LuigiBat

Anyone read Batman issue 14 yet?

Dick and Bruce have a lengthy conversation, doesn't so much cover his capability in terms of physical things but rather mental aspects (etc). I'll post up the full convo later on, but in short it basically confirms Dick's status as Bruce's right hand man and most trusted ally (in other words, f**k you Tim Drake).

Important points to be found in that link:

Dick Grayson’s life lies in ruins in the wake of the events surrounding “DEATH OF THE FAMILY”! Is his career as Nightwing over? Where will he go now? Will the voice of reason come from Damian Wayne?

We know that something soul destroying is bound to happen, that much is clear. Joker knows he can't destroy Bruce in either body or mind, in fact I'd question whether he even really wants to do that, certainly not through targeting him directly. In Joker's mind surely it makes sense to go for the next best thing, in other words Dick Grayson, destroying Dick would be the straw that broke the camel's back (the camel being Bruce) and would surely have a massive impact on Bruce.

I like the idea of Damian being the voice of reason and helping Dick in his time of need, it just seems right given how Dick has arguably been a far bigger force for good in Damian's life than Bruce.

Dick definitely needs some kind of utility belt. I get that he doesn't want a cape (should still have some glide mechanism though), but his lack of other gear annoys me. It doesn't have to be something big and bulky, just something that contains a bit of tech and gadgets.

As long as Higgins doesn't kill Dick I'll be happy. Thus far he's done a good job, which is somewhat surprising given that the vast majority of issues so far have basically been tie-ins to Snyder's Batman.

Agree with the comments about a gallery of rogues, Dick needs to have one that is just as good as Bruce's and not full of second rate characters, we also need to avoid villains being killed off too soon ala Saiko.

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@LuigiBat I think he'd put the same amount of effort into this current plan as he did into the one with Jason. So that after his success with Jason he'd probably stop monitoring constantly, because he won. That's what Jason's death has always been known as for Joker. The Day He Won. However, now he's trying to do something even bigger, so i think he would've needed to start up his surveillance again, and perhaps at least have kept it up every now and again over the years just to keep track of his enemies. I want to say that Bruce would change the codes, search the cave and everything, but hey if the Joker got past him once, I think he could do it again no matter what Bruce did. He operates on an entirely different plane of existence than everyone else it seems.

I guess it depends on what impact Jason's death really had in the New 52-verse. I can imagine that his death post-flashpoint caused Bruce to become more paranoid and wary of Joker, given the compressed timeline Bruce wouldn't have had as much experience with Joker prior to Jason's death so perhaps Joker was only able to spy on them so easily and without being detected because Bruce didn't think him capable of it. I'd be interested in finding out whether in the aftermath of Jason's death Bruce discovered that they were being watched, if he did find out they'd been spied on you can bet your bottom dollar that he'd make it nigh on impossible for it to happen again and he'd likely run constant checks to prevent it from happening again. Would this stop Joker everytime he tried? Probably not, but I can't imagine he'd be able to do achieve the same level of infiltration.

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@LuigiBat said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@VampireSelektor said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@VampireSelektor said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@VampireSelektor said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

As i've said in the Jason Todd section, I find it very very hard to believe Joker knows Batman's real identity, and has never taken a shot at anyone of his allies/holdings like this before.

Perhaps Joker was waiting for the right time. I subscribe to the "Joker is meta-aware" theory, though.

Maybe. IDK I want a fully detailed explanation from somebody, because it seems like that time would've come a while ago (Going with the downright ridiculous idea that DC wants us to believe that every story from Pre-Flashpoint happened)

The timeliness of "Death of the Family" fits in the with the new status quo. Again, if Joker is meta-aware, he'll realize he's in an altered timeline and poke fun at history in his own inimitable way.

That's true, it also hints besides him knowing about the new universe, that he's been spying on the bat family. I'm talking like while they're in their house spying.

I don't follow.

Ok, in Jason's new origin he received a message on the Bat Computer from an anonymous person with the information on his mother. He didn't check to see who it was or anything, he just ran right off to find his mom, which even he realizes was stupid. Now, we've seen that Joker basically controlled Jason's entire life. From his dad being arrested to Jason becoming Robin. We also saw that Joker faked his mother's death. So chances are it was him that sent that info to Jason. To do that, he'd have to have known not only how to gain access to the Bat Computer, but the exact time Jason would be on it, alone in the cave. To know that, he'd have to be able to see into the cave. Which is what I mean by he was spying on them while they were in the house, and if he could do that, and was never discovered, no reason to think he hasn't still been doing it for all these years.

I get where you're coming from. But you have to remember that its the Joker, whilst guys like Two Face or Ra's might spy on them continuously if they had the means to do so we can't assume that Joker would do the same. The guy is completely insane, chances are he hacks through all Bruce's security without much issue but ultimately doesn't remember how the actual process works and in any case Bruce probably changes protocols every 24 hours meaning the same process could never be repeated, moreover it's not in Joker's character to obsessively spy on Batman. He'd be more likely to hack in, cause some trouble and then leave.

His plan with Jason says otherwise. As I said, he pretty much planned out Jason's entire life. That's years of constant focus and dedication being put in, and to again find a time when Bruce was away from the cave and Jason was the only one there would require him to do a bit more than spy once and get lucky. To also know when the right time to kill Jason would be, so that Bruce would suffer the maximum amount of anguish also requires constant monitoring. Perhaps not every single day, but i'd say at least on a regular basis.

