Dark Night: A True Batman Story (2016)

Dark Night: A True Batman Story. Paul Dini; Eduardo Risso. www.dc.com . www.hoopladigital.com . dc.fandom.com . Jun 15, 2016.

Snapshots

DINI. Now you’d think that one invisible kid might find comfort in another one’s company. But at that age, the last thing a nothing kid wants to be is lumped in with another nothing. Proof that cruelty, even garbed as self-preservation, is contagious.

DINI. Was I mad? Sure. Would I have liked to have pounded those guys? Absolutely. But to us quiet, lonely kids, those moments of spontaneous righteousness always came too late… Like when we’re slinking home, fighting back tears and thinking about the defiant remarks we should have made and the brave actions we could have taken. Besides, when it come to being colorful, we invisible kids learned to carry our colors on the inside. We let those colors out when we did things we loved… drawing, music, acting… those things that defined us and made us glow.

DINI. So, you get the idea. In order to survive, I had devised this unique coping mechanism. I could put up with any sort of mindless torture in public as long as I could let my imagination run wild in private. Of course, there were voices of well-meaning dissent.
GINI’S DAD. Cartoons again… I’d like to know what kind of job you can get by watching cartoons.

DINI. You can think with amazing clarity when you believe you are going to die. For one thing, I knew no one would help me. If anyone was going to rush to my aid, they would have done so already. And never mind me calling for help. My assailants would kill me immediately of that, I was certain. Besides, they were already yelling loud enough to rouse the neighborhood. Hard to listen to a couple of huge guys repeatedly screaming, “Motherfucking faggot bitch!” and not be a little curious about what’s going on outside. People must have heard, and locked their doors.

POLICE OFFICER. We’ll follow up where we can, see if anyone else has been attacked in this area. Maybe someone’s seen something or knows something.
GINI. Is there any chance of catching those guys?
POLICE OFFICER. L.A.P.D. covers a lot of territory. A few blocks west, in Beverly Hills, they have their own police department and more manpower to devote to crimes in their jurisdiction.
GINI. So I should have asked them to drag me a half mile that way before they kicked my ass?

GINI. Everyone is right – you should have been there for me that night.
BATMAN. I was there, if you had bothered to think like I do! You saw them, two figures huddled close together, faces obscured, moving toward you in a predatory manner!

GINI. I still had to exit the studio. And every step toward the elevator brought questions and observations…
CO-WORKERS. Does it hurt? Did anybody see anything? So sorry… Did the police find anything? Does it hurt? Right in your neighborhood, too… Same thing happened to my cousin. Cops did nothing.
BARRY. Were they black?
GINI. One of them was. The smaller one, I’m not sure. He got behind me quick, Barry, I couldn’t really see. I don’t think so.
BARRY. Damn it.

IVY. You certainly can’t blame Regina for sticking to her priorities. In that regard, she was 100 percent honest. Where you were completely disingenuous, using the award ceremony to impress the girl while you yourself had so little to offer. Limited show-business connections, even more limited financial resources, and as far as physical attraction goes, well… […] Of course, she never really hated you. Probably didn’t like you much either, but my guess is she rarely thought about you at all. Even that would have required too much emotional investment. The only hatred you experienced was from yourself. Because in that moment you looked at yourself and despised what you saw.

PENGUIN. Take the concept of justice, for instance. Oh, it’s a fine literary device for comic books, but looking for it in real life is a recipe for despair. Fortunately, there’s good rum to wash away the disappointment.

GINI. He’s shot sky-high and barely manages to clamp his grapple onto a gargoyle way up on the side of a building. The grapple pulls Batman up, and he just hangs there, hovering between life and death. Then we’re inside the Dreaming, the Sandman’s kingdom. Batman comes to and finds he’s in a sort of negative space. No villains, no Gotham, no pain, for that matter. Nothing except him and a girl. Death. It seems that Death and the Sandman are siblings in a sort of dysfunctional family of states of human consciousness. That part’s a little too much for just twenty-two minutes. Anyway, Death good-naturedly tells ‘the Cheater’ he’s dodged her for the last time. Now she will finally ease him over to the other side. That’s when Morpheus, the Sandman, appears. He tells his sister that Batman is his guest in his realm, and asks Death to spare him, for now. Of course, Batman has no idea what these two are talking about. He only knows that he’s in the middle of some insane dream brought about by his injuries. Death’s not happy, but family is family, so she hands back while Morpheus tells Batman he is responsible for more dreams than he knows. Dreams of Batman in all forms pervade human minds. Acting like ghost out of Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Morpheus shows Batman how his image haunts the dreams of the wicked, scaring more than a few of them into giving up crime. The Sandman also reveals how Batman has instilled dreams of hope in the people he’s saved. In his own way, Batman is a powerful agent of the Dreaming. These revelations are things that Batman admits he may have felt on some level, but he’s always pushed them aside in his mind in order to concentrate on his mission. Morpheus tells Batman he stands at a crossroad. He can follow death to eternal rest, or he can allow Morpheus to wake him. Neither choice is wrong but only Batman may make the choice. Batman knows waking means he will have to deal with pain, but he also knows he will heal. He chooses to live. There is a bright light and Batman recoils in pain.