Arrow - S8 E3 - Leap of Faith

Are you talking about Bruce and Barbra sleeping together?  Because I'm pretty sure that's never actually happened in the comics.  The only instance I'm aware of is in The Killing Joke animated movie; and a relationship between them hinted at in Batman Beyond, which sort if and sort of isn't part of the same continuity as The Killing Joke, since most of the same people were involved with both, but what is or isn't cannon between them isn't clear.  But yeah, I couldn't find any indication that this ever happened in the comics; and that's actually a point of contention among fans of the comics that they included it in the movie.
Frankly, I'm terribly bothered by the idea of Bruce and Barbra hooking up under certain circumstances; though her being "barely legal" wouldn't be one of them.  I think a scenario where Barbara was distinctly an adult and the two had been working alongside each other closely for years would make it plausible.  I've even considered this as a possible catalyst for Dick and Bruce's estrangement if it happened while Dick was still relatively young (17-19), clearly had an infatuation with Barbara that had not yet been returned; Bruce was oblivious to Dick having a crush on Barbara, Babs may or may not have perceived it herself, or at least had not openly acknowledged it.  So when it happens and Dick finds out, maybe sees something without the other two knowing, it hurts Dick.  Meanwhile, in the case of Bruce and Barbara, I'd see it as something that might happen between them in the heat of the moment, following a tense engagement with someone, but you know, not on the roof somewhere; after they've returned to the cave and take things upstairs.  But then the next morning, in the harsh light of day, they evaluate how this should change their relationship, or if it should change their relationship; and it could be Barbara that decides she doesn't see her and Bruce dating, she doesn't want to date him.  She might even bring up not wanting to hurt Dick, acknowledging his crush for the first time and cluing Bruce in on it; which of course makes him feel like a dick.  They don't try to bury it and pretend like it never happened though; they accept that it did, that there was a moment where they gave into.....something.... call it the moment, call it passion or a need to share something intimate with another person.  And maybe if they ever feel that need again, it could happen again, but neither are seeking a deeper emotional investment for the other.  Unlike Bruce and Dick's relationship, Bruce isn't a surrogate father for Barbara, and she's not his ward or daughter.  She may happen to be the actual daughter of a close friend of his, but that doesn't change the sort of relationship she and Bruce cultivate as masked crime fighters.  Her father may be his friend - as close of friend as one can be, without revealing who you really are - but Bruce is her friend too; and I think it would make sense for Bruce to eventually see her in that light, as an adult and as a peer.

I mean, to start with, in a comparison of Bruce vs. Ollie, Olive Queen on Arrow has definitely killed people; whereas I'm not aware of that being true at all for Batman in the Arrowverse.  That was definitely a point of contention for people with the DCEU; the ambiguity of Batman's position of lethal force with the Nolan trilogy was one of the things I never cared about that.  The cavalier way some of the characters on Titans killed people was one of the things I definitely didn't like about that show, having just finished the first season.

This is a concept about Batman that I've never cared for, and always ends up being the defining trait when depicting him in movies or any other form of adaptation; and has even seeped into the comics in recent year (okay, the last decade or two) and arguably that just shouldn't be the case.  A Batman who is not, to some degree, well adjusted, who just beats up on people and uses those closest to him as nothing more than cannon-fodder, is not a hero; he's the sort of person who deserves to be in Arkham alongside all of the other dangerous psychopaths. 
It drove me crazy watching Titans every time Dick groused about Bruce just using him or Jason (or Jason's comment about Bruce making the Robin costume bright and colorful to intentionally draw the bad guy's fire, so Batman can get the upper hand.)

This is not who Batman should be.  And it didn't used to be.  There needs to be nuance to this character.  He's supposed to be the greatest detective in the world; he is supposed to be, arguably, a genius who has not only mastered an untold number of fighting styles and honed his body to the height of human aspiration, but has also developed his mental prowess to equal levels.  He's studied meditation, forensic science, chemistry, presumably he's learned some hardcore computer program and engineering, that he's able to create his wonderful toys without the need of involving too many people from outside.
One of the best takes I've read on Batman wasn't even a comic, it was novel called "The Forensic Files of Batman"; and it was written in the style of being Bruce's case file and sometimes his personal journals, dating back to childhood, and at least one entry from Alfred, pertaining to a case he was more involved in.  And it explored those nuances that usually get glossed over in the conventional Batman stories; like the idea that Bruce is actually very methodical about how he investigates an active crime scene, making sure not disturb it in such a way that could influence the police department's own investigation.  He takes samples of evidence, making sure the police have their own evidence to still collect; his gloves are designed to allow for the sensitivity and tactile grip to be able to pick things up as though he weren't wearing gloves, but thick enough not to leave prints.  And he has all this forensic analysis equipment in the Batcave.  I'm fairly certain this book also featured a story from Bruce's youth that had Alfred giving him a children's chemistry set or forensic set, as something to try and raise his spirits in the months after his parents death; which then piqued his interest in science.

