[center][h1][b][color=414f72]B A T M A N[/color][/b][/h1] [b]Bruce Wayne[/b], 28-29 (b. 1939) [b][sub]Millionaire Playboy / Masked Vigilante Gotham City, New Jersey [/sub][/b] [color=gray][sub]Active since Fall 1963[/sub][/color] [img]https://i.pinimg.com/originals/69/1b/52/691b5252804631db7cec958e85c4ff98.jpg[/img][/center] [INDENT][h3]Character Concept[/h3][hr] [color=999999][i]In the shadow of the Great Depression, Gotham City fell under the control of a ruling class of mobsters looking to pilfer the once prosperous capital for all it was worth. From Boss Salvatore Maroni to Sal Valestra and his cohorts Chuckie Sol and Buzz Bronski, innocent citizens and proud patriots to serve in the first World War were all sent to the streets to beg. Some tried to leave, but the easy money made through the available rackets became all too alluring. And with the 1946 election of highly corrupt city councilman Hamilton Hill to the Mayor's office, the police, the DA's office, and everything in between were brought under the control of crime-lord Carmine "The Roman" Falcone. What drew many outsiders to claim that Gotham was a lost cause, however, was the murder of a prominent doctor and his wife on the streets of the city's celebrated Park Row Avenue. Humanitarians to the very end, Thomas and Martha Wayne were both considered revolutionary in helping to reopen the long dormant Arkham Home For The Criminally Disturbed. But with all evidence pointing towards a peasant mugger being their assailant, and Mrs. Wayne's pearl necklace indicating the motive a robbery, all that could be said about the double event was that it was an act of random tragedy. Not even their orphaned son, Bruce, would be able to identify the culprit. But a solemn vow would be made. The son's unfathomable despair would give way to an unshakable drive to see justice brought to Gotham's streets. Bruce Wayne would spend the earliest parts of his teenage years abroad in study before officially being declared missing in 1955. In reality, Wayne had left the public eye of his own volition, to master his mind and body in a preparation for a crusade against all crime - a veritable war on a different front. At age 24, Bruce officially returned to Gotham to claim his multi-million dollar inheritance from the Wayne estate's sole and dutiful benefactor, Alfred Pennyworth. Spending months crafting a suitable public persona as an extravagant playboy, appearing at large social functions, dating fashion models and writing checks for any cause that suited him, Bruce donned a series of disguises to begin infiltrating the criminal underworld. After a particularly harrowing encounter, however, Bruce found himself lying half-dead in the study of Wayne Manor. He'd somehow overlooked something. The scum he was putting away were back on the streets within hours of when he'd nail them, and the DA's office was powerless to stop the rampantly corrupt GCPD from falsely imprisoning the blacks, the hispanics, the gays, and anyone else who stood defiant against these crooks without looking a certain color or acting a certain way. It disgusted Bruce, who felt particularly powerless, even with all of his newfound wealth. But one of Kirigi's mantras echoed through his mind: that criminals were inherently "a superstitious and cowardly lot". He didn't want to take the lives of his enemies, but he definitely wanted them scared - and he wanted them to stay afraid, tormented by the mere idea that something as horrible as him could even exist. But to accomplish that, he'd have to be more than a man. Delving into the pulp magazines of his childhood, Wayne's long-admired fictional heroes of Detective Harvey Harris and The Grey Ghost were beginning to give him ideas. And the black and white movies that used to frighten him as a boy, the ones set in creepy castles with monstrous figures appearing out of the shadows to terrorize society, particularly began to take hold of his psyche. It was while preparing to watch "The Mark Of Zorro", a 1940 swashbuckler about a man of wealth and privilege striking against oppression while wearing a mask, that a stray bat flew into Wayne's study and momentarily frightened him. But that fear quickly dissapated as a life-changing realization took hold. And in shadow of that encounter, the makings of a crusade would begin in earnest. Weeks went by, preparations were made, and Wayne found himself dwelling atop the rooftops and the dark shadows of the city's alleyways. He had ceased to be a man, opting to instead immerse himself in his new role and become a creature of the night. He easily began dispatching purse snatchers and would-be murderers with his disguise's frightful appearance alone. Police Lieutenant James Gordon would dismiss the vigilante's existence as mere rumor, but columnist Vicki Vale would be the first to identify the figure with an appropriate monkier: The Bat-Man. Within the next five years, the vigilante earned himself a reputation as an unparalleled detective in addition