Batman Vs. Deathstroke

Hey DC fans, I’m Ricardo Butler aka Rease Val Zod aka the Black Kryptonian. And I am back here to share/write out my DCU movie wishes according to the hiring of James Gunn and Peter Safran as the co-CEOs of the newly formed DC Studios by President and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery David Zaslav.

This is part two of my series and if you don’t know or have been hiding under a rock, on January 1st, 2023, James Gunn announced his slate of what he and Peter have decided the first phase or chapter as they are calling it will be titled Chapter 1: God’s and Monster. I’m not going to go into the details of what movies, TV shows, and animated movies they have decided on. You can either read about it on The Holywood Reporter or you can watch James Gunn’s’ presentation on DC Comics Youtube Channel.

In James & Peter’s DCU they are calling their Batman movie The Brave and the Bold. They are not even calling it Batman: The Brave and the Bold. They just keep calling it The Brave and the Bold. Many DC commentaries and bloggers out there keep putting “Batman” in the front of the title, but Peter and James are not calling it that. Here’s what James Gun had to say about this project.

“This is a story of Damian Wayne, who’s Batman’s actual son that he didn’t know existed for the first eight to ten years of his life. He was raised as a little murderer and assassin. He’s my favorite Robin. It’s based on the Grant Morrison comic run, which is one of my favorite Batman runs. We’re putting it all together right now.”

Peter Safran added:

“This is going to feature other members of the extended Bat-Family. Just because we feel like they’ve been left out of the Batman stories in the theater for far too long.”

So, they will bring other characters from the Bat Family into this film. I don’t know about you but from what I know there are a lot of members in the Bat Family. Batman’s got enough supporting characters to take on the entire Justice League. From a quick look at Wikipedia under Batman Supporting Characters: Bat-Family, they list everyone from Alfred to Harley Quinn under current members. In the current member’s section, there are literally (with Batman himself included) 24 members listed. They even got Clayface and Ace the Bat-Hound. But for sure we already know we are getting Batman himself and Robin, his son Damian Wayne. That means Nightwing, Red Hood, Batgirl, and Red Robin exist in James Gunn’s DCU, hopefully, fingers crossed. But like my last blog with Superman: Mild Mannered I will do the same format and cover characters at the end.

The Incredible Hulk (2008)

Again, if David hired me to do things “just like Marvel” then I would use Batman as my Incredible Hulk counterpart. The only reason why is that Batman is oversaturating the market already. You still got Robert Pattison playing Batman and in this new upcoming Flash movie, you got both Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton playing two different versions of Batman.

Incredible Hulk, a main character of the MCU and an original member of the 6 Avengers got one movie but was all over the MCU. I would have planned to give Batman more movies to feature in, where he is all over the place rather than bringing out another Batman solo project. I would bring him in when needed for the story as Hulk was throughout the MCU. I mean Batman is one of the big three and is part of the DC Trinity with Superman and Wonder Woman.

Why Batman with Deathstroke?

While James Gunn is going to bring in the members of the Bat Family into his movie, the problem that has been flooding fans is: “Well if Damian Wayne is the current Robin and Superman is supposed to be younger, wouldn’t this new DCU Batman have to be older standing next to Superman?” A lot of fans, including myself did not like this idea. I mean they did it in Zack Synder’s universe already and it kind of worked but the only Robin we knew of, Dick Grayson, was already dead.

In my DCU, I would have both Superman and Batman around the same age as pretty much most of the Justice League would be. So, I took inspiration for my Batman movies from five places.

  • Batman Vs. Deathstroke – Batman: Arkham Origins

I don’t know if you have watched the cinematics for the Batman: Arkham Origins video game, but the fight between Batman and Deathstroke was the fight I never knew I wanted! I mean DC history always puts Deathstroke against Dick Grayson and the Titans/Teen Titans. But after watching that video game fight on YouTube with these two I want to see these two duke it out on the big screen.

  • Deathstroke: Batman vs. Deathstroke (DEATHSTROKE #30-35) (March 19, 2019)

In this 6 issue story, Batman and Deathstroke fight it out over if Damian Wayne is truly the son of either Batman or Deathstroke. I believe Deathstroke: Batman Vs. Deathstroke was written by Christopher Priest and illustrated by Diogenes Neves. The whole story turns out to be a misunderstanding and a setup between Talia Al Ghul Damian Wayne’s mother and Adaline Kane, who is Deathstroke’s baby mother. There is also a dialogue between Jericho (Deathstroke’s son) and Red Robin Tim Drake (before he died earlier that year in another story). Another good angle of the story is told from the perspective of Alfred and Wintergreen, which are like the butlers/servants to Batman and Deathstroke. On their side of the story, they are trying to stop the war between the two before they end up killing each other.

  • Son of Batman (Animated Movie) April 22, 2014

This was part of the DCAMU loosely based on several New 52 stories directed by Ethan Spaulding. In Son of Batman, Ra’s al Ghul is killed by Deathstroke basically because he is jealous that Ra’s is making his grandson Damian the heir of the League of Assassins instead of Deathstroke. So Deathstroke wants to create his own army of Man Bats using Dr. Kirk Langstrom’s Man-Bat formula by kidnapping Kirk’s family. He also wants to get revenge on Damian and Talia and she gives her son up to Batman to protect him from Deathstroke who did not even know he had a son. It’s a really really good movie! And this is the first contact point for me for Damian Wayne. I had to go back and look him up in the comic books to learn more about him. His attitude and the voice actor Stuart Allan made me fall in love with this character! Batman and Deathstroke don’t really fight in this movie as it is more of a Robin Vs. Deathstroke movie.

