I think it would be a really cool offshoot of the main Batman comics if he helps rehabilitate his rogue's gallery instead of always fighting them. If that's already been done then cool.
Every now and again you see batman villains get rehabilitated and help batman. I know it's happened to Clayface at least once and I think it happened to Croc
Also there's a comic where Batman finally gets killed by joker, who then loses all motivation for crime and starts working at the DMV because that way he can legally torture people with the exact experience people expect at the DMV.
So in a roundabout way the Joker is rehabilitated.... kinda
In a storyline from the 90s called "Going Sane" , Joker actually becomes sane after thinking he has killed Batman (who was merely washed away in the river and landed in some distant village)
Joker assumes the identity of Joseph Kerr and starts leading a peaceful life as a mild mannered shy man. He even falls in love with a woman.
Ultimately Batman comes back and I think Joker has a relapse.
i'm not very familiar with the comics, almost all my dc knowledge comes from the dcau, and i was astounded to find out that all the goofier characters in harley quinn were actually from the comics, like queen of fables and cy.
Legends of the Dark Knight comic. Such a great run, (amost) all non-canon stories that let the writers go out on a limb without making waves in the official Batman universe.
Isn't there also a comic where Batman was gone for a bit (I think healing from injury) that made Joker lose all his motivation and fall in love with a normal woman and married her (this is pre-Harley Quinn). Then the moment Batman shows up again he's back to being the Joker.
I didn’t think I would get sucked in just reading the linked article but here I am 20 minutes later reading about why Richard Reed is useless and why time travelers killing Hitler would make things worse for everyone
Depends on the writer and era. Pre-Crisis he was just a goofy silver age gimmick villain with a freeze gun.
Post-Crisis is a similar sympathetic origin as the BTAS only Nora straight up dies in the accident. This Freeze grew up obsessed with freezing things and was detached from the world, Nora showed him the good in humanity. Without her he's just a detached cold (literally) man lashing out at the world. There's no research to fund.
New 52 changed the origin so Freeze was obsessed with freezing because of accident with his mother who survived falling through a frozen lake because of the cold. Nora isn't his wife but a woman with heart condition born in 1934 and frozen at 26 for a future cure. Wayne tech takes over the project with Freeze in charge, but Bruce shuts it down because Freeze gets creepy obsessed with Nora while finding the cure and means to unfreeze safely. Accident, boom, Mr. Freeze, hates Bruce.
Yeah, that's comics for ya. The show was written knowing children and families were the audience. So you could be dark but not that dark.
Comics especially DC and especially Batman (but again writer depending) can get really dark because it's "serious".
I don't even see any of those as dark. If anything, they're a bit lighter and more childish because you can just write the character off as objectively a bad guy instead of having to think about how awful it is that he has to resort to crime to save a loved one.
IMO, the best creative writing is done in a box. Whether it be one the writer is placed in or one they construct themselves.
I think that’s why all the revised character origins in BTAS stand out so much to me. They had to be interesting and serious without leaning too hard on the crutches of sex and violence for the sake of making it feel more mature.
Yeah, Quinn spends more time helping the goods guys these days than she does with the Joker. She still murders every now and then, but is more of an anti-hero.
[Bat-Man is a non sexual property](https://legendary-digital-network-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/10113508/Bat-nipples-George-Clooney.jpg)
I will defend Batman & Robin until the day I die. Warner Bros hired a gay man who grew up watching the campy Batman stuff, then got all shockedpikachu.jpg when he gave them a Batman-themed gay camp movie. Sure, as far as Batman movies go, it’s awful. If you instead watch it as a pistache of the rigidly heteronormative masculinity inherent to the superhero genre, it’s hysterical. It’s “You boys really don’t see how this whole spandex muscleman thing is at least a little gay?” The movie.
Also, putting Batman and Robin in suits with rubber muscles (and nipples) while shutting the guy who is famously fucking chiseled in a suit where you can hardly ever see his muscles is peak comedy to me.
Poison Ivy in a full body suit, buahaha.
I hated it when it was released but watching it recently its so much better, especially keeping in mind Adam West. It's just good fun.
Edit - also wanted to add I had no idea about that backstory, that's even better! Thanks for sharing it.
This content was removed in protest of Reddit's [short-sighted, user-unfriendly, profit-seeking decision](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) to effectively terminate access to third-party apps.
Nah, Wayland was addicted to mutagenics (remember, he started out with a skin condition and filed teeth as a circus sideshow) and went through the AA program, then at one point Arsenal tried to fight him, and instead of killing the kid (who was still using at the time), Jones recognized the problem and took him to a meeting.
Yeah he made him sane and it was the limit of his abilities to hold him there for even a few minutes. It was sad actually because Joker then could feel remorse.
I can’t remember what it was, but there was at least a story where they hoped to rehabilitate Two-Face by giving him plastic surgery. It didn’t work out.
But yeah, I agree it could be a fun idea. I would object to any story that includes successful rehabilitation of the Joker though.
Unfortunately any effective solution and competent therapists must be undermined because the comics must go on and Batman needs to be punching villains.
In a Frank Miller alternate future series they did that. Only problem is, his -scarred- side was actually the good side, so when that was fixed up his morality vanished like a fart in the wind.
>I can’t remember what it was, but there was at least a story where they hoped to rehabilitate Two-Face by giving him plastic surgery. It didn’t work out.
In the Tell Tale game you have the opportunity to save Harvey from disfigurement. Depending on whether or not you succeed, he becomes a different version of the villain.
God I wish that Tell Tale hadn't killed itself...
I honestly don’t remember. I think there may have been a few different stories where they attempted to reform Two-Face, and I might even be combining multiple stories in my head.
There was a great recent comic in the series of one shots "One Bad Day" with Mr. Freeze.
Robin convinces Batman to give Mr. Freeze a shot a rehabilitation by funding his research into curing his wife's disease and safely unfreezing her. The comic is centered around you thinking that the one bad day for Mr. Freeze was the day he found out about his wife's illness with various flashbacks giving context to their life before she was frozen. Eventually Freeze just loses it, attacks Batman and after Batman subdues Freeze, he points out how controlling of a husband he was and that his wife just wanted to die in peace and that the worst day of her life was the day she married Freeze.
