Sunday, October 20, 2013

Shouldn't everyone known Batman's ID?

This one has come up recently in Forever Evil but it's not the only time since the reboot that Batman's ID has been threatened by former/current partners.

SPOILERS AHEAD for Forever Evil

Given the plotlines in Batwoman you'd think they would have figured something more was up with Bruce Wayne than his connections to Batman Inc. I'm not even talking about DOTF although one has to wonder if Bruce Wayne is as famous as he used to be. In the old DCU most people on the planet knew him and likely would know his heirs. Hal Jordan didn't know him 5 years ago and Lex Luthor has no idea who Richard Grayson is. Now Hal isn't quite the brightest crayon in the pack so we can shrug that off. But Lex Luthor? By all right he should know who Bruce Wayne is since he's a rival or at least a potential one. He'd research any and all threats against him. Both of these confused reactions were written by Johns likely being used to point out that Wayne isn't as famous as he once was. It seems a pretty safe bet that Lex hasn't even met him if that's the case.

Tim Drake runs around with the TT and while he didn't tell them his name before I dropped the title he does go around unmasked. You'd think one of his teammates would have gotten curious early on, taken a picture of his face and googled it or something. At least Superboy who was at odds with them at the beginning.

Dick Grayson was unmasked but this doesn't create too many problems, at least not yet. I'm surprised no one called them on this but there's nothing to show the villains this is the real Nightwing. In the zero issue Dick was a ward of the state and worked for Bruce. I think he might have been adopted later on, I've heard from Nightwing readers that it's been stated.

The thing that surprises me the most is that Jason Todd's connection hasn't been made. I've seen it said that some believe he was still in jail in the new 52 but that makes no sense. I refuse to believe either time he was in prison is still canon. Why? Because it means the Gotham police are morons who can't realize a guy that used to be Bruce Wayne's adopted son two or three years ago. Harvey Bullock met Jason before that when they arrested his dad. It would raise a lot of questions if the dead heir turned up. And just how well known is Jason overseas? I think Suzie Su knew his last name and I know Cheshire did under Tynion. Could Bruce really erase all ties to his legally dead adopted son without drawing attention?

Let's say that sometime after the unmasking Dick decides to go out to lunch with his adopted brothers Tim and Jason. Since he's a celebrity now his picture's in the paper with the two of them. It would be damn easy to link them to each other and Bruce. Tim should be a simple matter even with "Drake" now being a made up name. All they'd have to do for Jason would be looking up pictures of Bruce to see people close to him. Then the questions over "wait isn't he dead?" arise. So what can be deduced is that Bruce Wayne, the man that publically funds Batman had a employee/ward/adopted son that's hanging out with another Wayne kid and one that apparently died. That raises plenty of questions.

2 comments:

  1. Oh, who the heck knows what is going on with the new timeline? It makes my head hurt.

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  2. You'd think they'd at leas explore these things since they always bring up these questions. Well Snyder and Johns at least.

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