A Brief Final Assessment of Batman Elseworlds

    When I started this blog, I stated that the overall goal of this blog was to figure out what makes a good Batman Elseworlds vs what makes a bad one, and from reading a wide assortment of these stories I believe I have done this. 

    A good Batman Elseworlds prioritizes three things in this order, character, pace, & originality. A well-defined assortment of characters, like Batman and Gordon in Red Rain, or Batman and Samuel Clemens in The Blue, The Grey, and The Bat, can vastly improve the stakes and quality of a story by giving the reader something to be attached to. A good pace is vital for these stories due to their limited page space. They're short and they need to make every page count, but they need to be slow enough that they don't just feel like a sped-through account of events (like Darkest Knight). Originality is the last point. Because these stories are alternate takes on Batman, they need to be original enough to justify their existence as something new and unique that is worth being created as opposed to a normal Batman story. This does not mean the premise needs to be super creative (Red Rain is the best one and its premise is just Batman vs Dracula), but if it has a somewhat unoriginal premise, it needs to have something thoughtful to bring to the table other than said premise, such as a distinct tone or a unique spin on the story beyond the initial premise (Dark Knight of the Round Table fails to do this). 

    In the end, I think these points can be applied to all short fiction.

    If you are interested in reading any of these for yourself, or checking out other Batman Elseworlds I didn't cover, here are the ones I recommend: Batman: Gotham by Gaslight; Batman: Holy Terror; Batman: The Blue, The Grey, and The Bat; Batman & Dracula: Red Rain (and its two sequels Batman & Dracula: Bloodstorm and Batman & Dracula: Crimson Mist); Batman: Masque, and Batman: Gotham Noir.

    Thank you for reading.