All Eyes on Batman

A long time ago I told you readers about an obscure Batman villain named The Ten Eyes Man. Since then, other lame Batman villains like Crazy Quilt and Kite-Man have made reappearances. Out of shear boredom (I have a stomach issue now so I'm staying in), I'd like to pitch a cross-over comic book event leading to the return of The Ten-Eyed Man. This is my Pitch-It for a new version of The Ten-Eyed Man who would premier. This is "Ommetaphobia".
Throughout these titles, ten versions of The Ten-Eyed Man would appear in both big and small ways. All leading up to one version of the character who'd be a new threat to Batman and the DCU.

10. "Batman Beyond"

In the futuristic city of Neo-Gotham, Terry McGinnis (the new Batman) is the successor of Bruce Wayne/Batman. In this tie-in story, Batman battles a Techno-Cult called "The Sons of Ekron". This group is led by an elderly Emerald Empress and they have slowly been kidnapping senior citizens with connections to the U.S. government. Batman fails to stop The Empress from stealing the eyes of each senior and using them for an eye-scan at a government facility. In this secret room she acquires The Eye of Ekron which restores her youth and her powers. Though he cannot stop her from being restored, Batman is able to split her from the eye and contain her. While The Emerald Empress and her men are arrested, Bruce ponders over an eye-themed villain from his early days and the fight he put up. We then see The Eye of Ekron fly to an abandoned observatory. It is there the Eye confronts an old man with no eyes.

9. "Harley Quinn"

In her apartment complex on Coney Island, Harley Quinn's neighbors are contracting a bizarre form of Pink Eye. So bizarre, some of them are generating heat vision and x-ray vision. The former becomes quite the annoyance for Harley. Harley contacts several people for help, including an eye doctor, Batman, Superman, Scarecrow, The Riddler, Man-Bat, and, finally, Mr. Freeze. With nothing better to do, Mr. Freeze and Harley do some research on the disease. When Poison Ivy's plants start dying from the cold, she uses her heat vision to fight Mr. Freeze only burning her plants as a result. This leads to Mr. Freeze using his ice powers and the heat vision of Poison Ivy to kill the Pink Eye virus via freezing and melting. However, the last person with Pink Eye is overwhelmed by it's influence. He becomes The Pink Eyed Man and fights Harley. Though he escapes, Harley leaves The Pink Eyed Man with a permanent black eye.

8. "Super-Sons"

Damian Wayne and Jon Kent are trying to have fun at a fare at Coney Island when they spot The Pink Eyed Man running from Harley, Ivy, and Freeze. They ignore this dilemma out of sheer astonishment. A week later, Batman and Superman are in the Batcave talking about Harley contacting them about the eye disease. They choose to believe it wasn't as bad as she put it, but Damian and Jon overhear this and decide to look into it. Superboy and Robin eventually discover the Pink Eyed Man-now The Black Eyed Man-is hunting down U.S. Army veteran Philip Reardon, who was blinded by a flash grenade in Iraq. The Super-Sons save Reardon and contain the Black Eyed Man. But when they take the monster to Batman and Superman, it degenerates into ash.

7. "Batwoman"

At the behest of former love interest Maggie Sawyer, Kate Kane/Batwoman travels to Metropolis and hunts down a serial killer nicknamed "Pluck". All his victims have their eyes plucked out of their skulls. Batwoman talks to one victim who escaped and gives a description of "Pluck". Using the eye witnesses' account, Batwoman deduces "Pluck" is a famous artist who had traveled to Metropolis for an art show. Batwoman and "Pluck" fight it out at an art show before the art show. When the art show opens, "Pluck" is beaten and tied-up. Batwoman goes home to Gotham while Maggie investigates "Pluck's" backroom where all the eyes are glued to a canvas. The eyes form a picture of a larger eye, but the very center of the eye is replaced with a hard drive.