While I realize this isn't strictly in-line with what's been depicted of the character, even in the comics, and is far more in the camp of "fan theory," I've always thought they put the horse ahead of the cart in Bruce's reason for his training or for becoming Batman.  He spends all this time away from Gotham to train - years, ostensibly decades in the comics - in effect in order to become Batman, without knowing he's going to be specifically Batman, all solely out of emotional damage of his parent's brutal murders.
But I would argue that for all of the time and training Bruce would have to put in, that it would be difficult, if not impossible, for Bruce not to come to terms with his parents death and become more well adjusted; and that he would need a better motivation to become Batman.  As I see it, his parents death makes sense as the catalyst for the start of his journey, but not the be all, end all of it.  If I were writing his story (which I fully admit, I'm not, but I'm going to share the idea with you anyway) to help Bruce cope with his parent's death and being afraid that their killer will come back for him, Alfred enrolls him self-defense training, which takes well to; and keeps wanting to learn more and continues to advance.  To ensure he doesn't just focus on the physical elements, on fighting or protecting himself, Alfred gets him interested in science and in computers, robotics.  Bruce's thirst for knowledge becomes insatiable and he begins to look outside of Gotham for the next skill to master or fact to learn - but he doesn't want the world to know.  He's tired of being in the spotlight for the rich boy who lost his parents, so he often finds ways of taking these trips beyond Gotham under false identities and eventually begins to leave false trails in order to lead the paparazzi on a wild goose chase; something he comes to take a certain level of perverse pleasure in.  He's never fully out of public view; he doesn't go missing or anything, but he does come back to Gotham less and less and for shorter and shorter intervals.  While he's gone he learns mental disciplines and meets people who help him come to peace with the original reason he's started this journey, which allows him to master certain disciplines he ostensibly couldn't if he held onto that emotional baggage, but his innate curiosity continues to drive him.  
When all is said and done, Bruce manages to come through the death of his parents healthy, happy and well adjusted; and it's only when he eventually returns to Gotham and discovers how much has changed under his nose and during his prolonged absences, that he decides to put his cultivated talents to use to make a difference.  He doesn't realize at first the quagmire he's entering into though; he identifies one underlying problem, then another and another - and therein lies the true nature of the story of Bruce Wayne/Batman; it's a tragedy.  Not because his parents die, but because Bruce managed to survive their death and would have lived a happier life had he never returned to Gotham. And by doing so, he just keeps getting sucked in to the next disaster, the next crisis, the next villain; it keeps demanding more from Bruce and he keeps trying to shoulder the burden, until finally, eventually the job will kill him.  

Anytime DC depicts the future in the comics, it's typically been a free-for-all of "possible" futures that generally never truly end up coming to pass; and is usually best taken with a grain of salt.  The Batman Beyond stuff is even harder to follow, because some of it are continuations of the series and some of it they actually brought into the DC proper (sort of) with Futures End; and even that only brushed with main continuity.  From what I could find, the pregnancy storyline was only part of the comics that continued the storylines of the DCAU.

There's a very important difference between justified lethal force and unjustified lethal force.  As it applies in the real world is a giant can of worms I'm not keen on getting into, but in terms of its application to "superheroes" I feel like it's a very important distinction that usually gets glossed over through one of two extremes.  They either have characters adhere to an absolute "no kill policy," that lacks any nuance of possible circumstances; and undermines the very notion that there may in fact be circumstances where lethal forces is necessary.  Or they're totally nonchalant superheroes running around racking up a death toll without batting an eye, so to speak.
That's one of the biggest criticisms I had about season 1 of Titans - the degree of the brutality of the like of either Robin goes beyond the pale of what any of these types of characters should be permitted without authorities being absolutely justified in wanting to bring these characters in themselves to face criminal repercussions.  I mean, Christ, that scene of was sort of horrifying in the context that these characters to be people we root for these characters as being justified in their actions, especially where their side-stepping the law is concerned.  That's not suggest that the coach was innocent or anything, but the so-called heroes can't be judge, jury and possibly literal executioner; that's not justice, that's vengeance and about a half-step off from a mob mentality/lynching. 
There should be some distinction and subtlety between these two extremes.  Yes, lethal force should be permissible, but given what the average superhero can do, even those without special powers, just highly trained, lethal force should be something like option 5271 on their list of ways they could possibly defuse any average situation.  It shouldn't be that they don't kill because of a code, it should be that they don't kill because they don't have; and if they do, it's because it's absolutely necessary.  

