Iron Man (2008): BATMAN
Hero: Bruce Wayne, Batman
Villain/s: Ra’s al Ghul; Mr Freeze
Plot:
Kajillionaire Bruce Wayne loses his parents at a very young age, and floats into adulthood on his inheritance. Meanwhile Gotham City deteriorates into a seedy world of rampant crime. Tony Stark got kidnapped and forced to build the Iron Man suit to survive, but Bruce Wayne builds the Batman ideal to become Gotham’s Dark Knight, and to undo the making of a world where an eight-year-old-boy has to watch his parents die.
But all this is would be the setting, and not the definition of this Batman. While the Nolan-verse put out an extremely successful trilogy, it’s also acted overly gritty and somewhat ashamed of its comic book origins, sometimes outright refusing to acknowledge certain Batman elements and characters that defined the comic book incarnation.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe treatment means we’d get all the fun of him pretending to be the flamboyant playboy as Bruce Wayne while being a genius crime-solving detective as Batman. We’d get to see a droll, humorous Batman, with backhanded comments from Bruce Wayne and the shenanigans from both personas that used to make classic comic books, as well as the animated series, a lot of fun.
And of course, while maintaining the glamor of being a super-fit genius with fabulous wealth is a given, there will be the questions of a hero’s moral obligations and the deconstruction of super-heroics — because Batman is unlike Superman the way Iron Man is unlike Captain America — that make Batman stories so interesting in the first place.
(In short, Batman would be taken seriously, but not as seriously as Christian Bale and not as campy as, um, George Clooney).
Just as Marvel Studios put out Iron Man first, so will the origins of the Dark Knight draw the crowds and get everyone excited for the rest of the heroes to unfold.
(Post-Credits Scene: Batman observing to Alfred that he isn’t the only vigilante around, as much as he thinks he might be the first. But there are interesting things going on in Metropolis. Alfred remarks that maybe they ought to form a partnership, or perhaps a league.)