After finally shaking off the persistent reporters, Penguin Man got into the car that would take him to the hospital. The car turned a corner and stopped right in front of the hospital entrance. The moment Penguin Man stepped out, he saw a swarming crowd holding signs, reading things like "Hell is your destination", "Satan walks among us", and "Death, death, only death".
Penguin Man reflexively recoiled, pulling back the foot he had already set out and sat back in the car to cool down, deciding not to stoop to their level.
Having been a mob boss for so many years, he had faced all sorts of curses. If curses were effective, he would already be pushing up daisies. They were welcome to curse all they wanted.
He quickly adjusted his tie, took a deep breath, grabbed his umbrella, and stepped out again.
The next moment, a massive cheer surrounded him.
"Long live the Mayor!!!"
"Hero! Hero! Hero!!!"
"Well done!!!"
"This is exactly what Wayne deserves! Long live the Mayor!!!"
"You sent that rich jerk back to hell, he deserved this lesson, well done! Mayor!!"
Penguin Man froze in his tracks.
A sudden recollection popped into his mind.
Previously, Bruce had messed up big time. He fell into Joker's trap, let go of a life-saving hand under everyone's gaze, and with the media stoking the fires, the debate around this incident became more intense.
New Jersey State is a stalwart blue state, with few traditional moralists and plenty of neoliberal supporters and white left virgins, hence the public opinion is primarily reproaching Bruce.
If you don't have the guts, don't get involved. Even if you choose to, you should not take such a risky approach to save people; if you manage to, act promptly instead of staring blankly. Anyway, there are endless mistakes in Bruce's operation. And his image is also being gradually demonized.
Some say he is an unscrupulous capitalist who aims to shape himself into a hero. Others say that he is an evil criminal who fears his dirty secrets being exposed, and therefore murders other people himself. Some even see him as an arrogant yet completely incompetent idiot.
Not even a day had passed since the incident when Bruce entered the Mayor's office upstanding and was carried out horizontally. Mayor Oswald Cobblepot shot him, and he is currently under intensive care in the hospital.
Radicalized and shocked, these people could not help but feel elated and excited, thinking "Yes, that's exactly what should happen. Let this damn wealthy punk know that he can't do whatever he wants in this world!"
In fact, this narrative is propagating on all major media platforms at the speed limit of internet information dissemination.
When Penguin Man got into the car, he was a mayor with a mob boss background. By the time he stepped out, he had somehow become the hero of the entire East Coast.
Penguin Man, never having been welcomed so genuinely and enthusiastically before, was utterly dumbfounded. He was even unable to make a dutiful speech. After making way through the crowd by security, he hurriedly fled into the hospital.
Feeling the breeze in the hospital lobby, Penguin Man began to calm down and realized something was off. This isn't something the Gothamites would do.
The spirit of Gotham has always been preferring drama over life. They really don't care if someone dies; instead, they are more interested in how exciting the event is, how many rounds of confrontations have taken place, and the dramatic twists and turns - in a simple word, fun.
The best part about Gothamites is that they don't play the arbiter of justice. They won't take the perspective of the righteous, firmly siding with one party to judge the other, but rather sit in the middle, yelling "Fight! Fight! It's fun to see someone die right on my doorstep!".
Penguin Man grew up in Gotham and had seen countless outrageous crime scenes. He had witnessed many thrilling revenge successes and successful cases of punishing the evil, but he had never seen the Gothamites marching on the street praising the murderers?
Because Gothamites, including Penguin Man, know that taking sides bears risks. You never know if the descendant of the man killed will suddenly go mad 20 years later, find you, and turn you into part of his art project.
Whenever a situation like this arises, Gothamites only watch with indifferent eyes. At most, they will chat casually with their buddies or neighbors.
So from where did these overly enthusiastic Labrador Retriever come?
Exactly, they are from New York.
If Penguin Man had ever lived in New York, he would understand that New Yorkers are excellent at this.
New Yorkers have enough hot topics about superheroes throughout the year to fill three books, namely: "Superhero Spider Man!", "Spider Man's Fall from Grace!", "Spider Man's Rise and Fall!"
If Peter Parker had another identity besides Spider Man and researcher, it would be a bungee jumper, jumping off the 'hero pedestal' a dozen times a year.
Of course, these are the trending topics among the restless and unpredictable youth, while the hottest topics among the more stable middle-aged and elderly social elites can be summarized into three books: "The Glorious Past of Captain America", "The Secret of Captain America's Resurrection", and "Captain America, The Evil Genetically Modified Man".
New Yorkers always say that Captain America is the only topic you can mention at a celebrity banquet without making a mistake, because it includes the three favorite elements of American high society—World War II, resurrection, and evil scientific experiments.