In terms of how that applies to Oliver, surely, he killed some bad people, though it's questionable that it was "absolutely necessary;" even arguable that some of them, like the people on the list, could have just easily and productive been handled in some other non-lethal way; which undermines any argument that those deaths were necessary.  Then there were those who he killed simply because "no one can know my secret." - Good thing Felicity and Diggle are pretty, I guess....

35 years seems a little bit of a stretch, unless you're looking at things like the Burton adaptation; or lumping in the darker tone of Batman's narrative started in the late 70s and into the 80s, with the more brutal and paranoid depiction Batman, which I don't think was as common until more so in the last 90s/early aughts.  A lot of people peg the latter development to the JLA/Tower of Babel story; which I had to look up the date for to see that, that was 2000 (which was relatively more recent than I thought, even if realizing that a story from 2000 is nearly 20 years old...). 
I know this being the mold for Batman for 20/25 years does seem like much of a difference from 35 years, but it's still a drop in the bucket for his overall history.  For that matter, I haven't liked that turn for the character for about that long, since I've apparently been reading this stuff and watching the various adaptations throughout at least the last 20-30+ years.  And it's not just Batman, of course; they feel the need to make all of the characters darker and edgier, which is how we get a crap story like Identity Crisis.
Oddly enough I commented to a friend just a day or two ago, after watching the first season of Star Trek Discovery, that I'm so fucking tired of shit trying to masquerade as drama by being dark and dreary - that's not drama.

I don't know what to tell you. I don't care how long it's been going on, it's an element of his story that just doesn't work for me. I find it detracts from the core concept for his character, especially when adaptations boil his character down to that being essentially his sole defining traits.
I would point to the Bruce Timm/Kevin Conroy iteration of Batman (or at least, the original DCAU, since at both of them have revisited some version of the character since then) as an example of a better version of Batman; one that used his brains at least as often as he used his fists. It's not perfect by any means. I really didn't care for how the Bat-family ended up, but things the Death of Ace:

Bruce's friendship with Harvey Dent, and his feeling guilty for not being able to help him.

"His Silicon Soul"
"I am the Night"
"Penchant to Dream" (a great depiction of Bruce's deductive abilities - did you know it's impossible for most people to actually read in a dream?)

I absolutely love how they develop his relationship with Diana in Justice League/Justice League Unlimited.

The ultimate problem I have with that is, it's not for any lone person to take it upon themselves to decide that.  That's generally what it means to live in a society of rules; especially anywhere that has specifically lain out inherent rights to things like trial by jury and all of these other things that are there as some measure of measuring justice.  What gives Batman or Superman or any other lone individual the right to take it upon themselves, without any kind of sanction or authority other than their own person might and proactive will, to make those sort of extreme decisions?  It's one thing to disarm or apprehend someone doing harm or breaking the law, or protecting innocent lives in a time of crisis.  It's something else entirely to be judge, jury and executioner.
Admittedly, the conceit of someone like Bruce Wayne is that his city has become so corrupted, that his taking on the mantle of Batman is meant to be justified by him doing that in order to restore or instill into the city the virtues of justice that it lost, if it ever had them to begin with.  For him to act in any capacity that extends beyond that, and especially where he's executing people or taking such extreme measures as to lobotomize someone; he's no longer the advocate for justice in a corrupt system, he's become part of that corruption. 
Also, being confronted with the "simple solution" to a systemic problem and not give in to baser instincts is arguably part of what should define someone as a true hero - doing what's right instead of what's easy, when the two aren't mutually exclusive.    
Bruce Wayne is not responsible for the hypothetical future actions of anyone but himself.  Of course that doesn't mean that Bruce wouldn't feel a sense of personal responsibility, but that doesn't mean it's truly his to shoulder alone.

There is virtually an infinite number of possible futures that could happen and no one can be expected to account for all of them.  If Arkham or Blackgate or wherever these dangerous people go can't contain them the way they need to be contained, then the correct solution isn't to simply put a bullet it in their head, it's correcting whatever the issue of containment is; whether it's them having powers that need to be taken into account/neutralized or them being clever and finding a way to escape, you make changes to the prison or the asylum to improve it and make it more secure.  And that burden isn't just on Bruce, it's on pretty much everyone to ensure the public safety.  

