YMMV / Batman: Bad Blood

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Talia's Face–Heel Turn: her simply revealing her true nature or the result of the Lazarus Pit altering her personality?
  • Talia's cold-blooded execution of Heretic. The way she does it, it can look very much like a Kick the Dog moment, but it is possible to justify it from her point of view. He is clearly mentally unstable by then, a loose cannon who upsets her plans and threatens her associates with death unless they go along with his zany schemes. It's quite possible that he would become violent (and so, very dangerous, since he's a borderline Super-Soldier) if she rejected him openly. From her perspective, lulling him into safety and killing him quickly and cleanly quite possibly was the best and most humane option she had—it's not like she could just turn him over to the mental health system for confinement and treatment, which would have been the default "heroic" option.
  • Talia's feelings for Bruce Wayne/Batman in this continuity. She obviously feels very strongly for him, but viewers may differ on the exact nature of those feelings. Is she very deeply and sincerely in love with him, or just possessively obsessed with him?
• Base-Breaking Character: Due to changes in her backstory and her Adaptational Jerkass, Batwoman can be difficult to like in this film. Some see her as a decent adaption with her backstory being simplified to leave the film room for the plot and other characters, others feel that the changes cause several problems and in some ways ruin the character. Some have also complained that despite getting more development than Batwing, she arguably contributes the least to the plot: her most noticeable actions are telling Dick and Damian the circumstances of Bruce's "death", giving Batwing the flash drive without telling the others so the brainwashed Bruce would tell Talia who would then brainwash her father to try and kill Kate instead of Luke, and having a Designated Girl Fight with Talia that she loses.
• Character Rerailment: Talia al Ghul being the true Big Bad of the movie fits in more with how Grant Morrison portrayed her during their run in the Batman's titles.
• Complete Monster: Talia al Ghul, the new leader of the League of Assassins, is a Control Freak of the highest order, and Took a Level in Jerkass from Son of Batman. Her ultimate plan is is to use Bruce Wayne's technology to brainwash the world leaders attending his tech summit, in order to expand the League of Assassins' influence over the planet. Talia assembles a team of villains under the command of the Heretic, the adult clone of her and Bruce's Child by Rape Damian Wayne, and orders them to capture Bruce so his mind could be broken with Mad Hatter's machine; Mad Hatter has been forced to cooperate by means of an Explosive Leash. Later, Talia sends Heretic to attack Wayne Enterprises in order to steal technology necessary for her plan, near-fatally wounding Lucius Fox in the assault. When Heretic breaks down and begs for Talia to love him as a mother, and wishing to have Damian's memories, she shoots him in the head for disobeying her orders regarding Damian. As the brainwashing is taking place, she orders a mind-controlled Bruce to shoot Dick Grayson and their son Damian dead, coldly proclaiming that she and Bruce could always "make more".
• Draco in Leather Pants: The Mad Hatter is viewed with plenty of sympathy by fans, even though he murders two security guards with a smile on his face and (however much he fears Talia's Bad Boss tendencies) he presumably joins her organization willingly.
• He's Just Hiding: It's tempting to question whether Killer Moth and Hellhound might have survived being crushed by falling debris at the abbey, or whether Onyx might have survived the explosion of Talia's vessel after already having a No One Could Survive That! moment.
• Iron Woobie: All heroes. Bruce is kidnapped and brainwashed by Talia, who orders him to kill his own children. Nightwing and Damian nearly get killed by their father. Batwoman lost her mother and sister, and is attacked by her brainwashed father. Alfred nearly loses his master and a man who is like son to him. Luke nearly loses his father too. They still go on and stop criminals.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • The Mad Hatter is mainly working for Talia under death threat, even apologising to Damian and expressing his regret, and is rather brutally killed off.
  • The Heretic does evil deeds only to impress his "mother", Talia al Ghul, and wants to be loved by her. And when he begs her to love him back, she sees his display of emotions as a flaw and offs him instead.
• Just Here for Godzilla: Some viewers are only interested in seeing Batwoman and/or Batwing's first animated appearance.
• Memetic Mutation: Once the title was revealed, comments about Taylor Swift doing the soundtrack became extremely popular due to her song "Bad Blood". As well as fans of a certain web-parody.
• Narm: The Mad Hatter's death would normally be horrifying, as he is electrocuted until his head explodes; but his facial expression instead makes it one of the funniest scenes in the entire film, due to his exaggerated and cartoonishly bulgy eyes.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • Black Mask appears and gets his mask burned to his face like in the comics.
  • Barbra Gordon' triumphant debut as Batgirl, which only happens at the very end of the film.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: The general reaction to Damian in this film has been more positive than the previous films, since he's less of a focus and faces enemies who are more of a match for him.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: Fan reception has been much more positive than Son of Batman and Batman vs. Robin, with points of praise coming from the focus on an ensemble cast (as opposed to just Damian), character arcs for Nightwing and Batwoman, a good soundtrack and decent animation, particularly the fight choreography.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: While Batwoman's backstory is largely correct based on the comics and some fans don't have an issue with how it was presented, other viewers have problems with a few details:
  • In the film, Kate was very nearly raped and saved only by Batman's intervention, while in the comics she was mugged and managed to fight off her attacker on her own, with Batman only showing himself afterward. Despite facing four thugs in the film as opposed to just one in the comics (although it's not uncommon for punks to brood around bars), as well as visibly not being in top shape, some viewers see this as weakening her character and possibly even making her a Damsel in Distress.
  • Kate rudely brushes off Batman when he offers her a hand up in the film, while she was more awestruck by him in the comics and accepted his help in standing. Again, some think this casts Kate in too negative a light.
  • While it doesn't make the character as timeless, many people like that she left the military under Don't Ask, Don't Tell in the comics, as it shows her choosing to embrace her identity as opposed to hiding it — it is considered the most powerful moment of her origin, and makes being queer a part of her origin without defining her entire character. The film has her have a breakdown, basically eliminating her agency in the matter and removes the queer aspect from the origin of one of, if not the biggest name queer characters.
  • Finally, Batwoman states that after her attack she decided to fight crime in order to never be a victim again, while her comic counterpart took up vigilantism as an alternative to serving in the military, an option no longer open to her at that point in her life; some see movie Batwoman's motive as being too cliche compared to her comic version.

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