Comic Book / Detective Comics (Rebirth)

Detective Comics (unofficially Detective Comics Rebirth, or 'Tec) is a 2016 twice-monthly comic book published by DC Comics as part of their Rebirth initiative, written by James Tynion IV with art by Eddy Barrows and Alvaro Martínez. It marks a return to the original numbering of Detective Comics, which had been relaunched in 2011 as part of the New 52: the 52 issues of Detective Comics vol. 2 were folded into this renumbering, which resumes at #934.

Upon discovering the existence of a large, violent, technologically-advanced organization operating in Gotham's shadows and targeting the city's various vigilantes, Batman enlists the help of Kate Kane (Batwoman) to lead a "Gotham bootcamp" for some of Gotham's younger crimefighters. Batman reasons that Kate's various forms of military training are best suited to quickly prepare a group of trainees for an all-but-certain battle against their new foe, and Batwoman accepts, eager for another chance to have a leadership role that she was denied after her dismissal from the Army.

Together, Bruce and Kate recruit Stephanie Brown (Spoiler), Tim Drake (Red Robin), Cassandra Cain (Orphan), and Basil Karlo (Clayface). Later additions to the team include Luke Fox (Batwing) and Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael).

The series was part of the first Batfamily Crossover of the Rebirth era, Night of the Monster Men, along with Batman and Nightwing. It also had a two-part arc titled "Batwoman Begins", which served as a launching point for the Batwoman (Rebirth) series.

This incarnation of the series began on June 8, 2016 with issue #934, and concluded on May 23, 2018 with issue #981. The "Rebirth" branding was dropped from DC's comics towards the end of this period. From issue #982 onwards, Detective Comics shifted from being a team book to once again becoming mainly focused on Batman himself.

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Detective Comics (Rebirth) provides examples of the following tropes:

• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Colony manages to pull this off on the brand new Belfry.
• Ambiguous Gender: It's stated that no-one knows anything about First Victim beyond their claim to be the first Innocent Bystander whose life was destroyed by Batman's crusade.
• Ambiguous Situation:
  • The existence of the League of Shadows - Jacob Kane believes they exist and has a list of people within Gotham who were planted members of the group. Batman claims that the group is a myth that Ra's al Ghul made up to keep the League of Assassins in line, so they wouldn't try anything stupid.
    • Word of God confirms the existence of the League of Shadows.
  • At the end of #964, it's left unknown if Stephanie heard Bruce tell her that Tim was alive or not.
• Amicable Exes: Zigzagged in the case of Kate and Renee Montoya, as shown in #936. They're not exactly friends, but Renee clearly still cares enough about Kate to meet her in a bar and lend an ear to Kate's current frustrations, even if Renee is a bit outwardly gruff. Renee even gives a small bit of guidance to Kate before she leaves...but then played "straight" in #943, as Renee all but admits she called Kate to a crime scene instead of Batman since she wanted to see her. And then again there's teasing in #944, complete with banter and genuine concern in the middle of a firefight. Then in #952, it's just plain played "straight". No, that pun will never get old.

• Anarchy Is Chaos: Lonnie Machin corrects Stephanie Brown when she thinks that that's all anarchy is, that anarchy is just breaking down something to bring about something new.
• Anti-Villain: Lonnie Machin is shown to be this as despite hiding away in Monster City and fighting ARGUS soldiers, he's, in fact, somehow built a massive underground home for the citizens left behind.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Throughout the first arc, Batman maintains that the League of Shadows is just a myth, despite the fact that he thought the exact same thing about the Court of Owls and was later proven wrong. However, this ends up being subverted in #954, when Ra's al Ghul reveals that Batman actually had discovered the LoS's existence three times before, and Ra's used various forms of Laser-Guided Amnesia to wipe that information from his mind, ultimately convincing him the group was just a myth.
• Arc Welding: "A Lonely Place of Living" welds together two future Batman stories — Damian Wayne's time as Batman from Batman (Grant Morrison) is established as having taken place before Tim's time from "Titans Tomorrow", although there are notable alterations, such as the implication that Tim killed Damian and Gotham still existing, despite Morrison establishing that Damian and Gotham were hit by a nuke, with Damian also possessing a healing factor courtesy of a Deal with the Devil. Also, Damian became Batman after Dick walked away from the role, whereas the original version had Damian become Batman because he got Dick killed.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The League of Shadows wield katanas capable of easily piercing titanium-alloy armor.
• Artistic License – Military:
  • In #934, Jacob tells Kate that had she stayed in the Army, she'd "be leading [her] own squadron by now." Squadrons in the U.S. Army are commanded by lieutenant colonels, a rank that usually requires about 15 years of commissioned service. However, the maximum amount of time Kate could possibly have been a commissioned officer at this point is about 12 years, and due to her de-aging in Rebirth, is more like seven. Kate was an exceptional cadet and by all accounts would have excelled in her military career, but even so, that's pushing things.
  • In #936, Kate mentions she was dishonorably discharged from West Point. In reality, this would be extremely unlikely, as dishonorable discharges require a court-martial, and there's no evidence Kate ever had one. Plus, DADT-related discharges did not require that severity, and with Kate's cadet record being otherwise spotless, it's much more likely her discharge was honorable.
  • In the same issue, Kate describes a harsh trainer during her plebe (freshman) year, and how she took a long drive away from the Academy as soon as she could to de-stress and evaluate things. However, only junior and senior cadets are allowed to have personal vehicles at the Academy.^note If that scene is supposed to be during her upperclassman years, then it also doesn't make sense because she would already have been well into a successful cadet career with that initial harsh training well behind her.
  • Also from #936, Jacob's Army uniform is highly inaccurate and looks closer to an OG-107 (discontinued in 1989) than a modern uniform. One panel even shows him wearing what looks like an Air Force rank patch.
  • Jacob is referred to as a colonel in a flashback in #938, meaning he's at minimum at lieutenant colonel there. However, in Elegy, Jacob was at most a first lieutenant just before the Kanes moved to Belgium, which involved him receiving a "promotion" to, at most, the rank of captain. This means that he skipped at least one rank between the move and the kidnappings of Gabi and the twins, when in reality the much more likely path to any type of colonel would have taken several years at minimum.
  • On the cover of #978, the salutes performed look more British than American (which would make more sense in context). Those saluting are also doing so with their left arms, which is not done barring some sort of dysfunction with the right arm.^note The left arm salute was a result of the original art having to be flipped horizontally to accommodate the comic's logos and such.
• Ascended Fanboy: Upon encountering Batman, The General geeks out, tries to take a selfie with Batman... then tries to shoot him.
• Attack Pattern Alpha: How the Colony's infantry functions. A complex algorithm based off of years of video footage of Batman in action analyzes a given situation and feeds each soldier a sequence of moves to perform, displayed on a HUD in their helmets.
