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In the shadow of the Great Depression, Gotham City fell under the control of a ruling class of mobsters looking to pilfer the once prosperous capital for all it was worth. From Boss Salvatore Maroni to Sal Valestra and his co-horts Chuckie Sol and Buzz Bronski, innocent citizens and proud patriots to serve in the first World War were all sent to the streets to beg. Some tried to leave, but the easy money made through the available rackets became all too alluring. And with the 1946 election of highly corrupt city councilman Hamilton Hill to the Mayor's office, the police, the DA's office, and everything in between were brought under the control of crime-lord Carmine "The Roman" Falcone.

What drew many outsiders to claim that Gotham was a lost cause, however, was the murder of a prominent doctor and his wife on the streets of the city's celebrated Park Row Avenue. Humanitarians to the very end, Thomas and Martha Wayne were both considered revolutionary in helping to reopen the long dormant Arkham Home For The Criminally Disturbed. But with all evidence pointing towards a peasant mugger being their assailant, and Mrs. Wayne's pearl necklace indicating the motive a robbery, all that could be said about the double event was that it was an act of random tragedy. Not even their orphaned son, Bruce, would be able to identify the culprit.

But a solemn vow would be made. The son's unfathomable despair would give way to an unshakable drive to see justice brought to Gotham's streets. Bruce Wayne would spend the earliest parts of his teenage years abroad in study before officially being declared missing in 1955. In reality, Wayne had left the public eye of his own volition, to master his mind and body in a preparation for a crusade against all crime - a veritable war on a different front.

At age 24, Bruce officially returned to Gotham to claim his multi-million dollar inheritance from the Wayne estate's sole and dutiful benefactor, Alfred Pennyworth. Spending months crafting a suitable public persona as an extravagant playboy, appearing at large social functions, dating fashion models and writing checks for any cause that suited him, Bruce donned a series of disguises to begin infiltrating the criminal underworld.

After a particularly harrowing encounter, however, Bruce found himself lying half-dead in the study of Wayne Manor. He'd somehow overlooked something. The scum he was putting away were back on the streets within hours of when he'd nail them, and the DA's office was powerless to stop the rampantly corrupt GCPD from falsely imprisoning the blacks, the hispanics, the gays, and anyone else who stood defiant against these crooks without looking a certain color. It disgusted Bruce, who felt particularly powerless, even with all of his newfound wealth.

But one of Kirigi's mantras echoed through his mind: that criminals were inherently "a superstitious and cowardly lot". He didn't want to take the lives of his enemies, but he definitely wanted them scared - and he wanted them to stay afraid, tormented by the mere idea that something as horrible as him could even exist. But to accomplish that, he'd have to be more than a man. Delving into the pulp magazines of his childhood, Wayne's long-admired fictional heroes of Detective Harvey Harris and The Grey Ghost were beginning to give him ideas. And the black and white movies that used to frighten him as a boy, the ones set in creepy castles with monstrous figures appearing out of the shadows to terrorize society, particularly began to take hold of his psyche.

It was while preparing to watch "The Mark Of Zorro", a 1940 swashbuckler about a man of wealth and privilege striking against oppression while wearing a mask, that a stray bat flew into Wayne's study and momentarily frightened him. But that fear quickly dissapated as a life-changing realization took hold. And in shadow of that encounter, the makings of a crusade would begin in earnest.

Weeks went by, preparations were made, and Wayne found himself dwelling atop the rooftops and the dark shadows of the city's alleyways. He had ceased to be a man, opting to instead immerse himself in his new role and become a creature of the night. He easily began dispatching purse snatchers and would-be murderers with his disguise's frightful appearance alone. Police Lieutenant James Gordon would dismiss the vigilante's existence as mere rumor, but columnist Vicki Vale would be the first to identify the figure with an appropriate monkier: The Bat-Man.

Within the next five years, the vigilante earned himself a reputation as an unparalleled detective in addition to being a silent guardian and a watchful protector of the victims of criminality. He'd cultivated an ally in Gordon, who used The Dark Knight's shrewd cunning and dedication to rooting out corruption in order to partially clean up the department. It'd won Gordon the rank of Commissioner, eventually bringing The Batman that much closer in alignment with law enforcement - albeit in an unofficial capacity. Still, when summoned by the giant light in the sky that the Commissioner would go onto deny even existed, The Caped Crusader would appear to fight against threats that were beyond the GCPD's reach.

