The next DC Animated Movie, coming in Spring 2016, is called Batman: Bad Blood. The movie focuses on the Bat-family, with Batman taken off the board, seeing how characters like Nightwing, Batwoman, Batwing, and Robin step up to fill the void. It also happens to share a subtitle that’s the title of a Taylor Swift song.
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And that got us wondering – if we look through Taylor Swift’s song catalog, are there any others that would work as Batman movie subtitles? Oh. Emm. Gee. Yes. Here are our seven favorites, plus some ideas of how those movies might play out.
You’re welcome, WB Animation.
Batman: Blank Space
The Taylor Swift Song: “Got a long list of ex-lovers / They’ll tell you I’m insane. But I’ve got a blank space, baby / And I’ll write your name.”
The Batman Story Pitch: It’s tempting to do a story that fits thematically with the song, featuring a string of Bruce Wayne’s exes all suing him to get him put in Arkham, but we’ll go another direction. Batman, after a fight and mishap with the Mad Hatter, wakes up in the cave with no memory, but still fully in costume. He looks at all his tools, his lavish lifestyle, and decides he must be a criminal, becoming the scourge of Gotham City (Alfred is out of the picture for this story, obviously). The criminal underworld of Gotham is turned on its head, and they realize they’re actually worse off, as Batman’s new ruthlessness takes them out quickly. The villains unite to give Batman his memory back.
Batman: Fearless
The Taylor Swift Song: “And I don’t know how it gets better than this / You take my hand and drag me head first / Fearless / And I don’t know why but with you I’d dance / In a storm in my best dress / Fearless”
The Batman Story Pitch: This is, obviously, a Scarecrow story. Scarecrow makes a brand-new version of his trademark serum, but this one does something different – it actually takes away all fear, thus removing inhibitions as well. He doses high-value targets all over Gotham with the serum, from the Mayor to Commissioner Gordon, other city leaders and celebrities and even some Wayne Industries execs. The chaos of these people going out and acting entirely on base impulses, be that high speed chases, base jumping from Gotham’s skyscrapers, or wanton murder and destruction, generates more fear among the average citizens of Gotham – and gives Batman a lot of problems to solve all at once.
Batman: Haunted
The Taylor Swift Song: “Come on, come on, don’t leave me like this / I thought I had you figured out / Can’t breathe whenever you’re gone / Can’t turn back now, I’m haunted”
The Batman Story Pitch: Batman has saved a lot of lives, but he hasn’t saved them all. Remembering how much just one of his old allies coming back to haunt him temporarily destroyed Batman, Ra’s al Ghul, through various mystical methods, raises everyone Batman has ever failed to torture him, as ghosts, ghouls, zombies, and even full-on living, breathing humans. It starts very psychologically, with people randomly showing up in the streets, and builds to eventually seeing Thomas and Martha Wayne committing a crime – and having to stop them no matter what. Batman questions whether he’s ever done any good, and contemplates putting Ra’s down for good, really evaluating the way Batman commits his crusade. (Yes, this is a little black lantern-y, but it’s more psychological, so stop it.)
Batman: I Knew You Were Trouble
The Taylor Swift Song: “‘Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in / So shame on me now / Flew me to places I’d never been / ‘Til you put me down, oh”
The Batman Story Pitch: A much more humorous romp of a movie, this one is all about Harley Quinn. After some trickery, Harley starts to successfully seduce Bruce Wayne, hoping to use his wealth to take down the Bat. When a very in-love (and consistently dosed) Bruce reveals his secret to Harley, his duplicitousness does something unexpected: it turns her on. Suddenly convinced he’s just as crazy as Mr. J, Harley falls hard for Bruce/Batman, her plan backfiring on her – and when Joker escapes from Arkham and sees her side-by-side with the Caped Crusader, we find out whether Joker ever truly cared about his harlequin romance.
Batman: Last Kiss
The Taylor Swift Song: “I still remember the look on your face / Lit through the darkness at 1:58 / The words that you whispered / For just us to know / You told me you loved me / So why did you go / Away”
The Batman Story Pitch: This is obviously a Catwoman story. Batman is fed up with Catwoman’s straddling of the fence and tries to convince her to give up any criminal activity and just be fully with him once and for all. She makes a real effort, but circumstances force her back into the criminal lifestyle, and eventually send her further down a villainous path than she’s ever been before.
Batman: Superman
The Taylor Swift Song: “I watch superman fly away / You’ve got a busy day today / Go save the world, I’ll be around”
The Batman Story Pitch: Come on, this song had to be done. It’s an easy one, too, as J.M DeMatteis and Eduardo Barretto have already done this story as an Elseworlds story in January 1993. Simply adapt Superman: Speeding Bullets, where Kal-el crashes and is adopted by Thomas and Martha Wayne. They’re gunned down, he discovers his powers, and becomes Batman. It’s then Kal’s redemption story, and how he goes from being the dark Batman to the inspiring Superman.
Batman: Shake it Off
The Taylor Swift Song: “Heart-breakers gonna break, break, break, break, break / And the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, fake, fake / Baby, I’m just gonna shake, shake, shake, shake, shake / I shake it off, I shake it off”
The Batman Story Pitch: Look, I got nothing here, but having “Shake it Off” in this will definitely increase our google search stats for the story. If I had to pitch something, it would be a “Batman runs the gauntlet of villains” story like Hush or Long Halloween, but with a twist: he’s completely prepared and does it all really easily. It’s basically Batman vs. the World, but shows just how ready he is for anything. They try to take him down, and he just shakes it off.
