Batman Year 100 is a comic book miniseries by Paul Pope that came out in 2006. It is notable in that the editor for The Best American Comics wanted to include it for the 2008 edition, a rarity for a mainstream Super Hero comic, but DC Comics declined the offer. It is a particular favorite of Batman writer Scott Snyder who has homaged it a couple times in his run on the character.
It is the year 2039 (exactly 100 years after Batman's publication debut in Detective Comics hence the title) and the U.S. is a Cyberpunk land of telepathic government agents and attack dogs with micro-cameras in their eyes. The Federal Police Corps operate with impunity and privacy is a joke. Except there are rumors of an unknown, a ghost running across the rooftops of Gotham. It is the Batman. But how can it be? He'd have to be at least 120 years old! Is this the original guy under the cowl? Is it a clone? A robot? It's up to Commissioner James Gordon, the original's grandson, to uncover the mystery. Meanwhile, Batman and his support team are uncovering a Government Conspiracy covering up the truth behind a murder of one of their own.
The title is a play on Batman: Year One.
This mini-series contains examples of:
- Angry Guard Dog: A favorite resource of the FPC. The dogs even have cameras surgically implanted in their eyes.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's never clear exactly who this Batman is. Is it Bruce Wayne? If so, how is he still young? Is it a new guy? A clone? By the end, we know his name is probably Bruce but we never know for sure.
- Badass Normal: A major theme of the book. The Batman here uses very little gadgets for such a sci-fi setting, relying mostly on his own athleticism and brains to save the day.
- Big Brother Is Watching: Privacy doesn't exist anymore which is why the Batman returning unnerves the FPC and Homeland Security so much.
- Charles Atlas Superpower: Played with. This Batman can still jump across buildings but he tires and sweats much more realistically than most interpretations of the character and is most certainly NOT Made of Iron.
- The Commissioner Gordon: The Gordon here is the grandson of the original. Once again, he's the only righteous cop in a sea of corrupt government officials and sympathizes with the crusading vigilante more than he'd probably like.
- Continuity Nod: This story exists in a world where Batman really did debut in 1939, took publicity photos in the '60s with Robin, and fought cops in front of Commissioner Yindel in the late '80s.
- Cool Bike: The Batmobile is a souped up motorcycle.
- Cyberpunk
- Dirty Cops: The entirety of the Federal Police Corps is this.
- The Dreaded: The Batman to the various government agents of the story.
- Gang of Hats: The Federal Police Corps are like this, looking more like NFL players than Feds.
- Government Conspiracy: Batman is unraveling one.
- Humans Are Psychic in the Future: At least Agent Mercer is.
- Legacy Character: Robin and Gordon for sure. Tora fills in the Voice with an Internet Connection role that Oracle would while her mom fills in The Medic role that Alfred would. Also, Batman... maybe.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Thanks to severe blood loss, Batman can barely remember what happened in the shooting.
- Mistaken for Murderer: Batman was there for the murder that kicks off the plot but he didn't do it.
- Names to Run Away From: Lampshaded with Fleshkiller.
- The Starscream: The plot kicks off because Agent Mercer wants the Fleshkiller virus for himself.
- Shrouded in Myth: The most information the current GCPD has on Batman is a small series of poor-quality photos and videos stretching back to 1939, along with some old handwriting samples and a half-century old police report. Gordon lampshades that if the FPC is demanding all the evidence the GCPD has on the Dark Knight, it's a good indication that they have next to no knowledge on him either.
- Synthetic Plague: Fleshkiller
- Terror Hero: Batman relies heavily on scare tactics to unbalance enemies and even carries a pair of jagged teeth with him when he wants people to see him as an inhuman monster.
- Villainous Breakdown: Agent Pravdzka, the closest to the Big Bad, is having a slow-boiling one all through the story. By the time he gets his hands on what he thinks is the intel on Batman, he grabs at it like a crack addict.
- Writer on Board: When the team discovers the existence of Fleshkiller, Batman goes on a lengthy tirade on the escalation of war and government overreach. It's hard not to see Paul Pope's libertarian views poking through.
- The collected edition includes The Berlin Batman, another Elseworld story penned by Pope, imagines Batman as a Jewish aristocrat fighting Nazism in World War II. Pope's libertarian views are accentuated when Batman defends fellow Jew and the father of Libertarianism, Ludwig von Mises, while explicitly endorsing his beliefs.
