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My name is Bruce Wayne. I am vengeance. I am justice. I am Batman: the Red Death.
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~ Red Death
“
As usual, you're already late, Flash. It's time you let someone else have the Speed Force.
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~ Red Death
The Red Death is a villainous version of Batman from the DC Comics universe. He is a member of the Dark Knights, a group of vigilantes from the Dark Multiverse whose goal is to assist the deity Barbatos to plunge the central DC Multiverse into darkness.
The Batman of Earth -52 once fought crime with the help of his sidekick Robin. Unfortunately, as time went on, many different Robins lost their lives during various missions with the Caped Crusader, which drove him to adopt more extreme methods towards crime-fighting.
When Earth -52 was on the verge of destruction, Batman uses weapons he obtained from the Rogues (Captain Cold's freeze ray, Heat Wave's heat gun, Mirror Master's mirror gun, and Weather Wizard's wand) to fight the Flash, who had refused to give him Speed Force powers.
After knocking Flash out, Batman chains him to the hood of the Batmobile (which he had modified using the designs of the Cosmic Treadmill) and drives him and Flash into the Speed Force.
As a result, Batman and Flash are forcibly fused into one being, with Bruce gaining Flash's powers and a corrupt connection to the Speed Force while Barry's consciousness became trapped inside Bruce's body.
With his new abilities, Batman quickly murdered his own rogues' gallery, although realized he was still too late to save his world from destruction. Bruce is then visited by The Batman Who Laughs, who tells him that he can still save his world by joining Barbatos' Dark Knights and aiding the deity in conquering a Multiverse above their own. Batman accepted his counterpart's offer and became known among the group as The Red Death.
Dark Nights: Metal
After entering the central multiverse, The Red Death infected Central City with a Speed Force Storm which gave him the ability to accelerate aging in other people to the point of death and attempted to use this ability on Barry Allen's loved ones but was stopped by Barry as the Flash.
During the Justice Leagues search for Nth Metal (that could be used to defeat the Dark Knights), The Flash was trapped inside Red Death's Batcave which was specifically designed to counter the hero's speed and housed Flashmobiles to further increase the risk of danger. Luckily, despite these precautions, Barry managed to escape with his life.
Much later, during a plot to infect the House of Heroes with darkness, The Red Death became exposed to a large dose of positive energy which affected his appearance and gave Barry Allen of Earth -52 control of Red Death's body. Barry felt immediate regret for what Bruce used his powers to do and teamed up with Prime Earth's Flash to fight against the Dark Knights. However, The Batman Who Laughs revealed that the Dark Knights have already taken The Red Death's betrayal into account as he was the most likely to turn on them due to being only half Batman. Laughs then informs The Red Death that the positive energy which caused his change would also kill him, moments before the speedster explodes in bright light.
Arrowverse
Red Death was mentioned in the Season 5 episode "Memorabilia" of the 2014 TV series The Flash. According to a future David Singh during a commercial about Cicada in the Flash Museum, the Red Death had a high kill count alongside Zoom. He was initially presumed by fans to be the main antagonist of the upcoming sixth season.
Gallery
Batman of Earth -52 before he became the Red Death.
The Red Death can be seen as the literal interpretation to one of Batman's worst fears; the fear of losing the Bat-Family and not being fast enough to save anyone.