92615_RAA_LooseCannon_Text_R1_PROOF

parents, wherein Bruce explains why he’s leaving Smallville, he states, "The common man needs a champion. Someone to look after their inter ests. If I don’t, someone else will. Perhaps someone who will not champi on the common man, but exploit him."

Perhaps someone like Lex Luthor... and we can’t have that.

After a montage-like sequence where we shorthand his moving in to Wayne Manor, addressing the loyalty of Alfred (who, we assume, has acted as executor and "regent" while the Kents raised young Bruce), and settling in, we show a restless Bruce wanting to make good on his promise to champi on the common man. Wayne uses his inherited fortune to stage elaborate and grandiose events to draw attention to society’s ills and perhaps raise money for all sorts of humanitarian causes. The crowds that these sorts of things attract are happy to party for Wayne’s causes, but he sees that no real good is being done in Gotham City. Somber and grim-faced, he pon ders the problem. The reporter then goes to interview Lois Lane, and all sorts of irony is shown between the two; The Interviewer being interviewed, and such. We still don’t see the reporter, Pennyworth, that clearly. But, prodding, he elic its the tale of how Wayne leaves Gotham to come to Metropolis, to buy The Daily Planet. He shows a glimmer of the man he might have been when he stops a gang of punks from attacking Lois Lane, who’s on her way to join the staff of the Planet. She has no idea the gallant man who stepped in to make the odds a little more even is her new publisher... ...we trot out select members of the Superman cast as we build to the main conflict... and intimate that fellow rich-guy Ollie Queen and test pilot Hal Jordan are among Wayne’s confidantes... but these guys aren’t superheroes in this world, either...the conflict is that of Wayne’s campaign to be elect ed mayor of Metropolis against the incumbent, Lex Luthor. Without a Superman to rail against, Luthor is a tamer version of the one we know... and yet still driven, and I suspect, heartless. But straight-forward, in his own way, and therefore predictable. Wayne does political stump speeches in front of our version of the big CITIZEN KANE campaign posters; this one, however, says "WAYNE." Wayne thinks he has him beat, but is defeat ed in the election. There are accusations and counter-charges, but in the end it is revealed that Wayne lost in a fair fight. It saps him of his will to help the common man, when the common man so soundly has rejected him. My one visual image for this one to help you see what I’m getting at is an older Wayne... maybe mid-forties, greying at the temples, a little paunch, leaning out on a window sill, looking at his adopted home. The This time, Selina Kyle says, "Rome fiddles while Nero burns."

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