Batman goes to war on Gotham

Added: 2026-06-10

[00:00:00]I'll be honest, watching Batman humble the cops of Gotham City is pretty amazing. So, this is Batman from Matt Fraction. This is issue number 10 that we're talking about here. And for those of you guys who need to get caught up or don't know what's going on, the long and short of this is that Vandal Savage is the police commissioner. And historically speaking, Savage is a Justice League villain. So, it's really small peanuts for him to go after Batman specifically. And even within the comic, Batman doesn't know the reason why Vandal Savage is doing this because for him, it's just kind of like, why would a guy who's normally a Justice League villain single me out? The only real conclusion Batman can come to is that because he's the one that's always disrupted the plans of Vandal Savage whenever he was doing crazy stuff that with Batman out of the picture, Vandal Savage can basically attack the world and there won't be anybody with enough brains to be able to defeat him. And so as part of all this, Vandal Savage leading the police in Gotham executed all these strikes on Batman's base of operations. And in fact, it actually led to Damian Wayne and Batman destroying Wayne Manor. Not only that, DC spun a solo series with Barbara Gordon because she was arrested, and we'll talk about that here in a minute. But that's why you have the members of the Bat family texting back and forth with each other, right? You've got Duke Thomas, you've got Damen Wayne, you've got Stephanie Brown. And Damen's like, "Yeah, we blew up Wayne Manor." And Duke's like, "Damn, that's crazy, bro." But at the end of the day, Damian says the same thing.

[00:01:29]Trust the plan, right? Because there is a plan that Batman has. We don't know exactly what it is, but that switches over to Vandal Savage, and he says, "Last night saw 17 successful raids against Batman and his associates. Our new Rat Out the Bat campaign offers the good people of Gotham a cash reward for basically giving us any information they have on Batman, presumably so long as the information is credible. Now, that's a very old strategy, right? To basically make life financially difficult on people and then offer people cash, a kind of financial lifeline if they're willing to offer information. If you make people desperate, they'll do anything to end that desperation. And with Vandal Savage effectively being immortal and this guy who's been around for thousands upon thousands of years, it makes sense that he would know what strategies work best when it comes to manipulating the public. Another thing is he's talking to all these cops, right? And he tells them, "Recovery of any data from any of the drives seized is priority number one. And get me the makeup of the assets that he used to destroy whatever we could not seize."

[00:02:33]Now, that's the other part of it, right?

[00:02:35]But it wasn't simply just going after Batman's base of operations. It was also going after any information that he had.

[00:02:41]But as you guys know, Batman always has backup plans, redundancies, different things like that. And the whole idea was to destroy any information that could be seized. Quite literally, Barbara Gordon hit a kill switch that basically destroyed pretty much any and all the data that could be used by Vandal Savage. And so at that point, we switch over to Tuzuki Plaza. Now, this is one of the things that I want to specify and lay out here. the nature of Matt Fraction's storytelling. So, a lot of people in the last video that we did were asking the question about the whole Joker sequence where Joker is alive.

[00:03:12]He's in this kind of tank. He's not running around doing crazy Joker things.

[00:03:15]And he told Batman, "There are forces at work within the city of Gotham that you don't fully understand." Almost kind of uh Matt Fraction borrowing the court of owls concept without the court of owls.

[00:03:26]And Matt Fraction didn't follow up on that in the next issue. That's what Matt Fraction does. Matt Fraction is very similar to Jonathan Hickman in that way.

[00:03:34]He'll drop a plot device and then he won't revisit it for like another three or four issues and then he may or may not wrap it up. He did it in Iron Man.

[00:03:43]He did it in Immortal Iron Fist. Both of which are fantastic stories and he's doing it here. But there's also a second component to his writing style which we'll talk about here in a second. But Tuzuki Plaza is where you pick up with Tuzuki son and a funeral which I think is either for his daughter or his wife.

[00:03:58]I don't think it's specified which one is which. And you'll see what I mean here in a second because what ends up happening is he's joined by someone. And Tuzuki says, "This is a family affair.

[00:04:08]You will not leave this building alive."

[00:04:10]And the guy tells him, "I don't know about that, right? I kind of like my chances." And he ends up handing an envelope to him. And so this mystery man tells Tuzuki Son, "We're all family now, aren't we?" And with him having a flower on his chest, he says, "Don't worry, we're not being recorded." See, it's not really a flower. You OG guys only listen to people when they're wearing masks.