• Awful Truth: Batman didn't tell Batwoman that he knew her father was leading the Colony to make sure she wouldn't warn him, as Batman couldn't afford that happening. Which, to Bruce's credit, is absolutely what she'd do, though not intentionally. It would be very much in Kate's character to confront her father directly, which would have tipped Jacob off to how much Bruce knew.
• Bad Future: Where Future!Tim comes from, Batman is dead and all his successors have been failures, and the Bat-family are outlawed entirely in Gotham, hunted by Commissioner Montoya, while the Titans are at war with one another.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Batman himself actually is a pawn in one. He gets ambushed by the Colony and gets the everloving crap beat out of him before getting captured. This causes Batwoman to assemble the rest of the team at the Belfry. She also contacts her father, a Colonel, after recognizing the Colony is a military organization, and invites him as well in order to get his advice. Unbeknownst to her, her father is the leader of the Colony, and he uses the opportunity to disable and take control of the Belfry. The intent all along was to gain access to Batman's data in preparation for a strike on another target, and Kate played right into her dad's hands by doing what he expected her to do.
  • Batman and Batwoman pull a small one on the Colony during the assault on Gotham. They find the Colony's top target and position themselves on its roof, putting themselves in the line of fire. Batwoman expects that her father won't endanger her, and turns out to be right, as he shoots down a suggestion to put her as a top-priority target and instead moves on to the next location.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished:
  • Averted in #938 when Cass gets a bloody nose while fighting a group of Colony soldiers.
  • Again averted, and again to Cass, when Shiva beats her up in #953.
  • Yet another aversion in #961, when Kate and Cass get banged up after a brawl with Azrael.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Cassandra averages about one word per issue over the course of the first arc. She's also referred to by Batman as the most dangerous fighter on the entire team, himself included (though he's specifically talking about her potential and how bad it would be if she were influenced by the wrong people). He later flat-out tells Kate that if they fought, he would lose.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • The team shows up to rescue Batman from being executed by the Colony's leader. The best part? They'd been hiding behind Clayface (who was disguised as a rock wall) during Batman's whole conversation with the commander.
  • In issue #961, Batwoman and Orphan are having a brutal fight against a possessed Azrael and getting as good as they give. They finally manage to subdue him... only for him to start getting back up. Cue Batman and Zatanna busting in through a window, with Zatanna putting the threat to sleep with a spell.
• Big Entrance:
  • The Colony invading the Belfry. Also counts as a Super Window Jump.
  • Batwoman and Co. quite literally coming out of the walls, as mentioned above.
  • Jacob ambushing our heroes just as they're about to escape the base, complete with flying platforms and giant spotlights.
• Big "NO!":
  • Batwoman lets off one when Colony soldiers open fire on Cassandra and fill her full of tranquilizer darts, since she initially thought they were using live ammo.
  • Spoiler reacts this way to Tim's final goodbye.
• Big Damn Kiss: Stephanie's reunion with Tim is punctuated with this.
• Bitter Almonds: Played with in issue #959. The almonds part isn't mentioned, but Cass is able to detect the scent of a Cyanide Pill shortly after it goes off.
• Black Eyes of Evil: The League of Shadows's foot soldiers have these.
• Breaking the Fellowship: After Batwoman kills Clayface, Batman benches her for her actions and benches Batwing and Azrael for siding with her. Stephanie, not wanting to see Tim tear himself apart with his great plan, breaks up with him and leaves Gotham.
• Break Them by Talking: In issue #981, Brother Eye tries to pull this on Stephanie and Cassandra by showing them their pre-Flashpoint selves, both of them as Batgirl, and telling them that Batman's holding them back and they'll never be these people. It backfires horribly as it actually gives them hope. As Stephanie puts it, she now knows that, in any timeline, she's freaking awesome.
• Breather Episode:
  • More accurately a Breather Mini-Arc, but still. "Batwoman Begins", the story in issues #948 and #949, is relatively lower-key compared to the action-heavy first arc, the crossover, the emotionally heavy second arc, and the third arc starting in #950 (which is also intense).
  • #950 is also fairly tame, delivering three character-centric stories for upcoming arcs and events.
  • Issue #957 is a smaller story focused on Spoiler and comes right after the bombastic "League of Shadows" arc.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • Harper Row and Luke Fox make their Rebirth debuts in issue #943, after not appearing in any comics for several real-world months.
  • Lady Shiva makes her Rebirth debut in #950, after last appearing in Secret Six #14 in May 2016, nine months earlier.
  • Anarky reappears in #963. Though there has been an Anarky in the New 52, last appearing in Detective Comics vol. 2 #30 back in June 2014, this is the original Lonnie Machin version.
  • Zatanna Zatara appears in #958, making her official Rebirth debut. Her last appearance before this was in October 2016, eight months prior.
  • #962 puts Jean-Paul Valley back into his Knightfall Batsuit, when the last time we saw him wearing the suit was near the end of his original comic's run back in 2002, fifteen years prior.
  • #965 brings back the Titans of Tomorrow Tim Drake.
  • #969 brings back Michael Atkins, now Mayor of Gotham City.
• Call-Back:
  • Clayface wrapping himself around his teammates to shield them from harm in #936 is an interesting visual one, as he performed a similar feat during the final New 52 Batwoman arc.
  • Issue #937 reveals that the Colony was created in response to the "Zero Year" event from the New 52.^note Or more accurately, an existing project was changed into it, as issue #938 shows that the initial plans for what would become the Colony existed years earlier.
  • Issue #939 opens with a flashback to Kate trying to comfort Bruce at his parents' funeral. She does so again when Tim is apparently blown up in issue #940.
  • Issue #943 has Harper referencing New 52's Batman #12, the chapter where she was formally introduced and tapped into Gotham's electrical grid to track Batman's movements. Apparently, she and Tim were working on building that second electrical grid she thought about way back when.
  • Issue #944 has Luke commenting to Kate that it feels like "...this isn't [her] first gala that's gone sideways," which is a reference to Batwoman: Elegy.
  • Issue #969 makes mention of Michael Atkins' time as Commissioner of the GCPD, something he was between the Officer Down storyline and the end of Infinite Crisis.
• Cannot Spit It Out: Literally in Cassandra's case. Her story in issue #950 notes that she wishes she could communicate with the other members of the team so she could tell them how she feels about them, like how she admires Luke's driven attitude, sympathizes with Clayface's condition, and wants to learn more from Kate. Unfortunately, her traumatic upbringing and mental handicap make it next to impossible to do so.
