[CENTER][COLOR=SLATEGRAY][B]C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T   P R O P O S A L[/B][/COLOR][h1][color=54626e][b]B A T M A N[/b][/color][/h1][hr]
[img]https://i.imgur.com/HkNSfgV.png[/img][h3][sup][sub][color=e59d36][b]Bruce William Wayne[/b] [color=2e2c2c].[/color][color=e59d36]♦[/color] [color=2e2c2c].[/color][b]Vigilante[/b] [color=2e2c2c].[/color][color=e59d36]♦[/color] [color=2e2c2c].[/color][b]Gotham City, New Jersey, USA[/b] [color=2e2c2c].[/color][color=e59d36]♦[/color] [color=2e2c2c].[/color][b]Unaffiliated[/b] [/color][/sub][/sup][/h3]
[/CENTER][COLOR=e59d36][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]C H A R A C T E R   C O N C E P T:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT]
[color=2e2c2c]...[/color][INDENT][CENTER][sup][color=54626e][b][h3][i]"The time has come. You know it in your soul."[/i][/h3][/b][/color][/sup][/CENTER][/INDENT][/INDENT]
[INDENT][INDENT][i][COLOR=SILVER]Fifteen years ago, a double homicide in The Narrows was discovered by the GCPD. When the corresponding address was checked for the tenant's name, few could have imagined a connection to billionaire Phillip Wayne. But the so-called Prince of Gotham did indeed have a brother who had never recieved a cent of their father's blood money, who chose to work towards the betterment of his city by his own accord. And while he and his wife had been taken by a petty thief, the two had a son that survived. A traumatized little boy who would emerge from that apartment forever changed, put on the path towards a quest that would transform him from an ordinary young man into an extraordinary crimefighter. He would learn how to fight against the criminal element that had made Gotham City an uninhabitable hellscape. He would become a master detective, a cunning warrior, and eventually, even a self-styled creature of the night. But like his father before him, he would do it by his own hand, inspired by a legend that has haunted Gotham City for decades - the grim fairy tale known only as [b]The Gotham Bat[/b].

Forget the familiar story. There is no billion dollar fortune, no lavish mansion, no elitist playboy act to galavant around in during the daytime. There's just a man with no extraordinary means, who worked hard to turn himself into something more - something that will tear away Gotham City's evils by the skin of his teeth, giving every ounce of his blood and sweat to do it. How this iteration of Bruce Wayne becomes The Batman is a story that will be told not only through the donning of the cape and cowl, but by the struggle to rise above the level of masked street vigilante to enact real change in a city that preys upon the innocent. It's a journey that will teach him not only the methods he needs to truly be The Dark Knight, but the allies he'll need to cultivate and the enemies that he'll have to endure. 

For right now, however, he's still got some kinks to work out. Some equipment to test, some approaches to refine... and a persona to unleash onto the citizens that still think Gotham belongs to the criminals and the corrupt.[/COLOR][/i][/indent][/indent]
[COLOR=e59d36][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]C H A R A C T E R   M O T I V A T I O N S   &   G O A L S:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT][I][COLOR=SILVER]Batman is too significant of a part of me to ignore. He's the focal point of all of my cutural osmosis, to the point of an unhealthy obsession that always brings me back to wanting to write the character and entertaining an endless amount of what-ifs and alternate takes. But the one thing I've never really tackled is how well the character can endure once you strip away all of the elements that make his life entirely unattainable to the common man. After all, the big thing touted about him is that he doesn't have any superpowers. ...as long as you ignore the billions of dollars, celebrity lifestyle, luxury and privilege that allows him to break out the fanciful gadgets and vehicles on a whim. 