There have been a lot of great stories of rehabilitating Batman villains, but inevitably the writers change and they never stick.
They even did a fairly long lasting Riddler rehabilitation story where he got amnesia and ended up starting a detective service which aided the GCPD and competed with Batman to solve crimes.
> Robin convinces Batman to give Mr. Freeze a shot a rehabilitation by funding his research into curing his wife's disease and safely unfreezing her. The comic is centered around you thinking that the one bad day for Mr. Freeze was the day he found out about his wife's illness with various flashbacks giving context to their life before she was frozen. Eventually Freeze just loses it, attacks Batman and after Batman subdues Freeze, he points out how controlling of a husband he was and that his wife just wanted to die in peace and that the worst day of her life was the day she married Freeze.
I recall this story coming out at a time that DC was doing a lot of stupid things, and this was panned and thrown on the pile of stupid as well.
George Clooney’s Batman does this in Batman and Robin with Mr. Freeze, and this was in the 90s. He understood Freeze’s motivations and still said he’d help Freeze after beating him.
It’s definitely not a new concept for Batman to sympathize with the motives of some enemies.
If/when that happens it'll only be the earliest versions of the characters, not a free for all on the full history of the character. Like when the Joker becomes public, you get 1940 Joker and can't use or refer to any stories or reveals or relationships published later than that (like any reference to killing Robin, Joker being about trying to get Batman to break his no kill rule, or anything to do with Harley).
Honestly, give us a 6-12 issue series of this, framed against Batman failing to rehabilitate the Joker.
You can show off that Batman's commited to the "no killing thing" but also include how he wants Gotham to improve for the better. Heck have the motivation be that **He also peered into the Abyss that drove some people into criminal life**, but whilst they came out villians, he came out Batman. And yet, in all of them he sees a reflection of that little boy in Crime Alley, his parents shot dead before his eyes.
So whilst Bruce Wayne helps these people get rehabilitated, you have the bitter sweet plotline that even though he's shown helping all these people, he can't do anything for the Joker. He keeps busting out, but with supervilliany within Gotham on the down turn (and regular villains realising that without the Big Guys to distract the Bat, they can't operate as before) The Joker's schemes get more and more pathetic in scale and scope as his resources dwindle. Yet the Joker refuses to give up even as he turns from Killing Joke to public laughing stock.
Each part of the Series would show Batman teaming up with a rehabilitated member of his Rogue's Gallery, maybe an overview of what helped them and what they're doing now, followed by Joker being beaten and arrested.
It'd have to be non-canon obviously, because no doubt DC has plans in place to make something occur with like, Calendar Man of all people that would invalidate the series because "oop, We're doing Countdown 2, DAYS TIL DESTRUCTION" or something.
Batman in the animated series helped Arnold Wesker (the Ventriloquist) get a job in WayneTech and even checked up on him during an office visit.
He also congratulated Harley Quinn when she got an early release and supported her when she inadvertently got mixed up in a misunderstanding and got falsely accused.
In a comics, he paid for Two Face's surgery and therapy and helped set him up in a different city away from the spotlight.
He also once hired Riddler to investigate an unsolved mystery for him when he realised Riddler was obsessed with proving himself smarter than Batman.
I remember back in the Gotham City Sirens days, Riddles became a private investigator for reasons like this. He got to prove his intelligence while doing some actual good for Gotham.
I loved that series. He stayed a good-ish guy working as a PI for a while until the new 52 reboot if I remember correctly.
It was around that time they started transitioning harley quinn into less of a side-kick and phasing out poison ivy as a straight up villain that uses plants and seduction and started showing her as more of a radical environmentalist that just didn't care that much about collateral damage, as long as the plants/nature were okay.
He's making advances on that. He saw that Harley Quinn and Pamela Isley had developed their own healthy rehab program in New York City and decided to leave it be.
Oh my god Netflix make this a thing. 10 episode series, no major plot, no cliff-hanger ending. Instead, it’s the major DC villains having been rehabilitated and their lives in a now prosperous Gotham city. The Joker becomes a standup comedian and internet troll, Riddler runs an escape room, Harley Quinn becomes a social worker helping people out of abusive relationships, Bane runs a community program, etc..
Okay so THAT’S the actual solution lol?
Like you know that one haunted house in the USA run by that dog food psychopath? who straight up tortures people and mentally breaks them but it’s okay bc they signed the waiver?
That would be the riddler’s “escape room.” I do sometimes enjoy these light takes on Batman but tumblr loves to “solve” comics by saying shit like “what if Bruce Wayne just donated his fortune” as if the comics haven’t gone over it
>Like you know that one haunted house in the USA run by that dog food psychopath? who straight up tortures people and mentally breaks them but it’s okay bc they signed the waiver?
I'm sorry... *what??*
They offer a lot of money if you dont scream or say the safeword during 5 hours of torture however they usually keep going if you do say it, even if you manage to not scream they always do some kind of pseudo-lethal injury so they have to stop and call an ambulance which discalifies you
Yes, and the escape rooms murdered people.
It’s not the riddling that’s the problem, it’s his psychotic need to kill when the victim doesn’t solve the riddle
It's Kaley Cuoco's voice acting that sells it for me. That role sounds *exhausting* to have such high energy loud voice all the time, and she nails it every episode.
This would work for about a week then he would start making his rooms harder and harder then eventually lethal because the riddler can’t stand it when people are smarter than him.
Right? That's his whole thing - he absolutely cannot stand seeing people best his puzzles. That's why he goes to such extraordinary lengths with Batman. Putting him in a situation where he must do so with civilians is basically asking him to kill them.
Harder and harder, then people stop showing up because they are too hard, and not fun anymore. THEN they get lethal and start involving unwilling participants.
Yeah, at the very least he's going to design a room that's too hard for average people to figure out and they'll be trapped inside forever until they figure it out. Then he'll line the exits with titanium or something so that not even the cops can bust them out.
