Café de Nuit

ScS of the Fraternity wrote:So, what would happen to a similarly obscessed crime fighter who lacked the same friends and mentors. What would happed to a real loner, who brooded in his bat-cave without normal humans to ground him in reality? No doubt he would have become lost in his delusions, swallowed up by his all consuming need to control the world.

Batman, evil or otherwise, never struck me as the type to dominate and control.
Granted, he is a control freak, but that's only because of his inhuman discipline.
Were he to give in and indulge in his darker desires, I would imagine that he'd simply go about and, for lack of a better word, eliminate all those he saw as being, not so much as undesirable, as being irredeemable/wholely unfit for society.
Like how the Punisher takes care of business.

Or perhaps Elena FaithHold?

Gemathustra wrote:Batman, evil or otherwise, never struck me as the type to dominate and control.

Me neither.

What about Joker? I think he can be a DL very easily, he is evil, smart, and able to create chaos. And if not for DL I'd like to see him in a domain as the bad guy. I think it will be interesting.

I think Batman does have a need to dominate and control but not to control the world, or control gotham city, or control the bad guys. The controlling aspect of him is in how he needs to control his allies. He constantly mistreats Batgirl, Oracle, Robin, Nightwing, Spoiler, etc. He often steps over the line from treating them as allies and cohorts to treating them as tools. He expects them to follow his orders unquestionably. And any times some new hero comes into Gotham, he forces them to play by his rules or to leave. (Azreal, Catwoman, Tarantula, Onyx, Orpheus...)

Exactly, he tries to control the people he cares for;
his firends, family, allies, even his city.
Remember the Justice League storyline, where Batman accumulated a list of everyone's weaknesses, and the list just happened to get stolen by the bad guys?
Batman does have a need to control, stemming from the death of his parents. He felt responsible because he couldn't stop the muder of his parents - so he's dedicated his life to always being in control.


As for Joker being a darklord, I'd suggest otherwise. While a character like Batman is gothic in the extreme and rooted in place, Joker revels in freedom. He can strike anywhere, any time, at anyone. Take away that freedom, and Joker looses his appeal.

Sure you vou could say, chain Joker in place and he becomes angsty and miserable - but isn't that the opposite of what you want for the clown prince of crime? The appeal of a Joker character is that his smile isn't just make up - he really is having fun. He is content to kill, maim and steal - he always wins in the end, because he got his fun before the hero even came onto the scene.

ScS of the Fraternity wrote:Sure you vou could say, chain Joker in place and he becomes angsty and miserable - but isn't that the opposite of what you want for the clown prince of crime? The appeal of a Joker character is that his smile isn't just make up - he really is having fun. He is content to kill, maim and steal - he always wins in the end, because he got his fun before the hero even came onto the scene.

I agree...
He may be a nasty clown, but, somehow, I don't think he would make for that great of a jack-in-the-box.

There's a bit of a need to dominate and control in Batman that could easily be brought out; his desire to protect Gotham could easily be changed into something a lot more twisted. Remember the freakish bat-sentinels in Kingdom Come? Granted, a lot of the stuff he did in Kingdom Come was an act, but it worked because it was so plausible.

I like the Timor idea quite a bit . . .