[00:04:31]And that's where Tuzuki pulls out a gun and points it at this guy and refers to him as the Minotaur. Now, keep in mind that as part of Matt Fraction's run, starting with really issue number four, that the Minotaur was introduced to us as basically this kind of criminal mastermind that what he intended to do was to unite the various gangs of Gotham City. But it wasn't uniting them for the purpose of just going through and committing crazy acts of crimes and like, you know, robbing banks and so on and so forth. No, no, no, no. It was literally taking these various criminal enterprises and then putting them to use with certain things and building a criminal empire to scale. So, the guy's doing it for financial gain. And each one would play their own individual role. But, as you can imagine, these guys aren't really keen to ally with one another. In fact, they've been fighting amongst each other for quite some time.

[00:05:19]So, in order to force them to work together, the minur kidnapped members of their families and executed them in order to force them to work, right? is saying, "This is only the tip of the iceberg. Look how easily I was able to get to your family. Imagine what I could do next if you guys refused to work together." So again, forcing their hand.

[00:05:37]And so that's why Tuzuki says, "You put her in that box, Minotaur." Because Minotaur was the one that had her killed. And so he says, "Which is why I'm willing to let this unslightly display of emotion on your behalf go.

[00:05:51]Besides, pull the trigger and you'll never understand the gift that I brought to you or what it means. Because what we end up finding out is that in this kind of envelope are the glasses of Victor Hugo covered in blood. And this is the cool thing, right? This is the second part of Matt Fraction's writing style that what Matt will do is he will give you a set of events and then he'll give you a monologue that kind of explains what happened with those events while another set of events are unfolding. And that's what he does here, right? That what's basically happening is it's like a movie scene, right? You've got Victor Hugo and his guys here who were just doing Victor Hugo stuff and they're suddenly attacked. We end up finding out the reason why this happened is because the minotaur says Hugo Strange commissioned a killing from you. You sent a gang of tripzy sword boys to execute and they failed. And so instead of allowing you to make good on it, to make up for this failed killing attempt, he and his monster man declared war on Tuzuki prochemicals. You are Taurus now, Tuzuki son. And when someone declares war on one of us, they declare war on all of us. Keeping in mind, Taurus is the name of the larger criminal enterprise that Minotaur has built. And so in effect, the monologue explains what happened. the actual graphics on the comic are showing what's happening as far as the minotaur's actions because he sends his guys after Hugo Strange and he says it's a matter of honor to Zuki son and his guys finally catch up to Hugo and they gun him down. Now here's the crazy thing about this because seemingly they kill Hugo Strange. Here's the crazy thing. Hugo Strange I don't know that I would specify as being like a Batman A-list villain. Truth to tell, right? You can make a credible argument and saying he's belist maybe C. I think a lot of that's because you don't really see him that much these days and so he's kind of been knocked down a few rungs in terms of his relevance and significance within the Batman comic. But because Higo Strange has had so many amazing stories over the years, it seems so weird to almost just dismissively kill him in this way and then just write it off. But again, we don't know that he's definitively dead. I mean, just looking at the bullet shots, I don't know how in the hell he survives this, but the glasses are brought to Tuzuki to basically show we took out that threat.

[00:08:08]Hugo Strange is not a problem anymore, right? We protect our investments. And that's what he means, right? When one of us bleeds, we all bleed and blood demands blood in kind. It turns out Hugo Strange bled a lot. Condolences on your loss. And so following this, we switch over to a board meeting with Bruce Wayne at Wayne Enterprises. And this is actually a really cool transition for what comes next. Because what Bruce Wayne says following the assassination attempt on both himself and Dr. Zeller, the one who created the Crown of Storms, which was kind of being pitched as a way to cure people who were mentally insane of their insanity. The Joker being a good example of this, that there security guards that are protecting Bruce, right? And he says the assassins were gunning for Dr. Zeer, not me, right? They should be with her. But this is a board meeting, right? And so he's told, "Mr. Wayne, the board would worry a lot less about your safety if you would worry a little bit more about your own. At least that seems like what they were going to say." And he's told, "Besides, Dr. Zeller has filed paperwork to shut down her project, Mr. Wayne. So bye-bye, boondoggle of storms." And so that's when Bruce is told, "Since that frees up our titanographine supply, will you please reconsider its military applications?" And as you guys know, Bruce Wayne prefers to use the resources of Wayne Enterprises for humanitarian efforts both across the world and within Gotham City as a whole. It doesn't mean he won't delve into military applications or weapons design. It simply just means that's not his main goal. So when the concept of titanographine is brought up, right, a very durable material, his first thought is why use it for weapons when we can use it for the city of Gotham, it's one of the big counterarguments for those of you guys who think that Bruce Wayne only really uses his role as Batman to protect the city of Gotham. No, he does a lot more as Bruce Wayne. It's just a lot of stories don't focus on that, which makes sense. Most people want to read stories where Batman's just beating the hell out of criminals, to be honest.

