• afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    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.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      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.

      • afraid_of_zombies@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        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.

        • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          You can’t take over the US with 5 guys.

          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.