His fate is probably having to listen to endless seminars by Deepak Chopra, since Morrison is doing it himself.

He's packing it in and moving to a retirement community in Boca Raton.
The Dark Knight is going to get tan, flabby, and start wearing cabana shirts.
No longer will he mingle with the cream of society by day and Earth's saviors by night. Now his new best friends will be Bernie and Phyllis Kravitz from Edison, New Jersey.

*shudder*

Yup. Worse than death.

Crippled and penniless?
Then sued for all the years worth of property damage?

Or maybe he becomes a quadruple amputee, then goes broke.

Takes his mask off at press announcement?

maybe Wayne industries goes bankrupt paying for all the damage he has done to Gotham over the years and he ends up homeless. Or the DA throws the book at him (vigilante justice is still illegal) and ends up in a state prison. or maybe he too falls off a horse. (too soon?)

I'm sure it's already happened:
"Hey Dan DiDio on the phone. I guess Morrison is going to do [x] with Batman. Start working on ways to fix it."

Batman and a "fate worse than death"? Sooo I'm guessing Joel Schumacher moved to Gotham City then.

@froggy: The bat-horse, or his high horse?

He becomes Britney Spears' personal assistant?

Time to start betting: who comes back first: Bruce Wayne or Steve Rogers?

They are going to send him back in time to meet Adam West

oooh - zombie batman - ZOMBIE BATMAN!!!!

The essential attribute of Batman is not his life but his sense of purpose. If you want to do something to him that's worse than killing him, you make it impossible for him to help people again. But they already did that.

So, I guess the only thing worse than that is showing him that for the past fifty years, his purpose has been completely wrong. So, that's where my money is. Batman has some kind of vision that all the progress that he thought he'd made was really unmitigated failure, and he loses his mind because of it.

Just disappears into the filthy back-alleys of Gotham, never to be heard from again.

@braak: I concur. The faith in his ability to remedy the ills of the world (i.e., Gotham) by his own efforts (physical perfection, scientific investigation, dedication), shunning assistance (all those "this is my city; there's no room for amateurs" speeches) sustains him. If Batman were to lose the persistent faith in the value of his efforts, he might end up a burnt-out derelict of a hero, with all the effort that used to be devoted to improving the city turning to hating it for failing to rise to fulfill his expectations.

My guess is that he will murder someone in a fit or rage or something. Then turn himself in and be sent to prison or Arkham.

Naw, he winds up in Arkham...And all his 'pals' are waiting for him.

@edosan: My money is on Wayne. Marvel is actually doing better with out Steve and it seems more ppl like the new Cap better and he's better suited to this generation.

Batman is one of the only still relevent DC heroes other then Green Lantern and Lantern isn't where the money is.

Okay, but why? I really don't get why they're always doing these kinds of stories. "Let's destroy the identity of a 70-year-old icon and replace him with someone no one outside of fandom knows about. Oh, and at the same time we're doing this cool movie franchise over here with a-list actors."

Uh-huh.

Seriously. Some superhero roles -- I'd say most -- can be successfully swapped to new characters, but there is an idelible connection for the Big Three with their origin stories and who they actually are.

From what I know of Marvel, I'd say that's even more broadly true for its characters because they *are* who they become rather than, "I'm taking the mantle on to perpetuate the ideal!"

Someone else might play Batman, but they'll never *be* Batman.

So this is temporary, no matter what Morrison thinks.

Oh, and it's stupid.

I'm guessing it's discovered that Bruce Wayne is Batman and it ruins him. He'll lose all in money in defense costs and other things.

And yeah, maybe he'll in up in Arkham sharing a cell with the Joker tossing his salad every night.

Three words: Billionaire pedophile scandal!

@JennaW: Well, maybe. There's some merit in sort of completing the iconography of a hero--so there's a lot of value in these "end of [x] stories" even if they aren't permanent.

After all we, the fans, can always pretend they're permanent, and shift around timelines and events as much as we want. No matter what DC thinks, this is our mythology, not theirs.

@WordMan:
There is no way Batmmn wouldn't have many a plan in place for that contingency.

general comment:
If all that gets written in comics anymore are deconstruction stories, what the hell is left that's being deconstructed?

@braak: I don't agree there's a lot of value in them. They can be entertaining, they can even be really good, but they're better done as the ol' "Elseworlds" or "possible futures."

Final Night was, IMO, one of the best character death stories ever. It capped a great character arc for a great character. It isn't as strong now that Hal is back.

Knightfall and the ensuing arcs were great, but the magic back-fixing ending undercut how good they were for rereading.

