Think about Superman for a minute. Superman is really Clark, the kid raised on a Kansas farm with the whole ‘truth, justice, and the American way’ mindset. Superman is the costume Clark puts on.

Batman is the opposite. Batman is not the mask, Bruce Wayne is. In every meaningful way, Bruce died the same night his parents did. He’s just the mask Batman puts on when he needs to go out in the daytime or interact with ‘polite society’. Bruce is about as ‘real’ as Matches Malone is.

You can’t end Batman. He can’t just hang up the mask and quit. He can’t just walk away. He can’t flip out and cease to be Batman because Batman is the essence of who and what he is. He can’t ‘go back’ to being Bruce because he’s already ceased to be.

Does that make sense?

But seriously – I think Dick would be the best choice for the cowl. And I will probably need to be in the minority when I say this, but maybe, just maybe…Bruce needs to stay dead. Maybe for good. At least for 15 or so years, ala The Flash after Crisis on Infinite Worlds. Can you imagine? He would be that “embodiment of good” that all of the other characters could aspire to, even Superman. Something to really inspire them all and make them want to be “heroes” again – symbols of what society “could” be. Kill him off fighting the Joker, or maybe even Darkseid, in such a fashion that it really, REALLY means something.

It probably won’t ever happen. But can you imagine?

Everything was tied together. Everything that happened anywhere effected everything that was happening everywhere else. Continuity was so tight, it was a thing of beauty and it actually made me want to buy more comics and pick up titles I wouldn’t usually buy so that I could find out what’d happened without having to actually make it part of some super-mega-blockbuster event.

Now, DC’s editorial staff seem to have adopted Marvel’s “Continuity be damned as long as the story is good (or, you know, still two connecting flights from mediocre, but something that we can market the hell out of).”

But I agree with you Jacin. Keep everything status quo, just tell really great stories. Dini is doing just fine in Detective, it shouldn’t be hard to find great writers who can do the same thing without shaking up the whole universe, and flushing continuity across the DCU down the toilet.

(Actually, this entire post is a lie. I don’t want to see any of that, as I’m perfectly happy with the status quo. However, since change is being forced upon me, that’s how I’d like change to come.)

The February solicits pretty much explicitly state that Dick Grayson’s the new Batman, per Bruce’s ‘final wishes’. Alfred’s conversation with Batgirl in the latest Outsiders, telling her that she’ll need to get a little friendlier with Dick if she wants to remain a part of the Bat-family, pretty much confirms that.

The solicits also mention that Tim’s still alive and goes to get training from … Shiva, I think. Either way, he’s still around. Whether he is still Robin or not is up in the air, but he’s still around.

Now that we know the series won’t really “end” what I would like to know is how far Tim’ll go to keep Gotham form imploding and what kind of hero he’ll be by the end of the series.

What’s interesting, to me at least, in this arc is the fact that in Teen Titans he always becomes The Batman in the futur, but one who crossed the line and kills, with a gun no less.