Gotham Crusade

Abishai1000

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Amsterdam; New Jersey
Bruce Wayne was such a popular and successful socialite and businessman in Gotham City, that no one suspected he harboured a dark past and was haunted by the memory of his murdered parents from whom he inherited most of his incredible wealth. Gotham City, meanwhile, was becoming more and more seedy, and a new breed of criminal was surfacing, and Bruce was brooding about what to do about these new ominously unusual 'super-villains.' Bruce decided he would prowl around Gotham at night on the weekends in a mask and costume and call himself Batman, tackling these new evil-doers as an urban vigilante. Bruce/Batman was about to be tested by a host of hellraisers, and his only ally was the wise old Commissioner Gordon of the GCPD, who would give Batman calming advice about how not to become a monster or rogue vigilante while tackling these radical 'super-villains.'

The first nemesis Batman had to tackle was Leatherface, a chainsaw-wielding cannibal who escaped from a mental institution and was running around Gotham calling himself the 'Scarecrow.' Leatherface/Scarecrow wore a gruesome mask made out of the skin of dead animals, and he believed his chainsaw was a sacred weapon meant to grab people's attention and force them to deal with the darker instincts of humanity. Batman knew that to undo the fear aura of Leatherface/Scarecrow, he would have to arrest and humiliate him in public, so Gothamites would not feel so anxious about a super-psycho running around unchecked by the public. Batman tracked Leatherface/Scarecrow down one Saturday night, while the maniac was chasing two police officers in an alley with his terrifying chainsaw at 4 a.m. Batman ran after the psycho and used his rope-gun to tie his legs up and then more rope to tie up his body and disarm the evil brute. The cops saw everything and reported to the police that Batman was a heroic vigilante that night.

Batman's next challenge was to stop the Red Hood Gang, a wily and devious group of masked Gotham bandits who performed circus-like bank robberies, which were hyped in the press, much to their ghoulish delight. Batman decided to stake out Gotham Bank one Saturday night after receiving a tip that the Red Hood Gang was planning a hit. When the Red Hood Gang pulled up in their van outside the bank and got out with machine guns, Batman started spraying them with darts coated with a sleeping potion and then called the GCPD with his mobile Bat-phone. When the police arrived, they found the members of the Red Hood Gang lying asleep and tied up outside Gotham Bank. Batman was gone, but the press conjectured that Batman performed the heroic deed. Back at Wayne Manor, Bruce wondered if the inside tip on the Red Hood Gang was supplied by the crime-curious secretary of the unscrupulous Gotham businessman Max Shreck named Selina Kyle, a very 'cat-like' woman.

Batman now had to deal with another rising super-villain named Mad Hatter who was broadcasting pirate radio signals with messages such as, "I intend to plant bombs in Gotham cop cars, unless the mayor agrees to let me take his wife out on a date!" The messages were obviously sardonic and ridiculous and meant to poke fun at the general jurisprudence vulnerabilities in Gotham City. Batman decided to use Wayne Enterprises to send out special marketing radio messages such as, "We are proud that the Gotham mayor is one of our most prized hair-tonic customers!" Batman then staked out cosmetics stores on Saturday night and waited for the Mad Hatter to show up to perform an anti-social act of vandalism, since the loon could not resist destroying a cosmetics store as an act of retaliation against the Wayne Enterprises cosmetics radio ads. Sure enough, Mad Hatter showed up (alone in his car), and Batman jumped onto the hood of his car, used his grappling hook to break through the windshield and grabbed the Mad Hatter and hauled him off to Arkham Asylum, Gotham's maximum security incarceration center for the criminally insane where Leatherface/Scarecrow and the Red Hood Gang were also being held for treatment.

