i feel like wonder woman could get away with throwing batman over her shoulder to carry him away exactly once, just because she would have the element of surprise. batman prepares for everything but there are limits. if you were batman would you ever in a million years expect a woman who is two inches shorter than you in one-inch heels to just pick you up and leave like she’s carrying a bag of sand to build a wall. like you are the victim of a cartoon caveman from the fifties. i postulate that you would not. maybe in her arms like a lumberjack’s bride, but a fireman’s carry? while he is not only conscious, but entirely capable of moving under his own power? this is the one scenario that batman never prepared for and he suffers the consequences. she could never get away with it again and so she doesn’t even try but from that moment on the possibility is always in the back of his mind. he is on alert. he wants her to try again so he can prove it won’t work this time. she never gives him the satisfaction. he can never explain to anyone how he is suffering. no one will understand. he stands on a rooftop in the rain and broods.
In Gotham Adventures #35, Bruce is made part of a jury for the court case of a man that was apprehended by Batman.
And he just fuckin. He Does That
What seems to keep his cover isn’t secrecy (though there’s plenty of it), but instead just how absolutely outrageous the idea is. Bruce Wayne??Batman??? Puh-lease. I mean, have you seen the guy? Sure he’s a nice guy, but he’s far too busy having people run WE for him and going on pleasure cruises to be Batman. I mean, really.
(Good thing nobody notices the cool symbolic silhouette deal he’s got going on there.) It’s likely become something akin to the ‘Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer’ joke, (check out this post) and Bruce often just feeds it, making it even easier to get away with. It’s fucking hilarious.
Those people are gonna feel silly since anyone with eyes could see that the butts match…. I mean, the facts don’t lie
I’m fairly certain that the people who make the “batman could make himself obsolete by using his money to solve the economic strain that drives many people to crime” posts are only familiar with Batman through Will Arnett’s spoof performance in the Lego movie, since that’s the only version of Batman I know where he isn’t hiring so many ex-convicts at his company so they have a legitimate source of income and using so much money to fund social programs that all the other bigwigs at Wayne Enterprises hate him and want him gone
Literally every version of his origin story I can remember involves him realizing that he can’t just treat the symptoms as Batman, he has to treat the root cause as Bruce Wayne. A huge part of the plot of “The Dark Knight Rises” is that his company is on the verge of bankruptcy because Bruce keeps spending all their profits on things like “clean energy” and “food and shelter for orphans.”
The opening of “Arkham City” shows him campaigning against mass incarceration because the majority of the inmates in Arkham City are not public menaces like the Joker, they’re desperate people with no other options, and Gotham should be providing them with legitimate means of stability rather than punishing them for having none.
Especially since the majority of his villains are independently wealthy people (doctors, lawyers, business executives) who are exploiting people’s desperation in order to get themselves henchmen, and the henchmen almost always have jobs with a living wage waiting for them on the other side of their sentence, and Bruce has a standing offer to pay out-of-pocket for the therapy of any of his villains whose crimes are the result of a mental illness (which Bruce is sympathetic to since he is mentally ill himself)
But what’s really damning about these posts is that a lot of them suggest Bruce should use his money to give the police the resources they need to deal with crime on their own, which makes it clear they’ve never actually consumed a piece of Batman media, since the issue with the Gotham Police is not that they’re underfunded. They have a bloated budget, they’re almost militant, and they’re so corrupt that they actually encourage crime, both violent and economic, because they’re on the payroll of the richest criminals.
Also, some of them refer to Batman as a “old rich white man’s wet dream” and I really disagree here. A story that says the only rich dude in the world who’s not a criminal drain on society is the one who spends the majority of his hefty inheritance and all his corporate profits trying to correct the imbalance that allowed him his wealth in the first place, whose staunch belief is that the best crime control policy is building a world where no one feels crime is necessary, as well as refusing to support mass incarceration or police corruption, systems which stand to benefit him financially? Batman is an old rich white man’s worst nightmare.
The real reason Bruce Wayne keeps training kids is so that there’s eventually a gradually cascading order of vigilantes protecting Gotham. When you defeat one, there’s a slightly smaller one just behind, ready to pick up the slack.
The best part about this is that it’s completely plausible that it’s a totally casual thing. The Justice League has to crash in a hotel room together and share a bed. We already know Diana has no qualms about sharing her bed with men without any sexual connotation to it. And Batman and Superman are bros (usually depending on your preferred continuity), so this is basically just Superfriends cuddling in bed like it’s casual.
They’re also on a fold-out sofa which suggests they are, in fact, in the basement of the Kent family home.
Ma Kent is not going to be pleased when she sees all three of them are still wearing their shoes.
Clark: Would you relax?
Bruce: There’s an actual pillow right there.
Clark: Look, if you’re not comfortable…
Bruce: I’m never comfortable.
Diana: Both
your flanks are guarded by people who can punch out mountains. Clark
has super-hearing. You have literally never been safer in your life.
Bruce: Does Clark have super waking-up-if-there-are-ninjas powers?
There most be some fangirls in Gotham ship Bruce Wayne/Batman.
I’m imagining the fanfic, and it is filling me with glee! “The billionaire playboy shrank back a little from the vigilante. ‘W-what are you doing?’ He couldn’t help noticing his heartbeat had picked up. Batman looked back at him, his gaze expressionless. ‘I’m here to save your life, Mr. Wayne.’”
Bruce probably started the trend.
“Where did this ship even COME FROM?”
“IDK, someone wrote a really popular fic about it two years ago and everyone got on board.”
“Yeah, wasn’t his username grandfatherclock or something like that…”
No, see, this is brilliant because it actually works, because their “personalities” are so opposite that this ship would really appeal. “You need to lighten up, Batman.” “You need to take things more seriously, Mr Wayne.” “When was the last time you had any fun?” “When was the last time you did anything else?”
3hr long arguments about whether the best way to reform Gotham is through the Wayne Foundation charities and rebuilding initiatives or taking down the mobs and crime families that secretly run the city.
At the end, Bruce uses his rich-boy skills to take down a few henchmen – “What, you think I’ve never swung a golf club before?” – and Batman lets himself reluctantly be convinced to go out for ice cream.
(They’ve headcanoned Batman as blond to fit the necessary slash pairing requirements)
The comments are all, “OMG, have you ever noticed how Batman always intervenes when something shady goes down with the Wayne Foundation? I mean, not that it’s like, out of character, foil Penguin’s plot to block a low-income housing proposal so he can put up another casino there, or whatever, he does that for everyone, but have you noticed that he’s involved every time it’s Wayne Foundation? OMG THEY ARE DATING IN REAL LIFE THIS IS TOTALLY CANON!”
It’s the most popular Real Person ship in Gotham.
(Robin: “You know like, half the internet is shipping you with yourself.” Bruce: “I am large, Tim. I contain multitudes.” smirk.)
Bruce, Tim, Cass and Steph all read them religiously. Bruce finds it therapeutic.
Question of Smoke 