That's the paradox of his character that drives this version. What is Bruce Wayne if he's not rich beyond belief, shoulder to shoulder with supermodels and escorted by a literal butler that raised him to inherit a dynasty that was never in danger of being taken from him? I don't really know the answer yet, but that's why this take on the origin is an interesting challenge. He's still everything that psychologically and emotionally makes him Batman. He's still a little disturbed and driven by an absolute obsession that puts him back on those streets every night. He still puts on a mask and cape and trys to emulate a giant bat, and eventually he'll start to obtain a few of the familiar elements, like a Batcave, a Batmobile, and even a Rogue's Gallery. He just has to do it without all of the shortcuts that made his journey the great fantasy that it's always been, in a Gotham City that functions even more like the real world than it usually does.[/COLOR][/I][/indent][/indent]
[COLOR=e59d36][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]C H A R A C T E R   N O T E S:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR]
[hider=Alfred Pennyworth]Bruce's legal guardian, mentor, and primary confidant. Once employed to serve Phillip Wayne in a variety of roles, the Gulf War veteran had a falling out with the billonaire's abandoning of his nephew and left Wayne Manor to raise Bruce in Gotham proper. In a bid to make up for what he lacked as a father, Alfred potentially indulged Bruce's desire to fight criminals too much and is now an older man filled with regret that has dedicated himself to make penance for his mistakes by ensuring that Bruce remains on a righteous path.[/hider]
[hider=Captain James Gordon]One of the few remaining incorruptible members of the GCPD. A divorcee with a teenaged daughter to raise, Gordon employs a no-nonsense and by the book approach to police work that Gotham has seemed to have long since forgotten. Working in tandem with a small team of officers, including Lieutenants [b]Harvey Bullock[/b] and [b]Renee Montoya[/b] of Homicide, Sergeants [b]Michael Weurtz[/b], [b]Anna Ramirez[/b], and [b]Gerard Stephens[/b] of OCCB (Organized Crime Control Bureau), Detectives [b]Crispus Allen[/b] and [b]Kate Kane[/b] of Vice, and Officer [b]John Valley[/b], Gordon regularly sees his efforts to clean up the city thrwarted by the heavily corrupt [b]Chief Miles O'Hara[/b], one of the GCPD's many jackbooted thugs that answer directly to Commissioner Gillian Loeb.[/hider]
[hider=Harvey Dent]Current District Attorney of Gotham City. A staunch defender of justice, there are some who doubt the validity of Dent's public persona. While his position against organized crime has remained passionately critical, specifically against Salvatore 'The Capo' Maroni, there are unverified reports that that Dent is on the take along with his contemporaries in City Hall. He's long been a suspect of the OCCB for being Maroni's inside man at the DA's office, but no evidence has ever stuck and Dent has vehemently denied any wrongdoing in the press. Still, that hasn't stopped Gordon's unit from coining a particularly harsh moniker for Gotham's so-called Knight In Shining Armor: Harvey Two-Face.[/hider]
[hider=Vicki Vale]Current reporter for the online edition of The Gotham Globe, Vicki's relentless pursuit to uncover the corrupt members of Gotham's elite and members of office has prevented her career from taking off in the any of the ways she'd hoped. Working under editor Alexander Knox, Vicki is determined to make the Globe a household name to compete with the likes of The Gazette, The Central City Citizen, and even The Daily Planet by putting together the associates of the Falcone Crime Family, their rivals in The Maroni Syndicate, the GCPD and the City Council. To call her ambitious would be an understatement, but Vicki's only goal is to give the people of Gotham a clear indicator of who the bad guys really are.[/hider]
[hider=Lucius Fox]Former head of engineering at Wayne International, Fox now uses his vast skills in mechanical invention to aid Bruce Wayne in his crusade against the criminal element by retrofitting stolen military gadgetry into something that can be of continued use. A victim of crime himself, Fox is confined to a wheelchair after suffering a stroke caused when the court system ruled in favor of his son Luke's murderer, Detective Flass. But whenever Bruce Wayne anonymously gathered and gave the presiding judge all of the evidence needed to send Flass away for the crime, Fox agreed to honor Luke's memory by helping Wayne to make Gotham a better place.[/hider]
[hider=Barbara Gordon]The daughter of Captain Gordon and a current freshman at Brentwood University, Barbara is a newly hired computer analyst and archiver that Lucius Fox brought on to help lighten the load of running his electronics' repair shop, The Fox's Den. An amazingly gifted young woman, Barbara's aptitude for gymnastics, computer sciences, and studies in law enforcement make her a prime candidate to enlist in the GCPD - something that her father forbids, as he believes she doesn't understand the scope of the Department's corruption.[/hider]
[hider=Duke Thomas]A gifted ex-hacker who did time in juvie for aiding a former street tough named Gavin King, Duke's skills once caught the eye of an in-training Bruce Wayne, who now wants to put them to the test for his own means. While Duke is oblivious to Wayne's true identity, he does seem to want to get others like King off of the streets in a way that the cops can't. Duke is currently sitting high on a list of potential allies that Wayne can go to in order to help enhance his war against crime.[/hider]