• Chekhov's Skill: After the opening Mud Room sequence in #935, Batwoman critiques her team's performance (sans Red Robin) and instructs them on how to compensate for their most prevalent weaknesses. Spoiler burns energy inefficiently and thus needs to learn how to breathe properly and pace herself. Orphan tries to fight everyone's battles, so she needs to focus on one goal at a time. Clayface possesses no technique whatsoever, and needs to learn how to actually use his abilities rather than just smothering people. Later, in #938, when the team saves Batman from the Colony, we're shown that all three of them have taken Batwoman's instructions to heart. Spoiler paces herself, relying more on clever tactics than direct combat. Orphan is given a singular goal (secure the extraction zone) and succeeds with little difficulty. Clayface gets extremely creative, transforming his arms, and even his entire body, into bludgeoning weapons and a make-shift vertical bridge.
• Civvie Spandex: Three of the five members of the Victim Syndicate (The Mute, Mr. Noxious, and Mudface) wear normal civilian clothes instead of costumes.
• Classy Cane: Kate has one as part of her ballet-going outfit at the end of #956. Also a small Visual Pun given her surname.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Issue #951 opens with a scene of Lady Shiva interrogating a Colony soldier who has been strategically impaled with several katanas. Shiva also mentions that she will torture the soldier's comrades, as well.
• Combat Pragmatist:
  • The Colony has no problem simply tranquilizing Orphan rather than fighting her hand-to-hand.
  • Conversely, Batwoman has no qualms with bringing Clayface to demolish the Colony's forces by the dozen, who have no earthly idea how to fight someone like him.
  • During the team's Final Battle against Shiva, Shiva immediately takes Batwoman out of the fight by kicking her in the side, which reopens a stab wound Kate suffered earlier. This in turn removes Clayface as well, since he takes Kate to safety.
• Continuity Nod:
  • Steph makes a few disparaging comments about Tim's "showboat" costume from Teen Titans.
  • In #949, when Kate gives her "I was forged by fire" speech, she's standing in the same sort of pose that Jacob described as "posturing" in her New 52 series. Since Kate doesn't typically do much speechifying, it's a reasonable stance for her to take in that situation.
  • Issue #961 has Batwoman mention that she hates vampires and that she dated one, referencing the last few issues of her original run during the New 52.
  • Issue #967 features a few brief radio reports describing events happening concurrently during The Oz Effect.
• Cool Car:
  • Aside from the Batmobile, Luke Fox has a flying car that looks a lot like the models from Back To The Future Part II.
  • ...which turns out to be his Batwing suit in disguise.
• Cool Bike: Batman and Batwoman each get rocket-powered ones during "Night of the Monster Men", and in issue #941 specifically they used said motorcycles to restrain a kaiju.
• Cool Plane:
  • The Colony's massive teleporting helicarrier.
  • Turns out Batman has a fleet of Bat-themed fighter jets. Which he and his sons use to attack the Belfry against Batman!Tim
• Cool Train: Tim's 'Bat-Monorail', which functions very similarly to a rail gun with the 'pods' being the projectiles, is an almost scary example of this. In his own words, it can go "twenty times as fast as the top speed of the Batmobile", which has been clocked at anywhere between 250mph and 300mph over its many iterations. So, Tim created a subterranean transportation system that could easily exceed Mach 7...and he still needs to nail the braking system. Kinda makes you wonder if they used Clayface as an airbag when infiltrating the Colony, huh?
• Costume Copycat:
  • The Colony as a whole uses iconography and suits designed specifically to mimic Batman, albeit along a more militaristic bent. Additionally, their logo is extremely similar to that of Batwoman's, rather than the generalized bat symbol. This, unfortunately, carries the heavy implication that the striking red bat symbol variant Jacob presented to Kate when she first became Batwoman was never hers to begin with, but rather a preparatory measure to get her accustomed to the design, and eventually the overall idea of the Colony when the time came.

• Covered in Scars: In issue #975, Kate is shown to have a large mass of scars on her back and additional ones on her upper arms.
• The Cracker: The Colony employs The General, Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong, as their tech expert, and he manages to trick Red Robin into giving him digital control of the Belfry's systems in his first mention.
• Crazy-Prepared:
  • Ascalon, a Killer Robot, attacks a casino where Zatanna happens to be performing, and she casts a spell on it to make it sink through the floor. Ascalon's designers apparently included countermeasures for this very situation, as Ascalon begins climbing back up.
    Ascalon: COMPENSATING FOR ADDITIONAL WEIGHT.
  • Future!Tim has a utility belt filled with the means to fight any of the Justice League's rogues. Comes in handy when there's an angry Doomsday looking for things to smash.
• Create Your Own Villain: The antagonists of the second arc, called the Victim Syndicate, are a group of Gothamites who have been severely injured or transformed due to the actions of Batman's foes, and blame him for it since each of their situations were caused by attacks directed at Batman. They have banded together to strike back at Batman and anyone they see as affiliated with him.
• Creator Cameo: In issue #943, a man who very much resembles James Tynion IV appears in the crowd of protesters. He's the one grinning with the beard and glasses.
• Cryptic Background Reference: In #951, Batman mentions that "[he] shouldn't have let [Batwoman] talk to Superman" after she says that it's possible for them to enjoy their line of work even while taking it seriously. This would mark the first time Clark and Kate ever met, but the details go unexplained for the rest of the arc or in any of the Superman titles.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Batman takes on fifty Colony soldiers at the end of #935. Early in #936, it's revealed that he got his ass utterly kicked, complete with getting captured.
  • The entirety of #938 could be considered as one in favor of the Bat-team, but this moment stands out:
  Colony Soldier: Heh. They sent you to fight all of us?
  Orphan: Yes.
  • Lady Shiva has several of these in #952. In a flashback, she murders a half-dozen fully-geared Colony soldiers with her bare hands within ten seconds. In the present, she manhandles both Cass and Batman, while heavily implying that she was just toying with them. Plus, a story is told of her breaking into a Colony HQ and slaughtering 43 soldiers, again singlehandedly.
• Deadly Training Area: The new Belfry houses one, known as the Mud Room. It uses excess Clayface matter to form solid opponent constructs.
• Decomposite Character: The League of Shadows is a separate organization from the main League of Assassins, though still connected to them. Batman believes them to be a myth.
• Disney Death: Tim appears to be killed by Colony drones, but is later shown as a captive of Mr Oz.
• Dramatic Irony: By the end of #940, the Bat-team believes Tim has been obliterated in a missile bombardment, but the audience is shown that he's actually alive, whisked away at the last second by Mr. Oz to an unknown location.
• Dramatic Unmask: Batwoman gets her mask knocked off by a Batarang in #938, revealing her face to not only the Colony, but to the rest of her team, who (aside from Batman, Clayface, and possibly Tim) likely didn't know her true identity beforehand.