Threats like Dr. Death and The Mad Monk. Threats like Professor Hugo Strange and his scientifically enhanced Monster Men. Threats like jewel magnate Oswald Cobblepot, who'd not-so-secretly taken over The Roman's operations as the deranged, bird-like, trick umbrella carrying crimelord known by his loyalists as The Penguin. Threats like the deadly thrill-seeker Catwoman, who pilfered from the rich while using her feminine wiles to stay one step ahead of the law. And threats like the terrible Clown Prince of Crime, a harlequin of hate who seemed to sew chaos and disorder wherever he appeared - The Joker.

But there seemed to be some measure of hope at play. With Falcone having been nabbed by a joint effort between The Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and District Attorney Dent, organized crime seemed to be entering a downward spiral by the summer of '67. While what seemed to be replacing them was even more bizarre, such as the Alice In Wonderland-themed criminal Jervis Tetch, aka The Mad Hatter, aswell as The Scarecrow, an underworld bogeyman who kidnapped and tortured his enemies with a series of experiments that left them paralyzed with chemically induced terror, there were signs that Gotham was nevertheless beginning to see a brighter tomorrow. From a successful Mayoral campaign of the criminal reform-minded William Linseed, as publicly endorsed by millionaire Bruce Wayne, to the appointment of Dr. Jonathan Crane, a brilliant and widely recognized criminal psychiatrist, as the director of the newly minted Arkham Behavioral Rehabilitation Center.

Adopting acrobat turned orphan Richard "Dick" Grayson as his ward, Bruce began training the boy to be able to find and bring his own parents' killer to justice. This evolved into a full-fledged partnership, where Bruce, under a candlelight oath, swore Grayson in as one half of what was sure to become a Dynamic Duo. At the start of a new year, Batman is left unsure of himself: he doesn't want to discourage the boy from following in his footsteps, but he can't help but shake the feeling that he's made a grave mistake in allowing him to walk his exact path as Robin, The Boy Wonder. Add to it the reports from recent months of an amateur directly inspired by him, a Bat-girl, and Bruce is beginning to feel uncertain that his campaign as a Caped Crusader is beginning to do more good than harm.

Of course, he doesn't know the half of what's coming. The fifth year of The Dark Knight's crusade will be his most trying yet, giving him new enemies, a new romance, and a set of partners to contend with that will change the course of everything. Batman can brave the storm, but whether Bruce Wayne's soul will survive the eye of it is an entirely different matter.

When considering how to approach Batman in the late 60's, I looked towards the comics and discovered that despite his reinvention coming just a few short years later, the character was still mired in the campy adventures that the 50's had brought about. Not wanting to go in that direction, the Batman I envisioned for this game takes his cue from the timeless Batman: The Animated Series, which apart from references to more modern computers of the time could easily take place in any era. A detective, a crimefighter, and a morally unflinching hero who utilizes fear and intimidation - but also isn't afraid to let his humanity guide him - the Batman that I consider to be the greatest interpretation will basically be what I'll be mimicking. The difference being that I'll have the task of adding references to the struggles of race relations, gender inequality, and the domestic backlash to the Vietnam War to Bruce's regular activities as an avenger of evil. Basically, expect a noir-ish take that'll comment as much on the nature of good and evil as the events of the time.

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December 30th, 1967
Gotham City

The wind hits his chin like needlepoints prickling at the muscles beneath the skin. Snow crunches beneath his boot, eliminating the possibility of stealth. He hasn't slept for two days, eaten for the last ten hours, or even stopped for a short respite and he's beginning to feel it all coming ontop of him like once. The thick winter fog forces him to wrap his insulated cloak around his body like a tarp. He's in terrible shape and he knows it, but it doesn't deter him. Just slows him down enough to take some kind of mental inventory of the elements he's fighting, and what kind of hindrance they might make when it comes to the fight that's about to come.

Truth be told, there are a number of things that a man in his position could be doing the night before New Year's Eve. Harvey, the closest thing he considers an actual friend, suggested a night on the town to celebrate the end of a six-month-long trial negotiation to convict Boss Maroni's right hand. Lowering his profile for a night, grabbing a few brews at O'Neil's, bringing some women back to Dent's top floor pad in the West End. It sounded like a nostalgic trip down someone else's glory days - he vaguely remembers that at the time of what would have been his own college admission, he was learning how to master Kali from Master Yoru-Shen on some oxygen-stifled mountaintop in Hokkaido.