[00:10:04]So the idea being pitched to him is that a lot of money can be made here. And Bruce just snatches the tablet and throws it against the wall and says that kind of money will not do anything for us. But there is another part of this and it is an important thing to understand. Boards have rights too. And that's what he says. May I remind you this is a publicly held company sir. We have shareholders. We have expectations of profit that we are dutifully bound to pursue on their behalf. You cannot wave off billion-dollar revenue streams like it's a cheap bottle of wine. And that's actually an accurate statement. It may not be fair, but that is an accurate statement. When you are a publicly traded company, you have to operate on behalf of the shareholders. If you don't, the board will force you out and they'll replace you with someone who will. That's the agreement that you make when you file an IPO. That's the agreement that you make, right? IPO of course being initial public offering.

[00:11:02]You're saying, "Hey, come invest in our company and we will make you money."

[00:11:06]Well, now you have to make money. But what's interesting about this and really Bruce Wayne's perspective is sure, we can do that, but it doesn't have to be through military contracts. It's just military contracts are a great way to do it. And that's where he's told, "Say yes to this." And four more button divisions of this company become its most profitable. Our stock price will triple overnight. That much money, we can do anything we want. Now, on the surface, the board meeting seems irrelevant if for nothing else than to simply establish that Bruce Wayne doesn't want military contracts, right? Wrong. And that's the nature of Matt Fraction storytelling is because that statement made to him cues him in on something he's been trying to figure out. What is the goal of the minotaur in all of this?

[00:11:50]And that's where he just says, "Money, Alfred, or at least his mental projection of Alfred." Because yes, you're right. When you ask the question, isn't Alfred dead? Hasn't Alfred been dead for quite some time? Yes, Alfred's dead. Batman's just imagining him, right? But he says, "Money and blood."

[00:12:05]And Alfred tells him, right, the two pillars of any criminal enterprise, but Batman says, "And if you don't have one, you better have a whole lot of the other." And he says, "Blood is loud, flashy. Blood brings heat, attention. It brings me. But if you're looking to operate without getting my attention, if you're looking to operate without me knowing what you're doing, then money is the way to do it. It looks respectable, civilized, legal, and with enough of it, you can do anything. And he says, "As Batman, I focus on the violence and chaos of crime and its aftermath so much. It was Bruce Wayne who started thinking about the money." And he says, "What if this minur stayed invisible because he didn't treat Gotham like turf to seize, but as a market to disrupt, an asset to acquire." Alfred, I think the man that we're dealing with is a capitalist. And so Alfred's just kind of like, "Okay, so a night of forensic accounting, it is tracing rowdy numbers and tracking mysterious foreign accounts." And Bruce is like, "Oh no, absolutely not. That can wait." and he says Vandal Savage has been in front of every camera that he could find for the last 12 hours declaring that the Batman's time is over. So tonight, let's just remind him how wrong he is and let's remind Gotham City Batman's not going anywhere. And so that's when you pick up with a whole bunch of criminals, right? running through the streets because the reality is that under the control of Vandal Savage, the police do operate, but they almost kind of operate like a paramilitary force, but they only carry out the orders of Vandal Savage.

[00:13:43]So, seemingly the actions seem to be protect just enough to give the appearance of law and order, but not enough to enforce it in any meaningful way. Not only that, with Batman out of the picture, criminals just kind of see it as open season, right? Because Batman's willing to do things that the cops are not. And so that's why like they're literally riding through the streets, firing into the air, right? We run these streets now. Batman is dead.

[00:14:08]But of course, he's not. And he immediately snatches these guys up. At that point, you switch over to kind of a monologue from Vandal Savage where he says, "We're ending the lawless reign of this urban terrorist after years of inaction and outright civic complicity in his crimes, and I'm the one that ended it." Of course, talking about the police. and he says, "So if I sound confident, that's because I am." Over the course of 24 raids last night, we have crippled his operations, which of course leads to Commissioner Gordon, who again is a beat cop. Commissioner Gordon stopped being the commissioner at one point, ended up becoming a private detective, and now that he's back on the force, has to kind of work his way back up to the commissioner of Gotham City, which honestly is a pretty cool story to see to be quite frank with you guys. And I'll be honest, I kind of like Commissioner Gordon as a beat cop. I think he's cooler as a regular cop because he has all this experience that he brings to the streets as a beat cop.

[00:15:03]He's basically involved in a firefight, right, with these criminals out there and he tells the cop behind him, right?