[hider=Harper Row]Formerly a small-time criminal who freelanced at various chop-shops across Gotham, Harper's put her days of illegal misconduct behind her in a bid to persue her dream of running a mechanic's shop out of The Narrows, affectionately called Bluebird's. Wayne previously relented in providing her information to the police when infiltrating the chop-shop racket to take some of it's members down, as he realized she was only trying to make money to keep her and her brother Cullen afloat, earning Harper's gratitude and a potential favor down the line.[/hider]
[hider=Edward Nygma]CEO of Wayne International, formerly Wayne Enterprises. An overly confident and charasmatic figure that is regularly seen among Gotham's elite, Edward's brilliance is only outweighted by his extremely petty insecurities. Insecurities that led to him systematically orchestrating the murder of Phillip Wayne while the billionaire served out a prison sentence, gaining him enough clout with Carmine 'The Roman' Falcone to take on the leadership position he now exploits to create 'smarter' weapons for the military that focus on psychological warfare rather than brute force. Through Nygma, Wayne International has become a symbol of Gotham's corruption, and it's one that Bruce hopes to take down as much as any cop or member of the mob that terrorizes the city.[/hider]
[hider=Dr. Jonathan Crane]Current director of Arkham Manor, the city's leading criminal psychiatric hospital based out of what was formerly Stately Wayne Manor, Crane's reputation is largely spotless and is considered a leading figure in his field. What no one knows is that Crane is running a highly illegal drug operation with chemist Karl Hellfern, known by his contemporaries as 'Dr. Death' for a seemingly disturbed obsession with decay. Crane himself holds a secret obsession, aswell: exploiting the fears that drive his patients through chemically-induced hallucinatory therapy, a method that has become increasingly sadistic over the years.[/hider]
[hider=Victor Fries]Current ice-themed hitman employed by Salvatore Maroni. Once a brilliant doctor, Fries' life was irrevocably changed whenever he received a diagnosis of an inoperable late-stage brain tumor. Given only a few months to live, he was encouraged by his wife, Nora, to undergo an experimental procedure involving cryogenic chemicals that would be directly injected into his nervous system, with the hope that the cold treatments would slow the growth of the tumor enough to reverse his condition. While it succeeded on that front, Victor's physiology suffered a devastating set of permutations that made it impossible for him to live a normal life. Accidentally killing Nora with a newfound ability to generate cold temperatures by his touch, Fries' emotions have become buried since the loss, making him a particularly dangerous individual to contend with.[/hider]
[hider=Eduardo Dorrance]Formerly serving a life-sentence at Blackgate Penitentiary, the previously unnamed inmate spent years calculating his escape plan by both building his body past any physical limitations and systematically gaining control of the prison's lower levels. Staging a riot, he successfully swam to shore and sought work under The Roman's Empire as hired muscle. Little does anyone know that beneath his towering exterior lies an equally potent sociopath's mind, counting the days down until he can plan yet another takeover.[/hider]
[hider=Killer Croc Jones]Current leader of The Mutant Gang, Waylon Jones has no metahuman abilities of any sort - but he is nevertheless incredibly intimidating, standing at seven-feet tall and having built himself into giant mass of muscle over several prison stints. The most terrifying aspect of Croc's appearance, however, are the all-over body tattoos that have visually erased any appearance of a man and made Jones look more like his scale-adorned namesake. Filing his nails and his teeth to complete the look, Jones is a feral beast ready to claw his way from the bottom of Gotham's underworld to the very top.[/hider]
[hider=Roman 'Black Mask' Sionis]A failed cosmetics mogul turned nightclub owner who moonlights as a deadly cult leader. Sionis is insane, believing that the key to the soul of he and his False-Facers' victims is through torture and disfigurement, shedding their 'masked' selves to become purified in a Biblical sense. Wearing a ritualistic Black Mask during all of his 'sermons', Sionis encourages his followers to collect as many innocent people in Gotham as they can to either be converted to the cause or be sent on their way to the great beyond, as painfully as possible.[/hider]
[hider=The Head Of The Demon]A death cult believing themselves to be acolytes of a long-dead war monger in the Middle East, Ra's Al Ghul. Enacting guerrilla warfare tactics on the level of the Taliban and ISIS, some members have made their way to Gotham City in a plan to make their plight known all across the world. What no one realizes is that their true intent is to resurrect their ancient master through ancient ritualistic mysticism, though it's remained skeptical to most if this is even possible.[/hider]
[hider=The Joker Card Killer]A completely anonymous serial killer that leaves behind victims of all manner, whether they be men, women or children, with a rictus grin and a deck of cards with missing jokers. The extent of this individual's motives are unknown, and no identification has been made in the five years that they've been operating. All that's known about them is that they kill indiscriminately, with no connective tissue linking any of the entire families' worth of bodies that the killer has left in their wake.[/hider]