• Drill Sergeant Nasty: Batwoman adopts this role for herself in relation to the trainees.
  Batwoman: I will be hard on you, because if I am not, you will die.
• Dual Wielding: Renee Montoya arms herself with a pair of FoxTech pistols during the Victim Syndicate's attack.
• Elaborate Underground Base: The Colony has one, simply named "The Cave".
• "Eureka!" Moment: In #961, Luke Fox reveals that he's been building a suit for Jean-Paul that allows him to access his combat potential without the horrifying dogma of St. Dumas. He initially couldn't figure out how to do that, as erasing it proved futile and building a new one was like building a new religion. It's not until he runs into Rookie (the Powered Armor once used by the Jim Gordon Batman) and learns he isn't infected that he discovers the solution: its AI is based around one person itself — Batman's. Enter the Azrael Batman armor.
• Evil All Along: Jacob Kane is the leader of the Colony. Downplayed since he isn't portrayed as evil, but as a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: In issue #980, Brother Eye tries to demoralize Spoiler and Cassandra by showing them glimpses of the old timeline. This includes how Stephanie became Robin and then Batgirl and Cassandra Batgirl herself. Eye states this is why he's not worried about the girls as "I have seen your best forms and these are not them." Instead of being broken down, both girls just laugh and embrace with Stephanie saying that knowing there's a world where she was good enough to be Batgirl means she can be that way for real. All Eye can respond is "Error. Error."
• Evil Costume Switch: Stephanie dons a full headed mask similar to what she wore in the original continuity when she decides to oppose Batman.
• Expository Hairstyle Change: Kate has her more usual bobbed hairdo in the second arc after sporting a buzzcut in the first, which helps indicate that about a month has passed between the two stories.
• Expressive Mask: Bruce's, Kate's, and Tim's masks all follow their expressions at least a bit. Cass's does as well, but hers is justified because it's made of some kind of skintight material.
• Expy: The series makes Luke Fox into one of Iron Man. Whereas he was previously a typical teenager (if a well off one), one with an interest in MMA, Detective Comics (Rebirth) portrays him as a genius billionaire inventor.
• Extended Disarming: Batman's utility belt is studied by a pair of Colony soldiers, who express exasperation at finding over 50 separate tools while still only 40% of the way through the belt.
• Faceless Goons: The Colony's members are divided into two groups: infantry and a division that seems to handle interrogation and research. The uniforms for both groups are distinct, but both involve full helmets that hide the face.
• Face–Heel Turn:
  • Stephanie decides to turn against Batman at the end of "The Victim Syndicate", lost in her grief from Tim's death. Downplayed because she's not evil or villainous, just upset.
  • Played straight with Clayface after the Victim Syndicate tortures him into fully losing control of his moral center.
• Forced to Watch:
  • The Colony's commander was kept alive by Shiva so he could watch her singlehandedly slaughter an entire Colony outpost.
  • In #953, Kate is ambushed in the Belfry and impaled in front of Jacob, specifically under Shiva's orders that he watch.
• Future Me Scares Me: Tim is horrified by his evil, gun-toting future self. Future!Tim mentions he was the same when he was Tim.
• Frameup: Subverted. Ulysses tries to create one of these between Batman and Batwoman (with Kate as the framee), but they both see through it.
• Gender-Equal Ensemble: The initial team roster has three males (Batman, Red Robin, and Clayface) and three females (Batwoman, Spoiler, and Orphan).
  • After Red Robin is apparently killed, his spot is filled by also-male Batwing.
  • Two Girls to a Team: After Spoiler performs a Face–Heel Turn, this trope is put into play, especially since Azrael is set to take her spot.
• General Ripper: Colonel Jacob Kane, who in his personal vendetta against terrorism has taken the Colony rogue (even going so far as to operate on American soil) in pursuit of the League of Shadows, a group which may not even exist.
• Genre Savvy: At the end of #934, Batwoman tells Batman that she knows he's hiding something from her, because forming a group of trainees like he has is out-of-character for him, meaning the problem at hand is much more serious than he's letting on. She adds that the only way their partnership will work is if they're completely transparent with each other. Since Kate is a fan of spy novels, it makes sense that she'd pick up on this and want to have everything above-board from the start.
• Greater-Scope Villain: The League of Shadows is this for the Colony arc.
• Headbutting Heroes: Downplayed and one-sided in the case of Batwoman and Batwing. Kate doesn't hate Luke, but doesn't approve of him joining the team because she doesn't think he fights crime for any reason other than the thrill, and the recklessness she sees in that pisses her off. Luke, on the other hand, is somewhat oblivious to her beef with him. This subsides after she learns that Luke was driven to become a hero after an innocent, unarmed black kid was gunned down by Gotham police officers.
• Heel–Face Turn: Clayface.
  • After learning that The First Victim in no way has the good of the people as their intent, Anarky betrays him and gives Batman intel needed to learn his true identity.
• Heroes Gone Fishing: The entire team starts off this way in #958, despite being split up. Luke, Jean-Paul, and Kate are at a basketball game; Cass and Clayface are practicing Shakespeare; and even Bruce, who is undercover at the Iceberg Lounge, briefly participates in a poker game.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Batwoman has a bit of one while watching footage of Batman receiving a beatdown from Colony soldiers. Not only because she's fought Batman before and knows exactly how tough he is, but because Batman is her cousin, and she has a history of not taking things well when her family is in danger.
  • Batman has one while reading Tim's college acceptance letter after his supposed death.
• Heroic RRoD: Batwoman invokes this as part of her training regimen. She pits her trainees against waves of Joker constructs for three hours to stress-test them, so she can analyze when and how they'll break in a full-on battle.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Tim redirects all of the Colony's drones to target him instead of the civilians they were originally sent to kill. He defeats the first wave, but is not so lucky with the second, and is seemingly killed.
• Heroic Second Wind: Suffering from stab wounds/blood loss, or having been cut apart, or having been dosed with paralytic gas, the Belfry team gets one of these after Cass rescues them in #955.
• Hollywood Hacking: Many examples, but one of the most extreme cases occurs in issue #938, when Spoiler hacks into a half-dozen grenade belts to detonate them.
• Home Base: Since the team can't operate out of the Batcave for a whole host of reasons (namely, Clayface), they instead work out of a new base called the Belfry, located in the Old Wayne Tower. Designed by Tim Drake, the Belfry provides a more centralized location than the Batcave.
• Hotline: Of course Batman has one of these. It's a direct phone to the President called the Black Line.
• I Know Kung Fu: Clayface says this almost verbatim in #952 while fighting League of Shadows goons.
• I'm Not a Hero, I'm...: This is Stephanie's train of thought - she's not a hero to Gotham, she's trying to restore that to the cops. When she pulls that on Bullock, he's rather annoyed by it - she's still running around in a costume, she's still a hero.
