I have give a perhaps unreasonable amount of thought to what roles I want the Bats to take in a hypothetical future. I'm not thinking this would happen all at once. And idk what the circumstances would be for characters taking on legacy roles. This is not a fully fleshed out story with world building and a timeline and shit. This is just a collection of thoughts that have been crashing into each other in my brain for a while and I wanted to share them.
Notes: I will be going roughly by age, counting down, but that's gonna be a little iffy with characters of a similar age because that kind of thing is inconsistent across different versions. If any of your favorites aren't here, it's probably because I don't know them very well. I'm sorry for the exclusion, but I'd rather that than butchering their characters because I don't understand them. I am only including characters with a vigilante persona, you will not find civilians here.
BRUCE: I don't think he would willingly give up Batman. If he stops being Batman, it'll be because he's either dead or completely incapable of vigilante work, and it would take a LOT to get him to admit to the latter. Bruce does not have a future as a different vigilante. Bruce is Batman, forcibly retired, or dead.
BARBARA: Babs should be Oracle. Babs should ALWAYS be Oracle. I don't appreciate them 'fixing' her disability, but I can begrudgingly accept that they wrote themselves into a corner with that one (the medical tech in the DC universe is so advanced that it made no sense that there was no way to give her back her legs). What I CANNOT accept is that being able to walk again meant she should give up Oracle. No! On a personal level, she built Oracle from the ground up! It is her creation, her salvation, her way of making herself strong again after the Joker! On a practical level, it is an invaluable piece of multiple superhero teams that would not function without her! Oracle is something other people need her to be, and it's something she needs to be for her own sake.
DICK: Dick should keep the Nightwing mantle. Nightwing is his own creation that he's poured his heart and soul into. He's a fully fledged hero who can stand on his own. He should NEVER be Batman. It would crush his fucking soul. The man needs to quip! He needs to pun! He needs to laugh! He needs to do stupid impractical showy flips in the middle of a fight! Batman can't do that. Nightwing can. Nightwing is also just a good, solid, well-established identity that he's put time and care and effort into developing. Dick should keep being Nightwing for as long as he can.
CASS: Cass should be Batgirl until Bruce dies. She needs that acceptance, that structure, the weight of a mantle given to her because she is TRUSTED. For Cass, Batgirl means redemption. But once Bruce dies, she should be Batman. Because Cass believes in the symbol of the Bat more than anyone. She's skilled enough to pull it off, strong enough not to be crushed by it, and she can embody the stated ideals of Batman better than even Bruce.
JASON: Jason should keep the Red Hood. It's not a comfortable identity, for him or anyone else. I don't think he likes himself very much as Red Hood, and pretty much no one else does. But that's the point. Jason is never going to agree with the other Bats on several very important points, and the Red Hood is a symbol of that. It makes his very presence, his very NAME a point of friction, and that's how it should be. Jason exists as a foil to the other Bats, particularly to Batman, and his secret identity should reflect that.
TIM: Tim should be the Question. I know it seems kinda out of left field, but think about it! He's a weird little freak. He's a detective first and foremost. He's a stalker with no sense of boundaries. He's a conspiracy theorist who's somehow usually right and he's infuriatingly smug about it. He's inquisitive and pushy and obnoxious, exactly as the Question should be. That said, Question!Tim and Batman!Cass should work together a lot more than Bruce works with other Questions. For one thing, while Cass is brilliant at the fighting stuff, she's not as good at the detective stuff - not bad at it, but not as good as Tim is. For another, Tim and Cass are already close and this would be a fascinating new aspect to their relationship. So Tim should be the Question, but the Question should be much more Bat-affiliated.
STEPH: Steph should be Spoiler. Spoiler is the identity she made, the one that no one can take away from her, and I think after having Robin ripped away she wouldn't ever feel entirely secure in an identity that relied on someone else's goodwill. I think she makes an incredible Batgirl, but I think she'd always be an insecure Batgirl, trying not to do something that would lose her the role. Spoiler, on the other hand, is entirely her own. It's the one she created to get justice. It's the one she falls back on after being fired as Robin. It's not easy - Spoiler doesn't have the backup or funding or support that a vigilante should have - but to Steph, Spoiler means justice and safety and agency, and I think she'd rather have those.
DAMIAN: I'm not sure what identity Damian should have when he leaves the role of Robin, but I think it should be something completely new. He's grown up under the weight of two massive legacies, spent his life being told that he'll be the Demon's Head or Batman or both. That's a lot to put on someone, and I think he should get a chance to exist outside of those legacies. I could MAYBE see him taking up Nightwing if Dick died young or took a career ending injury, but I don't think that would be the best option for him, because it's still living in someone else's shadow. Let Damian find a new path, and let it be entirely his own.
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