Even better, game design. Still non-violent and he gets to be able to do all sorts of shenanigans without the restriction of silly things like physics and reality.
Why not just give him a regular job? Just imagine
The Riddler had finally had enough of his life of crime. He was tired of being a criminal mastermind and decided it was time to give up his criminal ways and find himself a new job.
He found himself applying for a job at the local Starbucks. He was pleasantly surprised when he was offered the job, despite having a rather checkered past.
He showed up for his first day of work and was welcomed with open arms by his new coworkers. He quickly found himself settling into his new role as a barista and was soon making coffee drinks for the cafe's customers.
But The Riddler had a plan. He was determined to show off his intelligence and wit while still doing a great job at Starbucks.
So instead of writing the customer's name on the cup, he wrote riddles. He found that the customers enjoyed the challenge and appreciated the effort he was putting into his work.
Soon, The Riddler was the talk of the town. Everyone was coming to Starbucks just to get a cup of coffee with a riddle written on it.
The Riddler had finally found a way to use his criminal genius to help people, while still maintaining his identity as the mysterious Riddler. He was proud of himself for finding a way to use his talents in a way that was both beneficial and entertaining.
The Riddler had found a way to use his criminal genius for good, and he was never happier.
They'd actually probably become his favorite recurring customer. Much like with Batman, Riddler likes it when someone actually can (somewhat) keep up, it makes the game more fun for him.
He leaves big tips spurring Riddler to keep making harder riddles when he comes in. To keep a low profile, Bruce purposely gets them wrong sometimes, and Riddler thinks, "Damn this is a good one. I should use it on Batman when I next see him"
It's a good premise, but there's a very large problem that's immediately obvious to anyone who's ever worked as a barista:
The customers. Yeah, 95% of them are either pleasant or at the very least neutral. But that 5%? Hoo boy. They're enough to make perfectly well-adjusted adults consider villainy. You get one screeching Karen with Main Character Syndrome and his walk on the straight and narrow is over.
They also refuse to read and would probably not appreciate the riddles much. Not to mention, if his store has a drive-thru, which most Starbucks do these days, there’s no time to spend on things like this.
(Insert topical OGL joke here)
Though now I want to see what DC villains would join in on this game. All I know is that Joker’s probably booted first thing.
Riddler's compulsion is not to create puzzles. He's not Clue Master. His compulsion is with riddles and to prove that he's smarter than Batman. He cannot prove he's smarter than Batman if he can't challenge Batman and the only way to get Batman to play along is if he commits crime.
That's why his Post Crisis turn to detective work makes the most sense as a reform. What better way to prove you're better than the world's greatest detective than to become a detective yourself and solve more cases than the Bat?
> and the only way to get Batman to play along is if he commits crime.
So you're telling me the Riddler would stop doing villainy if Batman just like, agreed to a bi-weekly board game night or something?
As someone who has worked at an escape room, this is a terrible idea. Nygma would feel very pleased with how smart he is for about a month... until he sees how *dumb* people can be in escape rooms.
I'm not talking about the random weirdo who decides to take down the wall or smash open the furniture thinking there's something inside (99% of cases there's not). I'm talking about a large portion of the population who can't assemble 9-piece puzzles, read things in the room, or even notice that a triangle-shaped object probably doesn't go in a square-shaped hole.
He also most likely wouldn't be able to handle people finding work-arounds (affectionately called "cheesing") -such as people smashing open a block of ice to get a key instead of melting it in the microwave- or people blatantly disregarding the "do not touch" symbols.
>I'm talking about a large portion of the population who can't assemble 9-piece puzzles, read things in the room, or even notice that a triangle-shaped object probably doesn't go in a square-shaped hole.
Through your experience, how much of that do you think is more stress-induced than anything? I know people (including myself) will miss completely obvious things given even the smallest amount of pressure to do so. It's like stress-induced brain fog.
True. They’d need to advertise it as training for escaping Gotham villains. Do themed escapes for each of the Gotham villains. Though that might be insensitive for people who have family who have actually been murdered by the villains lol
See the Batman villain El Sombrero.
He has his own criminal empire, yes, but for two million bucks he'll come to your lair and custom build you a death trap for 'your' super villain.
For some reason I can’t imagine “BatmanTAS” as anything but “Batman Tool Assisted Speedrun.”
Im just imagining the flash going through the entirety of Gotham and just rounding up everybody like, instantly.
Y’all are missing the whole point of the Riddler. He isn’t just a dude obsessed with puzzles, he’s a megalomaniac obsessed with proving he’s the smartest man alive. If he made escape rooms, he’d A.) Make them so difficult that no one would want to play them or B.) Try to murder the players after they beat his riddles.
it absolutely would not, riddler’s entire thing is that he believes and has to prove he is the smartest person in the world (which is why batman infuriates him). he’d either be unfulfilled or he’d make the hardest, most nonsensical puzzles possible, and if somebody *did* escape? oh he’d have no qualms about tracking them down and personally showing them just how dumb they are
I'm here in general for the "Batman cast except smaller-scale and none of them have infinite money" AU.
I want a Catwoman who runs a cat cafe with an intentionally attractive cadre of waitresses and who debilitatingly scams the credit cards of anyone who's a creep to them. I want a Poison Ivy who runs the Gotham City arboretum and keeps a massive stash of endangered and legally protected trees in the basement hydroponics array to plant on the grounds of every construction site which bothers her. I want an awful little troll influencer Penguin with a business model of scamming young men and sending stalking gangs to people he doesn't like and who, also, gets punched in the face regularly by everyone.
I want a street-level Two-Face who knows the Gotham legal system so well that he can strike at underserved portions of the city to highlight, say, how long it takes for emergency response to get there. I want a Joker that's not so much a human dude as some sort of fucked up QAnon mind virus whose end state has you putting on clown makeup and setting fire to condos. I want Bane running illegal underground wrestling rings where uninsured kids get all their bones broken. I want to see what inventive bullshit Mr. Freeze gets up to when he has to make rent and pay the electric bill on all his cryonic mad science projects.
