4. Making Jean Paul Valley Batman
Bane had broken the Batman. It was a shocking moment for readers, and for Bruce Wayne himself; the Batman, previously indestructible, brought to his knees by a hulking brute. Recovery would take time, might even be impossible; in the meantime, Gotham City needed a Batman, and Bruce would have to appoint one, at best to be a temporary fill in, at worst to be a successor. And to fill the role, Bruce Wayne chose -- ...Jean-Paul Valley? Wait,
who? Yes kids, believe it or not, there was a time (read: the early '90s) before "big events" became the rage in comics when a lot of people were honest-to-God convinced that there was a brand new tough as nails Batman in town, and he went by the name of Jean-Paul Valley. Valley was a college student who learned that his father had been an assassin named Azrael, a sort of sleeper agent working for the Order of St. Dumas; their martial arts style, "the System", had been planted in Valley's brain, to be unleashed shockingly and without warning when the time came. Valley met Bruce Wayne in the "Sword of Azrael" miniseries a few years before the Knightfall story arc, and Bruce had been helping the young man come to terms with his new status as a super assassin from hell. So what better way to help Jean Paul Valley cope with these stunning revelations than suddenly, and without warning, thrusting him into the role of Gotham's protector? No wonder Jean Paul cracked under the strain. Jean Paul's ascension to the throne of the Bat clearly had more to do with thematic notions than character consistency. It's remembered now as the storyline about Bane breaking the Bat, but most people forget what Knightfall was
really supposed to be about. By the '90s, violent characters were the norm in superhero comics, and Batman's "no kill" rule seemed almost passé; the writers on the Batman titles wanted to give the readers what they wanted -- a "tougher, meaner" Batman -- and show them why that was actually a
terrible idea. The problem was they had to do this at the expense of logic. If Bruce was going to disappear, why not ask Dick Grayson to fill in as Batman? (Bruce tossed out some pablum about how Dick was "his own man", which didn't even make sense to
the other characters in the comic.) Hell, Bruce would've been better off asking
Alfred to put on the batsuit. Anyone but Jean Paul, who predictably began cracking under the strain almost immediately, monologuing endlessly about "The System", going on a massive ego trip, becoming unnesscarily brutal with criminals and allowing the villain Anarky to die a brutal, painful death. Valley, who was a major fixture of the Batman titles throughout the Knightfall story arc, has more or less disappeared since the early '90s. Maybe the writers are as embarrassed by his time in the cape as Bruce is.