Joker: I’ve tried everything! Mobs of gun-toting clowns. Mind altering gas. Inciting riots. Political engineering. An elaborate plan to make everyone look like me. Sharks.
Bane: Sharks?
Joker: Yes, sharks. Did I stutter? Honey, do I have something distracting stuck in my teeth?
Harley: No, sweetie. Just that winning smile of yours. ::mwah:: ^_^
Bane: (That’s it. I’m just gonna level the whole city and be done with this place)
Bane was wasted potential. Once people figured out if you pull the tubes out he is incapable of even walking. The first time he takes over his physical abilities are just a supplement to his natural charisma. After he loses he somehow loses the ability to lead men and the only thing left is he is a big guy.
The writers could have easily made him a long term effective foe like Penguin.
The Illuminati Court of Owls enabling more crime alongside the general pervasive corruption by the ruling class,
The buried evil bat god Barbatos who was summoned and remains under the city
The corruption of insane wizard Dr. Gotham who has also been buried under the city for over 40,000 years (Who gave him a doctorate 40,000 years ago is what I want to know.),
Amadeus Arkham (and seemingly every warden of Arkham since) grossly mistreating the patients there.
The city being surrounded by swampland lending it to be perpetually gloomy.
One can see why the city might not have the best base to positively grow from.
Joker might be supernatural in origin, too. The ‘vat of chemicals’ story is explicitly a maybe, Batman can’t find any evidence he existed before he showed up as Joker, and he keeps surviving things it should be impossible to survive. That last one could be connected to the lazarus pit, though.
Depending on the timeline, that’s not true, but that’s the problem with resetting a timeline a dozen or whatever times. We see an endless amount of him fighting the crime and never the results.
They didn’t explore it as much as I thought they should. Batman created Bane, indirectly, and in some ways attracted Bane to Gotham which set off the events that lead to all of Arkham criminals being released. Which in turn led Arzial to Gotham. Which brought about the events of Contagion and Cataclysm which lead to No Man’s Land.
So in a way the entire city of Gotham was brought down by him being there.
Sure. But you can take a step back from there and assert the crime cartels of the earlier era - the Falconnes and Mannheims and Marchettis - and their corrupt police confederates created Batman (since they’re indirectly the cause of his parents’ death and the main antagonists that head up the crime wave that young Bruce pits himself against).
And since there’s a (even in-universe) hard association between organized crime and the various state and federal intelligence agencies, I guess you could put the entire Batman Villain universe at the feet of Harry Truman, J. Edgar Hoover, and Allen Dulles.
True but it is not on the same level. It is sorta like Indiana Jones.
That general and his scientist were going to use Venom and like 5 soliders to attempt a coup. Which would have failed. You can’t take over the US with 5 guys. Ffs it doesn’t even make sense. The government has nukes. You are not going to win that war. Because Batman interfered they fleed to that knock-off Cuba. So Batman followed which meant that the thugs ruling that country knew the serum was worth it. Making them use it on Bane. But it doesn’t end there. Bane wants to rule the world so he needs to go to the most powerful country. Which city does he pick within it? He picks Gotham because he sees that Batman is the single point of failure.
Had Batman done nothing the coup would have failed and the serum would have been forgotten. At most a few people die. Had he interfered but later on retired after Jason Todd other vigilantes would have stepped in making Gotham have more than one failure point. Stopping Bane.
Well… if one of them has super psychic powers and another can pick up a tank and hit you with it… Its also worth taking a step back and recognizing John Locke’s theory of Consent of the Governed does not hold up particularly well in the DC Universe. Powerful Metas are taking over small nations left and right.
The government has nukes.
Okay, sure. But every time you use a nuke, you get five new radioactive themed supers. So you gotta use those judiciously.
Had Batman done nothing the coup would have failed and the serum would have been forgotten.
That’s a huge leap. Had he done nothing, the coup would have forced Star Labs or the Suicide Squad or some equivalent to intervene. And then you’d just get a different group of Meta-humans dabbling with super-drugs. And besides, its not like Magic Steroids are a hard sell in a setting where half the new wave crime bosses are trying to get into fist fights with Superman.
he sees that Batman is the single point of failure
To that end, I’d argue Batman’s Babel Protocols as a bigger issue than Bane fixating on Gotham. Less that Batman is a single point of failure than that he’s written as this Ubermensch who needs to outclass all the other Metas in the Justice League.
He’s a singular point of overwhelming strength that only really exists as a counterpoint to the high fantasy impossible people surrounding him. And then, as a consequence of him being on such a high level, all his enemies also have to be able to feasibly beat up Superman our outpace The Flash.
This gets you to Joke functioning as a literal demi-god.
