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Ben Affleck’s “The Batman” remains a holy grail of unmade superhero movies, and the more details that emerge about what could have been, the more tantalizing it sounds. Joe Manganiello, who would’ve starred in “The Batman” as main villain Slade Wilson/Deathstroke, just dropped one of those details and confirmed a longstanding rumor.
In his new memoir “Bloodlines,” Manganiello discusses his role in Affleck’s “The Batman.” Some of the story details he shares are ones we’ve known before: that Deathstroke was on a vengeful rampage to destroy Bruce Wayne’s life, that the film was inspired by David Fincher’s “The Game,” and that Barbara Gordon/Batgirl would’ve appeared. But Manganiello offered some fresh specifics about what Deathstroke’s revenge would have looked like, including one casualty of it: Gotham City Police Commissioner Jim Gordon (J.K. Simmons).
Simmons first appeared as Gordon in “Justice League,” which also featured Slade meeting with Lex Luthor (Jesse Eisenberg) on a yacht. As we know from “Zack Snyder’s Justice League,” this scene was supposed to set up Affleck’s “The Batman” — Lex gives Batman’s secret identity to Slade. (In the theatrical cut, Lex instead suggests the villains start a “league of [their] own,” a story thread that also went nowhere.)
Knowing Slade would have killed Gordon accounts for Batgirl’s role in the film; Barbara would have a vested interest in taking down her dad’s murderer. According to Manganiello, the movie’s midpoint fight scene would’ve seen Deathstroke almost kill Batman and Batgirl, before the Dynamic Duo escaped via an above-ground train. The scrapped “Batgirl” film was made to fit around changes to the DC Universe (like featuring Michael Keaton, not Ben Affleck, as Batman). It’s not clear if Affleck’s “The Batman” would’ve been Batgirl’s origin or if she still would have had a solo origin movie.
Ben Affleck’s The Batman would’ve killed off Jim Gordon
J.K. Simmons’ casting as Jim Gordon was always a little amusing given how he’d previously played J. Jonah Jameson in the “Spider-Man” films. Gordon and Jameson are similarly famous, but they’re the inverse of each other: Jameson is a caricature of a greedy newspaper publisher famous for libeling Spider-Man, while Jim Gordon is an incorruptible cop and Batman’s most enduring ally. But if any actor could play both parts convincingly, it would be Simmons.
Ben Affleck’s Batman, shaped by “The Dark Knight Returns” super-fan Zack Snyder, is heavily indebted to legendary comic writer/artist Frank Miller. Jim Gordon is a big part of Miller’s “Batman” books. You can even argue Gordon is the true protagonist of “Batman: Year One” (by Miller and David Mazzucchelli), which reveals why he’s always trusted Batman as the one to make Gotham a better place.
Now, all this comes with the asterisk that Affleck’s “The Batman” wasn’t actually made. If the movie had gone ahead, maybe there could’ve been a rewrite to spare Gordon. Or maybe not — we simply can’t know for sure. But since Commissioner Gordon is such an integral part of the Batman myth, would killing him off have been a good dramatic move, or a shortsighted and exploitative one? I think we can surmise an answer, because a very similar storyline to Affleck’s proposal is currently playing out in the “Batman” comics, specifically Scott Snyder and Nick Dragotta’s “Absolute Batman.”
In “Absolute Batman” #19, Batman and Jim Gordon meet on a rooftop, but the Scarecrow uses his Fear Toxin to make Jim jump. Bruce fails to catch him, Jim falls to his death, and Batman is framed for his murder, sparking a citywide manhunt.
The emotional weight of killing Jim Gordon
“Absolute” Barbara Gordon isn’t convinced that Batman killed her dad. She eventually makes herself a costume from one of Bruce’s helmets and her dad’s trenchcoat, calling herself “the Bat.”
Scott and Zack Snyder share more than just a last name (though no blood relation, to be clear); they also share a love for Frank Miller’s Batman. So, little surprise that Scott Snyder loves Jim Gordon, too. During Snyder’s run on the mainstream “Batman” title, he even made Gordon into a substitute Batman during the arc “Superheavy.”
So, why kill Gordon in “Absolute Batman”? Snyder (on the “ComicPop Returns” podcast) explained it was to show how different “Absolute Batman” is. That’s why Jim’s death plays out like a classic Batman/Gordon meeting and then ends horribly wrong:
“As much as I am dying to do the rooftop scenes with [Batman] and Jim, it’s not that universe, and so it just felt like I don’t have a role for Jim that makes more sense than really giving him his biggest moments now and then showing how devastating his loss is.”
Basically, Jim Gordon’s death in “Absolute Batman” hits because we know how important he’s supposed to be to Batman, regardless of how attached we were to this particular iteration. I can see the same logic applied to killing off Simmons’ Gordon; the biggest impact he can make on the story is in death. The emotional effect would be betting on audiences’ connections to past Gordons, too, particularly Gary Oldman’s from the still-recent “Dark Knight” trilogy.
Like Frank Miller, “Dark Knight” director Christopher Nolan made Gordon the heart of Batman’s story — someone who Bruce sees as a greater hero than himself. That’s what makes Gordon such a compelling target for a villain like Deathstroke seeking revenge against Batman.
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