What Could Have Been / Batman

Looks like the Caped Crusader took a few design cues from his sidekick Robin.^note Recreation of Bob Kane's original concept of Batman by Arlen Schumer

Given the franchise's 80+ year history, it should come as no surprise that many ideas for Batman were proposed and then subsequently thrown into the bat trash. The examples below are just some of these very ideas.

Works with their own pages:

• Batman: The Animated Series
  • Batman Beyond

Batman

• Batman himself turned out much different from how Bob Kane first envisioned him. Bill Finger described the character as having worn red tights like Superman, a pair of red bat wings, and a small black domino mask. Finger, inspired by The Phantom, offered an alternative costume design which became an early version of the iconic bat suit. Robin was originally to be named "Mercury", and would be a young boy that would wear a "super-costume". Jerry Robinson convinced Kane to bring the character down to a more realistic level and call him Robin (after Robin Hood).
• According to Bob Kane, sales for the Batman titles had fallen so drastically by the early 60's that DC was considering killing the franchise altogether. The "New Look" period (as well as the concurrent editorial shake-up) was designed to revitalize the franchise. It worked.
• During the "New Look" era in the Silver Age (where Batman first gained a yellow oval on his chest and returned to his earlier detective tone), Carmine Infantino had wanted Batman to start using handguns again. Julius Schwartz nixed this idea, since Infantino's main justification for giving Batman guns was that he thought it'd look cool.
• The reason for the creation of Jason Todd: One of the Batman writers had wanted to de-age Dick Grayson and return him to being Batman's sidekick. However, Marv Wolfman, as writer on Teen Titans (DC's hottest property at the time), wielded a lot of power and suggested that instead, a new character could be introduced as Robin as a gimmick to boost sales, since such a thing hadn't really happened before.
• During his original run of Robin, Chuck Dixon ultimately planned for Tim Drake to move on to becoming Blue Beetle for a period of time. Dixon had set up foreshadowing by establishing Tim as a fan of Ted Kord, and giving Ted a heart condition that would make it more difficult for him to do strenuous crime-fighting. Tim would then take on the role, while Stephanie Brown would temporarily become Robin in his absence. Tim would then go back to being Robin, and the "Blue Beetle" name would be franchised out, with Ted Kord training other new Beetles. Ted Kord wound up being killed off in Infinite Crisis, albeit when Max Lord killed him and leading to the mantle passing to Jaime Reyes.
  • Chuck Dixon had also planned for there to be a miniseries featuring Spoiler, after she was resurrected and brought back to the Robin title. However, the miniseries never came to pass due to another falling-out between Dixon and DC editorial.
• Gail Simone's original proposition for the Cassandra Cain Batgirl was to have her rescue a sincerely faithful Christian preacher to Gotham's homeless population from a mugging and be converted by his strong faith in forgiveness and the teachings of the Bible. Taking up a new, white-colored costume, and devoting herself to the most vulnerable of Gotham's residents — the mentally ill, the homeless, runaways and immigrants — she would become known as the Angel of the Bat and, for the first time ever, would be genuinely happy.
• Gail Simone revealed via her Tumblr page that Cassandra Cain was originally supposed to join the Birds of Prey after the controversial Death of Oracle storyline, partially to answer complaints about the lack of minorities on the team. Simone claims to have started writing the issue before being informed that Cass would be used in Batman Inc. as the Batwoman of Hong Kong. Which itself now falls under this trope; Grant Morrison wrote Cass into one issue but the New 52 threw things out of whack. It now appears she's (retroactively) been removed from the Batman Inc. team.
  • Simone also claims that she tried to have Vixen added to the team at several points, for reasons similar to Cassandra. She had also requested to use Flamebird at least twice, but was shot down as the character was restricted to the potential Batwoman title that had been in development hell at the time (A Batwoman story would finally come to pass with Greg Rucka's run on Detective Comics).