A last thought on this particular remark; the Justice League animated series explored this exact idea - and I mean exact, down to where they had a version of Superman who used his heat vision to lobotomize villains, including Doomsday.  It turned out to take place on a parallel earth where everything had matched up to the conventional story and characters, until Lex became president and killed The Flash and Superman retaliated by killing him.  After that the League became the Justice Lords and totalitarian rulers of Earth.

I haven't forgotten.  I think it's one of the most important qualities about Bruce Wayne, which often gets overlooked in the live action adaptations, much to my eternal frustrations.  One skill I remember reading about, I think in a novelization of something with Batman, that I love, was his "speed reading" - which if memory serves was almost more like a meditative trance.  He'd have someone open a book and he'd stare intently at the pages; and rather than actually read the words, he'd sort of let the image of the pages and everything on them be imprinted and processed by his subconscious.
It's perhaps borders on a super-power, but I think given some of the broader things that are possible in the comics, this arguably falls towards perhaps the least implausible thing to be able to do.  And it's sort of a cool ability, I think.
Just in general, I'd love an adaptation that explores Bruce Wayne's genius more.  Because they'll drop subtle things in the comics, like how Bruce has employed magical friends/colleagues to enact layers of spells and enchantments to help conceal the Batcave to prevent people from being able to either detect it or access it through magic or other means, like teleportation.  And in another comic it was revealed that Bruce has established his own utility network for power and communication, but that it goes beyond his own personal use; where he's tied it into and in a way grafted it onto the city's own deteriorating system, bypassing certain failing parts of the city's utilities, which if they had they failed (as they would have without the support of his system) it would have seriously crippled the city.

There's a fine line between appearing intimidating and being a full fledged psycho; and too often that distinction is blurred with Batman; especially when adapted in movies.  An example of the former though was in, I think a Young Justice comic.  Tim Drake explains how he and Batman want criminals to think they have some secret location they dump their bodies in; and that they are willing to take extreme measures, so that Batman and ostensibly Robin too, have such a reputation as to frighten all but the worst of the worst of the criminal elements.  That, combined with Batman in particular being an urban legend, are the two primary conceits about the character that I think allows any degree of plausibility in Bruce Wayne being able to do what he does, without people finding out who he is and allowing Batman to be effective. 
I've never been a fan of the idea that he sees himself more as Batman.  He certainly puts on a public facade as Bruce, but I think there's still a "real" Bruce, which he doesn't often get to share, except for those closest to him. I think he could conceivably be drawn into his work to the point of exhaustion and eventually to where it will be the death of him. And it also makes me think of something else I had seen or read, where Alfred points out how, after years of being Batman, his Bruce Wayne voice has started shifting towards the lower register he uses for Batman.  But he still needs to have a grip on who he is, his values and most importantly his humanity; he can't lose sight of the line he can never afford to cross. 

That's something I didn't appreciate the first time I watched Batman Beyond; I didn't understand the motivation for Bruce wanting to retire after a particular incident in the field, where he's having a heart attack or something and the person he's up against gets the upper hand and starts knocking him around; until Bruce grabs a gun and holds it on him. Afterwards he's disgusted by how that all played out and it was a long time after I saw that, that I understood the implications of what it would mean for Bruce to feel the need to rely on something like a gun to subdue a criminal; and that it made perfect sense for that to motivate him to retire.

I don't know that I agree with a lot of that.  Most adaptation, and typically in the comics too, Barbara is kind of the outlier in the Bat-family.  She has strong ties with Batman, Alfred and all of the Robins, but is also the most independent, usually working entirely on her own.  She's not like Dick, Jason, Tim or Stephanie; she takes on the mantle of Batgirl without any real ties to Bruce Wayne/Batman, other than being aware of the existence of either.  In a lot of iterations, Bruce doesn't even know who Batgirl is for the longest time when she starts out.  I think in some adaptation, possibly starting with Adam West series, Alfred may have even learned who Batgirl was before Bruce does.  And she's typically older than say, any of the various Robins, when she starts out as Batgirl compared to when they became Robin.  Where they're usually early to mid teens, I think conventionally she's usually college age; maybe 16 or 17 at the very youngest, but I'm fairly confident in saying she's usually already an (albeit young) adult when she first starts out.  
I honestly don't think Babs sees Batman as her boss, let alone a father figure.  She has all she needs in a father and male role model in Jim Gordon; and if anything she wants to be like Jim, which in turn would motivate her to want to have the same level of association he has with Batman. 
Bruce might offer some more advanced training, but typically she does her own thing; and this really gets exemplified when she becomes Oracle and is the leader of the Birds of Prey and takes on a strong leadership role with the Bat-family, with Batman seeking her help quite regularly and her helping coordinate certain large scale, group efforts.  Robin may be Batman's protege, but Batgirl could arguably be called his lieutenant.

