In Gotham, trying to uphold justice without killing anyone is a brutal test of your psychological endurance; the Bat Clan manages it because they want criminals to spend the rest of their lives repenting in suffering.
But some people don't see it that way. They follow traditional mob rules of an eye for an eye, blood for blood—just draped in the banner of justice.
If they switched to another city, say Green Arrow's Star City and Seattle, or Wonder Woman's London, or Sea King's Ci'en Port, there'd be no problem. Even if they killed people, these folks wouldn't come looking for trouble.
Bad guys deserve to die; as long as you pack the bodies away properly and don't scare the public, it's fine.
But in Gotham, that doesn't fly. Here, the rules can only be Batman's rules.
Batman would rather criminals live to experience pain, experience the fear he once felt, and spend the rest of their lives in torment, body and soul.
Within the Justice League, those who follow a no-kill rule each have their own reasons. Ron doesn't kill humans because that would easily blow up into "Martian slaughters Earthlings" headlines. White Martians already have a reputation about as bad as Ghouls, so as a Green Martian he has to be extra careful not to give people more ammunition.
Superman's no-kill rule comes from believing that killing others only plants darkness in his own heart. And since he lives in the United States, he should act according to U.S. law. His power is not a license for indulgence; he should hold himself to a stricter standard than ordinary people. That's what responsibility is.
Barry doesn't kill because he was originally just a physicist—he hasn't even killed a lab rat, he can't bring himself to do it. Villains are infuriating as hell, sure, but if you want them dead, you do it; I'm not killing anyone.
Hal doesn't kill because the Lantern Ring has safety locks. Unless a Lantern Hero is under lethal threat, it forbids the use of deadly force. And Earth's villains, in the Guardians' view, are "not capable of posing a lethal threat to a Lantern Hero," so all lethal functions of Hal's ring are disabled on Earth. Even if he wanted to kill, he couldn't.
The reasons for not killing are all over the place. The reason for killing is usually only one: believing the other person deserves to die—that is, the Hero's own subjective judgment, which Batman considers the most unreliable thing of all.
The "Humiliation" Squad is exactly such a team that showed up in the wrong place. They operate in Gotham's shadows while following a creed of "all who are guilty must die."
Batman can't possibly let them carry out their version of justice; otherwise, out of Gotham's eight million people, they'd have to kill half. That kind of black-and-white view of good and evil simply does not apply in Gotham.
He tried negotiating with them, since their starting point was also "justice," but they really couldn't reach an agreement.
Batman thinks their beliefs are too extreme, while they think it's precisely the Bat Clan's no-kill leniency that has allowed villains to flourish.
As long as you kill three million Gotham citizens, seventy million in the United States, and about one and a half billion worldwide, then there will be no more Sin in the world.
If there still is, then kill some more. Use overwhelming force to mold everyone into moral exemplars—car thieves, telecom scammers, drunk drivers, fake beggars...
All. Kill kill kill kill kill kill!!!
They even invited Batman to join them, to create a beautiful sinless world together. Batman slightly nodded at the time; maybe their starting point really was good.
So he took on all four of them at once, beat them down, and threw the entire Humiliation Squad into Arkham.
Their starting point being justice isn't wrong, but they're lunatics and need treatment.
Except the Humiliation Squad was originally formed from wrongfully convicted inmates in Arkham, so going back there was like going home. Food, drink, and other criminals screaming in agony for ambient noise—they absolutely loved it there.
If you throw a Weasel into a henhouse, you think it's going to be unhappy?
They killed cellmates, killed dirty cops, even killed the corrupt cafeteria buyer. Even when separated and under all kinds of precautions, they always found a way to kill.
Batman even suspected the squad was provoking him on purpose just to get locked back into Arkham. After all, that place is heavily fortified; not only is it hard to escape, it's hard to get in.
Getting locked inside is perfect. The Fallen Knight, their leader, is absolutely smart enough to think of using Batman's hand to send them right in.
If it hadn't been for the flood coming too fast this time, forcing them to escape and regroup, they would've broken out to kill again sooner or later anyway.
It's not that Batman was giving them a hard time. He doesn't exactly want to seek justice for dead criminals; he just wanted to persuade the Humiliation Squad to dial it back a bit, not to kill so many. I mean, a guy who stole a circus unicycle wouldn't get the death penalty in any country.
But they were incredibly pigheaded, not even bothering with token excuses to placate Batman. They directly stated: either Batman kills all four of them, or as long as they're alive, they'll keep killing Gotham's criminals.
If they had just shown a bit of softness, Batman would've been willing to recruit them. It's just that their plan to "cleanse the Earth" was a little too insane.
At the same time, attitude matters. Take another Killer in the Bat Clan—the Death Angels—for example; his attitude is much better.
Batman: "You've killed too many people before. That's wrong."
Death Angels: "Yeah, I know I was wrong. I'll go home and shut myself in to pray, and redeem them in the name of justice."
