Batmen!

Heh, apparently someone came to my blog using the search terminology "guy gardner batman".

I'm sure they were just looking for scans or summaries or fanfic or something like that, but the notion of Guy Gardner as Batman does amuse the hell out of me.

Okay, to be fair, he doesn't really have the skill set to be Batman in the style of Bruce Wayne, but I'm sure whatever he'd do with it would be vastly entertaining. And you know, he'd totally be a much better mentor to the kids too.

Tim and Dick would be in therapy, Cass would be working with specialists who might actually be able to help the girl learn to read (though with the Navajo crap, maybe that's been fixed. Seriously though, as much as I'm usually willing to suspend disbelief for comics, I've never understood how a man as intelligent as Bruce Wayne with the amount of money and resources he has would allow the girl to remain functionally illiterate. In THIS day and age.) And even Steph would benefit from a mentor that doesn't constantly dick her around with the "I'm training you!" "Go home" "You're Robin!" "You're fired" thing.

Heck, thinking about it, I really would like to see Steph and Guy interact. They're both feisty if a bit abrasive personalities. Both of them have awful fathers. Both have been dicked around by the people that ought to be colleagues and mentors. Both are from very working class origins and are used to being compared unfavorably to others in the profession without ever being given a fair shot.

But I tangent.

Actually, what I'd really like to see is a bunch of elseworld-style one-shots in which we see what ifs of many characters in the DCU where THEY become "Batman". (Kind of like that old Woman-Man bit.) It would amuse me. The Green Lanterns as Batman alone would be priceless. Hal's lecherous dickhead Batman. Guy's loudmouth asshole Batman (complete with the most obnoxious use of a Batarang you can imagine), sensitive new age Kyle-Batman.

Actually, I think that last was done. Terry McGinnis in Batman Returns is totally Kyle if he ended up with a Batsuit instead of a ring. Never mind then. :-)