Gotham needs more art deco architecture, the timeless feel of Gotham is tied to art deco. These days, Gotham has just become New York City lite, and there’s a ton of the heavy gothic stuff. Gargoyles, grotesques, the ornate corners they put on the top.
Gothic is fine, but Art Deco is so much more fitting. Gothic is the realm of angsty maidens wandering moors, monsters beyond the mortal ken. But Art Deco? Men looming larger than life, fighting nature with nothing but science and more gold than God. The triumph of will and imagination over all obstacles in the way.
And, unfortunately, the inevitable failure of those same men to greed and hubris. The natural and easy substitution of money for morals. A build up of corruption and scum under the surface of success and progress.
In other words, the perfect noir background for detective Batman. Good guys who look bad, bad guys who look good, people of an indeterminate gray that blur the lines. A constant struggle against the worst first instincts of man against the backdrop of the seediest underbelly to ever feature in a PI’s opening narrative (like tar staining what sky there was left to see through the smog).
Gotham should have more thematically appropriate Art Deco architecture.
Partner and I talked again. Need to stop that, but this time... We created Bonk Squirtslap, Gotham's newest superhero.
This young fellow has just been kicked from college, and his family are trying to talk him into moving to Metropolis. Gotham came up as a comparison, and he wanted to know why he shouldn't move there. And then he heard about the Joker for the first time. Somehow.
This man is gravely offended that the Joker would dare use clowns, wholesome individuals meant to spread joy and happiness, for murder and mayhem. He's so pissed that he decides to move to Gotham so he can have a talk with the Joker, and remind him of his clown roots.
Can't use his actual name (it'd feel weird), so he goes with the stage name he used in clown college- Bonk Squirtslap. He got kicked because he had terrible timing. Great reflexes and juggling, one of the best balloon artists the college has ever seen. Absolutely terrible timing. Poor guy can pie himself in the face and not even get a single chuckle.
So, Bonk is prowling the Gotham alleyways his first weekend in town and he runs into Batman. Batman thinks he's one of the Joker fanboys, which Bonk is offended by, and gives a heartfelt speech about the clown gods sending him to get revenge on the Joker for misusing the sacred clown teachings. Batman gets flashbacks to his own days in clown college, and decides that Gotham needs Bonk and more non-homicidal clowns.
They go to a diner, so Batman can double extra be sure he's not secretly crazy because it's fucking Gotham, and Bonk is talking about his sad clown college backstory. Like, he's not a very good clown (he says), and he thinks this is what he learned clowning to help with. Gotham needs joy and laughter, a few moments of simple happiness. When was the last time Batman had some happiness?
Batman cannot process this, because he's a giant angst ball, so Bonk gives him a balloon bat that he SOMEHOW inflated and folded under the table while they were talking. Batman is suddenly filled with a spark of hopeful joy that this poor fool will live through the week, and maybe even fulfill all those big promises Bonk is making about giving kids fun that doesn’t involve explosives or gang warfare.
We also talked about Batman’s time in Clown college, which he enrolled in as training for being a drunken idiot at his day job. What he ended up learning was a lot about stage combat and positioning, how to make it look real without risking longterm injury, and the throwing of various non-aerodynamic materials. That’s just the physical classes, the comedy and entertainment portion talks about comedic timing, reading a room to know what jokes will land best, and successfully planning an event in under 2 hours.
Bruce feels he really got his time’s worth out of it, and Alfred has to come to terms with some misconceptions about the effort required for clownery.
Space western Star Wars. The lone ranger Jedi wandering from frontier planet to frontier planet. Evil baron Sith plotting against the Jedi, independent towns, and each other. Whatever the equivalent of space cattle rustling would be...
With Star Wars being based on and inspired by old Japanese samurai films that were themselves based on westerns, space western is already in its blood.
I want to see standoffs at high noon with lightsabers. Also, cool hats and duster coats. Those are awesome and they should come back.
So, all the Batman villains kind of have their little interest spheres. Catwoman does cats and animal welfare, Joker does sort of an erratic entertainment focus, Poison Ivy checks up on the plants and stuff (which is important considering how urbanized the land is and the level of air pollution).
So, talking with the partner and Riddler came up, specifically the old 60s Riddler. And I think he’d adopt the museums because, at his heart, his main goal is to spread knowledge (while flexing on everyone since he’s a complete smartass). The museums have to be hit as often as the banks are, and yet they’re always able to make repairs and host new suspiciously themed exhibits. Part of that will obviously be the generosity of Gotham’s own Bruce Wayne, but even with infinite money the museum would still need to plan things and buy/borrow artifacts and art.
Given the level of personal knowledge he has of the rest of the heavy hitters in Gotham, I am delighted by the image of him plotting in his salon, fingers steepled and muttering absentmindedly, “Oh, Catwoman’s birthday is coming up.. If I commission a few artists and that lovely jeweler who crafted bejeweled Joker head, I can sponsor an appreciation exhibit on the black-footed cat. They’re getting close to being endangered, she’d like that. Oh! I can get the zoo to help do the informational cards! This is exciting, maybe I’ll add an exhibit passport that gets you a commemorative coin if you answer a cat quiz correctly.”
He’d write the quiz personally, of course, and include three separate difficulty levels, which would each give a different coin. Both the museum and zoo would get a lot of increased foot traffic and sales to fund all that repair work. Catwoman would come by out of costume to get all three coins, and then return in costume to steal the jeweled statuette of a black-footed cat on her birthday. She’d keep it overnight and then just casually return it the next day along with an original journal page describing the cats when they were discovered in 1824. A grand time would be had by all, except for the Joker who never gets invited anymore.
We need the old Pokemon rivals back, the ones that hate your guts and kill people off screen. I want Silver the angst lord with a character arc. But please feel free to work in some of the new dynamics.
Partner and I managed to work out the perfect one. N and Silver in a trio with you, with them fighting over who has ultimate rival status. Let the fur fly.