[COLOR=e59d36][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]S A M P L E   P O S T:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR]Salvatore "The Boss" Maroni screamed at the top of his lungs as he was thrust into the open air admist shattered glass. The masked lunatic that had thrown the gangster aswell as himself out of the top floor of the penthouse grabbed onto Maroni hard and produced that same grappling device that had sent them hurtling into an over 50 foot drop towards the pavement. Firing it again, this time managing to snag a stone gargoyle overlooking the adjacent building, The Batman pressed hard into Maroni's back so that they swung into an arch, heading directly for the building just across the street. 

All that Salvatore could see was oncoming glass before a very large and leathery piece of fabric shielded him from the impact. He couldn't see them hit the window, but he could feel it, aswell as the hard landing that both men made. By the time the fabric unfurled itself off of his face, Maroni realized that he was on his back, staring directly at his shadowy assailant, who stood above him. Salvatore growled. 

[b][color=7ea7d8]"ARE YOU OUTTA YOUR FUCKING MIND?! WE COULD'A BEEN KILLED JUST THEN, YOU---"[/COLOR][/b] 

The Batman's boot slammed down onto Maroni's chest, causing him to involuntarily keel and roll over in immense pain. 

[color=54626e][b]"Quiet."[/b][/color] 

With his prey momentarily incapacitated, Batman searched the room ahead of them. A set of office cubicles greeted him in the darkness, evident of a local business. The employees had long since gone home, leaving no one but a janitor who had already ran for the emergency exit. But The Dark Knight sneered as the heat signature-detection feature of the lenses in his cowl picked up the image of an additional few men heading up the staircase, guns drawn. Evidently, Captain Bolton had managed to round up some of his remaining men to pursue them. 

Looking down at Maroni, Batman forcibly grabbed him by the arm and pulled him up. 

[b][color=54626e]"We're not done."[/color][/b] 

Maroni wheezed in pain. [color=7ea7d8]"What the hell are you talkin' about?!"[/color] 

Punching the mobster hard across the face with an executed right hook, Batman caught Maroni's body as it fell limp, immediately rendered unconscious. Letting him fall gently, Batman produced a pair of military-grade handcuffs from the back of his belt and dragged Maroni over to a support beam. Propping him up and placing his hands behind his back, the vigilante secured his captive in place, put something into the front of his jacket pocket, and looked towards the door to the spacious room they were in as the heat signatures immediately approached. 