Batman then had to tackle the vile eco-terrorist Ra's al Ghul and his League of Assassins who were planning to vandalize Gotham supermarkets and the water refinery as an act of anti-establishment defiance. Batman predicted the attack, since he knew that Gotham was developing dangerous sentiments towards anti-industrialization terrorism, and he knew of Ra's al Ghul and his obsession with eco-terrorism. Batman had Jim Gordon stake out Gotham supermarkets on the same night that the attack on the water refinery was predicted, and Batman himself staked out the water refinery. When Ra's and his League showed up, Batman cast his giant net and then sprayed the trapped goons with his sleeping-potion darts. As Ra's and his League minions were being carted off to Arkham Asylum, Jim Gordon's forces apprehended more members of the League who were attempting to vandalized Gotham's supermarkets that same night.

Alfred, Bruce Wayne's butler, told Bruce one Friday night that he received a death-threat by phone call. The caller said, "We are Joker and Harley Quinn, and if Wayne Enterprises does not help us use their funds and influences to unmask the vigilante Batman, we will stalk Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth!" Batman was horrified and immediately began to search for this new evil duo. Batman suspected that such a pair would be hiding out in the old abandoned warehouse at the edge of Gotham, where they could use old phone wires to tap into connected lines and make all kinds of terrifying prank calls, like the one they made to Alfred. Batman broke into the warehouse on a Saturday night and found Joker and Harley Quinn inside, dressed up as gruesome clowns and doing drugs and laughing. Batman tied them up and hauled them off to Arkham and told Commissioner Gordon that these two were much more dangerous than they seemed, since they intended to undermine Gotham's more vulnerable side of social life.

Finally, Batman had to deal with the evil Bane, a steroids-pumped monster who attacked police officers who could not handle his adrenaline-rushed overpowering strength. Cops simply were frozen in fear as the brute ran towards them, and the evildoer managed to kill one cop simply by punching him very hard in his neck, breaking it instantly. Batman prowled around for Bane for four whole weekends with no sign, since Bane was hiding out after the cop killing and rarely showed his face until the moment of random attack on police officers. Batman decided to stake out the Gotham City police station and simply choose cars at random to follow and hope he followed the one that Bane would stalk. One weekend, Batman got lucky and recognized the evil Bane running towards the parked cop car which Batman chose to follow. Batman jumped out of his camouflaged vehicle and used his rope-gun to tie up Bane's arm and then yanked it hard enough to cause the brute to fall down. Batman then jumped onto Bane and then tied him up, and the cops hauled the sedated monster off to Arkham Asylum.

Batman met with Commissioner Gordon and promised him that Wayne Enterprises would invest the necessary funds to ensure that the incarceration and treatment of this new batch of Gotham City 'super-villains' (Leatherface, Red Hood Gang, Mad Hatter, Ra's al Ghul, Joker, Harley Quinn, and Bane) would create sanity and order and medical (as well as jurisprudence) optimism. Arkham would receive the best personnel and only the most qualified criminal psychologists and psychiatrists from places such as Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University. Batman and Gordon were both happy, and Batman felt that his crusade against this new tide of crime as an urban vigilante would bring the people of Gotham hope that maniacs can be effectively controlled with doses of relentless vigilance. Meanwhile, however, a new Gotham City eco-terrorist named Poison Ivy was choosing her modes of operation and quietly planning to poison the Gotham water reservoir with dangerous levels of psychoactive drugs, intending to prove that Gothamites were simply hallucinating about industrialization sanity. Batman's work had just begun, and Poison Ivy was scheming to break out the unsightly maniacs from Arkham Asylum.



:shock:


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ARKHAM ASYLUM


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As all the inmates were gathered into Arkham Asylum by Batman, Gotham City's self-proclaimed 'dark knight' and crusader against criminal insanity, Batman was on-hand to witness and inspect the development and progress of the incarceration-rehabilitation prescriptions of each super-villain inmate (Joker, Poison Ivy, Two-Face, etc.). The press was on hand too to evaluate the new advanced criminal psychiatry resources and personnel hand-picked by Bruce Wayne and the Psychology Research Institute project of Wayne Enterprises. It was an elaborate affair indeed, and everyone wanted to know if the level and depth of criminal insanity explored by these now-caged Gotham spectres could in any way be reconciled and reintegrated into Gotham's overall sense of sanity. Bruce/Batman knew better; to best evaluate the symbolic value of the problems and mania these incarcerated Gotham super-villains exhibited, people would need to understand how the line between sanity and insanity is never clear.

