One of the big questions raised about turning Man of Steel into the first part of a shared universe is… well, if there’s an older Batman running around, wouldn’t people already be used to superheroes? Turns out, if a rumor is true, there’s an answer for that in Suicide Squad.
This comes from El Mayimbe, who’s been all over the Suicide Squad rumors, so season accordingly. But, according to the rumor, the basic answer is that Batman is little more than a minor urban legend. There’s no Bat-signal, no Gordon, and in fact there’s only one person who’s actually met Batman and has any sense of who he is. That would be the Joker, and apparently the government believes Batman will be useful in a plan to root out all the superheroes among us. Supposedly, the government has a snippet of video footage featuring Bats beating the ever-loving hell out of some poor sucker, and even Waller is impressed and/or mildly terrified.
How credible is this? I rank it at 50/50. They’ll definitely explain why Batman isn’t a household name, and they also need a new take on their most popular character with the Dark Knight trilogy so fresh in everyone’s minds. Similarly, you can’t put the Joker in the movie without bringing up Batman, and this is definitely a classic Batman idea. Still, the movie’s not on film yet, so this might be excised, or tweaked quite a bit. But we kind of hope this makes it in; after all, it works.
