The Gotham City fans know and love will look immensely different by the time the Joker’s war with Batman ends. Bruce Wayne has long dreamed of building a better Gotham, and his greatest rival’s plans jeopardize that.
Batman and Gotham City are each at points of great vulnerability on the heels of City of Bane. Bane assumed absolute control over Gotham while pretending to be imprisoned in Arkham Asylum and snapped the neck of Alfred Pennyworth. Besides Bruce losing a longtime ally and father figure, Dick “Ric” Grayson remains estranged and without memories of his life as Robin or Nightwing, and James Gordon has been replaced as Commissioner after being infected by the Batman Who Laughs. It is in this time of instability that the Joker cashes in on his knowledge of Batman’s identity and uses a plan Catwoman once devised to target Bruce Wayne’s fortune. Joker takes control of Wayne Enterprises and Bruce’s finances to turn Batman’s world upside down and impart his own vision for Gotham City.
The residents of Gotham will have to adjust to lasting changes caused by the events of the Joker War. A Gotham without a billionaire Bruce Wayne is startling enough. Batman writer James Tynion IV stated he’s been able to write about how the Dark Knight’s presence affects Gotham, and now seeks to show how Joker impacts the city. At the start of the war, in Batman #95, that impact looks like using the Wayne fortune to manipulate the Gotham’s police, legal system and media to further his agenda and unleashing Batman’s resources, weapons and technology on the city itself.
New characters tossed into the mix also promise to contribute to the city’s new paradigm including Punchline, Joker’s new radicalized lieutenant, who has made her mark quickly after dispatching Harley Quinn and Catwoman. And characters like Clownhunter will arise to represent residents fed up with the constant upheaval in the city and lack of protection from heroes and Gotham institutions. Prior to the Joker’s maneuvers, Bruce Wayne had begun to outline a hopeful vision for Gotham and Batman’s place in it. However, to paraphrase a well-known idiom, Batman makes plans, Joker laughs:
In Batman #95 you have the Joker himself saying 'people don't want something new, they want a layer to something they already know.' Do you think he's right?
I'm trying to think of the best way to answer this without revealing the rest of the story. That is a key thesis statement into what Joker is thinking and doing in this storyline. But it is something... I don't know if I fully agree with it. I put it in the villain's mouth so I can come at it from a different angle. I do think people want something new. In a meta sense, that's what I'm doing with this story. I'm trying to create new characters, bring them into the Gotham mythos, expand the Gotham mythos, change some of the core pillars of the Gotham mythos. A lot of what 'Joker War' does is it raises Gotham so new stories can be built off of it. That's been one of the most exciting things, is being able to create a whole bunch of new story and threads that are going to pay off not only later this year but into next year. People have been really responding to the new stuff. But I think fans a lot of times can think like Joker in this moment. They don't want something new, they just want to see the pieces in the configuration they like them best in. Giving that opinion to the Joker, it was something I wanted to play with it a bit. And it plays off some of the speeches Joker gives later in the arc that I'm particularly proud of. So you'll have to wait and see.
Gotham was once crippled and abandoned after a massive earthquake, during No Man’s Land. The city was divided up by the police, gangs and various entities and protected by Batman and his allies as best they could. Early in the New 52 continuity, there was Zero Year, which saw the Riddler holding a dilapidated Gotham City hostage while searching for a worthy adversary. And in the aforementioned City of Bane, Bane took control of the Gotham, replacing police with super villains and threatening any heroes attempting to enter the city to help. If there is one city that is no stranger to earth shattering events and hostile takeovers it is Gotham. Gotham will endure the Joker War, but it may never be the same.