Caution! This article contains spoilers for The Batman.
The best movies deliberately leave a few questions unanswered, and The Batman is no exception. Opening with an extremely fresh 93% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a critic score of 85%, Matt Reeves’ reimagining of Batman has a host of positive reviews. With a mammoth runtime of nearly three hours, it’s safe to assume that any loose ends which remain are intentional, and there are a few, in particular, that stand out.
Since his first appearance in 1939, Batman has been an icon of pop culture, with an impressively long list of movie appearances. Since the 1943 movie, Batman, the character has been a main, if not the main, character in no less than 16 different movies, both animated and live-action. The Batman takes the character back to his comic origins as the "world’s greatest detective," a moniker that the Penguin even references in the movie.
The Batman is a detective story at its heart, and a few things are left for the audience to try and figure out. However, a few lingering questions starkly stand out. The movie shows a younger iteration of Batman who’s still learning how to be a hero. As a result, all of these questions are either about how Batman and his pantheon of characters will develop going forward, or about who and what may be introduced in future stories.
Who Is The Riddler’s New “Friend”?
The most obvious sequel hook is an epilogue scene, showing the now-incarcerated Riddler becoming acquainted with a mysterious figure in the next cell. “Riddle me this,” says the stranger, “the less of these you have, the more one is worth.” With a smile, Riddler answers immediately. “A friend.” The scene closes with unsettling laughter echoing through the corridor outside their prison cells.
The most obvious candidate for Riddler’s unhinged new friend at the end of The Batman is the Joker. But this raises a host of other questions. How did the Joker end up behind bars? Has he already faced Batman and been defeated by him?
Why Does Bruce Blame Himself For His Parents’ Deaths?
Following the Riddler’s attempt to murder Bruce Wayne, Alfred is left hospitalized after nearly being killed by an explosive package. When he wakes up, he and Bruce have a conversation that sheds some light on their backstory and the bumpy relationship the two have. One thing that Alfred mentions, in passing, is that he knows Bruce blames himself for his parents’ deaths. It raises questions as to why this is.
The obvious possibility is simple survivor’s guilt, which would tie in with Robert Pattinson’s pain-stricken portrayal of Batman as a character grappling with complex grief. But there could be more to the guilt. In Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight trilogy, one element that made Bruce Wayne’s story much more compelling than most Batman movie adaptations was the fact that Bruce had a reason to blame himself for his parents’ deaths. In his eyes, he was the one who made them leave the theater, which directly led to them finding themselves at gunpoint. This backstory itself isn’t shown in The Batman, but something similar could have happened. It would still be a misplaced and unwarranted sense of guilt, but one that rings true to real life.
Will Catwoman Return?
Selena Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman, is arguably the second protagonist of The Batman with a very different moral compass from Batman himself. The final sequence of the movie shows the two of them parting ways, with Selena explaining that she’s given up on Gotham and is leaving to head somewhere upstate. It's safe to question whether The Batman's Catwoman really gone, however. Surely this can’t be the last Bruce will see of her.
That leads to the question of what might draw her back to Gotham in the future. Catwoman has spent her life mingling with Gotham’s criminal factions, and it’s likely she may yet have unfinished business. While she no doubt still needs time to grieve the loss of Annika (who may or may not have been her girlfriend), being truthful about her intentions is not her strong point. Besides, a skilled cat burglar doesn’t seem like the kind of person to simply retire.
When Will Gordon Become Police Commissioner?
Commissioner James Gordon is one of the most famous characters in Batman stories, as the Caped Crusader’s main police contact. But, in keeping with the younger version of Batman in The Batman, Gordon is still only a police lieutenant in this story. He's certainly due for a promotion after helping to apprehend the crime boss Falcone. Or he may be passed over now that Falcone has been assassinated.
Following the grisly demise of the former police commissioner, there’s certainly a vacancy now open in Gotham PD, but it's unclear if Gordon is next in line. There are others who might gain the rank of commissioner first. If it's not Gordon, it's fair to ask if the new commissioner will be a help or a hindrance as there are certainly more corrupt cops waiting to cause trouble.
What Did Batman Inject Himself With?
In the climactic final sequence, as Batman fights off a horde of terrorists wearing Riddler masks, he takes a shotgun blast to the chest and, while he’s saved by his armor, he’s left incapacitated and obviously in a lot of pain. He’s rescued by Catwoman but, shortly afterward, she also finds herself in danger. Hurriedly, Batman pulls out a syringe and injects himself with something before bursting into action, helping Catwoman in return and going absolutely berserk on her assailant. Whatever was in the syringe, it's potent.