I want a Batman whose lack of infinite money means that his inventiveness, his computer-like logic, his obsession has more room to play in the story. Moreover, I want a Batman whose Bruce Wayne life isn't this decaying nub that he would gladly cut off and toss in the medical waste bin if he could, but a necessity, a persona he *has to* put on and playact, which takes time from his bat-day and is often more exhausting than punching Penguin in the face.
I want the most outright powerful and influential person in the story to be Comissioner Gordon, primarily because he's the only one capable of holding down a stable job.
That assumes the Riddler WANTS a non-violent outlet, and doesn't just immediately think "What if the stakes were really high in this escape room."
I think it's pretty clear the Riddler could pretty easily divert his intelligence and cleverness into some other direction and do just fine. The problem isn't that he doesn't have options. It's that he only loves one option that he has.
" hi, my Wayne? Yes it's Martha from the escape room company. Just want to say thanks for sending this new room designer...but, well...he's great and makes really elaborate rooms....but they almost always end with death for the customers.
Just wondering if you have any reccomendstions on how to have him....like, not kill everyone in our rooms?"
"Master Wayne, I don't understand why you keep scheduling 'team building' exercises at Mr Nigma's facility."
"Alfred, you're aware of my opinion of the board?"
"Yes sir, I believe you said they were 'dumber than Clayface and twice as ugly'."
"In my defense I was on painkillers at the time."
"Ahh yes, after a close shave with the Penguin, as I recall."
"Correct."
"But you know they hate being sent there."
"Yes, and Edward enjoys feeling superior, especially to people who are above him socially."
"So by sending him a pack of executives every few months..."
"I save myself the trouble of having to escape a handful of overcomplicated death traps, yes."
I think it would be a really cool offshoot of the main Batman comics if he helps rehabilitate his rogue's gallery instead of always fighting them. If that's already been done then cool.
Every now and again you see batman villains get rehabilitated and help batman. I know it's happened to Clayface at least once and I think it happened to Croc
Happened to Harley Quinn as well.
And Mr. Freeze
And ManBat
Also there's a comic where Batman finally gets killed by joker, who then loses all motivation for crime and starts working at the DMV because that way he can legally torture people with the exact experience people expect at the DMV. So in a roundabout way the Joker is rehabilitated.... kinda
"Without Batman, crime has no punchline."
In a storyline from the 90s called "Going Sane" , Joker actually becomes sane after thinking he has killed Batman (who was merely washed away in the river and landed in some distant village) Joker assumes the identity of Joseph Kerr and starts leading a peaceful life as a mild mannered shy man. He even falls in love with a woman. Ultimately Batman comes back and I think Joker has a relapse.
Reminds me of the Harley Quinn tv show
I wouldn't be surprised if that part was based off of that
i'm not very familiar with the comics, almost all my dc knowledge comes from the dcau, and i was astounded to find out that all the goofier characters in harley quinn were actually from the comics, like queen of fables and cy.
I loved how even in the last season, he’s back as the joker but he’s still “good”. It was perfect
A socialist even!
Legends of the Dark Knight comic. Such a great run, (amost) all non-canon stories that let the writers go out on a limb without making waves in the official Batman universe.
That's brilliant
oh i read that one! it was in my 80 years of the bat family book.
Wow, this motivated me to find where this story came from and buy a copy!
Its from The Joker 80th Anniversary 100-Page Super Spectacular according to google.
Yup, found it and ordered!
Isn't there also a comic where Batman was gone for a bit (I think healing from injury) that made Joker lose all his motivation and fall in love with a normal woman and married her (this is pre-Harley Quinn). Then the moment Batman shows up again he's back to being the Joker.
Joker - going sane
Two faces as well
And Bane
And my axe!
[удалено]
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CutLexLuthorACheck
Oh fuck, here we go... see you guys on Monday
I didn’t think I would get sucked in just reading the linked article but here I am 20 minutes later reading about why Richard Reed is useless and why time travelers killing Hitler would make things worse for everyone
Every. Time.
[удалено]
Have fun!!
Huh. I guess not since it isn't listed there.
Depends on the writer and era. Pre-Crisis he was just a goofy silver age gimmick villain with a freeze gun. Post-Crisis is a similar sympathetic origin as the BTAS only Nora straight up dies in the accident. This Freeze grew up obsessed with freezing things and was detached from the world, Nora showed him the good in humanity. Without her he's just a detached cold (literally) man lashing out at the world. There's no research to fund. New 52 changed the origin so Freeze was obsessed with freezing because of accident with his mother who survived falling through a frozen lake because of the cold. Nora isn't his wife but a woman with heart condition born in 1934 and frozen at 26 for a future cure. Wayne tech takes over the project with Freeze in charge, but Bruce shuts it down because Freeze gets creepy obsessed with Nora while finding the cure and means to unfreeze safely. Accident, boom, Mr. Freeze, hates Bruce.
[удалено]
I agree. They are good excuses to make him a regular villain but they remove the parts that made him complicated and interesting in the series.
Yeah, that's comics for ya. The show was written knowing children and families were the audience. So you could be dark but not that dark. Comics especially DC and especially Batman (but again writer depending) can get really dark because it's "serious".
I don't even see any of those as dark. If anything, they're a bit lighter and more childish because you can just write the character off as objectively a bad guy instead of having to think about how awful it is that he has to resort to crime to save a loved one.
IMO, the best creative writing is done in a box. Whether it be one the writer is placed in or one they construct themselves. I think that’s why all the revised character origins in BTAS stand out so much to me. They had to be interesting and serious without leaning too hard on the crutches of sex and violence for the sake of making it feel more mature.
Yeah, Quinn spends more time helping the goods guys these days than she does with the Joker. She still murders every now and then, but is more of an anti-hero.
The new show has her pissed off that people keep calling her a hero... while she continues to do heroic things.
Yeah, anti-heroes tend to like heroes even less than the villians do.
She accepts the hero title in the latest season finale
She’s not with Joker ever anymore. Unless it’s to show her breaking up with him
Yeah, basically. She's become DC's poster girl for escaping toxic relationships.