Batman first evaluated Poison Ivy, Gotham City's most haunting female eco-terrorist and a real demon reaching out for help. Poison Ivy was in seeming anguish over the industrialization-related eco-pollution in Gotham and simply didn't think there was sufficient social investment in energy conservation and natural resource protection. Batman asked her why she thought eco-terrorism seemed sane to her to which the strange but dangerous beauty replied, "Unfortunately, if you don't scare people about eco-pollution, they simply won't care, since human beings like to ignore where waste is going." Batman was impressed at Poison Ivy's level of focused interest in eco-waste management and her sense of apparent eco-consciousness in human civilization and realized she was a super-villain who could best be described as an 'anti-hero.' Batman suggested to Poison Ivy that criminal insanity would forever be evaluated with respect and patience because of what was being learned from her case and treatment and progress to which the pensive eco-terrorist replied, "As long as people remember the eco-activism issues, the more angelic face of my mission is accomplished."

Batman then interviewed the dangerous rogue vigilante Two-Face, a former Gotham D.A. named Harvey Dent whose accidental acid-related facial disfigurement drove him to insanity and motivated him to become an anti-establishment radical. Harvey's face was disfigured by corrosive hydrochloric acid by a member of Gotham's Internal Affairs department who betrayed him to help the underworld goons of mob boss Falcone whom they were working for at the time. Harvey blamed society for the cracks and leaks in the moral heart of Gotham City and pledged to become the pistol-toting mad vigilante Two-Face, a nihilist who wielded out cruel punishments at the flip of his 'lucky coin.' Batman asked Harvey why he left the law to become a criminal vigilante, and Two-Face explained that his disfigurement was a stigmata sign of his mental instability and his need to express wrath and rage through direct action. Batman subtly suggested to Two-Face that his extreme anger arose from an obsessive need to brood about the lack of justice through destructive acts of self-determined street justice and told his former friend that the most delicate side of criminal insanity almost always involves a feeling of 'unrequited imagination.'

Bruce Wayne marketed to the media all the progress of the Arkham inmates and how his company Wayne Enterprises would continue to follow their development and determine what and how investments profited the greatness of Gotham City. The press started making harmless jokes that Bruce Wayne was the 'socialite rendition' of Batman, and Batman showed up to assure everyone that if there was ever an 'Arkham jail-break,' he would round up the fleeing unfortunates and escort them back to their Arkham realm of meditation. Batman also surprisingly suggested to the press that the only way to appreciate how Arkham could reorient Gotham City's sense of social sanity after being scarred by these super-ghoulish spectres such as Joker and Two-Face was to embrace the controversial but sharp notion that what made these caged mad geniuses spectres was precisely their control over the intrigue surrounding the 'dark side of the mind.' Batman told Arkham doctors to mind the 'creative output' of these troubled souls to best draw out their humanity and understand the psychological worry behind their suicidal intentions. Batman, a successful 'dark knight' then smoked a herb cigarette with great glee and satisfaction (and with a newfound sense of hope). He started to believe that Gotham City could be a city of redemption.

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latest
 
Sam/Frederick: The Rooftop Message

Here's a vigilante-within-vigilante tale.



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Sam Wayne was a graduate of Rutgers University (New Jersey, USA) and studied Communications. His deceased father, an alcoholic, left a strange shadow in Sam's heart, and Sam grew up as a very socially paranoid individual, always thinking about what comprised etiquette and great expectations. Sam was obsessed with comic books, and believed Batman (DC Comics) was a true example of American storytelling, since it presented stories about self-determined governance/vigilante (i.e., vigilantism) as it applied to the very odious problem of urban criminal insanity. Sam would dress up as Batman every Halloween until he went to college where he started fertilizing his very bizarre interest in becoming a real-life vigilante. Sam studied Communications at Rutgers so he could gain a better understanding of the norms/processes that guide modern age high-transit data transfer and information regulation and how such mechanics revealed the sanctification of social contracts (e.g., eTrade).