• Insignia Rip-Off Ritual: Cassandra tears off the Bat shield on Batwoman's costume in anger when she kills Clayface, telling her that it means they do not kill.
• Instant Costume Change:
  • The Victim Syndicate attack a gala while the entire team is in attendance and wearing standard formal attire. But just moments after the initial attack, they've all changed into their crimefighting gear, with no indication they had access to their suits. Justified a bit in Batwing's case however, since his suit actually was there, disguised as his car.
  • Happens again in #955, after Cass frees the rest of the team. Apart from Clayface, they had all been stripped naked, but are back in costume quickly.
  • A literal one occurs in #959, when Zatanna uses a spell to put Bruce in his Batsuit.
• Internal Reveal: Batman and he rest of the team discover that Tim is still alive in #962.
• Killer Robot: Ascalon, created by the Order of St. Dumas to serve as Azrael, free of human weaknesses.
• Kind Restraints: During "A Lonely Place of Living", Batwoman is briefly held in one of the Belfry's holding cells and guarded by the rest of the team to protect her from Batman!Tim. She goes in willingly, but isn't thrilled about it.
• Knight Templar: The Colony exists in order to fight a far greater threat, the League of Shadows.
• Lean and Mean: The First Victim is very tall and thin, with slightly elongated limbs.
• Loud of War: In issue #946, Spoiler hacks the team's radios to broadcast a debilitatingly loud sound as a way to neutralize them.
• Made of Iron: The entire team, which should be no surprise given that most of them are Badass Normals.
  • Bruce was beaten up and captured by dozens of soldiers and not only recovered quickly, but escaped a high-tech restraint system shortly after.
  • Bruce, Kate, Cass, and Steph have been dosed with various poisons or drugs on different occasions, with little or no lasting effect, and were back in action soon after.
  • Clayface has been involuntarily ripped apart twice now with no ill effects.
  • Tim was seriously injured during his Last Stand against the Colony's drones, but refused to give up.
  • Luke, Jean-Paul, and Kate were all impaled and suffered significant blood loss, but remained alert and were still ready to continue the fight against the League of Shadows after being rescued and getting their gear back.
• Meaningful Name:
  • The initial antagonists of the series are an organization called the Colony, who emulate Batman on a military scale. In biology, "colony" is the collective term for a group of bats. Also counts as a Punny Name.
  • Additionally, the chapter titles for the inaugural arc are all lifted from war movies, which is apropo considering the the Colony is a military organization. Some are big hints to the events of the chapter, while others have no connection whatsoever other than both stories featuring a war.
• Mind Wipe: Zatanna reveals that, after she revealed her powers as a teenager to show off to Bruce, her father Giovanni Zatara had to wipe his mind — not because Bruce couldn't be trusted, but that if the knowledge alone fell into the wrong hands, it could be dangerous; while it was the right thing to do at the time, it accidentally kept Bruce from discovering the threat of the Gnosis Sphere and what Ra's al-Ghul could do with it.^note The scene is also written as something of a contrast to Identity Crisis (2004) — it's not treated as a big deal, the knowledge removed is harmless, and Zatara is perfectly willing to let Bruce know the truth about them in a safe, controlled way in the future.
• Muscles Are Meaningless: The female members of the Belfry team fit this.
  • Kate is usually drawn tall and lean across her Rebirth-era appearances. She's still shown performing impressive feats of strength in this series, like chucking Batman over her head, punching apart metal helmets, and catching Nightwing one-armed while swinging from a grapple hook.
  • Cass is the smallest member of the team, period, but can still toss around adults, kick doors clear off their hinges, and, like Kate, break military helmets with her blows. She's also considered The Big Guy of the group, as she's their best combatant. To be somewhat fair, however, she's often drawn to have distiguishable abs that most members of the Batfamily, male or female, would be jealous of.
  • Steph also fits this to a lesser degree. She doesn't have as many clear examples, but it's still apparent that her punches pack a wallop even though she's not overly muscular.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Once Anarky realizes that the First Victim intends to use Clayface to murder a bunch of protesters to make them martyrs for his campaign against Batman, he suddenly realizes he's made a terrible mistake and pulls a Heel–Face Turn, delivering the First Victim to Stephanie and Tim.
• Myth Arc:
  • The series plays a part in the greater Rebirth Myth Arc, specifically the part involving Mr. Oz, due to his abduction of Tim Drake.
  • The series introduces the idea that Bruce is preparing for some nebulous war. In fact, the Batfamily going off into the world is part of Bruce's plan, as he's effectively built an information network and widened his influence. What he's preparing for and why is yet to be revealed.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Tim Drake's new costume design is mostly an armored version of his original Robin costume from the early days of his solo series. Supposed to be seen a homage. He's also dating Stephanie Brown again, even though the New 52 erased most of their previous interactions. They retain a part of their relationship dynamics for some reason. Cassandra's new mask is also similar to her original one.
  • The uniforms of the Colony's infantry greatly resemble the Arkham Knight.
  • A poster of the cover of Batman: The Dark Knight Returns appears in the Colony's base.
  • Upon seeing Luke Fox's souped up flying car, Harper says "Where do they get all those wonderful toys?"
  • In #951, Kate mentions that her family owns home plate seats at Gotham Stadium. In DC Comics Bombshells, that universe's version of Kate is a baseball player. Bonus points for that series having the same writer (Marguerite Bennett) as Batwoman: Rebirth.
  • Looking closely at the book Christine reads to Cassandra reveals that it is written by none either than Carolyn Wu-San, Shiva's sister and Cassandra's aunt.
  • H.A.R.D.A.C., an evil supercomputer from Batman: The Animated Series, has a cameo in Luke's lab in #961.
  • In "Intelligence", when Jean-Paul's armour makes him Brainwashed and Crazy, Luke creates a replacement which is basically the AzBats costume.
  • "A Lonely Place of Living", which deals with Tim Drake's attempt to escape Mr. Oz's captivity once more, is one towards "A Lonely Place of Dying", the storyline that marked Tim Drake's first appearance. Even more, the first issue of the storyline mirrors the cover of Batman Vol. 1 #441.
  • A modernized version of the red phone from the 1966 Batman show appears in #971.
  • Clayface's new origin in the Annual is loosely based on the animated version of Matt Hagan, with the film Basil wants to appear in having the same plot as his Golden Age origin.
• The Needs of the Many: The Colony believes that they discovered the existence and exact location of ten sleeper cells in Gotham belonging to the League of Shadows. The intelligence they have points to the actual number of sleeper agents to twenty individuals, the identities of which they were unable to narrow down without the help of information stored on the Batcomputer. Since they're convinced that a massive terrorist attack is imminent, which would claim the lives of hundreds of thousands, the Colony decides to invoke acceptable losses and eliminate everyone currently occupying their target areas, which would result in over six hundred casualties.