As Marvel's top figure, Spider Man is the backdrop to the youthful hero stories, being a true New Yorker, he perfectly embodies the three elements that raise one's blood pressure: overreacting, easily tricked, and forever young and naïve.
In order to enhance personal heroism and downplay the importance of the public in history, American comics from the ideological struggle era often portray ordinary people in the superheroes' cities as antagonists who frequently misunderstand heroes.
Whether it's Spider Man or Superman, their stories always feature the plot where the heroes are always kind, righteous, and innocent, while the public is foolish, malicious, chaotic, always ungrateful, and forgetful.
Although this situation has slightly improved after the end of the Cold War, many screenwriters dare to tiptoe around the truth, setting up the plot of public outrage as them being fooled by the media to reflect the nature of reality.
For the need to disrupt the power structure within Wayne Enterprises, the puppet masters of both cities have tirelessly smeared Bruce's image after the Andrewkin incident.
Gothamites, who are used to such tragedies, are not easily incited, but on the other hand, the trend-following New Yorkers are easily ignited. On the spot, many went to the doorstep of Wayne Enterprises with banners, wrote slogans, held marches, demanding Bruce Wayne to give them an explanation.
Unfortunately, Gothamites enjoy the excitement, not only directing the marchers but also selling water and food from their cars, providing logistical support for the marching crowd. When security personnel came out to suppress, they led the charge against the defense line, making the march bigger and bigger.
The media kept fueling the fire, the public spontaneously added fuel, the fire burned more and more vigorously, when the tide reached its climax, with a bang, Bruce Wayne fell down.
The devil is dead, and the hero has triumphed once again.
Click, click, click, the sound of shutters kept ringing, one after another picture with a heavily saturated color style was recorded by the reporters' lenses, and then spread across America and the world with the help of both new and old media.
In the picture, the dark clouds are very low, the slightly older hospital color is even more profound, people of various skin tones holding various colorful slogans surround Penguin Man, they huddle around him, cheer for him, raise their arms to him, make praising gestures to him, their eyes are flashing with devout and enthusiastic brilliance.
Oswald Cobblepot, the Penguin Man in the lens, looks back. His originally fat and bloated figure becomes burly and robust under the crowd's huddle, his face with originally an eagle hook nose looks solemn and awe-inspiring when he raises his head.
When this photo made the headlines of major media, the people were either cheering or questioning, with all kinds of speculations emerging endlessly.
The opinions of the high society and the parties were surprisingly consistent—this was a plot carefully designed by Oswald Cobblepot.
For ordinary people, the simplest way to judge the puppet master behind the scenes is to see who benefits from the incident.
There are many people in this world who harm others without benefiting themselves, but they often do because they are not sophisticated enough, their ideas are good, but their execution is not enough, which leads to all kinds of bizarre farces.
Oswald Cobblepot is not such a person, at least in the eyes of the high society of this universe, he is not a brilliant politician, but at least a shrewd mob boss, and he is also the one who benefits the most from this whole incident.
Firstly, more than one person has guessed that Cobblepot was the real puppet master of the Wayne couple's murder case back then, and if the reporter named Andrewkin really had some clues that could threaten him, then his death would break the clues, and Cobblepot would be safe.
Despite this, the vengeful Little Wayne remains Cobblepot's major concern, but now there are too many people watching Wayne, and it would certainly attract attention if he act rashly.
So Cobblepot carefully orchestrated the Andrewkin incident, hired kidnappers to kidnap Andrewkin and then lured Bruce to save him.
Bruce Wayne is just an incompetent second-generation rich, how could he possibly succeed in saving people? Cobblepot calculated this point accurately, and after Bruce Wayne failed to save people, he steered public opinion to make him a rat crossing the street that everyone shouts to hit.
Finally, he invites Bruce Wayne to his office, provokes him with words, lures him to attack himself, and then uses the excuse of self-defense to seriously injure or even kill Bruce Wayne.
On one hand, Bruce Wayne, who had been investigating the Wayne couple's murder case, would die, on the other hand, he could also take advantage of this event to boost his presence in major media, gain public trust, and canvass votes for the upcoming mayoral election.
It's a brilliant plot, this kind of praise keeps spreading in the high society of the entire East Coast, and stronger than this is one sigh after another.
The idea is good, but the means are wrong.
Penguin Man became a hero by this plan, but unfortunately, he is the hero of the people.
As we all know, on the land of America, politicians can side with money, interests, lies, crimes, extreme thoughts, but they absolutely cannot side with millions of Americans.
Or to put it another way, you can claim that you stand with the American people, but you absolutely cannot actually do it.
Otherwise, who can tell the difference between you and Stalin for killing the capitalists for the will of the people?