• Scott Snyder intended to have Cassandra Cain in his first issue of the New 52 Batman series. Some Executive Meddling led to Cass being removed from the script, which in turn led to Snyder creating Harper Row as a replacement.
• When Alan Grant wrote the first issue of Detective Comics introducing Anarky, he planned for Anarky to become the next Robin. However, his pitch to DC was rejected because plans were already in the works to introduce Tim Drake as the new Robin in Marv Wolfman's Batman. The two characters ended up debuting at more-or-less the same time. Of course, YMMV on whether having Anarky become Robin would have been better or worse, but it certainly would have been different.
• A Death in the Family had two versions of Batman issue #428 drawn up - one where Jason Todd lived and one where he died. If the fans had voted for Jason to live, the page where Batman discovers Jason's body would have instead shown a jubilant Batman crying out to the heavens "He's alive! Thank God!" Later in the issue it also would have shown Jason in hospital, in a coma, with Bruce's narration saying that it was unknown when or if he would recover. Afterwards, Jason would have endured a long period of recovery, after which he would retire as Robin; his role afterwards would have been as a commentator of sorts for the DC Universe. This came very close to happening, with the vote to kill Jason off only winning by 72 votes out of more than 10,000 total.
  • Jim Starlin originally planned to have Jason Todd die in a Tragic Aids Story, but this was vetoed by DC higher-ups, with A Death in the Family being the story that would kill him instead.
• Geoff Johns apparently wanted to reveal that the new Red Hood was actually the Jason Todd of Earth-2, rather than a resurrected version of the Post-Crisis Jason. The idea was that this version of Jason would be a young man who had idolized Batman while growing up, only to snap and become a violent Anti-Hero after discovering that his world's Batman had been murdered. There was also talk of Red Hood being Deathstroke's Robin.^note This is likely the basis for a major plot point in Teen Titans (2003), where Slade seeks to have Robin become his apprentice by force.
• Damian Wayne was supposed to die at the end of the story arc where he was introduced, Batman and Son. Grant Morrison said that the idea was to have Damian start off as a complete brat, only to pull a Heroic Sacrifice after being inspired by his father's heroism. However, Morrison instead opted to bring Damian back from near-death in the next story arc, ultimately make him the new Robin, and then have him Killed Off for Real, believing that killing him after making sure the audience was invested would make his death much more meaningful and shocking. Damian was eventually killed off in Batman Incorporated #8, but ended up being resurrected 17 months after Batman (Grant Morrison) ended.
• A year or so before Cassandra Cain debuted, John Byrne pitched the idea of an Asian-American Batgirl, which he thought would be fitting since bats are considered good luck in several East Asian countries.
• For Death of the Family, Scott Snyder, Gail Simone, and Grant Morrison have all asked to use Cassandra Cain and Stephanie Brown in their stories. Maybe they would have appeared in Bruce's fantasy of his family waiting for him to wake up.
• Sarah Essen-Gordon nearly survived Batman: No Man's Land. The final big storyline before NML ended would have had The Joker murder someone on the GCPD attempting to stop him from killing the babies he kidnapped. Both Harvey Bullock and Renee Montoya were chosen, but different writers fought for their survival. It wasn't until other writers noticed how, coincidentally, Sarah had been foreshadowing something big in her life that they used it to make her the Sacrificial Lamb for the story.
• This happened in a "dream vision" manner at the end of Stephanie Brown's run as Batgirl. Thanks to Black Mercy, she got a vision of a possible future (which the author wrote as ideas he had for the title if it continued). Everyone agrees, they would have been awesome.
• DC was open to having Jean-Paul Valley take over as Batman permanently during the Knightfall storyline, fully phasing out Bruce, if fans had responded positively enough to the change.