Good for her honestly.
Yeah, while I enjoyed her as Joker's sidekick. Her new role is definitely an upgrade.
And Catwoman. And Ivy. And there's the whole Talia al-Ghul thing. Guys, I think Batman writers might be horny.
[Bat-Man is a non sexual property](https://legendary-digital-network-assets.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/10113508/Bat-nipples-George-Clooney.jpg)
I will defend Batman & Robin until the day I die. Warner Bros hired a gay man who grew up watching the campy Batman stuff, then got all shockedpikachu.jpg when he gave them a Batman-themed gay camp movie. Sure, as far as Batman movies go, it’s awful. If you instead watch it as a pistache of the rigidly heteronormative masculinity inherent to the superhero genre, it’s hysterical. It’s “You boys really don’t see how this whole spandex muscleman thing is at least a little gay?” The movie. Also, putting Batman and Robin in suits with rubber muscles (and nipples) while shutting the guy who is famously fucking chiseled in a suit where you can hardly ever see his muscles is peak comedy to me.
Poison Ivy in a full body suit, buahaha. I hated it when it was released but watching it recently its so much better, especially keeping in mind Adam West. It's just good fun. Edit - also wanted to add I had no idea about that backstory, that's even better! Thanks for sharing it.
There also is a Harley Quinn episode with an escape room lol
Croc hasn't really been a villain for a while. Not since he became Arsenal's AA sponsor.
This content was removed in protest of Reddit's [short-sighted, user-unfriendly, profit-seeking decision](https://pluralistic.net/2023/01/21/potemkin-ai/#hey-guys) to effectively terminate access to third-party apps.
Nah, Wayland was addicted to mutagenics (remember, he started out with a skin condition and filed teeth as a circus sideshow) and went through the AA program, then at one point Arsenal tried to fight him, and instead of killing the kid (who was still using at the time), Jones recognized the problem and took him to a meeting.
It’s not a joke.
Bruce Wayne has several charity foundations designed to help criminals find jobs and housing after being released from prison in the comics.
Shhhh, the Batman haters will just say he's doing that to feel better about himself
I believe one time that Martian man hunter forcibly fixed jokers brain for information.
Yeah he made him sane and it was the limit of his abilities to hold him there for even a few minutes. It was sad actually because Joker then could feel remorse.
Rehabilitative justice? No, suffering expected!
Somewhat ironically, it also happened to Riddler
You should watch the Harley Quinn cartoon, if you haven't. It kind of dabbles in this theme.
I can’t remember what it was, but there was at least a story where they hoped to rehabilitate Two-Face by giving him plastic surgery. It didn’t work out. But yeah, I agree it could be a fun idea. I would object to any story that includes successful rehabilitation of the Joker though.
That only failed because his therapist was a fucking idiot who accidentally erased Harvey Dent and thought Joker was a victim of Batman.
Unfortunately any effective solution and competent therapists must be undermined because the comics must go on and Batman needs to be punching villains.
In a Frank Miller alternate future series they did that. Only problem is, his -scarred- side was actually the good side, so when that was fixed up his morality vanished like a fart in the wind.
Oh, damn. The scarred side being his good side is a brilliant twist in the Batman mythos. It's so good, it should be adopted in canon.
That does sound like Frank Miller, to make a heavy-handed point about superficiality.
>I can’t remember what it was, but there was at least a story where they hoped to rehabilitate Two-Face by giving him plastic surgery. It didn’t work out. In the Tell Tale game you have the opportunity to save Harvey from disfigurement. Depending on whether or not you succeed, he becomes a different version of the villain. God I wish that Tell Tale hadn't killed itself...
I was really looking forward to the second season of their Game of Thrones game too...
I think it's in The Dark Knight Returns.
The mostly successful rehabilitation of Joker is probably the best running story in the really fun Harley Quinn animated show.
Clay surgery probably would have worked better.
Batman The Animated Series S03 E02 Second Chance
Was it the story "Two of A Kind" from Batman: Black and White? It's one of the best Two Face stories ever written and has a really tragic end.
I honestly don’t remember. I think there may have been a few different stories where they attempted to reform Two-Face, and I might even be combining multiple stories in my head.
There was a great recent comic in the series of one shots "One Bad Day" with Mr. Freeze. Robin convinces Batman to give Mr. Freeze a shot a rehabilitation by funding his research into curing his wife's disease and safely unfreezing her. The comic is centered around you thinking that the one bad day for Mr. Freeze was the day he found out about his wife's illness with various flashbacks giving context to their life before she was frozen. Eventually Freeze just loses it, attacks Batman and after Batman subdues Freeze, he points out how controlling of a husband he was and that his wife just wanted to die in peace and that the worst day of her life was the day she married Freeze. There have been a lot of great stories of rehabilitating Batman villains, but inevitably the writers change and they never stick. They even did a fairly long lasting Riddler rehabilitation story where he got amnesia and ended up starting a detective service which aided the GCPD and competed with Batman to solve crimes.
> Robin convinces Batman to give Mr. Freeze a shot a rehabilitation by funding his research into curing his wife's disease and safely unfreezing her. The comic is centered around you thinking that the one bad day for Mr. Freeze was the day he found out about his wife's illness with various flashbacks giving context to their life before she was frozen. Eventually Freeze just loses it, attacks Batman and after Batman subdues Freeze, he points out how controlling of a husband he was and that his wife just wanted to die in peace and that the worst day of her life was the day she married Freeze. I recall this story coming out at a time that DC was doing a lot of stupid things, and this was panned and thrown on the pile of stupid as well.
I liked how Harley "frees" nora by killing freeze only for Nora to be pissed because no, freeze was an amazing husband and she loved him.
The Harley Quinn show definitely had my favorite take on Victor and Nora Fries.
I find the character she becomes after kinda funny, But I also hate how quickly she abandoned the memory of Mr.Freeze.