• Never Be a Hero: Mr. Oz attempts to tell Tim Drake this in #965, seeing as being Jor-El and his attempt to save Krypton failed spectacularly, he doesn't want Tim to think he needs to shoulder the world on his shoulders, especially one he thinks isn't worth saving.
• Never Found the Body: Played with. In issue #940, Tim is caught in a barrage of drone missiles, and no remains are found at the scene. The team assumes he was completely vaporized. He was actually teleported away by Mr. Oz just before the missiles hit.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • After Batman is captured, Batwoman calls the whole team to the Belfry, which leads to her falling for a Batman Gambit, since she also called in her father to get his advice for fighting the Colony, unaware that he was their leader. This leads to the Belfry falling into Colony hands.
  • During the team's rescue of Batman, they cause so much damage to technology and personnel that the Colony is forced to advance their timetable for eliminating their League of Shadows targets. Unfortunately, this also means that they have no time to fully narrow down their suspect list, and thus are willing to kill 30 times as many people to ensure their mission is completed.
  • In #941, Gotham Girl rips the arms off a monster, which spills its blood on her and Nightwing and causes them to mutate.
• Nominal Hero: Played with. A major part of Kate's conflict with Luke hinges on the fact that she considers him one of these. She only sees his surface playboy persona and thinks he's in the superheroing business just for kicks, not realizing that he has his own tragic reasons for doing what he does.
• No Name Given: The team don't have a name for themselves. Tim, for his part, had intended to call them "the Knights". It actually gets discussed when Tim returns.
  Batwing: [Batwoman] just calls us "The Team" in a really ominous voice.
  Batwoman: What's wrong with "The Team"?
  Tim: God, you really are Batman's cousin, aren't you?
• No-Sell: Madame Crow tries to use her anti-fear toxin on Batwoman, to absolutely no effect. Kate did have a blocker for the toxin given to her by Luke, but she claims she didn't need it. Given Crow's description of how it works (removing the fear of what will happen if the Batfamily stops fighting crime), Kate was correct about that, since that kind of fear isn't what drives her.
• Number Two: Tim Drake's place on the team, while Batman and Batwoman are co-leaders. He acts as an advisor and a sort of liaison between Batwoman and the other trainees, and even shows some Lancer elements with his willingness to butt heads with Batwoman a bit over her decisions.
• Odd Friendship: Orphan and Clayface.
• Odd-Shaped Panel: Probably as an homage to quintessential Batwoman artist J.H. Williams III, both Barrows and Martínez use many such panel layouts in their issues.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Quite a few just in the first arc.
  • Cass defeats two groups of at least five Colony soldiers by herself on separate occasions. Only the aftermaths of these encounters are shown.
  • The team infiltrates the Colony's base, but exactly how isn't depicted.
  • Tim's Last Stand against the first wave of Colony drones isn't shown, only the aftermath.
  • In #939, Batwoman is getting ready to board the Colony's airship, and is last seen on a rooftop with the airship at least a couple miles away. At the beginning of #940 she has infiltrated the airship's bridge and taken out at least three Colony soldiers, all without raising alarm. She's not even noticed on the bridge until she speaks up.
• Out of Focus: For the first two arcs, Cass is basically there to punch people every now and then, and plays a relatively minor role compared to the rest of the cast. The fact that she's quiet doesn't help much, either.
• Poisonous Person: The aptly-named Mr. Noxious of the Victim Syndicate can emit a cloud of toxic gas, which is implied to be a cocktail of various different poisons, all incredibly lethal.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Issues #948 and #949 comprise a mini-arc called "Batwoman Begins," which sets the stage for her Rebirth solo series.
• Powered Armor: Luke Fox's Batwing armor, complete with "Iron Man" style prehensile suit-up sequence.
• Recycled Title: The "Batwoman Begins" arc shares its title (minus an exclamation point) with issue #11 of 52, which was Kate Kane's debut as Batwoman.
• Reed Richards Is Useless:
  • Clayface lampshades this in #939, asking Tim why he's still a superhero if he's capable of designing such complex technology like the Belfry.
  • The arsenal Luke designs for GCPD. Kate points out that while the weapons are useful, they're way too expensive for the police to actually afford them in large enough numbers.
• Remember the New Guy?:
  • Downplayed with Batwoman. She's been around for a while, but this series is really the first time most of her prior interactions with Bruce have been depicted or referred to. The two had little interaction outside of their costumed personas in their past appearances together, but Detective establishes that they played together as children and that Kate was even there to comfort Bruce at his parents' funeral.
  • Each member of the Victim Syndicate (aside from possibly the First Victim) was a bystander who was injured by one of Batman's rogues in their very early days of being criminals, and Batman even says he remembers them when told of their real identities.
  • Dr. Victoria October, introduced in #948, mentions she has a prior history with Batman.
• Retcon:
  • The series presents Clayface in a very sympathetic light, portraying him as a Tragic Villain who only lashed out because he was treated like a freak after his accident. Clayface's previous New 52 appearances depicted him as a vicious and cruel man, and his Forever Evil (2013) spotlight issue established that he was a violent Jerkass even before the accident. On the other hand, he was depicted as significantly nicer in the later issues of Batwoman as a result of amnesia, so that may help smooth things out even if it doesn't totally explain things.
  • The series recanonizes the pre-Flashpoint revelation that Lady Shiva is Cassandra's biological mother. In her previous New 52 appearances, Lady Shiva had been reimagined as a younger assassin around the same age as Dick Grayson, thus meaning there was no way she could possibly have been the mother of a teenager. Oddly, an image of Shiva wearing her short-lived New 52 costume is shown on a video monitor in issue #953, indicating a Broad Strokes retcon of her previous appearances prior to Rebirth.
  • The storyline "A Lonely Place of Living" re-canonizes Tim Drake's original origin, doing away with him being a hacker who took a presumed name to hide from the Penguin and never became Robin and restoring his origin from the popular storyline "A Lonely Place of Dying", where he was a young teen who deduced Batman and Nightwing's identities and became Robin to save Batman from the growing darkness caused by Jason Todd's death.
• Retgone: #966 and 967 hint that the Conner Kent Superboy has been hit with this, but having his name mentioned makes Tim feel like he's missing something.
• Retirony: Tim seemingly dies after telling Stephanie that he was going to quit being a hero in order to attend college.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: This moment from issue #959:
  Batwing: Welcome to FoxTech, Batwoman. My home from dawn to dusk.
  Batwoman: When do you sleep?
  Batwing: Six A.M. to nine A.M. and three P.M. to six P.M., usually. Sorry, was that rhetorical?
