What If Batman...

It's been a while since I wrote a "What If" scenario exploring the possibility of a character or event being changed in some way and seeing the repercussions of that change. I've talked about Superman being raised by apes and Spider-Man being bit by deadly erection-giving spiders, but one character I haven't touched on is The Dark Knight himself. And now-with multiversal versions of Batman featuring in "Dark Knights Metal"-it seems like the perfect time to explore a Batman who went down a very different road. So, What If Batman Was a Sorcerer?

First of all: this wasn't my first idea. I had three other Batman-related ideas I might want to try in the future. What if Jason Todd/Robin DIDN'T die in "Death in The Family"? What if Barbara Gordon/Batgirl DID die in "Killing Joke"? And what if  Bruce Wayne/Batman never recovered from his back injury in "Knightfall"? If you're eager to read one of these possibilities first, comment below! But for this post I wanted to do something crazy. Batman, a sorcerer? Batman has already proved himself an amazing martial artist, scientist, engineer, detective, chemist, linguist, singer, musician, inventor, business man, and actor. But magic? He's never really touched it. Spiritualism, sure. But not magic.

In this What If he's not just going to knock on Zatanna's front door. No, no, Bruce is going to learn magic early in his life. See, we all know Bruce spends some ten or so years training himself after the death of his parents, but one form of training may overlook is his ability to escape traps. For that Bruce trained under magician/escape artist Giovanni Zatara, a superhero in his right. In modern tellings of this training he is also accompanied by Zatara's daughter Zatanna Zatara. She'll go on to be own superhero too, but most people don't know she and Bruce had a bit of a fling back then. After all, she's a teenage girl and this attractive, moody, teenage rich kid lives with her and her dad to learn some escape tricks? Kinda hard to fight hormones in that instance. But this is where our story starts to deviate. Bruce doesn't turn a nose at the concept of magic, he embraces it and insists Giovanni to teach him. After much coercing and pleads from his daughter, Zatara teaches Bruce a few basic spells to shut him up. But after Bruce makes it clear he's planning to do with this power, Giovanni uses magic to erase Bruce's memory of ever wanting to learn magic. The next decade proceeds as normal.

Until one of Batman's many encounters with The Mad Hatter, a villain specializing in hypnotism. After a close brainwashing, Bruce undergoes a psychological evaluation. He already knows how messed up in the head he is, he just wants to make sure he isn't any MORE messed up. He discovers a moment in time he can't account for, and he recalls The Mad Hatter making a comment about "not all the pieces being there" while trying to brainwash him. Upon further research and even risking his life against The League of Assassins, Batman meets with Ra's al Ghul, the only person he knows capable of mystic memory alteration. Out of respect for The Dark Knight's determination (and because his daughter has the hots for him) Ra's uses his own magic to trace it back to Giovanni Zatara. Then all it takes is a trip to Zatanna and some hero-to-hero trust to have Zatanna unlock the memories in Batman's mind. Rekindling the spark of magic laying dormant within.

From there Batman uses his small knowledge of magic to fully study the arts, becoming trained in conjuring, elemental manipulation, basic sorcery, levitation, teleportation, and spiritual projection. I think in Batman's case-personally speaking-he'd primarily use conjuring to keep an endless supply of tools, levitation to remove the need of a grappling gun, teleportation to remove the need of vehicles, and shadow manipulation and illusions to better utilize the fear of others. And some type of psychic abilities to be a better detective. And he'd actively avoid necromancy because-as much as he misses them-Batman knows he'd be disrespecting his parents if he revived them. Along with these abilities could come a slight change of costume, less heavy as he has mystic defenses now. Additionally, he'd probably pass on these abilities to his sidekicks. Nightwing would probably use magic to distract and annoy his foes, Batgirl would've avoided being crippled by The Joker, and Robin/Jason Todd might be alive if he knew a basic teleportation spell. The crime rate in Gotham would also fall down because-not only is their main hero invincible-but now he can use seals of containment to keep the bad guys in prison! If anything, guys like The Joker and Two-Face might make deals with devils and Poison Ivy and Mr. Freeze would try to become actual elementals, driving Gotham's masked community into a more extreme direction.

Batman would be more valuable on the Justice League, able to defeat Superman without any tools (maybe he'd loosen up knowing that), and he'd probably strike up a romance with Zatanna again seeing as how it's thanks to her he could achieve all this. Then again, he could end up being the target of The Spectre or Trigon, he could have an uneasy relationship with John Constantine or he could upset Swamp Thing and Etrigan The Demon. More power means more problems, too. And in the hands of someone like Batman, magic could be a dangerous tool. One that could be abused. It would truly be a test of will to see if the power would corrupt him, if The Joker killing one important person would set Batman off. And if this could turn The Dark Knight into a Dark Emperor. In that case it would take the whole Justice League to take him down, it would mean some type of ban on magic, and lead to the DC Universe seeing magic as a slippery slope. Just as Giovanni did all those years ago.

So those are some basic ideas covering Batman with magical powers. He'd probably do really well for the first few years, but let it all get to his head fast enough. As if a Batman with contingency plans wasn't scary enough now he can literally snap his fingers and lock you in a box. Maybe that's why Batman has to be the one human guy on the team, because otherwise his cracked brain would mesh with ultimate power like acid meshes with flesh. Well, at the very least we'd get a new evil Dark Knight for "Dark Knight Metal" out of it.

Thanks for reading!