a job so we can feed our... What?

Batman would probably point out that if they want to feed their children, they could just find *legal* work. Turns out Wayne Tech just opened a new factory right by town...

Anyway, back on subject. I'm with Skimmer, the Nolanverse is pretty much the only way a Batman type vigilante could actually work IRL with all the gadgets. Rich industrialist who has a penchant for taking prototype vehicles for "joyrides" and is known for ordering heavy equipment for his home because he likes to make his own prototype devices, with the police kinda-sorta in the know about his night-time shenanigans and quietly backing him up. Otherwise, he basically has to have a small complex with employees hidden in the 'Cave.

I should note that Alfred isn't the only one, back in the nineties-ish he did have a tech guy in the cave, Harold Allnut. And one can probably assume that Batman does a lot of his own vehicle maintenance, or has created robots capable of doing such.

The giant spinning car garage with every vehicle he's ever driven on it though... yeah... maybe not...

[U.P. Cinnabar]

That's a trope from the 60s show.