r/whowouldwin • u/Yglorba • 1d ago
Challenge Batman will die in one year. Without appointing a successor, how long can he keep his rogues' gallery in check after his death?
Batman has just received a terminal diagnosis. He will die in one year and nothing can save him.
Worse, all costumed heroes and sidekicks immediately abandon him. He cannot appoint a successor and cannot rely on any other costumed superhero after his death - nobody else is going to step in or step up to protect Gotham. Alfred is still capable of impersonating him to an extent but can't be trained as an actual Batman. No help whatsoever from Robin, the rest of the bat-family, Superman, etc - he's on his own.
He will still stick to his morals and will not kill or permanently injure any of his enemies.
Using plans and preparation and scheming, how long can he maintain Gotham's stability and keep his opponents in check after he dies?
(Assume that the Joker will continue to be the threat he usually is when Batman is alive, and will not go catatonic or become a normal person once Batman is dead the way he sometimes does in some continuities.)
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u/Asparagus9000 1d ago
If he's dying he'd probably switch back to focusing on police/judicial reform through terror and money, like he did earlier in his career. Because those improvements will survive his death for longer.
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u/glorkvorn 1d ago edited 1d ago
There's actually a real life situation that almost matches this.
Zhuge Liang, in the Three Kingdoms period of China. He was like a real life batman. Rediculously smart in almost every way. Pulled crazy inventions out of his ass to win battles that should have been impossible. He wasn't the king, or any sort of nobility, but he was so amazing that everyone asked for his advice and did what he said, even the real king. Eventually his enemies (who also had crazy superpowers and commit horrific mass murder) just gave up fighting him because they realized it was impossible, and waited for him to die of natural causes. And since he was working nonstop night and day his entire life, he died rather young at age 54.
Zhuge Liang (being real life Batman) saw this coming, and wrote down a book of instructions for what to do after his death: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Shi_Biao . Detailed, step by step instructions telling the young king exactly what to do if he died. There's a story that the real king Liu Bei (with a young, unproven heir) said "if I die, do what must be done," basically telling Zhuge Liang to kill his son and take power for himself, but Zhuge Liang was too nice to do that and just wrote instructions instead. Just like Batman.
There's also this story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meng_Huo . This local warlord was causing problems, starting revolts. Zhuge Liang easily defeated him, but didn't want to kill him because it would lead to more revolts. So he let him go. The same guy revolts again, and the same thing happens. This repeats 7 times, until the guy eventually just gives up and joins Zhuge Liang as a subordinate. Batman never kills.
After he died in 234, his main enemy Sima Yi (who himself was an evil genius worthy of the Joker) still wasn't sure and thought it might be a trap. This created a famous Chinese saying: "A dead Zhuge Liang scares away a living Sima Yi." But he did eventually figure out what happened, and resumed his war against Zhuge Liang's faction, which was at a huge disadvantage without him.
His faction was finally defeated in 263, 29 years later, by Sima Yi and his clan. So my answer is 29 years.
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u/Awestruck_Otter 1d ago
While he eventually won, so you don’t need to feel sorry for Sima Yi it must have been frustrating as hell to be the smartest man in your kingdom (actually prob the second smartest in all of ancient China by several generations) but be so totally outclassed by Zhuge Liang in every possible way except longevity.
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u/OdaNobunaga24 18h ago
Wasn’t expecting anyone to answer this Batman thread with “Zhuge Liang set a historical precedent” but I’m not against it
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u/RHCElite 1d ago
I think there was an episode of "The Batman" animated series where Mr. freeze wakes up from being frozen for 1000 years. Batman has become more of a myth than a historical figure at this point, but the future cops end up finding the remains of the batcave to look for anything that can help them stop Freeze. The computers had deteriorated beyond use, but Batman had the foresight to engrave instructions on all of the framework supporting the cave (that was made out of some expensive, but durable material like titanium or something) on how to defeat either Freeze specifically, or possibly anyone in his rogues gallery that might survive long after his death. Based on this, at a minimum he would document his methods and plans for each villain so that someone would be able to put them into motion, even if they weren't his direct protege.
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u/ConstantStatistician 10h ago
That was just the example that came to mind when I read the title! I love that show. Watched every episode when I was young. Still my introduction to Batman.
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u/Positive_Rate3407 1d ago
I know you mentioned the "he won't kill" but I think in this specific scenario he'd kill them, or at the very least indirectly set up a contingency plan to kill them. He knows he's dying anyway so there's no risk of a killing Batman running wild. He's smart enough to know Gotham would go to absolute shit because of all the villains he's "created" throughout his career
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u/JediSSJ 1d ago
You might be right. Since he doesn't have to worry about his usual reasons for not killing, I could see him specifically setting it up so his entire rogues gallery witnesses him brutally kill the Joker as a way to put the less insane ones in-line. Maybe with a threat about how they are not going to see him again--if they see him, it means they are dead. That way, they can't be sure if he's really gone.