Batman: "Good."
So nothing happened to Death Angels at all. This time, with Steel Bone going into space, Batman immediately sent him—the guy best at killing—into action.
Two Barrels the Red Hood is in a similar situation. He kills from the bottom of his heart, and when he's caught, he shows zero remorse, but Batman feels guilty toward him.
Batman: "You killed again."
Two Barrels: "Man, I really shouldn't be alive. I've already died once, dying in prison this time doesn't sound so bad either."
Batman: "Forget it. Get out of here."
So now Two Barrels was fine too, roaming the world carefree with one girl and one idiot in tow.
So unless you've got rock‑solid connections and a rock‑solid background, Gotham is brutally realistic; nobody gets to run their own rules under the existing system here.
The dissenters the Windbreaker Warrior mentioned should be them, and in a sense, they're more dangerous than the other inmates.
If Batman tried to drag people back to Arkham on this side while Humiliation was hunting criminals down on the other side of the city, then the later they were caught, the more people they'd kill—and some of those people definitely wouldn't deserve death.
Arkham is a comprehensive "sanitarium." It's not just criminal lunatics who get locked up there; some prisoners are only showing signs of mental illness—like Dr. Eggman, currently tied up like a twisted rope.
Black clouds pressing down on the city isn't just a metaphor now—the clouds overhead seemed to be dropping lower and lower, and the heavy rain was about to break.
Because of pollution, most of Gotham's rainfall is acid rain, and under that kind of corrosive downpour, any trace of evidence gets wiped clean.
"You go first," Batman said to the Windbreaker Warrior. He would follow in the shadows himself; if Batman showed up in the Humiliation Squad's line of sight, they'd probably bolt.
The fighter shrugged, glanced at the little notebook, then tucked it back into his chest.
He couldn't glide like Batman, but he had another way: jump from high‑rises to lower rooftops, then from lower buildings to even lower ones.
He was extremely good at parkour; every roll he used to dissipate Force Dissipation on landing was smooth and practiced. The drop of more than ten meters between buildings was the sort of stunt an ordinary person absolutely could not pull.
So Batman added another line to his profile.
On top of being a suspected woman, having a gang background, living in hardship, and being mentally unstable, he now likely also excelled at Martial Arts or possessed Self-healing Ability.
After a few jumps, he landed back on the street smoothly, pulled open the door of a nondescript used car, and climbed in.
Honestly, all the time he'd saved by rooftop parkour was being wasted on trying to start this heap.
This was probably a car repaired after the flood, just not repaired very well; when the ignition turned, Batman could see thick smoke belch out clearly from the tailpipe.
Just as Batman was wondering if he should go down and help, the engine finally caught. The car lurched forward, churning up a spray of street sludge under its tires, and the red taillights swung around the corner and sped away in a certain direction.
Batman notified Alfred to deal with the mess here, then jumped off the rooftop as well, tailing the vehicle.
Fine strands of rain were already falling on him; the surface of his suit was gradually getting damp, the matte black Kevlar Armor giving off its distinctive muted sheen.
"Got any leads on who he is?"
"Sorry, young master, I think our database is due for an upgrade." Alfred's voice came through the pointed ears of the cowl. Using Brother Eye, he'd tried to cross‑reference all available data to infer the Windbreaker Warrior's true identity, but came up empty: "Or you could ask your Justice League friends to give it an upgrade."
"We've been over this before. The answer is still no." Batman replied in the same flat tone. The Brother Eye system was too powerful; he didn't trust anyone else with access. Not even Damian, only Alfred.
"Then, young master, I'm afraid you'll have to judge for yourself," Alfred said helplessly. "With your experience, or your Superpower or whatever."
Batman exhaled once. "Subjective judgment is always fallible. I'm wrong sometimes too."
"I'm well aware of that. Your business with Talia was a huge mistake to begin with, and now we have all this trouble to deal with, don't we?"
"That has nothing to do with the task at hand. Damian is my son." Batman's face didn't change. Air roared past his ears as the used car below made another turn.
The old butler was still more concerned with the family legacy. "Yes, we all know that. But how are you going to prove it to him?"
"I don't need to prove anything. I'm Batman. He'll come to understand what family means." Batman kept gliding, eyes scanning for movement along the route.
There were still gunshots and screams coming from somewhere, but he didn't see any groups exchanging fire—or any bodies.
Weird.
The butler had no idea what he was thinking and could only sigh. "Very well, let's hope so."
"Mm." Batman still gave a brief reply and cut the line again.
That was how things stood: the ally who'd shown up out of nowhere had a completely mysterious identity, and out of the many escaped convicts, the only one they'd caught was Dr. Eggman. There was still a lot of work to do tonight.
Batman fired another grapple, swung to a different high‑rise, and glided again. His next target was the Humiliation Squad; he needed to prep his tactics.