Have I Got A Story For You

Have I Got a Story for You (Studio 4°C)

Written by Josh Olson. A street kid meets with three of his friends at a skate park. All three of them claim to have seen Batman earlier that day. Batman's battle with the Man in Black, a high-tech criminal, is told in reverse chronological order, with three very different interpretations of Batman's form and abilities: one describes him as a living shadow that can melt away and reappear at will (similar to Vampire Batman), another describes him as a half-bat, half-man creature (similar to Man-Bat), and one describes him as a combat robot called Robobat that can leap tall buildings in a single bound. At the end, Batman pursues the Man in Black to the skate park, and captures him with the help of the fourth street kid. The fourth kid is able to see what Batman truly is after seeing him sustain injuries from the battle: a very human warrior in a Batsuit. He proceeded to tell his experience to his friends after Batman disappeared.

Though the film credits give "story by" acknowledgment to first-time writer Jordan Goldberg, Josh Olsen acknowledged it was actually based on a very similar story by Frank Robbins called "The Batman Nobody Knows".[5] The story was first printed in Batman #250 in 1973, and subsequently adapted as "Legends of the Dark Knight" in the original Batman: The Animated Series. According to Olsen: "The first time it's stealing, the second time it's borrowing, the third time you're creating a genre".[5]

Also, the three different versions of the man in black have many similarities to other members of Batman's Rogues gallery, though they all resemble a member of the League of Shadows. The first story features a tech-wielding villain who has teeth similar to Killer Croc, the second uses a jetpack, which may or may not be a reference to Firefly, and the third has similarities to Deadshot. Also, the Batman of the second encounter is very similar to the villain Man-Bat. When the Man in Black is seen by all the teenagers, he has no identifiable characteristics, other than that of the new Red Hood for his use of gadgetry and trademark "knife" use (the piece of glass he picks up). (Killer Croc and Deadshot are both featured in the full movie.)