Nine years ago, sudden upheaval fractured a world into three paths: us, the One Earth Regime enforced with a hand of steel and laser lobotomies, and the fairytale world where nothing too bad ever seems to happen, where villain plots occur just to get foiled. Sounds nice.
Here, Superman did kill Lois Lane and their unborn child through the Joker’s machinations. He then murdered the Joker. Nothing went nuclear here—at least, not physically. Superman... shattered. He vanished in the chaos.
We know he’s still alive: a silhouette waiting on rooftops for Batman, a silent shape hovering below a balcony for Wonder Woman. He’s fast and he’s elusive, but there are cameras everywhere—not that we put more up. The Initiative isn’t the regime.
Emergency protocols kept the Justice League functional until we put out the worst fires. On the face of it, two deaths probably shouldn’t have led to the League’s dissolution, but those two in that way applied pressure to fault lines in the League.
Existing teams took up more of the burden, and some of the weight killed—dissolved—them. New ones form pretty regularly, but the heart has gone out of a lot of heroes. Waller runs the Suicide Squad ragged in a reactionary response to an unmoored and untrackable Superman. Heh. Despite her paranoia, her digital security is—lacking.
The Birds of Prey and Teen Titans didn’t fold under the pressure. Not like the others. We’ve mobilized to assist Batman (and Wonder Woman) in a move that neither of those other paths took: alleviating crime through lifting people up rather than pinning them down. With the loss of the League and the disappearance of one of its three big three pillars, Batman and Wonder Woman founded the All Initiative, which was briefly the One Earth Initiative before a chance encounter with a J’onn from another dimension.
The Initiative isn’t powered by threats, or actual violence. Not usually—we are talking about Batman. But we have information and money. Diana and her side have political weight and the personality to make sure those get put to use where they’re needed most.
We’re revitalizing Gotham, Metropolis, Atlantis, entire societies—mental and physical health support, Universal Basic Income... Arkham has almost entirely shifted to physical medical care, and the mental patients that remain are as comfortable as we can make them. Tax the rich, feed the poor. We’re not in a replicator society, and healthcare hasn’t reached everyone it should yet... but it will.
Batman and Wonder Woman are employing all of their energies—and those of the civilians, supers, and Themyscirans who follow their banner—into getting this done. A work-life balance used to be a benefit of not actually being Batman. Bruce Wayne was always just a mask, but now J’onn spends more time in that face than he does; at least the investors are happy with their Bruce. We’re dumping all of the fuel at once and we know it. We’re hoping the systems we put in place will outlast our burnout.
Batman didn’t plan to pivot like this even as he oversaw the League’s last legs. He doubtless had a plan—plans—for a post-League world, but none of this infrastructure was in place even eight years ago. We caught word of a withdrawn nomad with blue-black hair righting Herculean wrongs across the world and suddenly Wonder Woman made a lot of visits to the Batcave.
I don’t think they formed this partnership and brought us all in on this just for Clark Kent. Not really. Bruce already had the connections, and Diana Prince started her association with the wider world as an ambassador. They didn’t start this for him. Not in the hope that if they eased some of the world’s burdens, that they’d ease some of his trouble. That would be...
They probably didn’t both go all-in on this and drag everyone with them just for Superman.
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