The most obvious possibility is that it was simply adrenaline, but this is never confirmed. Some viewers noted that the green color of the syringe reminded them of venom, the addictive substance used by the villain Bane in the comics to achieve his superhuman strength. This would also explain why it sent Batman into such fury. As much of the story of The Batman revolves around the narcotic known as drops, it’s an interesting choice to show that Batman uses drugs, too, even if he’s clearly only carrying them as a last resort. It also adds extra weight to an earlier scene, as Batman fears that Riddler knows he's Bruce Wayne. In this scene, Riddler talks about Gotham’s orphans who resorted to drug use, dismissively saying how this is something Bruce Wayne would know nothing about. Either way, Riddler clearly doesn't know as much as he thinks he does.
How Will The Penguin Become Gotham’s New Crime Boss?
The death of Carmine Falcone will leave a significant power vacuum in the Gotham underworld, and violence will undoubtedly ensue as the villains grapple to try and claim the top spot of Gotham’s crime boss. Already in a good position to take over is Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot, alias The Penguin. As a right-hand man to the late Falcone, he’ll definitely have his eyes on this goal, and the closing sequence of the movie confirms this as Batman narrates. How he might go about it, however, is a big question.
Penguin is far from being the strongest of Batman’s many villains. In most Batman stories, he makes up for this by using charisma, influence, and money. It’s unlikely that Penguin would succeed alone, so he’ll no doubt want to recruit another villain to help him, and he no doubt has plenty of connections to do so. In the comics, he’s teamed up with numerous other villains, including the Joker. Who he may choose in a sequel to The Batman, however, remains to be seen.
Was Alfred A Bodyguard For Thomas Wayne?
Alfred is famously the butler who Bruce Wayne relies on in many ways, not least because the two are the closest each other has to family. But there seems to be more to the Alfred in The Batman than the usual movie iterations. In the hospital scene, he says that protecting Bruce’s parents was his job, and also talks about how he taught Bruce how to fight. This version of Alfred is not a father figure and, with his coarser, less manicured look, it seems he may also be more than just a butler.
It wouldn’t be a butler’s job to protect Thomas and Martha Wayne, and the way Alfred says this line suggests that this was more than just him feeling responsible. It seems that The Batman borrowed from the Earth One comic run, where Alfred was a bodyguard, not a butler. So it could very well be that protecting the Wayne family was literally Alfred’s job. It would certainly explain why Batman has such a brutal fighting style.
Will Batman’s Focus Shift To Be More Heroic?
Batman’s character arc in The Batman is all about him learning that he needs to be more than simply “vengeance.” He realizes this when he hears the same thing spoken by one of Riddler’s terrorists, following Batman's violent final fight scene. When asked who he is, the terrorist also replies that he is vengeance. The realization that he's so similar to the people he's been fighting leaves Batman shaken. His closing monologue reflects on this, talking about how he also needs to be hope. The sequel to The Batman will likely find Bruce trying to find this balance.
Batman’s attitudes shift slowly throughout the movie. At the start, he cares more about stopping criminals than actually saving people, but his actions become steadily more heroic as the story progresses, particularly after learning that his parents weren’t the people he thought they were. By the ending, he saves an entire arena full of people from electrocution in an act that could easily have killed him, before helping people out from fallen debris and leading everyone to safety. If Pattinson’s Batman returns in the future, it's fair to wonder if he'll focus more on heroism than vigilantism.
How Will Riddler’s “Friend” Escape Arkham?
Reeves has confirmed the Joker as Riddler’s new acquaintance, which means that this is the sequel hook that Robert Pattinson has spoken about in interviews. Clearly, though, he’ll need to escape somehow, and would likely need someone on the outside to help with that. One possibility is the Penguin, who’s known for teaming up with Joker in comic book storylines, and would definitely have the connections to make that happen. A more audacious possibility is Bane. If the substance Batman injected himself with is indeed venom, it suggests Bane may make a future appearance in The Batman sequel movies. Moviegoers will know Bane from The Dark knight Rises, but a 1993 comic storyline which Bane is famous for is Batman: Knightfall, which sees Bane freeing all of Gotham’s most feared villains from Arkham Asylum to tire Batman out before defeating him. A brutal story like this would fit well with the atmosphere which The Batman has shown so far.
So far, The Batman has been a great success, with generally positive reviews despite its lengthy runtime. The intention was always for The Batman to be the first of a trilogy of movies, setting up a shared universe of Batman-centric characters separate from the DCEU. With such a strong opening, things are looking good for this vision. The Batman avoids any labored setups which might drag down its storytelling but still manages to leave plenty of loose threads for future stories to pick up and work with.