• There was a different version of the final issue of Nightwing that came as the aftermath of Forever Evil (2013). The pages show everyone in mourning for Dick's supposed death and reminiscing over various events. According to DC, the new version segued better into Grayson. If what many fans would tell you, they would have preferred this over what they got
  • As well, James Tynion IV had came up with an idea outside of the super spy idea. This would have seen Dick Grayson take up the identity of John Blake, a nod to the character of The Dark Knight Rises, and become a cop while he chases down an escaped Owlman. Dick would use the identity to resume being Nightwing, but a second Nightwing would spring up realizing who he was and Dick would have to stop him, too. Editorial refused to let him use Owlman, hated his ideas for who could be the second Nightwing and ultimately chose to go with the spy thriller.
• Holy Terror was originally meant to be a Batman story set in "Millerverse" Batman called "Holy Terror, Batman!", a nod to Robin's phrase from the 60's Batman series. (Miller was probably not aware of an Elseworld's tale called Batman: Holy Terror) Supposedly, Frank Miller decided to take the book to Legendary because he realized it was "not a Batman story" and the hero was "much closer to Dirty Harry than Batman".^note The other rumor is that the reason for the change was because he was friends with the editor, who was letting him make this story with the Batman characters, but when the editor was canned (and conveniently jumped ship to Legendary), no one was okay with a story of Batman torturing terrorists and Al Qaeda essentially having Illuminati-like reserves and secrets and fired him.
• Around 1996, a Batman/Gen¹³ crossover was being worked on by DC and Image-Wildstorm, and Gen 13 artist J. Scott Campbell would have drawn it. A piece of promotional artwork was shown in Wizard magazine, but Campbell's infamous Schedule Slip habits and his departure from the regular Gen 13 title eventually doomed the crossover.
• "Jolly Ol' Saint Nicholas", one of a series of shorts in The Batman Adventures Holiday Special and later adapted in The New Batman Adventures episode "Holiday Knights", originally had a scene where Barbara Gordon, banking on the panicking crowd seeing Clayface being too busy panicking, change into Batgirl in front of them. According to Bruce Timm, it was based off of a panel from an issue of Supergirl. DC quickly nixed the idea, mostly because, as the mock-up panel showed, it was quite risque, especially for a comic that's supposed to be more kid-friendly. While the actual comic had Babs dive into a dressing room, "Holiday Knights" instead had her dive between some clothing racks.
• Williams and Blackman's run on Batwoman has boiled down to this trope, due to their final two issues being scrapped when they left DC. Alice's origin would have been delved into, as would that of Director Bones (clarifying whether or not he was related to the Kanes). Kate and Maggie were also to get married (which DC forbid, leading to the writers' departure), and from the sounds of things the climactic fight between Batwoman and Batman would've been far more brutal for both combatants. While their story was concluded in an Annual, they have both made it clear that the Annual was not their ending.
• Kate Leth and Joe Quinones pitched a mini-series called Batman '89, which would have been set in the universe of the two Tim Burton Batman movies, while ignoring Batman Forever and Batman & Robin. The series would have included unused ideas from the films, like an African-American Robin modeled after Marlon Wayans, and a Two-Face who resembled Billy Dee Williams. It also would have introduced "Burtonized" versions of characters who didn't appear in the first two movies, like Batgirl, Harley Quinn, and Poison Ivy. Additionally, Harley Quinn would've been Alicia, the Joker's scarred girlfriend whom he claimed committed suicide. One could draw that conclusion due to the similarities in their masks. While this comic was ultimately never made, Williams would later voice Two-Face in The LEGO Batman Movie, with the character designed to resemble him, and the concept of Duke Thomas ensured that there would eventually be a teenaged African-American in the Bat-Family like Wayans' Robin. On February 16, 2021, Batman '89 was formally announced with Quinones working alongside screenwriter Sam Hamm, as Leth ultimately didn't take part in the final version.
• Scott Snyder had wanted to bring back Harold, a mute hunchback who acted as the Bat Family's mechanic during the '90s, during his Batman run. He realized it wouldn't make any sense since he was currently writing Bruce as an amnesiac and Jim Gordon as the new Batman, so he waited until his All-Star Batman run to reintroduce Harold.
