BATMAN (Earth-7)

As Batman

Returning to his hometown, he finds Gotham fractured—its leadership corrupted by power and self-interest, its society split between elite privilege and street-level madness. Amidst this, Batman emerges as a single knight carrying the black flag of peace, moving seamlessly between two worlds:

• The millionaire secluded in the heights of Gotham’s high society.

• The vigilante who roams its streets at night, striking fear into criminals.

He must be the executioner of change. Bruce Wayne will spend night after night listening to the police radio. The hooded figure who will haunt Gotham from then on will quickly spread throughout the local popular imagination. A being of justice and vengeance who will watch over those who have been violated and destroy their aggressors.

Still in his first weekend in town, Bruce will encounter an event that will torment him in the nights to come. While watching the splendid debut of Haly's Circus in town, the audience will witness a macabre and terrible fatality.

The death of the Flying Graysons will dominate headlines across the country, and soon after, new news of hope will dominate public opinion: billionaire Bruce Wayne will legally adopt the surviving boy of the Flying Graysons.

He knew he would have to do it when the police began to establish a direct link between the crime and an outstanding debt owed by the trapeze artists to crime boss Tony Zucco. It consumed Bruce from within like a raging fire, so many years later and nothing had changed. Children continue to be torn from their parents' arms, victims of the greed of men driven by money, diamonds, or pearls.

Vigilantism

In the second year, Batman's presence becomes a problem for the authorities, and the newly elected police commissioner, James Gordon, begins to be pressured by the local elite to capture the masked man. However, with the help of the officer's teenage daughter, Barbara Gordon, who now begins to act on her own as Batgirl, Batman always manages to stay one step ahead of Gotham's corrupt police. 

Dick Grayson finds the truth about his father's secret identity, and starts to act as the vigilante Robin, in his first mission they took Tony Zucco in jail. Batman then affirmed that Dick could only continue to act as Robin if he was in training and accept of taking lessons of vigilantism, Dick agreed but then proposed to Bruce the possibility to found a group of teenagers vigilantes, who could train alongside him, then the Titans were founded.

A second transformative force takes hold in Gotham when newcomer Harvey Dent is elected district attorney. He promises to eradicate evil from the city and expose the corruption that spreads in the shadows. To this end, he creates a support network with the only two local authorities he is sure have not succumbed to power: Commissioner Gordon and Batman himself. The partnership may seem unusual, but together, the three may be the key to change.

Golden Years

 Over the next years, Dick Grayson, after leaving the Titans, would design and implement his Robin Class project with the help of his father. A Wayne charity center led by Leslie Thompkins where six orphaned children with tragic pasts would be taken in and cared for. They would receive access to education, healthcare, and leisure activities, while also having the option to participate in the secret Robin Class program, where Batman himself would teach them combat and survival skills so that they could learn to stay safe and make a difference in Gotham City from a young age.

  In that yeaar, Dent launched his campaign, which continues to be a success. Gotham's most powerful families fell one by one, all exposed as part of the same scheme involving almost every powerful figure in the city. Few remained standing, but they stood firm as they carefully cleaned up all evidence linking them to corruption. However, they would not escape unscathed. At the end of that year, a dark plot unfolded: a kind of modern witch hunt aimed at ridding Gotham of its greatest evil—the rich ones.

The Beggining of the End

For an entire year, the city was targeted by a ruthless serial killer, the Holiday. This period became known as “The Long Halloween” and would forever change the course of Gotham City. It was easy to imagine that the city was about to become a better place, but when the ghosts of the past crimes of Gotham's leading families returned to haunt them, there was no one left to defend them.

The Falcones were wiped out, one by one, hunted down on every holiday. The Maronis were dismantled by Harvey Dent, who in turn was also exposed for maintaining direct contact with the serial killer who, for years, provided him with the secrets of local crime and, in return, received help in devising his secret plan for revenge. And while Batman tried to solve the case, he was also dealing with the Joker's escape from Arkham Asylum, which would consequently cause one of the darkest episodes in Gotham's history.

At the end of this torment, Gotham lost its greatest chance for victory: the knight of light, Harvey Dent, succumbed to a spiral of madness. He lost his job, his wife, and his identity. This is the beginning of the end for the city. On Christmas Day that year, the Joker broke into the Wayne Charity Center in the early hours of the morning and carried out the Massacre.

The Plans of Contingency

Batman has been distancing himself from the Justice League lately due to his increasingly paranoid episodes. He can't say whether they stem from the recent trauma of the Massacre or something he hasn't yet discovered, but he has found it very difficult to trust his fellow superheroes.

That's why he spent the past years developing an extensive Contingency Plan, documenting possible weaknesses that could lead to the defeat of his teammates if they ever turned against him or humanity. The project was presented to Chief of State Amanda Waller, who considered it extremely important and began to develop it in partnership with ARGUS, which set up a research laboratory in San Monté to experiment with it.

Family VS Freaks

The consequences of the holiday's actions quickly begin to unfold. Now, two years after the Long Halloween, Gotham's leading families are dominated by complete lunatics, who, amid the chaos, have assumed the role of political and social figures. Bruce has been acting alone, since after the Massacre, Dick Grayson moved to Bludhaven and abandoned the mantle of Robin, Jason Todd then took on the role, but died shortly thereafter. Bruce then turned to Tim Drake, who became Robin again at the past two years to help search for Jason's body, but after that, the teenager was also removed by Bruce himself and sent to work alongside the Young Justice. Batman is paranoid, his connection with the Justice League is becoming scarce, and his marriage to Selina Kyle seems like a desperate act to get things back on track.

The Burnley Town Massive have taken over the coast and are now led by Killer Croc, while Sofia Gigante has been released from Arkham Asylum and has taken over the family business. Selina Kyle continues to lead Rex Calabrese's mafia, but is beginning to feel tempted to support her new husband Bruce Wayne's social projects in a philanthropic way. 

The fever of the masked madmen takes over the city, and inspired by Batman, more and more lunatics begin to attack with their own far-fetched plans to change Gotham City. The Penguin is elected mayor. Meanwhile, the League of Shadows arrives in Gotham City, led by Talia Al Ghul, in search of a final Lazarus Pit that can revive her deceased father.

Gotham has never been so mad.