Bat-Fam’s ending is about the titular family’s efforts to save Damian from Joker’s clutches while also stopping the Clown Prince of Crime from turning Gotham into a rabid hellscape by using the Anti-Glow on the citizens. The show mostly takes an anthological route, with each episode telling an isolated story that sees the characters evolving, but there’s an overarching narrative that’s introduced in the third episode where we see Mad Hatter and Bright break into a Wayne Enterprises warehouse to steal something valuable. After they were thwarted, Clayface and Killer Croc also tried to take a swipe at robbing Wayne Enterprises. But it’s only after Bright revealed that she was actually Alicia and she, as well as Batman’s rogues’ gallery, was after—albeit for different purposes—something called the Anti-Glow. A scientist named Dr. Light had invented that device, which had the ability to absorb all light.
After Batman confiscated it, the Anti-Glow was moved from one warehouse to another so that the villains would never know where it was. One of the workers accidentally activated it, and Dr. Light sacrificed himself to deactivate the device. Although the Anti-Glow was put back in storage, word of its existence got out, and Alicia, as Bright, wanted to get to it before any of the villains did. To maintain the secrecy of the Anti-Glow, even Bruce didn’t know where it was. So, he teamed up with Alicia to track it down, whilst keeping it a secret from Damian because he thought the kid wasn’t up for that task. When Damian eventually learned about Bruce, Alicia, and Alfred’s secret mission, he ran away from them and fell right into Joker’s web, who used the Anti-Glow on Damian and turned him into his “son.” Together, they intended to unleash the Anti-Glow on Gotham. How did Batman stop that from happening? Let’s talk about the finale of Bat-Fam to find out.
Spoiler Alert
The Joker Reveal
If you have watched Bat-Fam, then I am sure you’re familiar with all the characters in the show. For some reason, if you’re reading this without watching the show, here’s just a brief rundown of the extended family in question. Other than the main trio (Bruce, Damian, and Alfred), you have Alicia, Alfred’s niece and Bruce’s old friend; Ra’s al Ghul (or Ra’s al Ghul’s ghost), Damian’s grandfather; Claire, formerly Volcana, but when she was turned into a child after dropping into Ra’s al Ghul’s Lazarus Pit, Bruce adopted her; and Langstrom, also known as Man-Bat. Alicia ran a rehabilitation center for villains, aptly titled E*Vil, and through that institution, King Tut, Killer Moth, Copperhead, Sad Hatter (Mad Hatter’s daughter), and Giganta sort of became Batman’s allies. Joker, along with Mad Hatter, Killer Croc, Clayface, Livewire, and Solomon Grundy, was focused on getting the Anti-Glow and controlling Gotham. Since Joker’s team was apprehended by Batman and his team, the final fight was essentially between Batman’s family and the not-so-dynamic duo of Joker and Damian.
Joker’s entry at the last moment didn’t feel all that shocking because it’s a Batman show; of course Joker is the villain of the overarching plot. What took me by surprise was how the writers added a layer of complexity to Joker’s motivations by making a pretty significant (as far as I know, it’s significant) change to his lore. When he was a child, Joker was constantly pranked by his dad. His final prank on Joker was promising him they’d clown Gotham together and then abandoning him. That impacted Joker on an emotional level, and I suppose he began dreaming of pulling off a father-son-themed prank on Gotham.
Joker’s Daddy Issues
After the events of Merry Little Batman, I think Joker had some idea of the fact that Batman was having a hard time being a father to Damian, which meant that Damian had daddy issues. Hence, he waited for some kind of rift to form between Batman and Damian, and as soon as that moment arrived, he pounced on Damian, used the Anti-Glow on him, and made him his “son.” In doing so, Joker was not only fulfilling his childhood dream but also getting back at Batman in one of the cruelest ways imaginable. I mean, he could have paired up with anyone from Batman’s rogues’ gallery—the most predictable one being Harley Quinn—to do the Prank-a-Thon on Gotham. But yeah, choosing Damian was diabolical.
Now, while Batman tried to figure out where Joker and Damian were located so that he could fix his son with the Bat Lightwave Blocker, Ra’s al Ghul was sure that Damian was faking it so that he could get the better of him when the time was right. But there was no time to see if Ra’s was right or not, because Joker and Damian had hit the streets and began agitating the people of Gotham. Batman just knew that when the citizens were at the peak of their anger, Joker, along with Damian, would take to the skies and hit the whole city with the Anti-Glow, thereby turning everyone into his zombies. And since Damian was already half gone, he didn’t want the rest of his family to get hurt. Therefore, he locked them in the Batcave and went after Joker all by himself. Of course the Bat-Fam couldn’t let Bruce take on Joker and a demented Damian on his own. That’s why, with Alfred in the lead, Alicia, Ra’s al Ghul, Man-Bat, and Claire began making their way to Batman.