Retreating to the darkness on the opposite end of the room, Batman watched in cold silence as the door was slammed open from the outside with a kick. Several of Flass' dirty cops burst into the room, each holding weapons that were far above standard issue for the GCPD. Laser sights, automatic ammunition. The vigilante narrowed his eyes as they searched for any sign of him in vain. Someone had been outfitting Flass' men with the latest in high-tech ordinance. The other precincts didn't have the luxury of such treatment, and it wasn't hard to guess why. Salvatore Maroni had a good majority of the GCPD under his payroll, directly. It was how the mobster had kept himself one step ahead of his rival, The Roman. 

"Look! Over there! There's Maroni!", one of them yelled, signaling two of the men to his opposite. "Get him out of here before that freak comes back! We'll stay here and keep watch!" 

As the two men approached, The Batman produced a detonator hidden within his gauntlet. Waiting precious seconds as the cops inched closer to Maroni's unconscious form, the vigilante waited for them to discover the handcuffs. 

"Uh, Lieutenant? He's [i]bound[/i] to this thing. We're gonna need to..." 

Hitting the detonator hard, Batman leaped forward with a roll as an explosion of smoke immediately hit the two cops from within Maroni's jacket. Seizing control of the situation as the smoke coated the entire room, The Dark Knight hit the side of his cowl and switched his cowl's surveillance mode so that the lenses could isolate the smoke and make the room clear to him alone. Immediately slamming his knee into the chest of one of the cops with a rising strike, The Batman spun mid-air and sent four projectiles directly into the hands of two of the other armed officers. He'd taken to calling them "bat-blades", though one of his associates had given them perhaps a more fitting moniker: batarangs. Landing behind the officer he'd struck, Batman downed that one with a hard elbow and immediately followed that up with a brutal headbutt, knocking him into one of the cubicles. Shooting his right leg out, Batman spun for a hard sweep, sending a second one to the ground fast enough for the officer to hit the back of his head. Opting for a palm strike against an oncoming enemy's jaw, the vigilante simultaneously reigned a flying high kick down onto a fourth officer's face, knocking both to the ground. As he regained his footing, he looked down to his chest and noticed the red targeting lasers start to cross his path. 

[b]"THERE... *COUGH* THERE HE IS! SOUTHEAST CORNER OF THE ROOM! OPEN FIRE!"[/b] 

[color=54626e][b][i]Dammit.[/i][/b][/color]

Bullets sprayed the walls behind him as The Batman somersaulted forward, counting himself lucky as a bullet barely grazed the armor plating covering his right shoulder. Leaping into the air, he kicked off of the wall to the south of the room and produced his grapple gun yet again, firing a line directly into the northern wall. Directing a spin kick into an officer as he attempted to reload his weapon, Batman pulled at the line hard, catching the two leading figures of the group by the chest and waist as the steel cable slammed them into the adjacent wall. As another officer rose from the ground, still partially unconscious, the vigilante grabbed a stapler from one of the nearby cubicles and launched it directly into the man's head, sending him back to the ground. One remained. And he was firing off into the distance, having already lost the trajectory of his target. A batarang flew from the smoke and forced the weapon from his hands, embedding it into the window with a spiderweb crack. The officer's eyes widened as he looked at his unreachable weapon, failing to notice the figure that approached him. 

[b][color=54626e]"Tell Commissioner Loeb. Tell your fellow men. Tell everyone..."[/color][/b] 

[IMG]https://i.imgur.com/uJzwGUI.png[/IMG] 

[b][color=54626e]"I'm coming for [i]them[/i], too."[/color][/b]

[COLOR=e59d36][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]P O S T   C A T A L O G:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][INDENT]
[I]WIP[/I][/indent][/indent]