I suddenly imagined her rounding up a few criminals and excitedly telling each one, “You’re going to jail, you’re going to jail, and you’re going to jail!” Yeah, she’d definitely need that mask to disguise her voice. 
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The really-really dark knight.
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I need me some Colter in another Super hero role.
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Honestly, this should be a big problem for Bruce Wayne too.
Hmm, there’s this masked vigilante running around. He’s a well built 6’2" mid-30s white male. He has access to extremely expensive bespoke equipment including a turboshaft automobile, so he’s got to be a hundredmillionaire or more. He focuses heavily on petty crime exclusively in Gotham city so he’s probably a local boy. Perhaps he has some past experience with petty crime in the city? How many people in the city fit the mold? Just one you say? I can’t figure out who he could be. There’s only one World’s Greatest Detective and he’s not available to help on this mystery.
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It’s how Ra’s Al Ghul figured it out in the comics. Who could both afford the hi tech toys and had inside access to companies that could make them on the down low.
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Ah, but you missed my point. Benefactor and vigilante are one in the same (and share the same skin color). In this imagined universe, there is no white Bruce Wayne.
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The billionaire announces that he’s funding Batman, thus opening up the floodgates for the vigilante to be anyone with even a similar build and complexion. There may only be a very small handful of black billionaires, but there are tons of people who are athletic enough to be the hero behind the mask.
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This kinda reminds me of Mikey Neumann’s “The Batman Question” video, which he made after asking who everyone’s no-rules restriction-free blue sky dream Batman would be.
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She’s already a self-made media mogul/bestselling author/actress/producer/philanthropist, so at this point I’d be kind of disappointed to learn she’s NOT also a masked vigilante.
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You know, with a black costume and only the chin showing, now many people would assume that the masked vigilante were white? If this Bruce Wayne is, let’s say, more North African in complexion, is possibly much richer than people realise (his family never advertised their wealth, let’s say, and Wayne Manor is secluded enough that people don’t know it by that name), how many people will just assume any fool running around in a bat suit must be white?
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Most people can figure out that if the chin is white the rest of him is white as well.
He’s not some recluse either, he is famous in the city and frequently gives press conferences on TV.
Um, I don’t think I was being too clear in what I was looking for: I was thinking this “black Bruce Wayne” would be less famous, not the “playboy” that we often think of but more a guy who no one realises is extremely wealthy. A guy who if you didn’t see his hair, you might think just had a nice tan under the cowl. Someone who is otherwise about as nondescript as you can get.
Now, Batman can be seen, act all boisterous, and so on, that just means they won’t associate him with that rich black guy who lives in that big mansion outside of the city, you know, the guy with a soft voice and a sort of shy stance that was last seen making a big donation to the youth centre, yeah, that guy, Wayne something.
The whole idea is that the writer can rub our noses in how appearances really are skin deep, how quick we are to pass judgement, how we automatically assume someone being assertive (and violently so) in a certain way must belong to a certain culture, and so on. On how easy it is to assume a person whose facial features look like a certain minority must be subservient, and so on.
Maybe this version of Batman wasn’t supposed to be the saviour, but instead a distraction. A mask worn to draw the attention of both criminals and police whilst others working for Bruce quietly work to ferret out corruption amongst the police whilst they are looking the other way? But then something happens: Bruce finds out he likes being Batman, and that he’s not only good at it, but it’s a rush, being lauded a hero…
Now, I admit that the Batman I knew when I was a kid and read the comics religiously was the one where Robin had just left to go to college, there was no Jason Todd until after I myself had moved on to independent comics and left DC and Marvel behind (more or less). So I never read a lot of what is considered canonical Batman. But that isn’t so bad, as it helps to realise some of the things that we consider important are not so important after all.
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Great idea. Reminds me of the black Captain America, which fit seamlessly into the Marvel mythos. They needed to experiment on live subjects to perfect the super-soldier serum. Of course, they’d do it on black men. Amazing creative team - Robert Morales and the peerless Kyle Baker.
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“What’s your superpower?”
“I’m rich.”
White male privilege kind of defines the Batman.
Speaking of privilege…
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Given that it’s all fantasy, I see no reason why alternative comic characters can’t be depicted. Heck! If one could entertain the notion of lassos that force the truth, and laser-spittin’ eyeballs… well… shit!!
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Being rich is only one part of it. You also need a lack of parental supervision.
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So if Kevin’s parents had never returned, he might have grown up as a caped crimefighter?
Gotham Alone
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One of the only good parts of Marvel’s Defenders is when Luke Cage sits Danny Rand down and calls him out for being a spoiled rich white boy who was about to use his superpowers to beat the shit out of a poor black kid.
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