• Ripple Effect Indicator: Used when Future!Tim thinks he's locked in a Stable Time Loop and his younger self is destined to grow into him. But when Tim has no idea who Conner Kent is, Future!Tim checks the current timeline records and realizes things have been altered. To confirm it, he slashes a cut on Tim's arm. Future!Tim then pulls off his glove to see he now has a long-healed scar on the same spot and realizes this is a new timeline that can be altered.
• Secret-Keeper: Issue #943 confirms that Renee Montoya still knows Batwoman's identity.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • An art error in issue #938 shows Gabi Kane's headstone with a cross, when she was canonically Jewish. Word of God is that this was simply an error due to the biweekly nature of the book and that the cross will be changed to a Star of David in the trade paperback. The digital editions of the issue were fixed the day after release, and true to his word, the physical trade includes this correction as well.◊
  • The two captured Colony soldiers, Dom and Cooper, have their names mixed up in #954.
  • Issue #969 contains some visual ones, such as Batwoman's mask missing its audio pickups over her ears or Luke Fox's Batwing suit being drawn not as his, but David Zavimbe's.
  • None of Kate's tattoos were drawn in #975 despite a scene where they should have been clearly visible.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: After Batman!Tim realizes he's in present-day Gotham and can alter the future, he decides to kill Batwoman, whom he blames for causing the Bad Future he's from.
• Shameful Strip: The LoS does this to the Belfry team (apart from Clayface) so they won't be able to use their gear to break out of their chains.
• Sherlock Scan:
  • Downplayed. Kate figured out Bruce was Batman when, seemingly out of the blue, he asked her to lunch, when days earlier he had confronted her as Batman and she had shot him in the leg. During their lunch meeting, Kate noticed Bruce had a slight limp in the same leg and put two-and-two together.
  • In #975, Barbara uses this to figure out why Bruce put together the Gotham Knights and why he flipped out over killing Clayface: from conversations with Stephanie Brown, she reveals that Batman put together the Knights in an attempt to "save" Kate — learning of Jacob Kane's desire to recruit the unfranchised vigilantes of Gotham, Batman panicked at the thought of losing Kate, his last connection to his mother Martha, to Jacob's team. Learning of Tim's idea of a team, he decided to put them together in order to protect her. Barbara points out that Tim's plan would never had worked even with Bruce backing him and that, ultimately, he's scared that, had Martha been alive, she would have sided with Kate.
• Shout-Out:
  • The Colony's Elaborate Underground Base is similar in layout to the HQ from XCOM: Enemy Unknown.
  • The cover to issue #945 is an homage to the cover of Suicide Squad Vol. 1 #10.
  • A flashback panel in #945 is posed the same as the cover of Detective Comics #27, Batman's very first appearance.
  • The Colony soldiers, Dom and Cooper, are very reminiscent of Sky Pilot and Shore Leave, respectively, from The Venture Bros..
  • Cassandra eventually begins living above a ballet theatre, where she develops a fascination with a young performer named Christine.
  • Luke suggests that Kate has a crush on a famous actress from a series of vampire films, who is implied to be Kristen Stewart.
  • The motto of the Gotham Guardsmen, Gotham's basketball team, is "We Stand On Guard."
  • In #980, Batwoman refers to a group of OMACs as "Blue Meanies", the villains from Yellow Submarine.
• Show Within a Show: An example of Type 2 appears in issue #936. Apparently, Batgirl comics exist in the main DCU and Stephanie is a fan, as one can be seen on her nightstand.
• Silly Rabbit, Idealism Is for Kids!:
  • Stephanie decides that she needs to make her own world by forcing the Bat-family to retire, thinking that by giving these people help instead of prancing around in costumes, things'll be all better. Batwing and Clayface call out Stephanie's reasoning by pointing out that making them live "normal" lives is not going to help them with their problems.
  • Barbara effectively shuts down Tim when he tries to defend his idea of a team of Batmen.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Stephanie's Well-Intentioned Extremist attitude is this - she's on the idealistic side of things as she feels that Gotham can be saved by eradicating vigilantism, specifically the Batman, and putting the real heroes at the GCPD back in the spotlight. Without Batman around, innocents would be spared and the criminals that would appear wouldn't. Everyone else is on the cynicism side, as they know that Batman and the rest of the Bat Family is Necessarily Evil, that even without Batman, innocents would still be hurt and it doesn't solve the problem of what to do with the criminals.
• Some Kind of Force Field: The First Victim can project shields large enough to cover the entire Victim Syndicate when they're standing in a group.
• Smug Snake: Colony Prime. He's convinced of his superiority to Batman due to spending years studying him, and barely even considers Batwoman worth his time.
• Snap Back: Colony Prime returns in issue #954 completely fine after having been monsterfied in #949.
• Spanner in the Works: It turns out that Tim Drake was this to Mr. Oz as he was reconnecting with people he shouldn't, thus instead of letting him die, he ends up capturing him.
• Spiritual Successor: To both Batman Eternal (as well as its sequel series) and the 90s era Batman comics as a whole.
• Stable Time Loop: Ends up subverted. Future!Tim thinks it's locked into this as he remembers everything the current Tim does, openly saying "I had this conversation with myself." Even when they get to the present, Future!Tim just carries on that Tim will grow into him and as he walks away, off-hand tells him to "make things right with Conner." When Tim asks "who's Conner?" Future!Tim freezes. He then checks the current timeline records and realizes that while it's mostly the same, some things have changed. Without warning, he slashes Tim across one arm, then removes his glove to find a long-healed scar that wasn't there before. Future!Tim realizes that something has broken the loop and time can be changed...which for him means killing Batwoman.
• Superhero Paradox: Firmly believed by the Victim Syndicate, which holds Batman responsible for every death, maiming or mutation caused by his battles with villains and is prepared to do whatever it takes to make the rest of Gotham feel the same way.

• Take That!:
  • Spoiler mocks the costume Red Robin wore in Scott Lobdell's Teen Titans relaunch.
  • It's hidden behind a dialogue balloon in the final issue, but the original art of a shot of the Las Vegas skyline in issue #959 changes the name of the Trump International Hotel to "Crumb". It's not an example of Bland-Name Product because Bally's Hotel & Casino, also seen in the shot, is labelled accurately.
• Team Shot:
  • The cover for issue #934, seen in the page image.
  • Issue #940's cover serves as a dark echo of #934, showing the team in almost identical positions, but also clearly shaken and beaten up despite being victorious. The actual cover, which was changed days before #940's release, removes Red Robin from the line up. He's the reason everyone appears to be in mourning.
  • The second double page spread of #938 features one as well.
  • A smaller one pops up in #939.
  • Issue #944 has a double one, showing the Bat-team and the Victim Syndicate staring each other down.