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u/JeromiRomiRomiRomi 14h ago
I honestly wondered why he wouldn't just go around paralyzing criminals like the Joker or Scarecrow for life in this type of scenario
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u/I-Fuck-Robot-Babes 5h ago
This sub always has the worst takes on Batman...
His no-kill rule is not a logical problem, he has not calculated in his mind exactly what will happen if he killed someone, and he will not actually go insane the moment that he does.
Batman is against killing because of his moral code, he will not go on a rampage putting bullets in his rogues gallery just because he's about to die, batman has never been about that.
When posed with the "You WILL die, so will you allow yourself to kill?" question by Superman, Batman refuses to answer. Does this strike you as someone who will go John Rambo on his villains, many of whom are either just regular criminals or people who are still capable of redemption?
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u/Positive_Rate3407 3h ago
Batman at his core is compassionate. He is a hero in every sense of the word. He is also very intelligent. He'd know that in the event of his death, and no Batfamily/Justice League to succeed him, Gotham would become a cesspool, no matter how much money he pours into the city's social movements as Bruce Wayne. In the event of his inevitable death, he'd find a way to at the very least permanently incapacitate/sedate/freeze them. There is simply no more time to attempt to rehabilitate them.
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u/Timmytanks40 1d ago
He could give Arkham Asylum an overall and serious funding. Catch all the real bad eggs and incarcerate/rehabilitate them under the new laws Wayne Corp lobbied for.
Should keep things cool for 18 months to 5 years.
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u/MultiMarcus 1d ago
If we consider his primary morals as not killing or permanently injuring, I think a secret prison that he has designed well to keep his enemies locked away would probably work quite well. I don’t necessarily know how long that would last and I’m sure that some of his villains are quite hard to keep under control, but if Alfred is willing to play ball, I’m sure he could keep them sedated.
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u/Kopalniok 1d ago
Batman sets up elaborate automated contingency plans. A day after his funeral, Alfred takes out a shotgun
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u/respectthread_bot 1d ago
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u/mrb00m_uk 1d ago
A year of preparation he'd probably just go all out and design a specific way of keeping them all imprisoned designed to trigger on his death. Each one tailored to their specific abilities. But chances are he already has a contingency in the event of his death, so he'd just chill for a year.
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u/mrb00m_uk 1d ago
Or frame all the other villains for his death, knowing The joker would probably deal with the others for killing his favourite toy.
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u/PabloXDark 8h ago
I don't think Bruce would do such a thing. He knows what the Joker is capable of and letting him loose to clean up the rest of Batman's rogues gallery would be a fate worse than death for the majority of them. Bruce wants to rehabilitate criminals and not let them be tortured, disfigured, maimed and worse by the Joker.
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u/BardicLasher 1d ago
You think Batman keeps his rogues gallery in check? Have you READ Batman comics?
No Man's Land, City of Bane, Joker War... Batman doesn't keep his villains in check NOW, he just mitigates their messes and makes sure they can be cleaned up after. Take away the massive support structure he has and Gotham is completely screwed.
You want what's best for Gotham when every hero is gone and Batman is dead? You bite the bullet, suck it up, and give Wayne Enterprises to Oswald Cobblepot, the LEAST bad option that can actually get shit done. The town becomes a mob-run, criminal cesspool, and it probably winds up with ties to intergang, but it doesn't become a smoking crater, a toxic waste dump, or New Eden, and the citizens get to actually live.
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u/BigNorseWolf 1d ago
Permanantly.
At that point he starts killing them.
The reason he never killed is because he's afraid he'd become worse. Well now that options off the table. he won't have time to become worse. He just waits till day 364 and has his year long plan come together to murderate everyone, takes a bubble bath in champaign and gets really drunk.
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u/Waspinator_haz_plans 1d ago
Do the usual for 360 days.
Put on the Hellbat armor.
Kill literally every single villain in and around Gotham.
Die.
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u/CrazyMaximum3655 22h ago
Bruce Wayne announces that he is building a private super prison that will be designed with help from the Dark knight to specifically hold and handle the individual needs of all of his super villains.
Arkham and Blackgate don't work. A prison designed by Bruce Wayne could hold all of his villains
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u/Transcendingfrog2 12h ago
He puts on the final batsuit and rewrites every single rogue on a cellular level to become heros themselves. No coming back from it. They were completely changed in his own image. Done.
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u/MidniteGang 10h ago
Staying within his code, I figured he'd put his resources into funding some new dystopian super-prison with zero means of escape, create an army of Bat-Bots like in some Elseworld stories, or failing all thsg, just run around maiming all the villains pseudo-Night Lords style.
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u/MuffinMaster88 6h ago
Logically speaking spending his money in non "Batman" ways like social programs etc. Would prob be better in the long run.
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u/Hard_Corsair 1d ago
He creates Bat-Bots that keep Gotham secure but a bit dystopic. He's done it before.