• Scott Snyder and Dan Didio had discussed making Duke Thomas the official Robin or even the new Nightwing (presumably during the period where Dick was thought to be dead), but Snyder decided against it, as he felt that Legacy Characters tend to have short shelf lives. (I wonder who's fault that is, Dan?)
• Scott Snyder and Dennis Medri pitched an idea to DC for a Batman mini-series called Batman: Rebel Yell, which would have reimagined Batman and his other characters in a rockabilly-style.
• Batwoman's costume was designed by Alex Ross to actually be used by Barbara Gordon returning to the role of Batgirl post-Infinite Crisis. DC loved the costume design, but they wanted to make a new Batwoman, thus the design was repurposed for it.
• Batman: The Widening Gyre, written by Kevin Smith, was planned to last twelve issues, but only six were published. The remaining issues were planned to be published as a followup in 2014, titled Batman: Bellicosity, but remains unpublished.
• Batgirl (2011):
  • Gail Simone wanted to be lighter and more optimistic, but editorial felt this wasn't in keeping with the Batbooks. Ironically, after Simone finally quit the book over this, the editors in question also left, and the new DC You creative team basically got to do the book Simone wanted to write.
  • The original proposed explanation for Barbara being able to walk again apparently involved magic, but Simone flat-out refused to write that, as she considered it offensive.
  • Simone had plans for a storyline where Barbara would've been injured, leading to her friend Alysia Yeoh temporarily taking over as the new Batgirl. This would have made Alysia the first Transgender member of the Batman Family. Alysia's counterpart in DC Comics Bombshells would later be depicted as part of a team of Batgirls, with the concept of Alysia filling in as Batgirl for an incapacitated Barbara later being recycled in DC Pride 2022 for the story "Up a Bat".
• Stephanie Brown's time as Robin could have been actually longer. Stephanie, for better or worse, had been scheduled to die during Batman: War Games. The writer of Robin at the time wanted to do something with Stephanie before her death and was allowed to make her Robin (he compared it to a dying kid getting a Make-A-Wish dream come true). Surprisingly, Steph-as-Robin proved to be popular and there was an uptick in sales for the Robin title. However, it was too far in to make a massive last-minute change and Steph died as scheduled.
• Christopher Priest's Deathstroke run featured a storyline that implied that Slade Wilson was Damian's true biological father. While the resolution eventually reconfirmed that Bruce was Damian's dad, Priest's original plan was for it to indeed be Slade. Apparently he and DC had debated this plot point, and Priest claims a final decision wasn't made until mere days before the book went to press.
• Tom King revealed in an interview that a lot of the more controversial stuff in his run happened due to the Executive Meddling by Dan DiDio. It was originally planned for Alfred's brutal Neck Snap from Bane to be a Scarecrow fear gas hallucination, but it was changed to an actual death. Nightwing's bullet through the brain from KGBeast would've instantly been healed by Zatanna rather than him having a long time with amnesia (in fact, this was DiDio's third attempt to get rid of Nightwing, after failing to with Infinite Crisis and Forever Evil (2013)). He also confirmed that the Flashpoint version of Batman / Thomas Wayne wasn't going to be as prominent as he was in the final version, but King was mandated to increase his role, culminating in the character's Face–Heel Turn and alliance with Bane.
  • This tweet revealed that Dick would have been sidelined and relearning to be himself while Tim would become Nightwing while he recovered. Apparently Scott Lobdell pushed for the whole “Ric Grayson” angle.
• The Dark Knight Returns would have had a different ending had Watchmen not intervened. In the original ending, Batman's battle with Superman would have had the Man of Steel regain his full power and beat Batman into submission and capturing him. Batman would then fake a suicide, leading to the normal ending. As Watchmen already had an ending with the villains achieving victory, it was changed to its more iconic ending.
