he’s unsettling.
Batman’s whole basis is the idea of scaring criminals, right?
well, sure, outright intimidation through brute force works for that.
But the whole reason a bat was chosen is that the average person doesn’t understand how cute and cool they are, and finds them creepy and gross.
So let’s play that up. A Batman who uses his training in escape artistry, stage magic, and contortionism to move in ways people think humans shouldn’t be able to move. A Batman who reacts to things that he shouldn’t be able to (because his suit is wired with sensors and Alfred is monitoring things through hacked security feeds). A Batman who has a Slasher Smile.
Give me a Batman who, for the villains, seems like a cryptid. An urban legend on the level of creepypasta, some half-glimpsed shadow who, instead of being scary because of his muscles, is scary because holy shit what was that? What just happened? I’m outta here, man!
Give me a Batman where his battles with characters like Scarecrow and the Joker seem more like one of those crossover films where two horror movie monsters fight it out.
And then?
Give me a Robin and Batgirl who are the same way.
As of @sapphic-giraffic‘s
reblog, this had exactly one thousand notes. I was not expecting that, so i feel i should specify in regards to Robin:
I mean a Robin who is unsettling precisely because of people having the reaction of what the fuck is this bright and cheery child doing hanging around with an escapee from the SCP Foundation?
I mean a Robin who is a little too bright and cheery, maybe. And you start to wonder amidst all the smiles and quips, why exactly this particular “robin red-breast” has that shade of red on their chest. Why the red looks a little more brownish, why this child smells coppery when they lean in close to tell a joke. Are you sure they’re a child? Are you sure there’s just one of them?
While you’re wondering this, back at the Batcave, Bruce and the like six different kids who act as Robins are having a laugh and reapplying the fake blood Alfred bought in near-bulk quantities at the Gotham Party City during the last After-Halloween sale.
I am all in for fanged Batman crawling head downward down a blackened wall, light reflecting off of lenses designed to mimic the tapetum lucidum, filling criminals’ ears with a near-ultrasound shrieking.
I’d particularly like it if the movie were shot like a horror movie, so that even the audience doesn’t see Batman properly until at least half an hour in. Then we see Bruce Wayne at some Society shindig, being an affable yachting 1% broseph douchebag, until there’s a cry for help. He ducks into a stairwell, loses the blazer and loafers, and then slips out a tiny window with double-jointed knees and shoulders.