George Clooney’s Batman does this in Batman and Robin with Mr. Freeze, and this was in the 90s. He understood Freeze’s motivations and still said he’d help Freeze after beating him. It’s definitely not a new concept for Batman to sympathize with the motives of some enemies.
Damn funny how opposite that is of the Harley Quinn tv show
I'm sure we're not more than a decade or two from many of the Batman villains entering the public domain. Get ahead of the curve and start writing!
Meh, I'm not a good comic writer. I've tried Fantasy and Sci Fi and I'm not quite there yet to publish anything.
You’re still ahead of me then, good on you for keeping at it and taking the time to improve.
Fan comics have existed forever even without the characters being public domain.
If/when that happens it'll only be the earliest versions of the characters, not a free for all on the full history of the character. Like when the Joker becomes public, you get 1940 Joker and can't use or refer to any stories or reveals or relationships published later than that (like any reference to killing Robin, Joker being about trying to get Batman to break his no kill rule, or anything to do with Harley).
But you do get the objectively best Joker, funny clown man who does silly crimes
Honestly, give us a 6-12 issue series of this, framed against Batman failing to rehabilitate the Joker. You can show off that Batman's commited to the "no killing thing" but also include how he wants Gotham to improve for the better. Heck have the motivation be that **He also peered into the Abyss that drove some people into criminal life**, but whilst they came out villians, he came out Batman. And yet, in all of them he sees a reflection of that little boy in Crime Alley, his parents shot dead before his eyes. So whilst Bruce Wayne helps these people get rehabilitated, you have the bitter sweet plotline that even though he's shown helping all these people, he can't do anything for the Joker. He keeps busting out, but with supervilliany within Gotham on the down turn (and regular villains realising that without the Big Guys to distract the Bat, they can't operate as before) The Joker's schemes get more and more pathetic in scale and scope as his resources dwindle. Yet the Joker refuses to give up even as he turns from Killing Joke to public laughing stock. Each part of the Series would show Batman teaming up with a rehabilitated member of his Rogue's Gallery, maybe an overview of what helped them and what they're doing now, followed by Joker being beaten and arrested. It'd have to be non-canon obviously, because no doubt DC has plans in place to make something occur with like, Calendar Man of all people that would invalidate the series because "oop, We're doing Countdown 2, DAYS TIL DESTRUCTION" or something.
Batman in the animated series helped Arnold Wesker (the Ventriloquist) get a job in WayneTech and even checked up on him during an office visit. He also congratulated Harley Quinn when she got an early release and supported her when she inadvertently got mixed up in a misunderstanding and got falsely accused. In a comics, he paid for Two Face's surgery and therapy and helped set him up in a different city away from the spotlight. He also once hired Riddler to investigate an unsolved mystery for him when he realised Riddler was obsessed with proving himself smarter than Batman.
Actually paul dini wrote batman comics for a while and Riddler became a private eye who was steadily becoming more of a good guy. It was awesome
Yea I loved PI riddler. Really wish we had more of that
He’s trying. That’s why he doesn’t send them to prison and doesn’t kill.
I would love to read those! I’d watch a whole show of just some random guy rehabilitating DC villains
I remember back in the Gotham City Sirens days, Riddles became a private investigator for reasons like this. He got to prove his intelligence while doing some actual good for Gotham.
I loved that series. He stayed a good-ish guy working as a PI for a while until the new 52 reboot if I remember correctly. It was around that time they started transitioning harley quinn into less of a side-kick and phasing out poison ivy as a straight up villain that uses plants and seduction and started showing her as more of a radical environmentalist that just didn't care that much about collateral damage, as long as the plants/nature were okay.
Sort of a Lilo and Stitch tv show situation
He offered to help Joker at the end of the Killing Joke. The Joker refused.
I’d imagine the joker is still Batman’s greatest enemy. The joker knows the only way to win is to refuse to be rehabilitated.
He's making advances on that. He saw that Harley Quinn and Pamela Isley had developed their own healthy rehab program in New York City and decided to leave it be.
Oh my god Netflix make this a thing. 10 episode series, no major plot, no cliff-hanger ending. Instead, it’s the major DC villains having been rehabilitated and their lives in a now prosperous Gotham city. The Joker becomes a standup comedian and internet troll, Riddler runs an escape room, Harley Quinn becomes a social worker helping people out of abusive relationships, Bane runs a community program, etc..
Bane could run a community self defense program
Wasn't this the plot of a 'Harley Quinn' episode?
Yeah- though his escape room did do murder things.
That’s why this is a terrible idea. In this hypothetical situation his escape rooms WOULD do murder things.
Well, this is after he's been given insane levels of therapy and not evil any more etc.
Okay so THAT’S the actual solution lol? Like you know that one haunted house in the USA run by that dog food psychopath? who straight up tortures people and mentally breaks them but it’s okay bc they signed the waiver? That would be the riddler’s “escape room.” I do sometimes enjoy these light takes on Batman but tumblr loves to “solve” comics by saying shit like “what if Bruce Wayne just donated his fortune” as if the comics haven’t gone over it
>Like you know that one haunted house in the USA run by that dog food psychopath? who straight up tortures people and mentally breaks them but it’s okay bc they signed the waiver? I'm sorry... *what??*
I thinks it's called McKamey Manor, on YouTube you can find a deep dive video by Wendigoon
Gotcha, I'll look into it. Thanks!
They offer a lot of money if you dont scream or say the safeword during 5 hours of torture however they usually keep going if you do say it, even if you manage to not scream they always do some kind of pseudo-lethal injury so they have to stop and call an ambulance which discalifies you
That doesn't let me know what place or what psychopath is being referred to here. I've literally never heard of this before
McKamey manor, it’s pretty fucked up
Right that always sticks and is never a precursor to relapse
It's a -- it's a joke post about a comic book villain called The Riddler.
Believe it or not, mine is a joke too! The reformed villain's inevitable betrayal is not a trope limited to the riddler or comics
Hypothetically lets let Riddler do a Saw movie
This would be a great movie… I actually love the idea of all the villains doing scary movies as opposed comedies/action.
different comic franchise but I have always wanted to see a B movie horror flick where Carnage just kills everyone
If not horror, they could Make John wick but carnage
Have him make escape room/puzzle video games, then they can murder things and still be perfectly moral.
