Objectively speaking, the Laughing Bat can't be considered a complete reliance on defense. When he first appeared, both his character design and abilities were quite eye-catching.
This is a dramatic approach because the just-begun Metal Major Event needs an eye-catching point, and Batman who killed the Joker would be a good gimmick.
Frankly speaking, from the perspective of comic book drawing, the image design of the Laughing Bat is excellent — they didn't simply put a big mouth onto Batman in the bat suit, but redesigned his costume.
Compared to Batman's costume, the Laughing Bat's clothing is more exposed, symbolizing the transition from the traditional classic knight image to modernist comic character, which should appeal to many readers who subscribe to neoliberalism.
Because the staid and conservative Batman finally broke his bottom line and killed the loathsome criminal. He finally became what some readers expected, not a hero that endures hardship, but an avenger who avenges hardship.
But in the end, even this part of the audience deserted this new character. The biggest reason is that he is a combination of Batman and the Joker, but he has none of the elements of Batman and the Joker in him.
The writers designed such a character, gave him a setting, this setting might have been originally grand and full of philosophy, but they played off, causing this to become a thorough scam.
Some people were looking forward to the appearance of the Laughing Bat because they wanted to see the clash between Batman who killed the Joker and the Joker who was killed by Batman, which must have been filled with artistry and philosophical discussion. That's what DC readers love to see, they are into this.
There are also some new readers who are bored with the constant preaching. They look forward to Batman and the Joker joining forces to kill coolly, which is bound to be very refreshing and hearty, and it might even become a monumental event in DC comic style.
But the writer miraculously achieved neither of the two, chose "OR" in "YES OR NO".
This metaphor is aptly put. It's beyond rationality, unreasonable, and completely illogical.
They weaved another usual story, not much different from most of the previous major events, then inserted this cool, terrific character into it, and all he showed was the spoilers before the story began and the hindsight after the story was completed.
The key is, no matter the previous spoilers or the following hindsight, neither is exciting. It's equivalent to repeating the same ordinary story conjured by the writer over and over again.
As if they were holding the reader's ear, telling them to look at the carefully designed plot, check the unique twist.
Readers can accept "ordinary" — average story structure, no big mistake in drawing style, even slightly cliched character design, but you can't repeat the first page of an ordinary comic 60 times and treat it as a new comic.
This is simply deceit, especially after announcing such a flashy and anticipated character setting. The bigger the expectation, the bigger the disappointment.
Shiller's objective evaluation of the Laughing Bat isn't very objective. He can only mix a little bit of psychology into most of his private grudges, but this doesn't mean he has to confront the Laughing Bat.
Although it's tempting to slap the Laughing Bat in the face, Shiller still decides to follow his consistent style and solve the problem before everything happens.
Barbatos has a new plan, so does Shiller.
In the matter of organizing a united front, Shiller charges both ways. Besides Marvel having to provide him a new origin, DC also has to, just slightly differently.
On DC's side, let's not talk about the setting of the Black Sun, the identity of Naog Sokhup as an Honorary Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford University, is real. Even the mysticism characteristic of All Souls College was added later to establish Shiller's backstory.
In addition, although Shiller is still essentially the only one, he now has the same identity in every universe. That is to say, he can operate in any universe as Naog Sokhup.
This gives Shiller the chance to come into contact with Constantine from other universes.
Because it's obvious that Shiller is the authority on theoretical theology, and Constantine is the master of practice. Any sudden magic incident could lead to their encounter, and Constantine won't have any doubts.
This allows the black box to open a gap to Shiller, and the investment channel of Constantine is opened.
Bruce is of course directed by Shiller — although Bruce doesn't know what Shiller is so malicious about, but anyway he's free, and if he can't apply for a PhD in academia, he can try socializing.
There are a few unexpected small parts in this plan, namely the Robins from the Shiller Universe.
It can only be said that Gotham's ascent and dip in the main universe cannot be separated from them. They seem to study hard and focus on learning, but without them stirring in the middle, Gotham wouldn't have turned into Sky Island so quickly.
The Batman of the Prime Universe was kept busy, with Bruce consequently being invited to Sky Island Gotham and Earth No.1 Gotham to resolve trouble.
Shiller and Nyarla ran to Barbados to set up a point, the other two were entirely to cover Gray Mist, allowing Barbados to form a stereotype about their deity system. Such as something you can see but can't beat, chaotic and crazy, as well as devoid of worldly desires, not even seeming like intelligent life.