• According to James Tynion IV, The Joker War would have ended with the Joker's death. As hinted with Tom King's final issue of Batman (Tom King), the Joker would have taken this big event, which would have had him take the Wayne Fortune and take all of Batman's vehicles and equipment, and go out on one final fight to the finish. While the Joker would have died, he would have wounded Batman in a way that his current way of fighting would be detrimental, referring back to Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker and how the Joker stabbed Batman's leg, giving him the limp. However, when 5G was cancelled, the Joker ended up getting spared.
  • Bleeding Cool revealed that plans for Batman in the "5G" initiative was vastly different than what was seen in DC Future State and DC Infinite Frontier. After the City of Bane event, Batman would have pushed everyone in the Bat-Family away in grief for Alfred's death. When Joker decided to take over Gotham, Batman would have been pushed over the edge and planned to end the Joker. However, Joker would stop him with a promise - let him go and he'll kill Bane for Alfred's death, causing Batman to do so. After the events of Dark Nights: Death Metal — then known as Death Metal: Dark Crisis — a now-aged up Bruce Wayne would opt to retire, mending fences with the Bat-Family. However, Joker actually does kill Bane, causing a guilt-stricken Bruce to shut down all Batman operations and retire in England, leading to Luke Fox becoming Batman. Luke would fight Damian, who would have taken over Leviathan and followed in Ra's al Ghul's footsteps, and team up with the Jon Kent Superman, leading to the creation of a new World's Finest. The Joker would also reappear and reveal to Luke the deal he made with Bruce, forcing him to bring in Bruce to justice.
• There was going to be a new Batman cartoon by Hanna-Barbera in the mid-80s. A pilot was produced, but when the show was shelved, it was turned into The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians episode "The Fear". Said episode is famous for being unusually dark and serious for the series, showing Batman's origin for the first time in TV and dealing with his trauma stemming from it, indicating that the planned cartoon would have been more mature than other Hanna-Barbera productions. The episode originally being planned as a pilot for a cartoon focusing on Batman would also explain why the episode has Batman just find out that the Scarecrow's real identity is Jonathan Crane in spite of the villain being a member of the Legion of Doom in Challenge of the Superfriends as well as the only heroes who get central focus in the episode being Batman, Robin and Wonder Woman (Wonder Woman's involvement itself suggesting that Batgirl might have been planned to be a character on the unmade show).
• A crossover with Kamen Rider was proposed by Jerry Robertson after meeting Shotaro Ishinomori at an art exhibition in the 90s where the two talked and Roberson showed interest in collaborating with the character. Sadly Ishinomori's worsening health at the time meant it went nowhere.
• During the New 52 rebrand, there was a brief attempt to bring Carrie Kelley from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns into the main Batman continuity, with the plan to have her become Robin. She even got to appear in a couple of issues of Batman and Red Robin, with one issue outright hyping her up as being the next Robin. However, these plans were quickly scrapped (with Carrie getting Chuck Cunningham Syndrome in the process) thanks to her creator Frank Miller, who was angered by her inclusion and would get DC to effectively ban her from appearing in comics outside of his own.
• World's Finest (1941) #323 (January, 1986), wherein Batman angrily breaks off his partnership with Superman, was the book's final issue, but it was supposed to be a temporal cancellation as the higher-ups at DC Comics revamped the concept. However, the new continuity created by Crisis on Infinite Earths later that year led to both characters being rebooted by writers who believed Superman and Batman to be too different to get along, let alone want to hang out together, making a team-up book impossible for a while.
• Mixed with Executive Meddling, Jason Todd was originally supposed to be Hush, until executives got cold feet and vetoed it at the last minute. However, the buzz over the supposed resurrected Jason opened new doors for the character and Judd Winick later brought him back via the Under The Hood storyline.
• Jason was supposed to be the new Nightwing in Nightwing: One Year Later but Geoff Johns lobbied to spare Dick of this fate though, resulting in Devin Grayson and Bruce Jones (the writer of the OYL arc) scrambling to write the story, with Tentacle!Jason being the end result. This also resulted in Dick's out of character behavior in Outsiders, as Winick was likely writing under the impression that Jason was Nightwing instead of Dick.

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