[00:15:09]Wait for the reload. Don't just pop up and start shooting, right? Wait until you hear them reloading. The problem is that the reload never comes because Batman showed up and beat the hell out of these guys while Commissioner Gordon and them were hidden behind the car. And like when they popped back up, one of the guys was like, "He was here." Right?

[00:15:24]Like, "Did you see him? He was here."

[00:15:25]Just like pointing up in the air.

[00:15:26]Everyone's kind of shocked that Batman is still active. And so that's when you switch back over to Vandal Savage doing all these, you know, interviews with the press, right? We predict that we'll have Batman in custody imminently. After all, we shut down more than 35 of his so-called bunkers across the city. And in another interview, 44 bases of operations were taken last night. Glenn, get your facts straight. All filled with weaponry, equipment, and hard drives now in our possession. We know all his secrets. He shant run forever. Which is like the most vandal savage statement ever. Right? It's hilarious to see him say that, right? Just shant. And like every once in a while he'll do that.

[00:16:07]Like he'll do that again here in a second. But at that point you switch over to the Diamond District, right? And there's another heist that's going down.

[00:16:14]And Batman takes these guys out too. The iceberg lounge, right? Over and over and over again. There are all these various crimes that are going down out there.

[00:16:21]And Batman's dealing with them all. You do get this moment where he looks over and he sees Catwoman. Right now, keep in mind, their whole situation has been tenuous for quite some time since Catwoman broke off their engagement during the Tom King run, which pissed everybody off to no end. Honestly, we were all hoping the two of them would get married and then just kind of operate as I don't know, we'll turn a blind eye to the other's actions. Selena won't reveal that Bruce Wayne is actually Batman, which she's never bothered to do up to that point. and Batman would kind of turn a blind eye to her criminal acts so long as she doesn't go too far into the extreme. But the other thing that goes on here is you switch over to the Gotham City Police Department computer forensics lab and one of the guys chimes in. Right, the commissioner called again and that's where another guy tells him that out of the five hard drives not boiled in acid that his goons crapped onto my desk this morning, there's one that still works and I only just now got it running. So, back the hell off and let me do my job.

[00:17:19]And that's where the other guys like, "Yeah, I'm I'm not going to tell him that." But then power goes down to the building. And at that point, Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, Damen Wayne, their phones chime in, and it ends up being a message that was made by Barbara Gordon before she was arrested, but is just now being sent out. And it's actually pretty dope, right? She says, "Hey guys, it's me. If you're seeing this, the plan worked. you three are safe and I'm in police custody. And I know that Batman is not exactly a master of timely and direct communication, which is true, right? Batman's terrible about that kind of stuff, as she says. But in this case, it was at my request. I was worried that if you knew what I'd cooked up, you might break rank and try to rescue me to keep me from being arrested. And I love you all for that. But I couldn't let that happen. It's okay. I promise. Trust the plan. Tonight is the night that we beat Vandal Savage. He just doesn't know it yet. And that's where Vandal Savage is on the phone, but because of the blackout at Gotham City Police Department, the call drops, right? And he's like, "These infernal wads of light and sorcery are useless."

[00:18:29]I love the way the Vandal Savage is written by Matt Fraction, right? The way he just says things is hilarious. Not only that, as Batman had been going through and taking out these various, you know, criminal actions and whatnot, he had these boxes with him, and we didn't really know what the boxes were.

[00:18:46]He would just leave them at different locations. He left one at the iceberg lounge, for example. But then this box activates, and all the boxes seemingly activate. And that's when Barbara says, "So remember that over the days and weeks to come, no matter what Savage says or what you hear on TV, Batman always wins because in that moment, Vandal Savage has pulled up to the Gotham City Police Department and just says, "Pull over." Right? And when they get there, Power's gone down to the building, right? And in that moment, there's all these lights in the sky. And Barbara says, "And so because Batman always wins, that means we always win.

[00:19:23]always, every single time. And when things get dark, if you start to doubt it, if you start to feel afraid, just look up and look for the light because these boxes Batman had dropped off contain drones, right? And quite literally, it is a new bat signal flying in the sky, which effectively tells Vandal Savage, you cannot win, and there's no way you will win. Now, again, how this goes towards the bigger plan, we don't know. Matt Fraction is playing the long game here, but it's done incredibly well. I love the way he handles this. So, with that being said, guys, we're going to bring this video to an end. Hopefully, you enjoyed it. If you did, drop a like. If you want to get caught up with the other stories, there is a playlist down in the description.

[00:20:06]Thank you all for watching, and I will catch you all later. Peace.