to being a silent guardian and a watchful protector of the victims of criminality. He'd cultivated an ally in Gordon, who used The Dark Knight's shrewd cunning and dedication to rooting out corruption in order to partially clean up the department. It'd won Gordon the rank of Commissioner, eventually bringing The Batman that much closer in alignment with law enforcement - albeit in an unofficial capacity. Still, when summoned by the giant light in the sky that the Commissioner would go onto deny even existed, The Caped Crusader would appear to fight against threats that were beyond the GCPD's reach. Threats like Dr. Death and The Mad Monk. Threats like Professor Hugo Strange and his scientifically enhanced Monster Men. Threats like jewel magnate Oswald Cobblepot, who'd not-so-secretly taken over The Roman's operations as the deranged, bird-like, trick umbrella carrying crime-lord known by his loyalists as The Penguin. Threats like the deadly thrill-seeker Catwoman, who pilfered from the rich while using her feminine wiles to stay one step ahead of the law. And threats like the terrible Clown Prince of Crime, a harlequin of hate who seemed to sew chaos and disorder wherever he appeared - The Joker. But there seemed to be some measure of hope at play. With Falcone having been nabbed by a joint effort between The Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and District Attorney Dent, organized crime seemed to be entering a downward spiral by the summer of '67. While what seemed to be replacing them was even more bizarre, such as the Alice In Wonderland-themed criminal Jervis Tetch, aka The Mad Hatter, aswell as The Scarecrow, an underworld bogeyman who kidnapped and tortured his enemies with a series of experiments that left them paralyzed with chemically induced terror, there were signs that Gotham was nevertheless beginning to see a brighter tomorrow. From a successful Mayoral campaign of the criminal reform-minded William Linseed, as publicly endorsed by millionaire Bruce Wayne, to the appointment of Dr. Jonathan Crane, a brilliant and widely recognized criminal psychiatrist, as the director of the newly minted Arkham Behavioral Rehabilitation Center. Adopting acrobat turned orphan Richard "Dick" Grayson as his ward, Bruce began training the boy to be able to find and bring his own parents' killer to justice. This evolved into a full-fledged partnership, where Bruce, under a candlelight oath, swore Grayson in as one half of what was sure to become a Dynamic Duo. At the start of a new year, Batman is left unsure of himself: he doesn't want to discourage the boy from following in his footsteps, but he can't help but shake the feeling that he's made a grave mistake in allowing him to walk his [i]exact[/i] path as Robin, The Boy Wonder. Add to it the reports from recent months of an amateur directly inspired by him, a Bat-[i]girl[/i], and Bruce is beginning to feel uncertain that his campaign as a Caped Crusader is beginning to do more good than harm. Of course, he doesn't know the half of what's coming. The fifth year of The Dark Knight's crusade will be his most trying yet, giving him new enemies, a new romance, and a set of partners to contend with that will change the course of everything. Batman can brave the storm, but whether Bruce Wayne's soul will survive the eye of it is an entirely different matter.[/i][/color] My take on this is pretty simple: in the comics, or whichever continuity you subscribe to, Batman goes through a generally dark period in his first year before lightening up considerably and taking Robin on as his partner. This... will not be that, as the realities of late 1960's America will keep Bruce perpetually hardened and crime-oriented despite the fact that he's all but eradicated the mob. Equal parts Sam Spade, James Bond, and all of his pulp contemporaries wrapped into one, this Batman will have to contend with a rogue's gallery that will reflect the madmen, sociopaths, and murderers ripped out of the headlines of both the period he'll exist in and the two decades to follow. If you thought The Joker was creepy on his own, think of what a version of the clown can do with a bit of that Night Stalker flair for random, brutalized insanity. Or a Riddler who operates closer to The Zodiac Killer. There'll certainly still be plenty of room for the superhero elements, but this version of Bats isn't going up against anyone looking out to play games. These are matters of life and death, every single night, and will be treated with the same gravitas as a 70's crime thriller. Some of this stuff is gonna get downright raw, which I think is still vastly uncharted territory for a child-friendly character like Bruce Wayne, despite many writers' attempts to push those boundaries. Buckle up. [center][youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVGfu-WXPgw[/youtube][/center] [h3]Key Notes[/h3][hr] [color=999999]TBD [/color] [h3]References / Sample Post[/h3][hr] [color=999999]Coming soon...[/color][/INDENT]