The last Batman story

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

The name of the story is whoisbatman.com.

A few residents of Gotham City start a web site called whoisbatman.com, in an effort to learn Batman's secret identity. It invites people to submit videos from cell phones and security cameras, as well as eyewitness encounters, to crack the mystery.

Soon the site generates hundreds of thousands of hits and many submissions. Drones begin buzzing around the city, spotting and following Batman and the Batmobile.

As more evidence accumulates, it becomes clear that Batman's activities originate from the vicinity of the estate of one Bruce Wayne, who physically resembles Batman, is the right age, and is rich enough to do what Batman does.

Further, people who work for various manufacturers and shipping companies post tips that Wayne has ordered unusual parts, materials and forensic equipment that Batman would be expected to use.

Bruce tries to lay low for a while, but it's no use. The surveillance that has been unleashed against him is enormous and relentless.

Finally he admits that he's Batman, and he goes to work for the GCPD in a business suit instead of a bat costume.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

In other words -- anybody trying to be a super-hero in today's world without having super-powers to help him keep his identity secret would be outed very quickly. The premise makes no sense any more, if it ever did.

[W.West Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close W.West]

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[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

I think the last Batman story will be written by Marvel's go-to idiot, Bendis. He successfully turned every character he ever wrote after Ultimate Spider-Man into a knockoff of Shia LeBeauf, and when DC signs him and he ruins things with too many closeup shots packed with dialog that sounds like twenty broken records all running at once, DC will have no choice but to cease publishing any Bat-titles for a good long while and just pour themselves into Superman or Wonder Woman or Vibe.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

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Batman is about a man of great means who behaves surreptitiously But you can't behave that way any more for long without getting caught. Batman would be videotaped twenty times now every time he did anything. And people can share their information easily on the Internet.

That movie seems to have it exactly eight. People accept surveillance everywhere because it helps to solve and prevent crimes.

Except in jails and prisons. They're about the only places left where people are not yet under surveillance, even though they're where surveillance is most needed. That's because the guards want to beat the inmates in private.

[W.West Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close W.West]

I think the last Batman story will be written by Marvel's go-to idiot, Bendis. He successfully turned every character he ever wrote after Ultimate Spider-Man into a knockoff of Shia LeBeauf, and when DC signs him and he ruins things with too many closeup shots packed with dialog that sounds like twenty broken records all running at once, DC will have no choice but to cease publishing any Bat-titles for a good long while and just pour themselves into Superman or Wonder Woman or Vibe.

Whoa. Did Bendis hurt your favorite character or something? I haven't had much experience with him outside of his Uncanny/All-New X-Men runs.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Bendis used to be a great writer all the time, but over the years, he has fallen into an inescapable stylistic rut where every character acts heavily like his Ultimate Peter Parker. There's a Web comic floating around with a bunch of parody characters playing poker and talking about how cliched Bendis has become while literally acting out the guy's stereotypical writing style (no joke, Bendis actually wrote that comic as some kind of self-criticism gag).

I remember reading part of his Avengers run (think it was a mini series he did on the side, something involving Hulk and Jessica Drew on the team) and Banner drinks tainted water. What followed was at least half a page where they basically repeat the same question and statement several times about drinking the tainted water, and it was just this incredibly annoying waste of a page.

He's had other failings, such as International Iron Man being pretty bizarre in its writing, but all I ever see when I see his name is him crafting characters and scenes too much the same so that every character, instead of acting "natural" or how they are usually written, they turn into what can only be described as goddamn Shia LeBeauf. His old Ultimate Peter Parker made sense because he was a 15YO, but he kept injecting that writing into other characters in other series, and it just didn't work but his comics were successful so Marvel kept rewarding him.

I miss what he used to be. He had some great moments (holy shit, his Daredevil run with Maleev and most of his USM stuff), but it's like he just up and decided to "real-ify" characters by making them act "like real people," but it just ended up with the same personality being swapped in for what readers already had for years/decades.

I'm not angry with Bendis becoming a walking cliche for comics writing, I'm just very disappointed he's fallen so low. I won't buy anything from him unless it's old stuff I absolutely need in collection, because anything new from him I already read a long time ago as a different title.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

^I reads his Powers title and still like it (when he actually gets to it). I briefly read New Avengers, but I don't read any Marvel anymore so I'm really mostly familiar with the Powers stuff.

[Agent Purple The Illustrated Man Find all posts View Profile Close Agent Purple]

Yeah, I still hear solid reviews of Powers when new readers of his old stuff pop up here and there. Don't get me wrong, Bendis wrote incredible stuff in the past, but as time went on, he just started to copy-paste one character into every character in every book.

Not trying to turn the topic into a Bendis-bash, just making an admittedly harsh joke. I don't take the topic seriously, because the idea of it is totally What If? in nature and so I just made a comment that I felt fitting, not to be taken wholly seriously.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

...Not trying to turn the topic into a Bendis-bash, just making an admittedly harsh joke. I don't take the topic seriously, because the idea of it is totally What If? in nature and so I just made a comment that I felt fitting, not to be taken wholly seriously.

Trey's question is legit enough, but it's the nature of comics that they don't work in the real world. In my mind it's right up there with Kent wearing glasses as a disguise. All kinds of comic concepts depend on suspension of disbelief.

On a side note, I remember Grant Morrison saying something similar in an interview. He wanted there to be some kind of blogging craze of people trying to crack Batman's identity and said that Bruce Wayne would be so obvious a choice that people would reject it.

[W.West Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close W.West]

Just so we're not too far off topic, I think the last Batman story should be a the death of Alfred, the retirement of Batman and at it's heart, a great Robin story...whichever Robin you want it to be about.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Trey's question is legit enough, but it's the nature of comics that they don't work in the real world. In my mind it's right up there with Kent wearing glasses as a disguise. All kinds of comic concepts depend on suspension of disbelief.

On a side note, I remember Grant Morrison saying something similar in an interview. He wanted there to be some kind of blogging craze of people trying to crack Batman's identity and said that Bruce Wayne would be so obvious a choice that people would reject it.

I posted once on CBR that Clark should have the power to alter his facial features at will, so that he'd be unrecognizable as Superman. That would take care of his problem.

In the modern world it would be dicey for even super-powered characters to avoid being outed. For guys without powers, there's no way. They just can't realistically have secret identities.

I forgot to mention all the dashcams that are out there now. How is the Batmobile going to avoid them?

[W.West Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close W.West]

Well for one, Batman mostly operates in the night. Secondly, I would think at this point he can outrace most cops. Third, we've seen him drive up walls, down into sewers, dive into lakes...it wouldn't be too farfetched (ITS COMICS) to say he scrambled all the tech. Especially for the deus ex machina that is Batman storytelling.

This kind of "superheroes vs civilian media" thing has been done a few times before. I think its interesting in a bubble, but secret identities have been ruined before so it makes for less entertainment than one would hope for.

[Space Cop The Dandy Find all posts View Profile Close Space Cop]

I posted once on CBR that Clark should have the power to alter his facial features at will, so that he'd be unrecognizable as Superman. That would take care of his problem...

I remember some bronze-age story where they gave the secrets of Superman and he said that when he's Superman he's constantly vibrating his face slightly so that any photos would be blurred.

[Trey Strain Guardian of the Universe Find all posts View Profile Close Trey Strain]

Of course Batman is DC's most valuable property by far. They aren't going to throw him away. But I think the masses will eventually start to figure out this stuff and to balk at swallowing the concept in today's world.

What can DC do then with Batman and Green Arrow? They'll just have to give them super-powers of some sort and to revamp those comics.