Oh, YOU! You...Complete. Me.

Two days of terrible gas and intermittent sleeplessness/oversleep dichotomy, with Steve slotted back into the role of caregiver for both Cal and I plus work-from-home breadwinner; the most useful thing I found the energy to do was buy and fill another DVD sleeve, plus separating all the To Be Watched stuff out into a half-sleeve, while obsessively rewatching The Dark Knight over and over. I still love it, though it does make me wonder what the Nolanverse can possibly manage as an encore, while preserving the stuff that really worked about phases one and two.

For example: Thematically, it’s become really obvious that while Batman Begins was about Bruce learning/daring to be Batman, The Dark Knight is both about Batman’s effect on Gotham and the Joker learning to be the Joker, as a result…a sort of negative mentorship by example: Oh look, THERE’s a guy who’s remade himself, turned himself into a symbol, a figurehead for his personal philosophy—sounds pretty good, don’t it, Jack [or whoever]?

And…here—we—GO.

Other things which strike me, on closer examination:

* The scars? I think he cut them on himself. To destroy any hope of tracing whoever he was before, create a completely new identity, etc. They do look creepily…fresh, in a lot of ways, not the least how they seem to spring open slightly whenever somebody punches him in the face.

* Steve still thinks he was some sort of Jason Bourne guy, a black ops dude picked for a particular sort of psychological instability (it’s far easier to make an efficient killer out of a sociopath, I suppose), then trained in military strategy, interrogation techniques, etc. That limp could be an old(er) war injury. Given how ably he modifies his approach to fit each new person/set of people he wants to persuade, from the Crime Syndicate to Batman to Harvey “Two-Face” Dent, I have to concur.

* And the best part? Though you’d have to posit some sort of governmental tie-in/cover-up to explain why his DNA and fingerprints aren’t in the system, given his obvious proclivities, there’s been a real up-tick in corporate security details which operate like private armies-for-hire through the world’s hot zones, over the last ten years. So that might account for where “Jack Napier”’s records went, and how he knows so much about conducting massive, interlocking campaigns to achieve several targets at once.

From my POV, the best place the Nolans could go after this would be exactly where they don’t want to go—moving on to the (slightly) less negative mentorship effect Batman eventually spreads out to the rest of the DC universe, in terms of the Bat-family (which, while I’m hardly as obsessed with it as some of my virtual friends are, I really don’t think can ever be underestimated/dismissed): All the various Robins, Nightwing, Batgirl/Oracle, Spoiler, etc. Personally, in much the same way I’d’ve rather Sam Raimi had never involved Venom in the Spider-Man franchise, I’d FAR rather they not skip immediately on to the whole Azrael/Hush/whoever that dude was who broke Batman’s back thing, since this is still young Batman we’re talking about—but then again, the fact that this is still young Batman maybe precludes him turning into weird/indifferent/inappropriate Vigilante Daddy-figure during their run at the helm, anyhow.

Okay. So what then?

Keeping to the Year One model, the perfect candidate for ambivalent sidekick figure/love interest is, of course, Catwoman. Who at this point would be a street person/cage fighter/friend of hookers/thief who, much like the Joker, sees Batman going by and thinks: Ooh YEAH, bay-BEE. Got to get me some of THAT action…in both senses of the phrase, maybe. So at first they’re rivals and then they connect—Bruce being all fucked over by Rachel Dawes’ death and Harvey’s fall, and on the run from the po-leece, which makes her (and maybe him) think they’re more alike than not—and eventually, she repudiates him but also repudiates her completely underworld status as well, becoming more of an antiheroine, the Han Solo/Luke Cage asskicker-for-hire she is right now, in the DCU.

And you know what would be really cool? Parallel this with the Joker turning Harleen Quinzel into Harley Quinn. Explore all the ways that this process is both something that gets done to her and something she cooperates with, blossoming into a new identity which she finds just as fulfilling (in a fucked-up way) as Selina Kyle finds her transition from nobody special to oh-shit-it’s-HER! If cutting was involved in the process, that’d also be amazing—but not on the face, I think. Because an integral part of Harley’s superpowers is her continued ability to seem freakishly normal, at least above the neck.;))

Also: More use of Scarecrow as a background character. Reveal that Harvey’s not really dead, just stuck in Arkham. Maybe some other “new” minor-level supervillains, but Catwoman and Harley as the main “new” BBs, because this ‘verse needs more chicks in it generally—especially ones who aren’t (just) eye-candy, and don’t end up dead.

Potential casting? Joseph Gordon-Levitt as the new Joker, which makes him a bit younger than Heath, but I think he can handle it, especially going on stuff like The Lookout. Somebody like Rosario Dawson as Selina, though maybe not actual Rosario Dawson—someone visibly not light-bright-white, who can be athletic, charming, sexual and fierce, and who won’t put up with any of Bruce’s shit. Kristen Bell as Harley—maybe not as helium-voiced as the ‘toon version, but she’s blonde, compact, snarky and visibly smart enough that you could genuinely believe she might be a psychiatric intern. She could definitely handle Harley’s attraction to violence and willingness to use her looks to get what she wants, too. And she and JG-L would make a pretty cool couple.

Because: You can’t fall into the trap of not recasting, or dropping the Joker entirely, “just” because of Heath Ledger’s death; once the Joker’s in the mix, he has to stay. No one else packs even half the same punch, and besides, he’s RIGHT—they will be doing this forever. Guaranteed.

Okay, well…that went on longer than I thought it would. I need a bath, and then—after I let my hand relax a bit—I think I’ll try to write something “for real”. The very idea!