And that’s not really a “Batman” problem but a “Writers getting into a dick-swinging competition” problem.
Over 60 years of “crime-fighting” but no noticeable decrease in Gotham’s crime rate.
Curious.
If anything, Batman single-handledly escalated the matter.
Bringing Shark Repellent to a Gun Fight.
Joker: I’ve tried everything! Mobs of gun-toting clowns. Mind altering gas. Inciting riots. Political engineering. An elaborate plan to make everyone look like me. Sharks.
Bane: Sharks?
Joker: Yes, sharks. Did I stutter? Honey, do I have something distracting stuck in my teeth?
Harley: No, sweetie. Just that winning smile of yours. ::mwah::
^_^Bane: (That’s it. I’m just gonna level the whole city and be done with this place)
Bane was wasted potential. Once people figured out if you pull the tubes out he is incapable of even walking. The first time he takes over his physical abilities are just a supplement to his natural charisma. After he loses he somehow loses the ability to lead men and the only thing left is he is a big guy.
The writers could have easily made him a long term effective foe like Penguin.
Considering there’s, variously,
IlluminatiCourt of Owls enabling more crime alongside the general pervasive corruption by the ruling class,One can see why the city might not have the best base to positively grow from.
Joker might be supernatural in origin, too. The ‘vat of chemicals’ story is explicitly a maybe, Batman can’t find any evidence he existed before he showed up as Joker, and he keeps surviving things it should be impossible to survive. That last one could be connected to the lazarus pit, though.
TextsFromSuperheroes:
“Why the hell do people live here?”
“The rent is so cheap.”
Depending on the timeline, that’s not true, but that’s the problem with resetting a timeline a dozen or whatever times. We see an endless amount of him fighting the crime and never the results.
They didn’t explore it as much as I thought they should. Batman created Bane, indirectly, and in some ways attracted Bane to Gotham which set off the events that lead to all of Arkham criminals being released. Which in turn led Arzial to Gotham. Which brought about the events of Contagion and Cataclysm which lead to No Man’s Land.
So in a way the entire city of Gotham was brought down by him being there.
Sure. But you can take a step back from there and assert the crime cartels of the earlier era - the Falconnes and Mannheims and Marchettis - and their corrupt police confederates created Batman (since they’re indirectly the cause of his parents’ death and the main antagonists that head up the crime wave that young Bruce pits himself against).
And since there’s a (even in-universe) hard association between organized crime and the various state and federal intelligence agencies, I guess you could put the entire Batman Villain universe at the feet of Harry Truman, J. Edgar Hoover, and Allen Dulles.
True but it is not on the same level. It is sorta like Indiana Jones.
That general and his scientist were going to use Venom and like 5 soliders to attempt a coup. Which would have failed. You can’t take over the US with 5 guys. Ffs it doesn’t even make sense. The government has nukes. You are not going to win that war. Because Batman interfered they fleed to that knock-off Cuba. So Batman followed which meant that the thugs ruling that country knew the serum was worth it. Making them use it on Bane. But it doesn’t end there. Bane wants to rule the world so he needs to go to the most powerful country. Which city does he pick within it? He picks Gotham because he sees that Batman is the single point of failure.
Had Batman done nothing the coup would have failed and the serum would have been forgotten. At most a few people die. Had he interfered but later on retired after Jason Todd other vigilantes would have stepped in making Gotham have more than one failure point. Stopping Bane.
Well… if one of them has super psychic powers and another can pick up a tank and hit you with it… Its also worth taking a step back and recognizing John Locke’s theory of Consent of the Governed does not hold up particularly well in the DC Universe. Powerful Metas are taking over small nations left and right.
Okay, sure. But every time you use a nuke, you get five new radioactive themed supers. So you gotta use those judiciously.
That’s a huge leap. Had he done nothing, the coup would have forced Star Labs or the Suicide Squad or some equivalent to intervene. And then you’d just get a different group of Meta-humans dabbling with super-drugs. And besides, its not like Magic Steroids are a hard sell in a setting where half the new wave crime bosses are trying to get into fist fights with Superman.
To that end, I’d argue Batman’s Babel Protocols as a bigger issue than Bane fixating on Gotham. Less that Batman is a single point of failure than that he’s written as this Ubermensch who needs to outclass all the other Metas in the Justice League.
He’s a singular point of overwhelming strength that only really exists as a counterpoint to the high fantasy impossible people surrounding him. And then, as a consequence of him being on such a high level, all his enemies also have to be able to feasibly beat up Superman our outpace The Flash.
This gets you to Joke functioning as a literal demi-god.
And that’s not really a “Batman” problem but a “Writers getting into a dick-swinging competition” problem.