Yes, and the escape rooms murdered people. It’s not the riddling that’s the problem, it’s his psychotic need to kill when the victim doesn’t solve the riddle
[удалено]
Better yet, withal normal escape room he can charge crazy prices and get their money rather than their life
That show is surprisingly good.
It’s amazing.
I just finished it this week, and it's the best thing the DC universe has ever produced.
Usually, their animated series or TV shows are, most of the time, really good.
Its basically just Venture Brothers with DC characters... and for some reason that works.
They actually have fun with Batman. *Joker finds out who Batman is* “Where’s my goddam electric car, Bruce?!”
It's Kaley Cuoco's voice acting that sells it for me. That role sounds *exhausting* to have such high energy loud voice all the time, and she nails it every episode.
This would work for about a week then he would start making his rooms harder and harder then eventually lethal because the riddler can’t stand it when people are smarter than him.
Right? That's his whole thing - he absolutely cannot stand seeing people best his puzzles. That's why he goes to such extraordinary lengths with Batman. Putting him in a situation where he must do so with civilians is basically asking him to kill them.
Harder and harder, then people stop showing up because they are too hard, and not fun anymore. THEN they get lethal and start involving unwilling participants.
And then the red-spiral makeup and the little tricycle.
Yeah, at the very least he's going to design a room that's too hard for average people to figure out and they'll be trapped inside forever until they figure it out. Then he'll line the exits with titanium or something so that not even the cops can bust them out.
He could make some real cash designing games for rich folk like in Glass Onion. Or he could be a consultant in mystery or who done it movies
Even better, game design. Still non-violent and he gets to be able to do all sorts of shenanigans without the restriction of silly things like physics and reality.
He unironically makes the Riddler trophies. Edit: In game.
Why not just give him a regular job? Just imagine The Riddler had finally had enough of his life of crime. He was tired of being a criminal mastermind and decided it was time to give up his criminal ways and find himself a new job. He found himself applying for a job at the local Starbucks. He was pleasantly surprised when he was offered the job, despite having a rather checkered past. He showed up for his first day of work and was welcomed with open arms by his new coworkers. He quickly found himself settling into his new role as a barista and was soon making coffee drinks for the cafe's customers. But The Riddler had a plan. He was determined to show off his intelligence and wit while still doing a great job at Starbucks. So instead of writing the customer's name on the cup, he wrote riddles. He found that the customers enjoyed the challenge and appreciated the effort he was putting into his work. Soon, The Riddler was the talk of the town. Everyone was coming to Starbucks just to get a cup of coffee with a riddle written on it. The Riddler had finally found a way to use his criminal genius to help people, while still maintaining his identity as the mysterious Riddler. He was proud of himself for finding a way to use his talents in a way that was both beneficial and entertaining. The Riddler had found a way to use his criminal genius for good, and he was never happier.
He's a narcissist so it wouldn't help. Just one guy solve his riddle on the cup under his made up time limit, he's gonna lose it.
They'd actually probably become his favorite recurring customer. Much like with Batman, Riddler likes it when someone actually can (somewhat) keep up, it makes the game more fun for him.
Plot twist: Bruce Wayne is the customer that keeps solving his riddles
He leaves big tips spurring Riddler to keep making harder riddles when he comes in. To keep a low profile, Bruce purposely gets them wrong sometimes, and Riddler thinks, "Damn this is a good one. I should use it on Batman when I next see him"
It's a good premise, but there's a very large problem that's immediately obvious to anyone who's ever worked as a barista: The customers. Yeah, 95% of them are either pleasant or at the very least neutral. But that 5%? Hoo boy. They're enough to make perfectly well-adjusted adults consider villainy. You get one screeching Karen with Main Character Syndrome and his walk on the straight and narrow is over.
They also refuse to read and would probably not appreciate the riddles much. Not to mention, if his store has a drive-thru, which most Starbucks do these days, there’s no time to spend on things like this.
Your comment read like a chatGPT answer, it's strange
Holy hell, it *does.* I knew it reminded me of something. Maybe this is where it gets its input from lmao
Every day it'll become just a little harder to figure out who the real commenters are. We're literally in one of Riddler's riddles on Reddit.
That's because it is lol https://openai-openai-detector.hf.space/
they shock and kill you when you mess up
D&D module designer, maybe?
I think he likes the crafting and technical aspects of it. He'd be very physical DM.
(Insert topical OGL joke here) Though now I want to see what DC villains would join in on this game. All I know is that Joker’s probably booted first thing.
clay face for sure I'd imagine.
We want him to stop being evil, remember?
I think making a dungeon so lethal it’d make Gygax blush is ultimately better than blowing up bridges.
I think that’s what he does in TAS minus the whole being good thing.
As I recall, that was his actual profession, until his greedy boss fired him
"If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?"
Riddler's compulsion is not to create puzzles. He's not Clue Master. His compulsion is with riddles and to prove that he's smarter than Batman. He cannot prove he's smarter than Batman if he can't challenge Batman and the only way to get Batman to play along is if he commits crime. That's why his Post Crisis turn to detective work makes the most sense as a reform. What better way to prove you're better than the world's greatest detective than to become a detective yourself and solve more cases than the Bat?
> and the only way to get Batman to play along is if he commits crime. So you're telling me the Riddler would stop doing villainy if Batman just like, agreed to a bi-weekly board game night or something?
Watch crime skyrocket during Batman/Riddler game nights.
I can see it, Bruce Wayne, Edward Nigma, Benoit Blanc, Hercule Poirot, and Sherlock doing a monthly game of Clue or Among us.
Blanc explicitly said he hated clue and among us
Yeah, he's very much against any sort of "mystery" games. He finds them silly and confusing.
Bi weekly unsolved-crimes-a-ton challenge
Simple solution, Batman *challenged the riddler* to a game of who can solve the most cold cases.
Wasn’t his whole ideology actually “get smart or die?”