After graduating from Rutgers, Sam decided to start working for the main post office in Washington, D.C., America's capital city. It was at the D.C. post office where Sam donned his cap as an 'American vigilante' and started calling himself the Dark Knight. Sam was using this newfound fervor to work out his emotional problems regarding the memory of his alcoholic father, a haunting memory which sometimes drew Sam to the suicidal consideration of becoming an alcoholic himself. As the 'Dark Knight,' Sam would deliver parcels to residences and businesses and governmental offices with specially-designed stickers which read progressive-politics messages such as, "America needs your vote!" and "Debunk the power of the robber-barons!" and "Boycott water-pistols!" Sam was rather pleased with his activities and appreciated the power of mail in disseminating ideas subliminally and efficiently. He became a big fan of email and the Internet and even made a Christian web-blog about the ethics of vigilantism as seen through the lens of Batman (DC Comics) stories. Sam was about to be challenged.

A wealthy heir of a prestigious American family, a recent graduate of Yale University, a celebrated Ivy League school, was obsessed with socialism and communism. The young man's name was Frederick Dorn, and he was disgusted at how Americans abused the privileges of democracy (e.g., voting, absentee ballots, politics-access TV, etc.) Frederick (like Sam) was obsessed with comic books and was especially intrigued by the Batman (DC Comics) super-villain Scarecrow, a masked maniac who spread his message of self-determined rule through the use of fear and terror. Scarecrow wielded a deadly fear toxin, which he used to make people mad and create general panic in the city. Frederick identified with Scarecrow and would surf the Internet in his family mansion, looking for public perspectives on Batman (DC Comics) 'philosophy.' When Frederick came across Sam's website about Batman vigilantism philosophy, he decided to become the Scarecrow.

Sam was fully dressed as an urban vigilante on Halloween Eve. He was prowling around Washington, D.C. dressed in a unicorn mask and a cat-burglar suit and carrying a rope-gun fitted with a hook. Sam was the Dark Knight, and he was looking for any suspicious activity. Someone posted an anonymous note on his Batman vigilantism website, which read, "Halloween is masquerade, and American multi-culturalism makes mask-wearing controversial, so perhaps Scarecrow will terrorize America on Halloween and reveal Batman's general laziness!" The note troubled Sam so much that he wondered why someone was so darn cynical about the Batman storyboards that he would claim Batman was lazy or ineffective. Deciding that the note was a sign of general traffic dissatisfaction, Sam was prowling the nation's capital on Halloween looking for the 'Scarecrow' who might make trouble in the name of 'citizen discontentment.' Sure enough, as Sam jumped from two building rooftops, he came face-to-face with an individual dressed up as Scarecrow.

"Who are you, and what do you want?" Sam asked Scarecrow (Frederick). "My name is Frederick, but now I'm the Scarecrow, and I intend to end your silly reign of vigilante optimism!" Sam realized this Scarecrow psychotic was obviously the same person who posted the note about Batman's laziness on his vigilantism website. "How can you be pro-American and anti-Batman, Scarecrow?" Sam asked Frederick, to which the ghoul replied, "Democracy has become nothing more than pleasantries, and it's time for more radical action than the everyday meaningless work of Congressmen and post office workers!" Sam/Batman realized Frederick/Scarecrow was a real maniac and used his rope-gun to tie up the psycho's legs and hauled him off to jail. Scarecrow made bail (his butler paid the bill!), and Sam realized this psycho was a wealthy individual. Sam was frustrated Frederick got away but decided that America could trust Batman to ward off the terrorism of Scarecrow.

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:lol:


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