  • Lego DC Comics Super Heroes: Justice League – Gotham City Breakout (2016)

During this Lego movie with Batman, they give us an origin story of Deathstroke and his history with Batman. In this story, they both trained together under the same master. They were apparently best friends and were in arts and crafts together. Gotham City Breakout is, of course, a kid’s movie but it is pretty darn funny and I loved how Master Mantis kept calling Deathstroke Strokedeath and Batman Batface!

  • Justice League Snyder Cut Post Credit Scene Deathstroke and Lex Luthor

At the end of Zack Synder’s Justice League (2021) we have a Post Credit Scene where Lex Luthor and Deathstroke speak about starting the Legion of Doom. In this scene, Lex Luthor passes on the identity to Deathstroke that Batman is Bruce Wayne. Deathstroke’s reason for taking this kill free of charge was that whatever happened between Batman and himself was personal. They teased us hard with this one as they originally had planned Deathstroke to be the villain of The Batman movie with Ben Affleck as Batman directing the movie. But it never materialized, and I personally still want to see this! Joe Manganiello portrays Slade Wilson/Deathstroke in the DCEU and I thought his suit was badass!

Cast & Character Motives

In my Batman movie, as I said before, I would not be using Damian Wayne’s Robin or any of the other Bat Family members yet. I would bring them out a little later in my DCU. This would have been a pure Batman Vs. Deathstroke movie. Not to say the other Bat-Family characters didn’t exist or even couldn’t work in my movie. But Nightwing would be off with the Titans. Red Hood would be out doing his thing. Red Robin would be with Young Justice or the Teen Titans, and Damian at this point in the timeline would probably still be with Talia and Ra’z. No. This is purely a Bruce Wayne/Batman Vs. Slade Wilson/Deathstroke movie!

Again, I am matching the same number of characters that Marvel has in the movie I am comparing DC to. Because we are supposed to be following the Marvel format for our movies.

Bruce Wayne / Batman: He is our David Banner/Hulk in this movie as the main character. Of course, there are no comparisons between the two characters other than that. But in this movie, Batman has done Deathstroke wrong in their past life. I’m no writer so there can be many things. There can be something where Batman hurt Deathstroke’s son or maybe Deathstroke hurt Dick Grayson. Or maybe like in the Lego movie Deathstroke lost his place at the school they trained together. It could be anything.

Selina Kyle / Catwoman: Catwoman is the Betty Ross of our movie. Batman’s love interest of course. But as we all know Catwoman is not all hero nor is she all villain either. Maybe in this movie writers can use her to steal something valuable from Batman’s cave. Or Batman can use her to break into or steal something from Deathstroke.

Amanda Waller: “The Wall” as she is called is our Thaddeus Ross. In this movie, what Batman has, Waller wants it. And it happens to be Kryptonite. She wants it to stop the new alien in town named Superman. She sends Catwoman and Deathstroke separately to get it because in my movie these two are the first two members of my DCU’s Suicide Squad.

Slade Wilson / Deathstroke: He is obviously this movie’s Emil Blonsky/Abomination. The only reason why Slade takes this job to help Amanda Waller get the Kryptonite from Batman’s cave is that he has a bone to pick with Batman from their past.

Alfred Pennyworth: Ty Burrell who played Leonard Samson in Incredible Hulk was the new love interest for Betty Ross. But in our movie, Alfred is obviously not going to hook up with Catwoman. Alfred will always do what Alfred does: serve as the butler and the man in the chair in the cave when Batman is out on the streets.

Jim Gordon: Dr. Samuel Sterns aka the Leader, who helps Hulk is our Jim Gordon who helps Batman in the middle of all this mess going on between him and Deathstroke. While Deathstroke gets intel from Amanda Waller, Batman will be getting help from Jim Gordon.

Superman / Clark Kent / Kal El: Like Tony Stark who appeared at the end of the Incredible Hulk movie to talk about the Avenger Initiative, Superman will come to Batman to thank him for not giving the Kryptonite up to Waller. Superman knows that Lex Luthor is the one pulling the strings behind Amanda Waller and Deathstroke, so Superman suggests they team us as the World’s Finest which will lead to the future Justice League.

Other Supporting Character Rolls (Optional)

These characters are optional and can be placed or sprinkled throughout this first Batman story as needed. Again, I’m not a script writer so I would not know how to write this story. But I can see some of these characters put in any story they decide to tell for the first Batman movie for a new DCU. And remember, Darkseid is the ultimate bad who is pulling the strings behind Lex Luthor as well as Amanda Waller.

Dick Grayson / Robin: At this point in the timeline of Dick’s crimefighting career, he has left Batman and the Robin role but has not yet become Nightwing. How much of him can be used in the story would be up to the writers. At most, if it was me, it would be in flashbacks and through phone calls with Bruce from him either being in Bludhaven or with the future Teen Titans.

William Randolph Wintergreen: As I mentioned earlier, Wintergreen is sort of like Deathstroke’s version of Alfred but a bit more of a mentor and moral compass for Slade. Alfred was not much of a moral compass but was trying to get Bruce to focus on the Wayne legacy.

Closing Thoughts

Just like the Hulk movie, this one doesn’t seem to connect to the DCU and to Darkseid but the story is important to build the future appearance of Amanda Waller specifically as she is swayed by Lex Luthor and Darkseid.

And this is the second story of my DCU if I was James Gunn and Peter Safran! Share your thoughts and comments below if you like this story or hate it? Or let me know how you would do your Superman entry into your version of the DCU if you were hired to be the CEO of DC Studios!

Thanks for reading!