In what is emphatically not a pun about his character’s weapon of choice on The Walking Dead, Jeffrey Dean Morgan says he still hopes to play a Batman. The actor—who played doomed bat-dad Dr. Thomas Wayne in Zack Snyder’s Batman V. Superman: Dawn Of Justice—recently told CinemaBlend that he’s still holding out hope for an alternate DC Extended Universe, where his character gets to wear the cape and cowl, and Bruce Wayne got shot instead.
Lest that sound like some weirdly passive-aggressive daydreaming about Ben Affleck getting killed, it’s worth noting that Morgan was referencing an actual plot point from Flashpoint, a 2011 DC Comics crossover event. In the series, resident speedster the Flash goes back in time to save his own mother—a plot idea that’s been referenced more than once by The CW’s Flash—leading a bunch of heroes to get their origin stories all jumbled up. After their son is shot dead in a Gotham City alleyway, Thomas Wayne becomes a more brutal, violent Batman, while his wife Martha goes insane, transforming into the universe’s Joker.
Morgan doesn’t have any concrete evidence that Flashpoint was the direction Snyder was intending to take the DCEU in, though he did note that the director did tell him “You would be an awesome Batman” while they were filming Watchmen together. “Maybe when he cast me that was kind of the goal. Hopefully DC can figure this all out, and in a few years I can come back and do a Flashpoint Batman!” Morgan said, while doing promotion for his recent movie Desierto. “I would love it. That would be great.”