• Theatre Phantom: In #950 Cassandra Cain is shown to live in the attic of the Gotham opera house, giving rise to a rumor that it is haunted due to her eerie, stitched-up black mask, and she has taken a particular interest in a ballerina named Christine. The allusion is very obvious, though unlike usual examples she is both silent and entirely benign.
• This Is Something She's Got to Do Herself: Batwoman tries to do this after the Colony captures the Belfry. She owns up to falling for the Batman Gambit and says that facing her father is something she needs to do alone, since she doesn't want to put everyone else in danger as a result of her mistake. The rest of the team (particularly Tim) won't hear of it, and they all eventually form a plan together.
• Those Two Guys: Luke and Jean-Paul tend to usually be seen together.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill:
  • What leads to the Breaking the Fellowship moment. Batwoman kills Clayface to save Gotham, which splits the team in half - Batman, Tim and Cassandra uphold this trope because they should always find another way. Batwoman, Batwing and Azrael feel differently; they saved the day and sometimes having to do the hard thing like that is probably the only way.
  • Deconstructed in the following issue: Batman brings in Barbara and the Robins to determine what to do with Batwoman. While Dick and Tim sides with Bruce, Jason and Barbara side with Kate and both point out why Bruce acted the way he did - Jason thinks Bruce got his pride and ego hurt by Kate's actions while Barbara points out that Kate isn't like the rest of them and feels Jason is right but not the way he thinks as she feels that, had Martha been alive when this happened, she would have sided with Kate and that scares him the most.
• Too Dumb to Live: Jacob Kane thinks that his sister and her husband got murdered because Thomas Wayne was this. In Detective Comics #939:
  Jacob: Walking down a back alley in this damn city, in that part of town? What the hell was he thinking?
• Two Lines, No Waiting: "A Lonely Place of Living" takes place concurrently with Action Comics' "The Oz Effect" storyline as Mr. Oz/Jor-El is too busy dealing with Superman to deal with Tim's breakout.
• Unskilled, but Strong: Played with. Clayface may have some really cool superpowers, but when it comes to hand-to-hand combat he's woefully inept. One of the goals of Batwoman's training program is to teach him how to fight without the aid of his powers.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: In #937, Tim asks Kate what her plan is to rescue Batman, and the scene ends there. The next time we see the team, they've already infiltrated the Colony's base and are set to attack them, and in #938 their plan does succeed almost perfectly.
• Vagueness Is Coming: The Red Robin story in #950 has Tim postulate that all of the status quo changes in the Bat-Family's recent history (Dick becoming Nightwing again, Jason and his team getting closer than ever to the Gotham underworld, Damian leading a new group of Teen Titans, Duke Thomas becoming Bruce's new protege, and Bruce forming a team of young Gotham heroes with Kate) have been deliberately initiated by Bruce in anticipation of some massive, looming threat. Bruce refuses to say what it is, but the story ends with the captions "Dark days are coming" and "2017." It is most likely leaning towards Dark Nights: Metal.
• Villainous Lineage: Played with. After learning Shiva is her mother and even worse than her already-despicable father, Cass becomes convinced that she is destined to be evil as well, despite not wanting to be.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Spoiler practically projectile vomits in #944 when Mr. Noxious poisons her.
• We Can Rule Together:
  • Jacob Kane repeatedly tries to convince Kate to join the Colony. It doesn't work.
  • While not villainous in nature, Tim says this to Steph (as foreshadowing?) in #963.
• Well-Intentioned Extremist:
  • Stephanie to a lesser extent than most. She believes that, by doing away with anything Bat-related, things can be normal. She attempts to blackmail Bruce into giving up, then declares she's going to interfere with everything she can, starting with sabotaging the Bat-Signal. Batman's convinced that this is just Stephanie's way of grieving (as he states that he was an idiot for not letting her grieve properly and just tossing her back into the field) and that she'll get her head back in the game. Issue #957 explains the ideology: Stephanie believes that, by effectively smothering Batman's influence over Gotham, the kind of criminals she believes are created by Batman's presence will stop. She does this by sabotaging the Bat Signal and forcing the police to confront the criminals without the Bat's help. She'll also drop in and attack them and attempt to escape, effectively giving the GCPD all the credit. By the time we catch up with her, she's done this five times in three weeks (and annoying the hell out of Bullock) and the solicitations for #963 hint that she's running herself ragged in her uphill battle.
  • Tim Drake in #946 as he considers complete control is perfectly normal goal to set. Ironically reproaches it to Bruce who was seemingly only following his advice in #950.
• Wham Line:
  • In issue #966, The Batman of Tomorrow tells Tim Drake to apologize to Conner Kent for everything and the present day Tim response is:
  Tim Drake/Red Robin: Conner? Who the hell is Conner?
  • The end of #967:
  Brother Eye is online.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • Mayor Atkins calls out Batman for his more militaristic angle, especially using Clayface and what amounts to a bunch of teenagers.
  • Batwoman and Spoiler get upset with Tim for his plan to ally with the Colony.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final pages of #981 shows what happens to the former Gotham Knights: Cassandra remains in Gotham, living with Leslie Thompkins and being tutored by Barbara Gordon, Clayface ended up Faking the Dead, Batwing is temporarily retiring to focus studying the Brother Eye tech remaining, Batwoman's flying solo again with her father aiding her in a much more protagonistic light and Tim and Stephanie are off to seek out the truth about the timelines.
• Worf Had the Flu:
  • True, Batman gets the living crap beat out of him by a group of Colony soldiers. But there were fifty of them, and they had just wrecked his Batmobile. Plus, he did take a few of them out before losing.
  • Stephanie turns on and attacks the team in #946 and #947, quickly neutralizing them all aside from Batman. However, the team was caught off-guard by the attack and were "softened up" by a loud sound being played through their radios. Plus, they were all taken out with gadgetry as opposed to actual fighting. And Cass didn't even try to fight back before being taken out, and instead tried to solve things peacefully.
• Would Hit a Girl: The Colony employs both male and female soldiers. When Batman escapes their custody, he neutralizes a female soldier by tossing a few batarangs into her arm, then KOs her by slamming her head into a wall so hard her facemask shatters.
• You Are in Command Now: Played with. Batman and Batwoman are equal in terms of their authority in the new team, but Batwoman suddenly finds herself forced into being the sole leader of the group after Batman is captured by the Colony. This is all in the midst of Kate experiencing some doubts about her new position, since even though she started out wanting a leadership role back when she was in the military, recent life experiences, such as the back half of Batwoman, have seriously shaken her self-confidence both as a soldier and as an individual.
• You Are Too Late: In issue #966, the Future Tim Drake tells his past self that they were abducted by Mr. Oz because something was afoot, and the only reason they've gotten free is because whatever it is was about to happen.

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