Officer Wayne, Justice League thought

[jeriendhal]

So who would take the World's Greatest Detective's role in the JL, if Bruce never became Bats? Because the only other candidate that comes close from what I remember of DC's cast is The Question, and that would make for some interesting dynamics on that team.

"Please, I look through everyone's garbage."

Comments

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

The Martian Manhunter was a cop for a while.

[seawasp]

Well, he could still be promoted to Detective Wayne, couldn't he?

Maybe The Shadow could come out of retirement.

The Martian Manhunter, as James points out, has training.

Dick Grayson, if Officer Wayne doesn't prevent him from going down the Wear Funny Clothes for Vengeance path?

[sraun]

In one of the prior vignettes about Office Wayne, his colleague Officer Grayson was mentioned.

[seawasp]

Oh, yeah, forgot that. So in this world not only did Batman not become Batman, but Grayson's parents either weren't acrobats or they sent their kid to regular school instead of putting him in the act.

[allah-sulu.livejournal.com]

Or everything more or less still happened -- Grayson's parents were killed, Dick was adopted by Bruce, and is following his footsteps in fighting crime.

[seawasp]

Given the importance of Robin/Nightwing to the DCverse, that's the kind of thing that definitely needs show, not tell, and certainly not "imply by side mention".

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Urgh, that's going to take some doing to fit in, unless this becomes a mini-series.

[seawasp]

If I were doing it, I'd be planning it as a mini or even full-blown series, not as a one-shot. One-shots are okay as sorta-jokes, but this has potential of a completely different, yet familiar, DC universe. The Batman is one of the pivotal figures of that universe. Changing his life this drastically -- yet believably -- can have almost limitless interesting repercussions to explore, WITHOUT having to do stupid cosmic rewrites or reboots of everything.

You could just tell the story of how Dick became Officer Grayson, or modify your prior stuff and remove "Officer Grayson" for use later, or have "Officer Grayson" be Dick's father... who gets killed later, along with his wife, and Bruce adopts Dick because of the resonance between his childhood and Dick's. Then Dick can either decide to follow Bruce's footsteps, or secretly become the Batman himself, any of which would be quite a change.

There's many routes

[harvey-rrit.livejournal.com]

Barry Allen is already a police detective.

Furthermore, he gathers evidence without tainting the scene; and that's not even allowing for vibrating through stuff. He's a forensic analyst. He'd be a huge improvement.

In the fifty years since I first saw the comic, I have never seen Batman change his gloves before picking stuff up. ("All the evidence we've gathered has the Joker's blood on it! Also his snot and a little tooth enamel.")

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

Don't forget about Ralph Dibny - the Elongated Man, generally considered to be the worlds secont greatest detective, right behind the Batman...

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I think Ralph filling in for Bruce is a bit of a stretch.

[grayhawkfh.livejournal.com]

*rimshot*

[seawasp]

I think he'd go to almost any length to make it happen, though.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Stop, you're both tying me up in knots here.

[seawasp]

What, you're not flexible enough to put up with a few good puns? Or do you find our definition of "good pun"... too elastic for you to tolerate?

[jblum.livejournal.com]

I'm wondering who a young Dick Grayson would actually turn to as a role model in these cases. Might not be a cop.

But here's a bigger piece of food for thought: by working within the law, and not taking the night as his own territory, Wayne is effectively ceding the use of fear as a weapon against criminals (instead substituting the use of the police's authority). No one's scared the bat's gonna come get them. So: who *does* try to dominate the underworld through fear?

I think this has to be a Scarecrow story, somehow...