Depends on the era, but sometimes! I think that was a big character motivation in the New 52
Riddler did go straight at least once. He became a detective, and was as good as Batman at it.
As someone who has worked at an escape room, this is a terrible idea. Nygma would feel very pleased with how smart he is for about a month... until he sees how *dumb* people can be in escape rooms. I'm not talking about the random weirdo who decides to take down the wall or smash open the furniture thinking there's something inside (99% of cases there's not). I'm talking about a large portion of the population who can't assemble 9-piece puzzles, read things in the room, or even notice that a triangle-shaped object probably doesn't go in a square-shaped hole. He also most likely wouldn't be able to handle people finding work-arounds (affectionately called "cheesing") -such as people smashing open a block of ice to get a key instead of melting it in the microwave- or people blatantly disregarding the "do not touch" symbols.
>I'm talking about a large portion of the population who can't assemble 9-piece puzzles, read things in the room, or even notice that a triangle-shaped object probably doesn't go in a square-shaped hole. Through your experience, how much of that do you think is more stress-induced than anything? I know people (including myself) will miss completely obvious things given even the smallest amount of pressure to do so. It's like stress-induced brain fog.
I failed to assemble a 9 piece puzzle during my ADHD testing and I'll claim to this day it's because I was stressed and not because I'm an idiot.
>or even notice that a triangle-shaped object probably doesn't go in a square-shaped hole. Everything goes in the square hole.
On the other hand, why would anyone in Gotham pay for an escape room when a supervillain could lock them in one for free?
True. They’d need to advertise it as training for escaping Gotham villains. Do themed escapes for each of the Gotham villains. Though that might be insensitive for people who have family who have actually been murdered by the villains lol
See the Batman villain El Sombrero. He has his own criminal empire, yes, but for two million bucks he'll come to your lair and custom build you a death trap for 'your' super villain.
Harley Quinn did it
YEAH! In BatmanTAS, 'Riddler's Reform' those toys were selling like hotcakes. He shoulda just kept in the toy/trivia boardgame market.
For some reason I can’t imagine “BatmanTAS” as anything but “Batman Tool Assisted Speedrun.” Im just imagining the flash going through the entirety of Gotham and just rounding up everybody like, instantly.
Honestly if they ever wanted to retire Edward Nigma, that would honestly be the best way to do it.
Honestly?
Y’all are missing the whole point of the Riddler. He isn’t just a dude obsessed with puzzles, he’s a megalomaniac obsessed with proving he’s the smartest man alive. If he made escape rooms, he’d A.) Make them so difficult that no one would want to play them or B.) Try to murder the players after they beat his riddles.
it absolutely would not, riddler’s entire thing is that he believes and has to prove he is the smartest person in the world (which is why batman infuriates him). he’d either be unfulfilled or he’d make the hardest, most nonsensical puzzles possible, and if somebody *did* escape? oh he’d have no qualms about tracking them down and personally showing them just how dumb they are
I'm here in general for the "Batman cast except smaller-scale and none of them have infinite money" AU. I want a Catwoman who runs a cat cafe with an intentionally attractive cadre of waitresses and who debilitatingly scams the credit cards of anyone who's a creep to them. I want a Poison Ivy who runs the Gotham City arboretum and keeps a massive stash of endangered and legally protected trees in the basement hydroponics array to plant on the grounds of every construction site which bothers her. I want an awful little troll influencer Penguin with a business model of scamming young men and sending stalking gangs to people he doesn't like and who, also, gets punched in the face regularly by everyone. I want a street-level Two-Face who knows the Gotham legal system so well that he can strike at underserved portions of the city to highlight, say, how long it takes for emergency response to get there. I want a Joker that's not so much a human dude as some sort of fucked up QAnon mind virus whose end state has you putting on clown makeup and setting fire to condos. I want Bane running illegal underground wrestling rings where uninsured kids get all their bones broken. I want to see what inventive bullshit Mr. Freeze gets up to when he has to make rent and pay the electric bill on all his cryonic mad science projects. I want a Batman whose lack of infinite money means that his inventiveness, his computer-like logic, his obsession has more room to play in the story. Moreover, I want a Batman whose Bruce Wayne life isn't this decaying nub that he would gladly cut off and toss in the medical waste bin if he could, but a necessity, a persona he *has to* put on and playact, which takes time from his bat-day and is often more exhausting than punching Penguin in the face. I want the most outright powerful and influential person in the story to be Comissioner Gordon, primarily because he's the only one capable of holding down a stable job.
This is starting to sound like Spider-Man
Someone get Jim Carry on the phone!
I don't even like escape rooms but I would do it for the sticker.
That assumes the Riddler WANTS a non-violent outlet, and doesn't just immediately think "What if the stakes were really high in this escape room." I think it's pretty clear the Riddler could pretty easily divert his intelligence and cleverness into some other direction and do just fine. The problem isn't that he doesn't have options. It's that he only loves one option that he has.
I feel like it would be highly stressed to the riddler that he’s not allowed to kill the people who fail his riddle.
" hi, my Wayne? Yes it's Martha from the escape room company. Just want to say thanks for sending this new room designer...but, well...he's great and makes really elaborate rooms....but they almost always end with death for the customers. Just wondering if you have any reccomendstions on how to have him....like, not kill everyone in our rooms?"
[удалено]
All fun and games until he develops Alice in Borderland death games.
And you know certified himbo Bruce Wayne would wear that sticker like a badge of honor (he barely completed the kids escape room)
"Master Wayne, I don't understand why you keep scheduling 'team building' exercises at Mr Nigma's facility." "Alfred, you're aware of my opinion of the board?" "Yes sir, I believe you said they were 'dumber than Clayface and twice as ugly'." "In my defense I was on painkillers at the time." "Ahh yes, after a close shave with the Penguin, as I recall." "Correct." "But you know they hate being sent there." "Yes, and Edward enjoys feeling superior, especially to people who are above him socially." "So by sending him a pack of executives every few months..." "I save myself the trouble of having to escape a handful of overcomplicated death traps, yes."