Warning! Spoilers for Batman: The Detective #1!
As long as Gotham City needs them, Batman and his Bat-Family will always be there to keep his city safe, but when his family leaves and the city he loves clearly no better off with his alter ego still operating within it, Batman loses his entire purpose as the protector of Gotham and decides to abandon his birthplace for good. Luckily, The Dark Knight isn’t done with being a hero just yet; he simply needs a change of scenery.
Kicking things off in the first issue of the new miniseries titled Batman: The Detective by Tom Taylor and Andy Kubert, the story picks up with Batman in a near-set future where he seems to be a bit more rough around the edges and a little more worse for wear. Mulling over the idea that he isn’t as spry as he used to be as well as the fact that with Alfred still dead and buried and his extended Bat-Family gone, Batman realizes there isn't any real reason for him to stick around a city that he clearly hasn’t made any difference in outside of the few he has directly helped.
Seeing the news of a hijacked plane crash across the pond in England, Batman is drawn to the scene of the crime as details unfurl about a group of baddies dressed just like him who are claiming that their attack is “…because of Batman”. Clad in white bat-suits, these criminals successfully attract a man that believes his life mission as a person and hero has been washed away with the loss of the family that he rarely admits is one of the only reasons he continues to fight the good fight on a nightly basis.
Living in the skeletal remains of a long empty and unused Wayne Manor, the idea that Batman would abandon his entire purpose to go after a new evil hundreds of miles away speaks volumes about how important his family was to him and his drive to keep the cape and cowl on his shoulders. Repeatedly thinking that there is no future in Gotham, no reason for him to be there any longer without his family and no reason to keep to the streets of Gotham since he believes he hasn’t done any real good as his tenure as its protector, the idea that there are no sidekicks, close friends or even mentors left for Batman to lean on in this dark time is a huge reason for his departure.
As of late, Batman has been struggling with the idea that his war on crime is something that is a failure more than anything else. From Nightwing to Robin to Batgirl and beyond, these Bat-Family confidants and their general presence around Batman used to act as a very important aspect of why Batman even continues to fight a battle he knows in his heart he’s losing. Throw in the fact that Alfred – Batman’s butler and surrogate father figure who has been dead for years now (if current continuity has any place in this Infinite Frontier story) – and you have an aging man who’s support system has crumbled down around him, leaving him to wonder why he does what he does in a city that might just be better off without him in the first place.
So while it’s still unclear as to why exactly Batman’s Bat-Family has abandoned him, it’s worth noting how pointless Batman feels without them by his side. His war on crime might be finished in Gotham and his purpose as its protector gone, but Batman still has the drive to follow through with this one last mission, even if his family isn’t at his side.