This post of mine is meant to spark a discussion pertaining to the idea of what would happen if the Purge was initiated in Gotham city. From 7pm to 7am all crime is legal for the entire night in a 12 hour time span. I would also like to give 3 possible scenarios for discussion.
Scenario 1: Batman is still on patrol for the night, mainly to keep people safe and make sure that the city doesn’t fall apart. To clarify, Batman will still abide by his morals (I feel it would be out of character for him to take advantage of the situation where everything is legal.)
Scenario 2: Batman and the entire Bat family are attempting to keep Gotham safe during the purge. Again, they will still abide by their morals.
Scenario 3: Batman and the Bat family are not present during the night. The city is essentially at the mercy of the villains, criminals, and lunatics who plague Gotham constantly along with people taking advantage of the time.
I hope you fine this satisfying enough for a discussion, I would love to hear your thoughts on the scenarios I presented and what you think of them.
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Batman would definitely be there to help Gotham from falling apart. He would protect the citizens and do the best he could do; even if the police weren’t arresting anybody for the crimes. And considering how many villains would take advantage of the situation, the rest of the Bat family would probably be helping as well.
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Having never watched the Purge movies, I’m not sure what the standard convention is for this kind of circumstance. But, with comics being what they are, we’ve definitely seen Batman (and Bat family) deal with such dire circumstances. Thinking about what the Purge would be like in Gotham, I’m guessing it would feel like No Man’s Land, Knightfall, The Cult and Dark Knight Returns (the part after the nuke goes off) all rolled into one. For one thing, the whole Bat family would definitely be on the job, as I imagine that they would be appalled at the idea of leaving Gotham at the mercy of the villains regardless of whether or not it’s legal in the eyes of the government. More than that, they would be carrying a lot more than just a few Batarangs and rope. Like in The Cult, they would probably arm themselves with tranquilizer darts and drive huge monster truck-looking things as they keep the city under control.
TLDR: Whole Bat family runs Gotham like a police state for 12 hours, maintaining peace and order using upgraded gear and keeping their wits about them.
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Freeze would be looting everything he needs to revive Nora from Wayne tech & beyond. To clarify I’m going by your rules that Batman wouldn’t interfere. Tho u could make the argument Bruce Wayne would, he can’t blow his cover. Poison Ivy would definitely head to the eco environment disasters & clean house. Calendar man would be the 1st one to know it was purge day. Joker, honestly probably nothing changes. Catwoman would hit up every diamond & jewelry shop possible. Two-Face? Idk, but he’d definitely do it in 2’s.
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Speaking frankly, I thought that the Purge movies were kind of poorly thought out. I mean, in the first one, it was just a thin justification for a home invasion storyline; but it’s surprise success led to sequels, which led to increasingly stupid justifications for something that makes absolutely no sense. The Purge serves no purpose. Even if you assume that they don’t care about human life, it would cause significant economic harm, and brings no benefit of any kind. That, and the “New Founding Fathers” nonsense was pretty bad; just a bunch of two-dimensional strawmen.
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@J3D28F.17202 I wasn’t really talking about the Purge movies (in fact I haven’t seen them) I was simply wanting to spark a discussion based off of the idea of a what-if scenario where the Purge was initiated in Gotham.
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Meh, Gotham’s been through worse for longer and come out alright. I recommend looking into Batman: No Man’s Land.
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I mean, the basic idea behind the Purge makes no sense, so I can’t really bring myself to think about it in “what-if” terms. That said, the basic idea behind No Man’s Land was blatantly unconstitutional, so maybe I’m splitting hairs.
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I personaly think that if this was done as an Elseworld, the way it would go is with Scenario 1: Batman fights for Gothams soul, ending with Batman almost/killing the Joker.
In Scenario2: basically the same thing
In scenario3: unless you do Blue Boys, it would be poinntless.
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…let’s start looting!
In all seriousness though, if this happened In Gotham I’d be in metropolis before you could say @AnonymousBB!
I also think that scenario two is the more likely one.
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