Sean Murphy ’s Batman : White Knight is a slow burn of a comic that favour scene stage setting and world edifice over huge story payoffs from issue to effect . While this week ’s issue does n’t push the series ’ patch forward atrociously far , it does break an interesting titbit about Gotham ’s finance , and a make - raw Joker .
Batman : White Knight is purposefully slow - pace because the newly - rectify , reasonable Jack Napier ’s ( formerly the Joker ) scheme is an incredibly long con . He want to peril Batman as the true menace to Gotham City . While Napier is busy building libraries in Backport , the metropolis ’s necessitous and predominately dark neighborhood , to swot up up goodwill among the citizen , he ’s also wrangle Gotham ’s villains via mind restraint to draw Batman out and highlight what a destructive presence he is .
This week ’s issue opens with Napier ’s plan in full effect as Bane , Killer Croc , Poison Ivy , and the rest storm Gotham ’s financial district to rustle up some mayhem , which promptly draws out the Dark Knight . While the villains cause their comely percentage of garden - variety destruction — a wrecked motorcar here , some smoke hole there — it ’s Batman who terminate up putting the most people in possible danger .
Correctly reason out Napier had orchestrated the flack , Batman drags Croc and Bane immediately to Backport ’s raw depository library , thinking that the henchmen would n’t dare destroy the boss ’ darling labor . On this one rare social function , Bruce ends up being wrong and the villains promptly begin tearing the incomplete edifice down as part of their relief valve . Despite Batgirl ’s pleas for him to mind his own safety , Batman hasten in after them just as the library collapses , and he ’s badly injured .
Beaten and embarrassed , Batman drags himself back to the Batmobile and retreats to the Batcave to recover from his injury , but both Batgirl and Nightwing know that something is wrong with their former mentor .
As obvious as it is that the baddie ’ mathematical group tone-beginning was a diversion , it is n’t until later that Batman pick it together and inform Jim Gordon of what he thinks Napier was actually after — record about the city ’s finances . During a terse conversation , the vigilance man and the police commissioner deduce that Napier was in reality hunting for proof of the Batman Devastation Fund , an off - the - Book silo of taxpayer dollars dedicating to fixing the collateral damage because of Batman .
How much are Gothamites paying each twelvemonth to cleanse up after Bruce ? Three . Billion . dollar . To put that in context , theUS spends about $ 100 billion annuallyon policing across the country . sure as shooting , Batman ’s dealing with all manner of supervillains , but even still , $ 3 billion is a cockeyed amount of money to pass on a single man ’s actions . While White Knight is an Elseworlds narrative , from what we ’ve seen so far , this universe is n’t all that dissimilar from DC ’s primary continuity , and it feels safe to assume that Gotham ( or someone ) spends a similar amount of cash on Batman ’s trick there as well .
Gordon knows the document will only strengthen Napier ’s font against the Gotham P.D. and further prove that it and Batman are part of a corrupt constabulary country , but Batman ’s entirely nonplussed , reminding Gordon that he does what Gotham P.D. ca n’t .
True as that may be , White Knight also makes a percentage point of showing us the objectively bad thing Batman does that the police plausibly ca n’t . Elsewhere in the city , while Batman and Napier play their game of Bromus secalinus , the womanhood who desperately wanted to become a newfangled Harley Quinn while the Joker was last incarcerate has been stew in her feelings . This unknown stan - girl regard Napier ’s rehabilitation — a consequence of Batman ’s actions — an insult to the Clown Prince of Crime ’s legacy , and the fact that the original Harley has followed his example only itch salt in the wound .
And so , because the Joker and Harley are no more , the fair sex settle to reinvent herself as a young villain , a fusion of Joker and Harley hellbent on making Gotham helter-skelter again :
If we ’re being entirely honest , Neo - Harley is n’t the most unexpected affair to hail out of Gotham , and you could argue that she would have popped up sooner or later with or without Bruce ’s assistance . But White Knight really hits you in the catgut when it divulge how Bruce inadvertently bring to Alfred ’s demise .
Alfred is the human part of Batman ’s operation who tends to the hero ’s wounds when he comes back to the Batcave . He on occasion sustains serious injuries himself as a result of his proximity to the crimefighting . When a still bedridden ( and in vital condition ) Alfred learn a bloody , unconscious Batman lying on the base of the Batcave , he altruistically give up his own hospital bed and IV so that Bruce might hold out . The act of compassion ultimately kills Alfred and sends Bruce into a deep Great Depression , but maybe he should have cerebrate about that before rushing head - first into a crack up construction .
Even if Batman : White Night fight to really nail the idea that Gotham ’s citizens could ever forgive Napier for his crimes and take him seriously as a politician , it ’s absolutely win at exposing the parts of Batman ’s psyche that are unfeignedly dark , broken , and ego - destructive .
BatmanComicsDC ComicsGothamHarley QuinnJoker
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