I’m hunting Batman. Shhh...
"Sometimes the wain comes down so hawrd you forwget you've ever been dwy. I twy to see it, out there in the past or in the future, wainbows waiting. Going into Powrky's that day, I twy my best to wemember. I weawy do. Things wewen't awways this way. They won't awways be this way. I twy my best, and the water seeps in, mowlding my coat onto my shotgun, and I stop twying, and I head inside. My name is Elmer Fudd. I'm hunting wabbits. Shhhhhhhh..."
Batman/Elmer Fudd Special is a one-shot crossover published in August 2017, featuring Batman and Elmer Fudd as part of the DC Meets Looney Tunes crossover event.
Growing up poor and destitute somewhere outside of Gotham City, Elmer Fudd is a career criminal, a hired gun paid to eliminate other people’s problems. He has no love for violence, but views it as the only way for a guy like him to make it in a world as seedy as Gotham’s. Armed only with his trusty shotgun and his own street smarts, he's a dangerous man to anger, although he has a bad habit of believing everything that's told to him. When his lover is murdered, his quest for vengeance sets him on a path to encounter Gotham's Dark Knight.
Tropes:
- Acrofatic: While not exactly fat, Elmer is pudgy or at least stocky. He’s still able to keep up with Batman in a fistfight.
- Adaptational Badass: In regular Looney Tunes continuity Elmer Fudd is a designated Butt-Monkey and a pathetic, slow-witted schlub for Bugs Bunny to make a fool of. In the comic however, Elmer is reimagined as a realistic Batman-style character who is a bit of a Cloud Cuckoolander, but is an accomplished hunter and former professional killer with a double-barreled shotgun and hunter-gained reflexes. As such, during their brief encounter, he puts up more of a fight than most of the goons Batman runs into, actually manages to fight Batman to a standstill (and is able to detect Batsy is sneaking behind him rather quickly). You get the feeling that this version of Bugs relies on trickery because Fudd is downright scary in an open confrontation.
- Anti-Villain: Elmer’s a mob hitman, perfectly at home with murder. That said, he’s also a hopeless romantic at heart, knows his career is a dead-end job (literally), and would like nothing better than to give it all up and go straight, if he could just find something worth living for.
- Badass Normal: No powers, no gadgets, not particularly insane, not even years of explicit training or an obvious gimmick. At a glance, Fudd could be mistaken for a common thug off the street. A random thug off the street who can sense Batman sneaking up on him and last over a minute in open confrontation with him.
- Bottomless Magazines: Elmer somehow manages to fire a double-barreled shotgun three times without visibly reloading.
- Catchphrase: I’m hunting [target]. Shhh... Of course for Elmer.
- Country Mouse: Elmer grew up outside the city, without the benefits of most modern society, explaining his skills in stalking and shooting. When he moved to the city, he found his skill set was most hirable as a professional man-hunter.
- Darker and Edgier: Elmer’s a Looney Tunes character, redone to be believable as a Batman antagonist. Somehow it works.
- Dirty Business: Elmer considers his career to be this, and has no delusions about having a happy ending at the end of it.
- Elmer Fudd Syndrome: Parodied by Elmer Fudd himself in the Batman/Elmer Fudd Special, featuring Elmer Fudd and several humanized Looney Tunes characters transposed into the gritty world of Tom King's run of Batman. The comic plays the neo-noir crime drama aspect of Batman completely straight, with Fudd giving deadpan and surprisingly poignant internal monologues as he hunts down the Batman, all with the speech impediment."Sometimes the wain comes down so hawrd you forwget you've ever been dwy. I twy to see it, out there in the past or in the future, wainbows waiting. Going into Powrky's that day, I twy my best to wemember. I weawy do. Things wewen't awways this way. They won't awways be this way. I twy my best, and the water seeps in, mowlding my coat onto my shotgun, and I stop twying, and I head inside. My name is Elmer Fudd. I'm hunting wabbits. Shhhhhhhh..."
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor: Elmer. Knock knock... I forwgot. You want me to shoot you wight here or in pwivate?
- Fool for Love: Elmer really wanted his stint with Silver Saint Cloud to work out. It didn’t.
- Humanity Ensues: The comic features several humanized Looney Tunes characters transposed into the gritty world of Tom King's run of Batman.
- Let's You and Him Fight: While definitely no hero, Elmer’s face-off with Batman was not business, but personal, and based on faulty information at that. After the misunderstanding is cleared up, Elmer teams up with Batman to beat up a bar full of low life’s, including a human version of Bugs Bunny.
- Offhand Backhand: In a reversal of the usual roles, Elmer does this to Batman. With a shotgun. Needless to say it doesn't work, but not for lack of effort.
- Private Eye Monologue: Elmer seems to keep one up in his head at all times.
- Tranquil Fury: Elmer’s The Stoic, even when he’s about to murder somebody.
