Over 60 years of “crime-fighting” but no noticeable decrease in Gotham’s crime rate.
Curious.
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.
Considering there’s, variously,
- the Lazarus pit leeching into the groundwater,
- The
IlluminatiCourt 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.