I can't imagine Joker would think to do anything outside of that though, I mean he'd relentlessly spy as a means of ensuring his plan for Jason worked but would he do anything aside from that? The guy has a different thought process to everyone else, he'd go to any lengths to ensure Jason's life played out along his preferred path, effectively playing god, but once that plan was a success I can imagine he'd just move on to something else.

I'm sorry but I find your logic of "the timeline is screwed anyway so DC should just do whatever they want" to be a tad childish. The last thing anyone wants or needs right now is another title set in a separate time-zone to the current ones.

The idea that Dick wouldn't become Batman in the event of Bruce being unable to fill the role is one that only holds stead in the animated universe, ultimately whilst Dick might say he doesn't want the cowl he'd fill the role out of sheer necessity. He'd become Batman because he HAS to, not because he wants to (much like Bruce). You say that the Beyond timeline is linked to the current timeline, whilst that might be the case it still doesn't make that connection 'right'. It throws up all kinds of awkward questions, for instance why the hell isn't Damian donning the cowl in the Beyond universe? The line of succession for the cowl pretty much goes Bruce, Dick, Damian, this is because when Bruce is getting too old Dick will be at his peak and similarly when Dick is too old Damian will be hitting his peak. Including Terry in the mix just messes everything up.

Also in this series set before the Beyond-verse how would you account for Tim, Damian and Terry? The idea that Dick wouldn't take up the mantle if Bruce couldn't do the job is just complete nonsense, ultimately every member of the family knows that Gotham needs a Batman irrespective of whether they'd want to fill the role themselves or not they'd do it if there was no other choice.

@SuperJedi17 said:

Have you guys read the NW#13 Preview? Because i'm starting to think that Sonia Branch is lady shiva.Maybe i'm just crazy,but it seems like she had something to hide,and she was a daughter of a (Maybe low level) Mobster.

If there's one thing comic books have taught me in recent years its that anything is possible. Would kinda be a waste and a bit of a let-down if Sonia Branch was Lady Shiva though, for some reason I just don't like the idea. On the one hand I could see the motive for it, daughter of a Mobster who wants to prove she isn't of the same nature as him so she becomes an assassin killing other criminals as opposed to a vigilante. But equally its just a kinda lame reversal of what is so often the origin for most vigilantes, i.e. Parent(s) died, wants revenge/justice/etc so takes up a secret identity to do so.

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@VampireSelektor said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@VampireSelektor said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

@VampireSelektor said:

@Nathaniel_Christopher said:

As i've said in the Jason Todd section, I find it very very hard to believe Joker knows Batman's real identity, and has never taken a shot at anyone of his allies/holdings like this before.

Perhaps Joker was waiting for the right time. I subscribe to the "Joker is meta-aware" theory, though.

Maybe. IDK I want a fully detailed explanation from somebody, because it seems like that time would've come a while ago (Going with the downright ridiculous idea that DC wants us to believe that every story from Pre-Flashpoint happened)

The timeliness of "Death of the Family" fits in the with the new status quo. Again, if Joker is meta-aware, he'll realize he's in an altered timeline and poke fun at history in his own inimitable way.

That's true, it also hints besides him knowing about the new universe, that he's been spying on the bat family. I'm talking like while they're in their house spying.

I don't follow.

Ok, in Jason's new origin he received a message on the Bat Computer from an anonymous person with the information on his mother. He didn't check to see who it was or anything, he just ran right off to find his mom, which even he realizes was stupid. Now, we've seen that Joker basically controlled Jason's entire life. From his dad being arrested to Jason becoming Robin. We also saw that Joker faked his mother's death. So chances are it was him that sent that info to Jason. To do that, he'd have to have known not only how to gain access to the Bat Computer, but the exact time Jason would be on it, alone in the cave. To know that, he'd have to be able to see into the cave. Which is what I mean by he was spying on them while they were in the house, and if he could do that, and was never discovered, no reason to think he hasn't still been doing it for all these years.

I get where you're coming from. But you have to remember that its the Joker, whilst guys like Two Face or Ra's might spy on them continuously if they had the means to do so we can't assume that Joker would do the same. The guy is completely insane, chances are he hacks through all Bruce's security without much issue but ultimately doesn't remember how the actual process works and in any case Bruce probably changes protocols every 24 hours meaning the same process could never be repeated, moreover it's not in Joker's character to obsessively spy on Batman. He'd be more likely to hack in, cause some trouble and then leave.

Some nice ideas but I'm not sure they'd all work.

Another timeline will just make things more confusing and messed up, especially when they could easily just have a Nightwing led Outsiders team (likely featuring those people who were in the original Titans pre-flashpoint but have since been stripped of that due to timeline compression).

Nightwing going back to Bludhaven would be a step back, Gotham is filled with villains and Nightwing is needed there. What DC needs to do is have Nightwing go head to head with the A-list villains and not just use him as some kind of collateral damage character in a Batman arc involving someone like Two-Face or Scarecrow. The guy doesn't need to go to another city to have his own villains, all DC has to do is allow Nightwing to face the top tier of villains or just develop new ones who'd be considered on par with Batman's greatest villains.