The Michael Keaton BATMAN TRILOGY They Stole From Us

Michael Keaton's Batman has an Untold History. He is returning in the Flash after being a recluse for 30 years...so what has he been doing for forty years? What's the Untold History of this Batman?
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Written and Edited by Colton Ogburn ( / coltonogburn )
Hosted by Ryan Arey ( / ryanarey )
Edited by Lee Mazzio and Rohail Mistry
So we’re going to break down what exactly Keaton’s role will be in this film and what his Batman has been up to all these years. What other villains did he face? Did he ever have a Robin? Did he ever have kids?
And what tragic event led to him hanging up the cape and cowl and becoming the reclusive and defeated looking Bruce Wayne we saw a glimpse of in this trailer.
But to answer all of that and more, we need to start with some history. [clip]
Michael Keaton’s Batman was the 2nd Batman to grace the big screen in Tim Burton’s 1989, Batman.
Doug: 2nd Batman? I thought Keaton was the first big screen Batman?
Well actually buddy, Adam West’s Batman movie got a theatrical release in 1966. But to be fair, Keaton’s Batman was really the first gritty and more realistic superhero movie. It was a first of its kind.
The film's villain was the Joker, portrayed by Jack Nicholson. [clip]
And despite a little corniness here and there, it still holds up great over 30 years later. And the same can be said for its sequel, Batman Returns, which came out in 1992. This one gave us Danny Devito as Oswald Cobblpot, The Penguin. [clip]
And before she was the MCU’s Janet Vandyne, Michelle Phifer brilliantly portrayed Selina Kyle’s Catwoman. [clip, meow]
We think Selina Kyle will have played a major role in Keaton’s Batman’s unknown history. And we think we may even hear her mentioned in The Flash. But more on that in a bit.
Now following Keaton’s two Batman films, we got the infamous Batman Forever and Batman and Robin. These films are kind of sort of part of Keaton’s universe, but at the same time they’re not.
Batman Forever saw Val Kilmer take up the cape and cowl. And ‘Batman and Robin’ had bat nipples himself, George Clooney. [clip]
These films villains were Jim Carey’s Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones’ Two Face, Uma Thurman's Poison Ivy, Arnold Schwartanager’s Mr. Freeze, and they even had a Bane. [clip]
Now the characters that connect all of these films together are Alfred and Commissioner Gordon, who were played by the same actors in all four films. [clip, funny Alfred clip]
Now had these films not been so god awful, they’d probably be welcomed with open arms as canon to Keaton’s universe. [clip, get over here!]
But with the abandonment of the darker, more gritty tone of the first two films. And the return to the more goofy style of comic book movie filmmaking from before. Not only did it derail the Batman franchise-but superhero movies as a whole.
It wasn’t until 2000’s X-Men that superhero movies started being taken seriously again. [clip]
So anyway, most fans for headcanon sake, don’t acknowledge Batman Forever and Batman and Robin as canon to Keaton’s Bat-Verse. You could say they exist in a variant timeline that the TVA just hasn’t got around to pruning yet. [clip, owen Wilson wow]
Now while 1992’s Batman Returns was the last time we saw Keaton in the flesh as Batman. It wasn’t the last time we saw Keaton depicted as the character. There’s a comic called Batman ‘89 that serves essentially as a third installment in the Keaton trilogy that never was. And we’ve seen the CW DC Universe reference Keaton’s Batman as well.
Let’s start with the comic. The villain of this third installment, similar to Batman Forever, is Harvey Dent’s Two Face. But, it’s not Tommy Lee Jones, it’s Billy Dee Williams. [clip, Lando, well hello, what have we here?]
In the first Keaton Batman film, Billy Dee played Harvey Dent. And the comic honors that fact and draws Harvey Dent in the likeness of Billy Dee. This comic also gives the character Harvey Dent and Two Face so much more depth than Batman Forever. [clip]
#Batman #MichaelKeaton #UntoldHistory