Forget about the other two, Gray Mist is too wise and perfectly inherited Greed's worldly desires. Throw him in a place full of dark energy, it's as if a mouse has entered a rice bucket, he would just move things around and it's done.
If Gray Mist honestly starts to eat in a binge, it would definitely be discovered by Barbados soon. But this time his goal isn't to feed, so he chooses to absorb a tiny portion of the dark energy bit by bit.
This dark energy enters the Dreamworld along Shiller's soul. There they have greater authority and can transport this energy to any place without anyone noticing.
Lucifer's evaluation of the dream god is not wrong, the Dreamworld is very special, it even has a channel that leads to Heaven.
Sending the dark energy along is not difficult, but the hard part is avoiding detection by the Archangel on duty. Very conveniently, Bruce happens to be an Archangel, he has replaced Gabriel's position, and naturally, it is his turn to be on duty guarding Eden.
Bruce slept next to Lake Eden, effectively completing the last kilometer of the pathway from the Dreamworld to Heaven, and then waited until Uriel was on duty to send a large amount of energy into Heaven all at once.
Uriel is an Archangel, and one of the System Administrators. He knows very well what the nature of Barbados' dark energy is — no matter where they come from, they must have come from Barbados.
Apart from the Dark Dragon who is single-mindedly trying to pollute the luminous cosmos, who else would be stuffing dark energy into Heaven after a satisfying meal?
In Uriel's view, Barbados must be crazy. It's understandable to secretly throw garbage on a neighbor's balcony due to grudges or need. But isn't it a bit excessive to defecate in the lobby of their property management?
Facing Uriel's anger, Michael also found it difficult to persuade him further, as he knew better than anyone the challenges in maintaining discipline. Before Lucifer returned, he used to do this job.
Uriel was actually the most diligent and dedicated among them. Michael couldn't turn cold towards his own brother for the sake of an outsider. Besides, Lucifer was having fun at the side, he nearly had the words "FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT" written on his face. Michael just can't satisfy him.
So after pulling Uriel back, Michael also punished both sides, taking some emergency measures against Barbados.
The specific measures were to temporarily seal the Dark Source, stop the dark energy from flowing out, cleanse the denser dark energy scattered in the cosmos, then lower the energy density in the Dark Universe, to restore the balance.
To the Archangels, these are just minor system patches that can be completed with a few finger movements, and the Dark Source was reopened soon after.
But for Barbados, this was a staggering piece of bad news. The patch reduced him to a joke.
The most critical point was that it restricted the bandwidth for outputting dark energy, no matter which universe it flowed into, it is subject to regulated flow rates. As far as Barbados was concerned, he could basically sigh, "The 3G is indeed much quicker".
Furthermore, the energy movement speed in the Dark Universe has slowed down, meaning not only its strength was reduced, but also the process of entropy increase, that is, the process of regaining peak strength, slows down. The time needed to return to peak strength is tens of thousands of times longer than before.
Lastly, Uriel is also an Archangel after all, the strike he made in anger did not sever the wings of Barbados for a reason. He said it was a wild strike. It's not, he clearly came prepared, he understands the gold content of the vanguard in the fight against falling from grace, right?
Barbados sustained serious injuries — that was his own estimation. Since hiding inside the Dark Source for so long, he had not been injured for a very long time. This made him misjudge his health bar, feeling that he was near death, causing great panic in him.
He began to slowly retract his dark power, wrapping himself up more tightly. However, the moment he began to retract, something went wrong.
In Heaven, the Archangels certainly had to investigate where this dark energy came from. Michael had his suspicions early on, so he did not rally the troops, instead, he went to check out the timeline himself.
From the perspective of a System Administrator, everything was clear. What Shiller and Bruce were up to could be clearly seen from beginning to end.
Michael called Bruce straight back, or more accurately, he used his authority to teleport Bruce back. He doesn't usually misuse his authority like this, which shows how angry he was.
At this point, even Lucifer could not stand in the way anymore. Bruce had indeed gone too far.
However, he soon changed his mind, deciding to speak on Bruce's behalf as much as possible.
Because the fishes in Eden Lake usually live long and are very resilient, the fish that slapped him when he was little finally died due to this pollution incident.