6. "Red Hood & The Outlaws"

Red Hood, Bizarro Superman, and Artemis are on a cargo plane flying over Egypt. In the aircraft are a group of mercenaries using stolen super-villain technology. While Bizarro and Artemis struggle to battle psychic torture devices, Red Hood is tossed off the plane and into the desert below. He wanders for days on end, slowly losing sanity as he travels. Eventually, he discovers a small village where he begs for help. The locals fear his mask and guns, and the village elder-Seeker-defeats Red Hood in combat. Jason Todd is nursed back to health and told of his village's history. In a rush to help his team, Jason demands for a phone or anything to help him contact the outside world. The Seeker assures Jason his friends are fine and uses his mystic powers to show Jason a vision of Bizarro and Artemis crashing the plane and handing the stolen weapons to authorities in Africa. The Seeker than tells Jason that for every grain of sand in the desert there is a set of eyes that he can see through. Seeker uses his powers to alert Bizarro of Red Hood's location. When Bizarro and Artemis arrive, Red Hood is sitting in the desert. There is no village, and Red Hood is simply playing with sand.

5. "Detective Comics"

During a girl's night out, Cassandra Cain/Orphan, Stephanie Brown/Spoiler, and Harper Row/Bluebird, get a radio call from Batman regarding The Riddler, who had escaped police custody a few days ago. At his request, the ladies suit up and track The Riddler down to a closed-down arcade The Riddle outfitted into his fortress. The girls have travel to the basement of the arcade and overcome the challenges that await them. The various traps start to tire them out, but the girls figure out the traps are all sensor-based. Using their own tech, they essentially "blind" Riddler's defenses and get into his office. The Riddler refuses to leave his desk because he's trying to decode a hard drive that features eye-based lock systems. They knock The Riddler unconscious and the girls-with their own respective intelligence-figure out the hard drive's code can only be broken by syncing it up to one other hard drive.

4. "Batgirl"

While in Africa, Barbara Gordon sneaks into an evidence room at a police headquarters. Her inner monologue explains she was just roaming through Africa when she heard of Red Hood's previous adventure. Since she knew the authorities had super-villain tech, she wanted to see what kind of weaponry they had and-if she felt it necessary-inform Batman so he can confiscate all of it. Batgirl finds the psychic torture device and is caught by a security guard. She tries to escape, but the guard foolishly puts the device on believing he could use it's powers to stop her. The guard is paralyzed and Batgirl tries to help him. By hacking into the device, Batgirl is sent into a trance where she sees all her memories splayed before her. However, some memories are not of her own. Memories of time in a wheelchair being much longer, memories of communicating with Blue Beetle, The Suicide Squad, and other people she's never met. One memory is guarded by The Seeker and Batgirl wants answers. Through telepathic combat, Batgirl reveals the memory to be the time she and Dick Grayson accidentally killed a criminal. Seeker fights back again and before she can do anymore, Batgirl wakes up and is arrested by the African police.

3. "Nightwing"

In the Batcave, Nightwing and Batman look over the unconscious body of Batgirl. According to Batman, she hit an SOS beacon on her belt before the cops got her. The aftereffects of the psychic device caused her to fade in and out of consciousness, but she muttered the name "Reardon" over and over. Batman tells Nightwing of a soldier named Philip Reardon that Damian and Jon protected, as well a hard drive given to him by Bluebird. Batman's research led him to find out where it's matching hard drive is. While Batman goes to Metropolis, Nightwing agrees to talk to Philip. When Philip hears Nightwing's voice, he recalls the day he died at the hands of Robin and Batgirl. Philip recalls how before he went into the Army, he was a petty bank thief. Then Robin and Batgirl chased him on the rooftops. But the power was out that night and Phil couldn't see well, he jumped to his death and remembers Robin and Batgirl standing over him. Nightwing wants to know why he can't remember, but before he can get anymore info Phil's house is broken into by The Black Eyed Man. Nightwing beats the monstrous villain, but from the ashes of his body more Black Eyed Men appear. They overwhelm him as The Seeker appears in the room and carries Phil away.

2. "Batman"