Damian Destroyed The Anti-Glow
In a desperate bid to save Damian, Batman walked straight into the trap laid for him at the TV studio from where Joker was broadcasting updates about his Prank-a-Thon and got himself imprisoned in a cage. Batman spotted Damian and used his Bat Lightwave Blocker on him. Damian revealed that he was wearing prank glasses, which meant that the device hadn’t undone the Anti-Glow’s spell, and he broke the Bat Lightwave Blocker. The Bat-Fam located Batman and barged into the TV studio to help him. However, Joker and Damian tag-teamed to take all of them down. While Joker got busy announcing his evil plan, Batman freed himself as well as Bright, Claire, and Alfred. They thought that Joker was too distracted to notice all that, but the Clown Prince of Crime had anticipated it, and he dropped the entire Bat-Fam into a colosseum of his own making and unleashed Mad Hatter, Livewire, Solomon Grundy, and Killer Croc on them. While Batman and his family were busy tackling all of these guys, Joker sent out his henchmen to stoke the flames that were consuming Gotham. When he was sure that the city was at the brink of madness, he launched the rocket with the Anti-Glow in it. As soon as it reached the right elevation, he’d activate it and set off the rays of the Anti-Glow on the Gothamites.
Now, since the remote was in Joker’s hands, Batman saw no point in reasoning with him. Instead, he turned his attention to Damian and genuinely apologized to him for not trusting him with the Anti-Glow mission. In response to Bruce’s apology, Damian straight-up asked him that, given another chance, would Bruce trust him to complete the mission to destroy the Anti-Glow? Bruce said that he would. Right after that, when Damian asked Joker for the remote so that he could activate the Anti-Glow, it seemed like the kid was still loyal to Joker. But Damian pulled off a double cross, thwarting Joker, and blew up the rocket that was carrying the Anti-Glow. As the Anti-Glow hurtled to the ground, Damian used the Batrope to launch himself into the sky and hurled his Batarang at the Anti-Glow and destroyed it.
Joker Unintentionally Taught an Important Lesson
In the ending of Bat-Fam, everyone asked Damian the most obvious question: was he never under Joker’s Anti-Glow spell? Damian said that he wasn’t (Ra’s al Ghul felt vindicated), and when he explained the reason behind it, the Anti-Glow’s machinations became a bit more clear. It apparently worked a lot like the Super Soldier Serum; if you had truly malicious feelings, the Anti-Glow would exacerbate them and turn you into a zombie, but if you were merely conflicted, it wouldn’t work. There are two lessons to learn here. Firstly, emotional intelligence isn’t always connected to one’s age. Both Bruce and Joker underestimated Damian’s maturity. In Bruce’s defense, he was aware of the fact that even when Damian was told not to do something, he would do it. But that was no excuse for keeping him in the dark. He should have used his age and experience to come up with a way to tell Damian to stay away from the Anti-Glow case until his help was needed, and it’s possible that he would have listened. However, Bruce saw Damian as a little child and thought lying was the best option.
The same goes for Joker; he mistook Damian’s mixed feelings about his dad for genuine hatred, and tried to use that against Batman. This iteration of Joker was capable of seeing through Batman’s tricks, because he always overestimated him. When it came to Damian, though, he underestimated him, and that ended up being his biggest mistake. Secondly, the show subtly underscored the fact that even though Batman thought that Gotham had become crime-free, the criminal element wasn’t totally gone. For some reason or other, Gothamites were enraged. They weren’t showing it, but that didn’t mean that they weren’t susceptible to crime and violence. Maybe they wanted jobs, better living conditions, access to good education, and more. Albeit unintentionally, Joker had shown that Batman shouldn’t just focus on defeating supervillains; he should also look to improve the lives of the people of his city as Bruce Wayne. Given how that echoes with the concluding message of The Batman, I can’t help but applaud that. And I have to give the show an extra round of applause for actually showing us that the Bat-Fam, along with Joker, had given the sanitary workers of Gotham a day off by cleaning the Statue of Justice themselves. That’s really cool.
DCU Rumors
Now, I must address two more things: Will Bat-Fam get a second season? And is Bat-Fam a part of the DCU? At the time of writing this article, I haven’t seen any kind of news about Season 2 of the show. The first season doesn’t tease a potential second season either. That said, they can make countless seasons centered around Batman’s family, and I’ll be there to watch it. As for the DCU stuff, I don’t understand the mind of James Gunn. So, until and unless he says anything, I can’t say anything. However, if you look at the map of Gotham that was displayed heavily throughout the finale, you might notice some similarities with the official DCU map of Gotham.
When that image of DCU’s Gotham was released, fans let out a collective cry because that reveal had squashed their dreams of seeing Robert Pattinson and David Corenswet together on the big screen. We got a glimpse of the DCU’s Batman in Creature Commandos. Casting for Andy Muschietti’s The Brave and the Bold has not begun yet. What are the chances, though, that we have been watching DCU’s Batman, as well as his family, in animated form all this while? To be honest, slim to none. But, personally speaking only, since I adore these characters, I won’t be opposed to seeing them in the live-action format as well. Anyway, those are just my thoughts on the ending of the show. If you have any opinions on the same, feel free to share them in the comments section below.