OTOH, I can enjoy all the Elseworlds and Dark Knight and all those stories because they stand alone and aren't going to be retconned or annulled almost immediately.

And if Bruce Wayne is never going to be Batman again? I'm suddenly a lot less interested in the character.

Batman is a Cylon.

Bruce Wayne (aka Number 12) discovers the truth of his origin with the Cylon race and has a realization that he's been fighting the wrong war! He was not supposed to wage a war on crime, instead his war was with humanity!

@JennaW: Maybe I just have a different approach. I don't really give a rat's ass about continuity, and the whole idea of "Elseworlds" doesn't really jive with me.

What does it mean, "Elseworlds"? Like, they didn't really happen? None of these stories really happened. From my perspective, Final Night remains a great death story, and will always remain a great death story, because I don't count it as being part of the ongoing "series."

The Batman "series" isn't really a single work of art, so much as it is a thousand works of art on a single theme, some of which draw more from each other, some less.

You know how we know that Batman will return to status quo after all this "gimmick"? Follow the money!

Batman is owned by DC who is in turn owned by Warner Brothers. And we all know Warner Brothers isn't going to let anybody mess with their cash cow.

Any other Blackadder fans here? "A fate worse than a fate worse than death. That's pret-ty bad."

@JennaW:

Couldn't agree more that I'd lose all interest in current Batman comics. He's pretty much my favorite character of all time but there's no way I'm following a permanently non-Wayne Batman book. The struggle of the character is what really makes the stories.

But, I doubt it's going to happen. You can't kill or permanently change an icon, it just doesn't work in the realm of comics- and the big three are just about as iconic as they come.

Poor Batman. :( I do hope they at least give him a dignified end, whatever end they choose to give him.

Rob Liefeld takes over the title.

To quote Nathan Xplosion... "Wow, what a dick."

Maybe his "worse" fate is just failure and a crippling sense of futility that causes him to hang up the bat-a-rang. This would lead to the come back series where a crisis so dire that only he can handle it causes him to don the cape and cowl again.

@ Dunny0.. my thoughts exactly..

Mattman the limbless crusader..

@JennaW:
"Let's destroy the identity..."
But it worked so well with Superman! Oh, wait. Well, maybe. Uhm, no.

@braak: Yes, I can see that. And I'm not saying that the stories aren't still enjoyable. But if I'm still following comics, in my head the ones that are supposed to make sense together by DC's (or Marvel's) intent are the ones that bother me when they mess around with "continuity." There is a difference between a story intended to stand alone and one that isn't. There is a difference when they want all following stories to adhere to this new normal. I may still really enjoy Final Night, but the impact of the ending isn't as strong when one remembers the horror that the first attempted "fix" was -- I can't even remember the crossover name, but it was that terrible mess with all the magic and the hell and the Spectre and the glavin.

It's sort of like if Harper Lee wrote:
Mockingbird II: Revenge of Boo Radley

To Kill a Mockingbird would still be perfect, but the knowledge of the existence of the crappy sequel would still be there in the back of my mind ruining TKaM's perfection ever so slightly for me.

@laughingacademy: *hearts Blackadder*

Which series was that? 3rd? I need to rewatch, obviously, if I don't have total recall.

@JennaW: I have sympathy. I survive it only because of practiced skill at denial.

Wolverine: Origin? What are you talking about? I've never heard of anything like that.

LALALALALALALALALALALA!

@braak: I am intrigued by your philosophy and would like to subscribe to your newsletter ;)

@TSlade: Yes, this is the bottom line. "Batman" isn't a badass, BRUCE WAYNE who IS Batman is a badass.

It ain't the role; it's the CHARACTER!

ARGH!

Have him be responsible for the death of some kid's parents.

@mwells54: Yeah! That'd work.

And then in a few years, Geoff Johns will explain how it wasn't really his fault due to it having REALLY been a yellow-clad Joe Chill's fault this time.

@mwells54: That's a really good one, but the problem is that Batman tends to find the solution that involves people NOT dying. In the cases where there are unintentional deaths, he'll just psychically numb it out of his brain by telling himself it would have been impossible otherwise. I'm sure it's happened before.

I was thinking of something a little different. To undo Batman, you have to go to his origin. We all know that goes back to the fateful night when his parents were murdered by Joe Chill. I would say that perhaps the issue would rely on Bruce Wayne's being an unreliable reporter of the events, since he was a traumatized kid. Maybe Joe Chill is his father, and Bruce witnessed the brutal slaying of his mother but got away. Maybe Joe Chill wasn't involved, and his father murdered his mother in cold blood before killing himself. Maybe his mother did it? And then Joe Chill was attached to the story because young Bruce overheard a news report concerning Mr. Chill around that time. That'd undo Batman.

