Well, the votes are in, and the most popular choice among commentators on this blog for the costume that batman should wear in our new hypothetical trilogy is — not the one in the picture above.  By my count we had three votes for the radically different Batman Beyond-style suit, and one for the 1970s-style suit. I can see good arguments to be made for both, but neither, I fear is quite what this new trilogy needs. Nope, the suit that, to me, best fits in with the version of Batman we want to portray here is the costume from Batman : The Animated Series. Let me tell you why —

First off, we’re going for something of a “throwback” iteration of the character here. Less emphasis on physical action, more on detective work. Less grim n’ gritty, and more heroic — but the character should be as mysterious, I feel, as ever. I think the animated series-style suit, as shown above from the Batman : Arkham City costume selection menu, speaks to those qualities a little better than the others. The Batman Beyond suit is too futuristic and too inaccessible to the general, non-Bat-fan public, and  the 1970s-style suit , in contrast, goes a bit too far in the other direction , in my opinion — it’s too closely associated with the comic bookas people remember it from their youth.

Now, there are certainly a couple things I’d change even with the animated series-style suit — I’d ditch the yellow oval around the bat, for sure, and lose the blue trunks, hood, and cape in favor of black — but I would keep the lighter grayish-black of the overall costume and then have the bat, sans yellow oval, be very dark black. But one thing I’d definitely leave as unchanged as possible are the exaggerated, whited-out eyes. Let’s face it — we’ve seen Batman’s eyes in every Bat-film, as well as the 1960s TV series, and it’s getting old. Whiting out his eyes gives him added anonymity and a more fierce and determined look.

But how’s he gonna see, you ask? Good question. remember the scene in The Dark Knight where he lowered those blinders over his eyes, whiting them out, and it gave him a kind of night vision? It looked pretty damn cool, didn’t it? Well, I propose the same thing, only it can be adjustable — he can see infrared-style, or with “heat-sensor” type vision, or with a type of “X-ray vision,” or even just standard — all depending on the verbal command he gives his suit via his cowl mic. In addition, the whited-out eyes will function as a type of transmitter to relay visual information back to the Batcave, something we’ll see in the very next scene that I get into. And yes, I changed the font for this paragraph on purpose just to drive home the point I’m trying to make here in the closest way that WordPress will allow.

So that’s how I see things. Even if you, dear reader, disagree with my choice, I hope I’ve laid out my reasoning for why I’ve decided the way I have in a way that makes both aesthetic and logical sense. To me, this costume is both mysterious and heroic and has a sort of retro high-tech feel without being a goddamn suit of armor like we’re used to seeing him wear in recent films.

So that’s it on the costume front, when next we rejoin this series — which will probably be in about a week or so, I’ve got some horror movie reviews to catch up on before Halloween — we’ll jump back into the story proper, so I look forward to seeing all of you back with me then!