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Picture the Batman. What do you see? Is he standing on the ledge of a skyscraper against a night sky, scowling at the city below? He's dressed as usual, right? The flowing cape. Medium to large bat symbol stamped across his chest, and the cowl that comes with essential pointy ears. Even with all that, though, there's one iconic element that is forever linked to the Dark Knight that has never really made it into live-action – those empty white eyes that have criminals of Gotham fearing for their lives. It's a favorite part of what makes the Caped Crusader so gosh darn cool. It's also the one thing that fans are still debating over whether it should appear in future films, while others think they might've cracked the code on how to include it.
In a Bat-related chat on Reddit, a fan put forward the case that Batman should not have white eyes in the DCU or any live-action film. The argument for this was a solid one, backing the idea that the eyes are the window to the soul and that in the movies, an actor's performance has often worked with just a look, using the scene where Robert Pattinson's Batman shares a look with the son of the recently murdered Mayor Mitchell in Matt Reeves' movie as an example. "It's an emotional and impactful scene. Now give him white eyes, and you'll see you lose all of that."
With that, though, fans began to debate if there was a workaround, and if in future appearances of Batsy, he could have the comic book-accurate look with nothing behind the eyes. One responder argued, "I would like to see him have lenses that can change, so they can be blacked out on a normal basis, when he is wanting to create fear they can turn white, they can have night vision, etc. also have where they can retract into the cowl so people can see his eyes."
Another fan referred to Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight, which had Batman's peepholes switch to sonar to track down the hostages. "They should work like his cape, functional, but also a component of making criminals fear him."
Then there was an interesting argument using a beloved Marvel character as a comparison. "I agree that eyes have a specific emotion to them, but look at Deadpool & Wolverine, they pulled off the white eyes really well." Well, if Wade Wilson can do it, surely Bruce Wayne can too?
With still no sign of Batman in Superman's universe just yet, besides a silhouette or two, we'll just have to settle for Robert Pattinson's intense glare for now, and honestly, he's doing just fine. Speaking of the DCU, here's every movie and show heading our way. Who knows? Maybe they might see Batman get a look in.
