it’s been nearly 9 years since batman inc: leviathan strikes. what an awesome comic that was. stephanie brown infiltrating an all-girls boarding school for assassins where all the teachers coincidentally look exactly like pop stars.
it’s pretty weird that a few years later, there was another bat-related boarding school comic, but while leviathan strikes was a kind of spy action type of story, gotham academy was a more traditional kid-friendly semi-horror mystery series.
anyway they were both really really good and i want m o r e
… this look created for “Vogue” by Jean Paul Gaultier was inspired by a (sudden and out of nowhere) Madonna appearance in a Batman comic book? Yeah, exactly! On December 21, 2011 the comic Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes arrived on newsstands with an interesting story. Madonna (here named Leviathan, and a villain) is a secret spy that owns a female spy agency, leading ladies such as Katy Perry, Rihanna, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears and others in the art of spying.
The curious thing about the comic is that the artist Grant Morrison decided to portray the girls with an iconic look. Lady Gaga has her “Poker Face” hood, Katy Perry wears similar clothes to the One of the Boys era, Rihanna has her side bangs from Good Girl Gone Bad, and Madonna… Well, I think they decided to create something new to her, something she had actually never worn. The comic obviously garnered Madonna’s attention, because she payed homage to that look by asking Jean Paul Gaultier to improve it. And he did! Including pants and a new bustier, not only making this “Vogue” look a retrospective to the Blond Ambition Tour, but also making it iconic to those who read the comic from now on. Isn’t this amazing?
Would you ever think of something like that happening?
like all my favorite characters, i am both trite and predictable, but i was literally lying in bed trying to fall asleep when this occurred to me and i have to record it
re: adapting shadowlands into earth-28 canon, and retconning grant morrison's clusterfuck of a batman inc. v2
ok so:
retcon the resurrection of ra's al ghul (bc that shit was terrible). ra's is still dead.
batman inc v1 is canon. leviathan strikes is canon (except for killing jezebel bc that was needless and gross).
except shift here: spyral is playing a bigger role. that shit was hard to understand in batman inc, lbr, but here there's a Big Fight brewing, and it is Leviathan vs. Spyral.
somehow, someway, that fateful fight happens, and damian is killed.
"i'm kali, tiamat, medusa. i'm the wire mommy. the Red Queen. i am the mother of skeletons. i sow and i reap as i choose."
EXCEPT:
ra's al ghul is dead, but talia knows he is coming back. she knows there is a plot within her organization to do this. talia is not completely against this; she would welcome her father back into this world, but she knows that there are those who intend to use damian to bring him back (as in the resurrection of ra's al ghul). leviathan is a fucking plot. leviathan Isn't Fucking Real. it's a giant ruse to fool the very organization that's pulling it off.
(the white ghost intervenes at the last moment to try and save damian. heretic kills him first.)
she takes damian and places him under the care of someone Deeply Trusted, in an abandoned base which she stopped using years ago. there is a clone of damian (a dead clone, a clone never alive, like the clones of bruce back in batman rip), an exact replica, and it is into this body that heretic stabs his blade.
steph, at that boarding school, doesn't batgirl her way out of it. she joins leviathan.
talia calls jason todd to take care of damian while the plan continues. jason has no allegiance to her organization, only to her and to would-be dead robins (and he has a grudge to bear against bruce, which is why she's sure he won't take pity on the man and tell him. she needs this to be Real in order for the plan to work). steph stays with him sometimes too; she is the liaison between talia and jason.
bruce, dick, and tim are horrified, and grieving. this is how we explain dick going to spyral; spyral is battling leviathan more than the batfam is, so that's where he goes. he doesn't like kathy kane, but he knows her, and they share a common background (circus life?? that sounds silly but it's not), and he is going to Kill talia for what she's done.
ignore all that bullshit about the death talia intends to rain down upon gotham in batman inc. bruce and talia fight in the cave. kathy kane shows up and points a gun to talia's head; dick grayson stands behind talia, blocking her exit, and holds up another gun.
cass deals the killing blow. "for damian."
AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, cass and steph replace talia's body with another clone grown the same as damian's, never alive, just a genetic replica. cass and steph bring talia to where jason todd hides damian. the game is over, and bruce sits in his grief and thinks over this Senseless Violence, it will kill him - can anything kill him, anymore? - he hopes so, he hopes that this ends someday, he hopes he will not live forever -
cass doesn't claim the demon's head and it goes to the next heir: nyssa raatko takes the league of assassins and intends to purge leviathan for its sins (nyssa will do many things, but she will never tolerate the brutal slaying of a child)
those within the league who once plotted against talia realize that damian and talia are not the only bloodline which ra's left on this earth
i'm not sure if this is what i want yet but: using nyssa to revive ra's the way they used the white ghost in the resurrection of ra's al ghul. this accomplishes two things: (1) brings back ra's without harming talia or damian. (2) gets rid of nyssa for good. talia is removed enough from the burning of the pits to understand, coldly, what her sister did to her.
damian and talia had to "die" in order to both get nyssa to come out of hiding and seize the demon's head and also to remove them from the potential bloodline with which to revive ra's.
this way, talia thinks, she lays no hand on her family. it's only a bonus that bruce gets hurt.
i'm thinking bruce is going to try and - defend nyssa? or something??? and that's when talia has to come out of hiding and tell him everything. there's a leviathan agent stopping the boys every time they get close to figuring out a piece of the puzzle; tim had a reputation with ra's and is sticking his nose where he shouldn't. he gets attacked by a leviathan agent, and he tears her mask off her face, and it's stephanie. she tells him to stop.
damian calls alfred and speaks to him on the telephone, because jason is afraid the grief will kill the old man.
dick is last to find out, and he's angry about it. relieved, but angry.
OPEN FOR REVISIONS AND SUGGESTIONS IDK. cass and steph need to be a huge part of this. it would be a shortish fic, hopefully only as long as rise of arsenal.