Batman is leaving Metropolis in his Batwing and with him he has the second hard drive. As we see him flying home, entering the cave, and turning on the computers, we're treated to dialog between him and Maggie Sawyer. Finally, Batman decodes the hard drives and it reveals a location: Vietnam. While Batman prepares for the trip, Batgirl awakes again and can sense Nightwing is in danger. Robin offers to scope out the Vietnam sight for Batman, but Batman believes it's too dangerous. Just then, Red Hood and Batwoman arrive and reveal they've both been researching this eye-criminal and they offer their help. Using cameras from Nightwing's mask they learn the Black Eyed Men are dragging him to an observatory outside the city. Batman orders Batwoman, Batgirl, and Red Hood to save Nightwing while he and Robin go to Vietnam. After going through the jungles, Batman and Robin find a field of headstones, each is a burial for American soldiers. Sitting on a headstone is The Ten Eyed Man, musing over how he should've died here. Batman keeps him talking while Robin sneaks around. As he explains, The Ten Eyed Man was never reset like everyone else, he was immune to the changes that befell the world. He asks if Batman remembers him, he claims they met in Gotham in 1970. "I was a child then" Batman claims, "how could I have known you". The Ten Eyed Man signs at Batman's ignorance, "You've changed too". Robin attacks only find the man was a hologram. Quickly, Batman and Robin dig into the grave thinking the answers lie beneath. They find Philip Reardon's body, but after a quick autopsy Batman finds this man wasn't blind.

1. "Ommetaphobia"

Red Hood, Batwoman, and Batgirl break into the observatory where The Seeker and his gang of Black Eye Men await them. "Pluck" the serial killer artist has joined The Seeker as well and they hold Philip and Nightwing captive. Before any fists can be thrown, the puppeteer behind all this reveals himself, The Ten Eyed Man (costume and all). He continues to muse on how he remained the same while the world changed and as our heroes battle his minions he assures it is too late. All lines with converge. In Vietnam, Batman and Robin continue studying Philip's body and find something lodged into his skull. An emerald eyeball. Upon finding it, Phil's body glows brightly as do the bodies of the men fighting Batman's allies. Suddenly, the villains fighting Batman's allies vanish and the dead body of Phil rises from the grave in Vietnam. Phil becomes a God-like version of The Ten Eyed Man, followed by ten floating eyes. He then uses his powers to "remind" Batman.
As he tells it, Philip Reardon was a Vietnam veteran who's eyes were damaged. When he came to Gotham, his eyes were damaged once again by a bomb planted in a warehouse he was guarding. When Batman failed to save him, Phil blamed him for his ailment. After extreme surgery, his optic nerves were moved to his fingers so he could see through his hands. He became the villain known as The Ten Eyed Man. But then something strange happened. In 1985, the universe changed. Phil became younger, he could see, and The Ten Eyed Man wasn't him anymore. Out of what he claimed to be "criminal impulses" he became a criminal again and died during a fight with Batgirl and Robin. When he died, he found himself alive again as an artist in the year 1994. Then he awoke again as an ethereal spirit known as The Seeker in 2005. In 2008, he existed as a virus that traveled from eye to eye. Finally, he found himself as a mental patient at Arkham Asylum in 2011. With each recreation he kept his memories, with each new world the previous version of himself existed. It was as if he was blind to changes. In his most recent incarnation he spent time finding the other versions of himself and trying to plan a meeting with them. During his time as The Seeker he encountered an alien entity called Ekron and struck a deal with him. If The Ten Eyed Man could bring Earth into Ekron's control, he'd be given a normal life. Through each of his bodies, The Ten Eyed Man planned for Batman and his Family to find his body from 85', as Ekron implanted a part of himself into that body. It took "the gaze of your first enemy" to unleash Ekron's power.
Batman rallies his family, The Justice League, and any other heroes he can find to come to Vietnam and battle The Ten Eyed Man. By taking out each of the ten giant eyeballs, the heroes are to blur his vision. The Ten Eyed Man is eventually beaten into a mortal state where he claims it's too late. Ekron's influence is over the world now and his return is coming. Batman scoffs at how easy it was to defeat Phil as a God, but maybe-Batman says-maybe Phil didn't plan on winning at all. When the dust clears, Phil is a mortal man with perfect eyesight.
Batman and the superhero community look to find if any versions of The Ten Eyed Man are still around and they search the Earth to find if Ekron exists anywhere. Unbeknownst to all of them, Amanda Waller stayed a step ahead by listening in on the battle and already possessing The Emerald Eye of Ekron, now knowing it's significance. Phil-in prison-seemingly appears happy to have a normal life. But he starts to remember his time in the army has changed, how he was in Iraq instead of Vietnam, how he saw so many high-tech weapons. Phil ignores those thoughts and opens a newspaper where Lois Lane did a report on drone warfare. Phil's eyes stop on the image of ten drones flying through the air.
The end.

Hoof, hope you liked this reinvention of a lame super-villain. Sure gave me something to do for two hours! Viva le Ten Eyed Man!
Thanks for reading!