Michael Keaton was the very first Batman on the silver screen if you don’t count the Adam West version appearing in his own movie based on the television series. He was my major draw for watching The Flash, and I almost watched it in theaters because of that. However, Ezra Miller’s disturbing actions and opinions made me want to boycott the movie, at least purposely at the box office, because they don’t really gain any money from me watching it on HBO Max.

I don’t think anybody has ever officially clarified this, so I’m just going to assume that this is exactly the Batman we saw in Batman and Batman Returns back in the late ’80s and early ’90s. In The Flash, he is an old hermit living in his mansion, presumably no longer being Batman full-time. I just thought about the fact that he definitely doesn’t have Alfred anymore because his beloved butler has long since passed away.

But he ends up crossing paths with Barry Allen and helps him rescue Supergirl, along with trying to figure out how to stop General Zod and the rest of the Kryptonian soldiers from taking over the world.

He gets most of his action actually in his Batwing, which is kind of funny to me from a realistic standpoint, even though we don’t really expect realism in superhero movies. It’s not a controversial idea for Batman to have the Batwing airplane, but it’s hard for me to believe that Bruce Wayne built this thing completely on his own. And if not, how on Earth did he hide what it was for from Wayne Enterprises?

He ends up sacrificing himself by crashing his Batwing into some Kryptonian spacecraft. It’s definitely not the emotional ending you would expect, despite his heroic and fatal attempt to save the world. It’s really downplayed by the fact that this is an alternate universe, one that Barry keeps rewinding the clock on to try to save his Kryptonian crush. I’m so glad Michael Keaton took the role. I really wish they would do a Batman Beyond movie with him as a very aged Bruce Wayne who can no longer fight.