American comics: Praising the sun, starting from Gotham!

The next day, the morning sun still couldn't penetrate Gotham's thick clouds, but Hughes not only pierced through the clouds, but almost pierced through the floorboards.

As Xiu En rolled out of bed, the antique four-poster bed, said to be made of walnut wood from over a hundred years ago and a witness to the rise and fall of the Zatana family, let out a mournful cry of unbearable strain, and then all four bed legs snapped off cleanly like French fries.

"Although I was mentally prepared for my weight gain."

Xiu En sat in the ruins, looking at the two shallow craters in the floor where he had been hit by a butt, and patted the metallic sheen off his arms.

"But isn't gaining 300 pounds overnight a bit excessive? Have I become Schwarzenegger, or a T-800?"

The crystal from yesterday was injected into his bone marrow; now, even just walking sounds like a miniature tank moving.

The Batmobile was already waiting in the garage, and after a night of emergency repairs and modifications, it looked even more aggressive.

But the most striking change is the person in the driver's seat.

Bruce Wayne seemed to have removed half of that deep, dark knight mask, exuding an urgent sense of urgency.

His eyes, which were always filled with suspicion, were now bloodshot and brimming with a kind of almost insane determination.

"We don't have time to play puzzle games, Shum."

Bruce tossed an encrypted data tablet to Hugh.

"The me of that world is a warning. It's not enough to just fight crime. If we can't cultivate a successor who surpasses me, Gotham in that world will be broken by the next Bane sooner or later."

"Is this why you called that unfortunate kid Jason here?"

Xiu En scrolled through the tablet, which was covered with the coordinates of high-risk weapons arsenals and corresponding tactics.

It's all stuff that Bruce used to hide from the world, afraid that the children would go astray.

The meeting place was set on the rooftop of a safe house in the East District, a typical Batman-style location.

It was windy and eerie.

The figure wearing the red bucket on his head was standing there with his arms crossed, his whole being screaming "I'm so annoyed!"

Jason Todd's voice in this world sounds very cold and hard after being filtered through the helmet.

"What did you call me here for? To watch you show me how to beat the villain into a pulp?"

Bruce didn't argue. He walked straight over, crossed the ever-present safe distance, and pressed the terminal containing the wisdom and killing moves of Batman from two worlds against Jason's chest.

"Take it."

Bruce's voice was deep and powerful.

"This is a weakness analysis of all the supervillains in Gotham, as well as access to the eight Level 4 armories I've hidden underground in this world. It includes the prototypes of those armors that were too lethal and were sealed away by me."

Jason nearly dropped the terminal, freezing in place. If the expression on his red helmet were visible, it would undoubtedly be a huge question mark.

"You...did Bane damage your brain?"

Jason's voice sounded a little off.

"Aren't you afraid I'll use these to blow up the GCPD headquarters?"

"I know you won't."

Bruce didn't even turn around to look at him.

"We don't have unlimited time for misunderstandings and testing each other. You have to be better than me, Jason, you absolutely have to be better than me. Do it the way you think is right... as long as you don't cross the line, within this framework, I won't stop you."

Xiu En stood to the side, crunching on a high-energy steel bar, and mumbled a comment: "Tsk, what a touching scene of fatherly love and filial piety. If it were any more sentimental, I wouldn't be able to resist playing some holy light background music for him."

"Shut up, spotlight."

Jason retorted instinctively, but his hand gripping the terminal turned white with tension.

"Alright, enough with the sentimentality, let's get back to work."

Xiu En clapped his hands, scattering metal powder all over the ground.

"We're leaving in a few days, and before we do, the boss said he wants to clean Gotham up like a civilized society. Since you've got so many new toys, shouldn't you find an unfortunate lucky guy to practice on?"

Jason glanced at the first coordinate on the terminal.

That's an arms smuggling line that Black Mask has been rapidly expanding recently.

"I was just itching to try it myself."

Jason drew his two guns.

"Don't hold me back."

"I'll be keeping an eye on you."

Bruce activated the grappling hook, his lips twitching almost imperceptibly.

"forever."

……

Not long after.

The three men dismantled one of Black Mask's underground armories and turned it into a modern art gallery. The trio stood out somewhat out of place in that alleyway filled with the smell of gunpowder and burnt metal.

Jason was wiping the two new guns that had just been test-fired, and the red paint on them was polished to a shine.

"Eight such outposts, the old man was just too particular about procedural justice back then."

Xiu En was squatting next to a still-smoking box, trying to stuff a steel pipe into his mouth as a snack.

But suddenly, the pungent, burnt smell in the air changed.

It became like a pile of rotten candy mixed with the smell of cheap perfume.

"Tick-tock, tick-tock! Tick! Tick!"

A smiley face doll suddenly fell from the sky and landed next to Bruce's tactical boots.

"Oh ho."

Xiu En chewed on a piece of steel pipe and mumbled his comments.

"Gift-giving segment."

"Bang!"

Instead of exploding, the purple smoke emitted a long sound, followed by a series of chilling, shrill laughs that echoed wildly off the alley's sound wall.

In the shadows was a thin man wearing a bright purple tailcoat, twirling a cane in his hand.

That head of green hair was even more eye-catching than the glowing Xiu En in the dim alley.

"Look! This is why I love this city!"

The Joker didn't even glance at the red-headed barrel next to him or the glowing metal man; his eyes, with their heavy black circles, were fixed on Batman, and his mouth was practically split to his ears.

"Everyone says you've become that folding chair for the hormone giant, and they were crying so hard in the news... But I know! Ha! I knew it!"

He opened his arms as if he were seeing a lover he hadn't seen for many years, completely ignoring Jason's gun that he had raised in an instant.

"You always manage to crawl back from hell, don't you? For me?"

Jason's finger trembled on the trigger, the shadow of the crowbar instantly overlapping on his retina with painful memories of the warehouse years ago.

Jason gritted his teeth.

"He didn't recognize him? Ha, is he so crazy that he thinks all Batmen are the same person?"

Bruce, however, calmly pressed down on Jason's gun.

Suddenly, Xiu En stepped in from the side, blocking the way for the purple-clad madman.

"Sorry to interrupt your touching reunion. But I just heard him say something... folding chair? Was he mocking me for not owning this chair?"

The clown paused for a moment, his crazed eyes focusing for the first time on this strange man who radiated light and had a metallic sheen.

"Who are you? Batman's new neon sign? Wow, the aesthetics these days are really decadent."

"Bang!"

Before the clown could finish his joke, Shum threw the remaining half of the steel pipe in his hand like a javelin.

The steel pipe flew past the clown's pale face, pinning his comical purple bow tie to the brick wall behind him with such force that it cracked the wall in several places.

The clown's incessant ramblings came to an abrupt halt, as if the power had been cut off.

He looked at the metallic monster.

"Oops, I accidentally threw it at an angle, and I'm annoyed with him."

Shuen shrugged at Jason.

"The boss said we need to clean Gotham up. This kind of fancy trash is really hard to sort and recycle."

Bruce didn't even mention the no-killing principle.

Instead, he swung out the magically enhanced bat rope, and while the clown was still reeling from the group's unexpected turn of events, he instantly bound them into purple dumplings.

"He is the GCPD's performance."

Bruce turned to look at Jason, his eyes eerily calm.

"It's not your inner demon."

Jason looked at the clown writhing on the ground like a worm, still laughing maniacally and trying to speak, and finally just slammed his gun away.

"……unlucky."