And I think it's a good thing for her not to be cast in the same mold as the Robins; because what's the point of having her be the same as everyone else on Batman's team?  I think there's value in the idea of her having the capacity to look at Bruce, once she gets to know him, as just a man, warts and all.  She could and presumably has called him on his BS; she would objectively know if he's going too far or losing sight of what's important. Her only aspiration with Bruce should be for him to see her as a peer, an equal.  And from that perspective, anything is possible. 
I'm not strictly suggesting they should date and fall in love and start talking about having bat-babies, though that shouldn't be necessarily off the table either.  She could conceivably have a crush on Bruce in the early days, because he's supposed to be a very hansom man.  As for Bruce "could have literally anyone," Babs is certainly anyone, she's not no one; and not for nothing, typically she's conventionally beautiful in her own right.  Not to mention she offers Bruce something that most other woman can't, which is a mutual understanding about what it is they do, the life they lead. She is one of the few people he doesn't have to be either "Public Bruce" or "Batman" with, he just can truly be himself; and the number of women he's been able to do that with are few and far between.  So I do think it's plausible for the two of them to finds themselves in the right circumstances and state of mind where they just need another person, they need physical contact and intimacy and the two have each other during a moment of vulnerability for both of them; and then afterwards they don't see a future between the two of them beyond friendship, and it ends up just being a one time thing.

I mean, they're called "worst case scenarios," because they're worst outcome out of all the outcomes that are still distinct possibility if you're not cautious, or even if you are.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions; it may not seem like a big deal to bargain with yourself and justify this one compromise, because it's one person, just one small step over the line.  Then the next person comes along who's just as bad and just as dangerous and it seems like even less of a departure, because the decision had already been once before; and the risk lies in the potential risk of objectivity, so that before you know it, you don't end up so far from where you started you hardly recognize what you've become.

As for the Joker specifically, I have two thoughts on this.  The first was a point I was trying to make, but even at the time I was writing it, I wasn't sure if I was bringing it across properly, but it's arguably the most important. Why is the Joker Batman's responsibility?  Why is it on Batman's shoulders to decide that he's too great of threat to the world, that he has to be put down?  If someone like the Joker is such a danger, where no walls can hold him and the lives of virtual anyone who crosses his path are up for grabs, it should be the decision of the courts or law officials or government leaders to determine that lethal action is warranted; not an individual who's taken the law into his own hands.
Again, it's one thing to use lethal force during a physical confrontation and when it's a very last resort in trying to subdue that person; and it's something else entirely, especially for someone who has no official authority and is acting solely as a rogue vigilante, to proactively find someone that they personally have deemed too great of threat and decide to kill them.  Whether the ends justify the means, the latter is premeditated murder.

Your example of Osama Bin Laden is a good point of comparison; it was not some private militia group or lone wolf who took it upon themselves to say, "I'm going to hunt this guy down and take him out."  He was deemed by the authorities of the US to be of such a threat as to warrant his death and it was sanctioned by the top most authority of our country.  If the President of the United States personally went up to Batman and said, "The Joker is too great of threat to the personal security and safety of the citizens of our country and I'm authorizing you to use all necessary force to end that threat once and for all," that would be something else entirely; that would be Batman being made an agent of the legitimate powers of government to act in an official capacity as one of it's agents in this one specific mission.  And arguably it wouldn't necessarily need to be the President, it could maybe the governor or a judge or perhaps the police commissioner can hypothetically give that kind of order.  But point is that the authority is coming from the right place, from individuals who have been charged with the responsibility of making those decisions by the people of our society. The people, in granting that power, are saying, we trust you to wield it judiciously and not abuse it; and presumably such an authorization would fall within that assessment.
And even then the question of personal morality and how that might weigh on Bruce Wayne would be another component of that; just as it invariably weighs on real world police and officers and soldiers who have had to take a life.  And interestingly, the whole idea of a government agent authorizing and tasking Batman with the execution of someone who poses a real threat to public safety was at the heart of one of the clips I shared from Justice League Unlimited, involving Batman and Ace, with Amanda Waller ordering Batman to kill Ace for the greater good; and the way they deal with that is just sooooo good.  Which is why I feel the need to share it again:



The other perspective though is purely from a creative, logistical standpoint; which is that Batman can't kill the Joker.  No one can kill the Joke so long as the story continues; and then he can't come back to antagonize the protagonist.  It's arguably only when you have an ongoing story, that has gone on for as long as the comics have, that the repetition of certain characters constant and perpetual threats starts to take on a Sysophisian quality, where continuing to do the same thing over and over and expecting a more permanent resolution begins to strain credulity.  But as with a lot of these sort of issues, my opinion is that if something is meant to be a conceit that wouldn't otherwise make sense in a more conventional setting - like why should the Joker get to live - it falls to the writer's responsibility of finding an in-story reason that makes that conceit plausible.  An example that comes to mind, that happens to do with the Joke and why Batman hasn't killed him, is when the Joker originally killed Jason Todd; writers then had the Joker, somehow, be made a diplomat of some foreign country and given diplomatic immunity.  It was a bit ham handed, but it addressed the very clear issue that if Joker was going to do something so extreme as to kill Batman's own partner, then obviously Batman's expected retaliation should be in kind and they needed a reason to avoid that.  And since it was the 80s and the writers were probably too busy doing coke, they're like, "yeah, let's just make him a diplomat." 

I do think, however, that there are better ways of offering some reason why Batman takes the necessary more pragmatic approach to Joker, let alone the rest of his rogues.  One approached I've always liked is how Two-Face was dealt with, again, in Batman the Animated Series; where they made Harvey Dent a close personal friend of Bruce Wayne's.  And so the dynamic between them changes from Batman simply beating up on a villain, he's trying to stop a friend who has been victimized, who's sick; and while it doesn't excuse his actions, it's understandable that Bruce wants to help him as much as he wants to stop him.  One of the more brilliant episodes that brings Two-Face back was "Judgment Day," where Two-Face becomes the target of "The Judge" - a vigilante passing judgement on criminals, with lethal consequences and Batman is put into a position of having to protect him and stop the Judge.  And then

As I see it, a good way of doing this with the Joke is to make Batman feel personally responsible for the Joker's existence; and the writers have sort of done that in the various re-tellings of the Joker's backstory, where the man who would become the Joker falls into a vat of chemicals after an altercation with Batman.  They don't always play it up to the degree I think they could.  The man in question who becomes Joker may or may not be an unassuming individual at the start; in some versions he's a patsy and shouldn't have even been there.  But I think playing on Batman's guilt and the sense that he has sense of responsibility for anything the Joker does, that it would make it that much harder for Batman to end it by killing the Joke; not because he doesn't want to see the threat ended, but rather out of the concern that doing so wouldn't assuage his own sense of guilt, but compound it.  And so long as he can catch the Joker and put him away where he can't hurt anyone else, while still being alive, and take the necessary measure to improve things to improve the chance it'll stay that way, Bruce's conscience may not be put at ease, but the weight of his own sense of responsibility doesn't increase.

My own thoughts on how this could be achieved would be to expound on an idea more recently introduced in the comics, which is that there is more than one Joker.  In my scenario, not only is there more than one Joker, the inherent reason that's so is as a result of a virus - one that shares properties with Joker's iconic poison - but rather than kill a person, leaving a person stuck with a Joker like grin; it contorts the facial muscles into that sort of expression, makes the skin paler and might sometime changes the hair color, while also affecting the mind, suppressing the ID/or the centers of the brain that control the sense of right and wrong or judgement.  And that virus, which Bruce may have play some tangential role in accidentally developing or failing to stop its release, has spread through Gotham, to every citizen; and Bruce manages to develop a treatment, but he couldn't find actually find a cure, he could only find a way of suppressing it and keep it from spreading.  But it's still there in everyone who was in the city and was exposed to it; it's lying dormant for an in-determinant amount of time.  So in a city of a million+ people, everyone them of them has a become this ticking time bomb, where at any moment they could become a grinning, psychotic maniac; and Batman has to stop them, but at the same time, they're still an innocent underneath it all.  And some of them he's able to save, as much as he's able to stop their harm of others.  But then there could be one or two or more for whom the virus progressed so far that remission remains out of reach and they are "The Joker" or one of the classic iterations; and they're a constant threat, yet still in a certain sense a victim and Bruce holds out hope of one day finding a way to treat them.