Of course, the most extreme situation would involve young Bruce killing his parents, but that would just be stupid.

@Gospel X: Unless that was restored, Joe Chill was de-continuitized during one of the post-(1st)Crisis crossovers... or in the Crisis.

It could have been restored, though, certainly...

*sigh*

@JennaW Nicely said. Same idea as when they killed off Kirk in that forgettable Star Trek movie. The franchise owner makes a business decision and everybody else can go screw themselves.

I'm getting really tired of would-be iconoclasts with an exaggerated sense of their self importance playing with icons they don't have the creativity or insight to have invented themselves.

@JennaW: Or, since there's, like, a WORD for this:

"Joe Chill was retconned out as the murderer..."

I see Bruce ending up in the slammer for vigilantism. If it's true to reality, it's frequently the case that tycoons who end up going to jail end up reinventing themselves and earning some form of success on release. If so maybe he'll take a page out of Martha Stewarts bio and we can look forward to The Batman Apprentice with Bruce flanked by Robin and Batgirl in the board room. I can see him pulling out a batboomerang and winging it at his rejects- "You're fired."

He's going to get raped. Maybe by Darkseid...could be by Killer Croc.

Prosecuted for Child Endangerment?

I think he'll wind up penniless and imprisoned and have to be "Garbage Batman". He'll have to make his gizmos out of garbage, and work out of a bath house.

I find it hard to muster any interest in this...We all know that DC isn't going to stick to it, whatever "it" is.

Here's my hope: Bruce Wayne realizes that none of his "arrests" are able to pass muster, and that all the criminals are back on the street within an hour. He reveals his identity, applies to the police to do things the right way, and gets arrested for the assault and battery of several thousand "innocent" criminals. The civic lawsuits bankrupt Wayne, who was unable to get the job on the police force because he is CLEARLY INSANE. A battered, broken old man, Bruce Wayne winds up on the street struggling to find food and looking for relief in the bottom of a bottle. No longer a millionaire playboy, he contracts syphilis from a street-walking she-male and descends into full-blown dissociative disorder.

Ultimately, he'll be arrested for kidnapping a preteen boy and dressing him in a green speedo and elf-boots and showing a teenage girl his "bat-cave", and he'll spend the rest of his life in the cell between the Riddler and the Toy-Man. Superman will swing by occassionally, trying to pry the location of Bruce's Kryptonite stash out of him, and Wayne will occassionally "escape" in moments of lucidity, but will always be found on the rooftop, wondering why there's no Batsignal anymore.

What's up with all the lack of faith?

This is Grant "All Star Superman" Morrison we're talking about here. The man who channels superheroes.

And we can all laugh and make fun of that, but "All Star" is the product of his kooky process, and that's just about universally acclaimed.

So chill, Winston, and enjoy the ride.

He's going to hang up the cape and go to law school, so he can go the place where justice is really served... the courtroom!

/sarcasm

I think Batman come out to the public as asshole.

No more mysterious loner...

He finds out his parents aren't dead.

- Kills the Joker, finds no better challenge, becomes him.

- mwells54's idea

- Wakes up as a child

- Does the Rorschach, via Superman

Where's my no prize?

He's going to become friends with Tom Cruise and Will Smith and become a Scientoligist.

A fate worse then death for BATMAN…hmmm

Maybe, just maybe he ends up forgiving himself for his parents death, and becomes happy?

Nah…

"..So what I am doing is a fate worse than death...."

Identity revealed is my hunch also as suggestion by some.

OR

End up in Arkham Asylum for reasons unknown.....

Maybe he becomes a comic book writer.

Maybe Wayne becomes a Villain.

@TheN:

I'm sorry but I may be the only person on the planet that doesn't get the "All Star" titles. They don't make any sense to me. First issue was great but then I have no idea where the story goes. Same goes with all the other titles he's been doing recently, "Seven Soldiers" and "Sea Guy?!?" Huh? His Batman books aren't inspiring any confidence either.

I'm calling out the Emperor for not wearing any clothes!!!

@MarlboroTestMonkey7: I think you're dead-on with your first choice. Becoming the Joker is the only fate worse than death that Bruce Wayne could endure. There have already been storylines when he's gone over the edge, as well as stories turning Dick Grayson or Tim Drake into The Joker, but Wayne becoming The Joker would be a step beyond what we've already seen, possibly the only step left. Even being tortured to death repeatedly by The Joker has already been done in the Emperor Joker storyline. The only thing worse than that would be him becoming The Joker.