Of course, there were other available options. Alfred had informed him of an invitation to make a personal appearance at the 17th Annual Gotham City Gentlemen's Club beauty pageant. He was even told that the contestants were all jazzed to get a glimpse of the millionaire if for only a second. And then there was the added incentive that the winner would get to make a donation in Wayne Industries' name towards the charity of her choosing, with full reimbursements provided by the so-called generous board of trustees headed up by Freddy Stickley.



No, he told himself. This is where I need to be.

Bruce Wayne may have had all the options in the world for a night like this, but he only had one: to put a stop to the influx of weapons being smuggled onto the East Side Docks. For months, informants with connections to the black market had been touting that they'd managed to score a genuine batch of military ordinance directly from the Viet-Cong. Assault rifles, pistols, grenades, napalm - the list was a mile wide. Since Maroni's operation was still bruised, that meant that the first crack at the goods went directly to The Penguin. And knowing how Cobblepot operated, it wasn't a stretch to imagine that the bird's "benevolent brood" would pull out the stops to ensure their employer's discretion.

As it just so happened, there was to be a pre-imminent Iceberg Lounge-sponsored New Year's celebration for the citizens of Gotham Plaza - a whole affair featuring fireworks, live music, and of course, plenty of police protection bought with dirty money. The Commissioner had opposed such a public venue, as there was a blizzard warning in effect for the city for the next three days, but what really stood out in Gordon's complaint was the fireworks. They were to go off at 11:45 PM, then again at midnight.
Surely a safety hazard by itself, but The Batman felt there was a more deliberate purpose. If the stolen crates of the Viet Cong's arsenal were to be loaded and ready to go by 11:45, the fireworks would distract enough eyes to be transported out of the area without fuss. And it was a fifteen-minute drive, even with traffic, to a meat-packing plant in The Narrows that had been bought by a Cobblepot loyalist but never put into full operation. Plenty of space on the grounds to not only hide the crates, but ensure that Gordon couldn't spare the manpower to search the entire area before the heavy volume of snow dissipated.

Batman narrowed his eyes as he slowly approached the docks, his shoulders partially covered in frozen droplets of what had been condensation. True to his own guess, there were five trucks getting ready to be loaded for transport. His hand trembling from the cold, he nevertheless reached into his belt to pull out an air-gun. Usually meant to fire a flare on the high seas, this baby had been modified to fire a projectile of a different kind. Quickly screwing a silencer over the barrel, The Dark Knight inhaled a sharp breath. Aimed, steadied himself, and eventually fired. An electronic bug, retro-fitted by Hoover's CIA spooks under a contract with a Wayne Industries subsidiary to spy on political enemies, stabbed into the concrete wall just behind The Penguin's men.

Tuning a small radio transceiver sewn into his cowl to isolate the bug's signal, Batman listened in with intent. He had to pick his moment. After all, he was in no condition to stampede over the scene like something out of a John Wayne picture.

"---said don't drop it, you friggin' klutz! You want this place to go up like fourth of July?!"
"Geez-us, man! You been on us about every crate we've tossed into the back of this wagon. If
the cargo can't handle it, maybe we oughta reconsider. Roads are damned slippery tonight."
"You wanna explain that to the boss man, boy? I'm sure he'd be hip to the idea of us just flaking on a cool hundred 'kay's worth of product for the police to collect come the morning."
"The fuck'd you call me?!"
"Shut it, the both of you! You're gonna get us spotted before the show even starts!"

Peeling back his glove, Batman looked at his watch.

Six-minute window.

"Plenty of time..."

Freshly sharpened batarangs at the ready, The Caped Crusader tossed out a thick climbing rope into a nearby alley. Securing it tightly over a frozen pipe, he slung himself over the ledge and began to descend into the dark. The plan was simple; infiltrate, execute a suitable distraction, and keep the driver from leaving long enough for him to take down fifteen of Cobblepot's heavies. The rest was as simple as a flex of muscle memory.

There were enough weapons on the streets of his city.

By the time the fireworks would begin, they'd have learned that lesson - the hard way.