Martin Variety in American Comics.

Chapter 417: Unexpected Participants (Please subscribe, read, comment on the monthly ticket)

Bruno sat on the soft floor. The four walls were covered with soft special materials to prevent the prisoners from self-harming.

After various special treatments, the detained prisoners were completely isolated from the outside world.

The only way to connect with the outside world is that door, which is equipped with a combination lock and mechanical lock specially made by the Wayne Group.

Gotham's prison is different from other prisons. They don't care about outsiders who come to jailbreak. With Batman here, no matter who wants to jailbreak, the only result is that they will be defeated.

The real danger lies in the prisoners, whose brains are abnormal and who can always come up with bizarre ideas to escape from prison.

Therefore, prison designers focus all their energy on how to monitor and lock up criminals in cells.

Such an environment is full of challenges for the perverts in Gotham.

But Bruno is just an ordinary person. Apart from what Apocalypse gave him, he doesn't have any special qualities, and he can't turn pain into pleasure.

Although handing over the account book bought his child a chance to live, Martin did not promise that I would let him and his wife go.

In other words, Bruno is now waiting to die.

Either he died at the hands of the Justice League or at the hands of his partners.

"Damn Martin, throwing me here as bait, what kind of superhero is he!"

Bruno punched the wall, and it was like punching cotton. The dented wall quickly returned to its original shape.

He huddled in the corner, his mind constantly replaying his experiences over the years, and thinking about the first time he met Darkseid, his troubled heart could not calm down.

……

Martin and Barbara removed Gordon from guarding Blackgate Prison and redistributed the police's duties.

Although the locals of Gotham are very resistant to the federal department, those in the city council still want to work towards the federal government.

To put it bluntly, these congressmen have made enough money in Gotham and want to find a better job somewhere else.

But other states also have their own local forces. If they go there, they will only be disliked and will not have a good position, so they can only make efforts towards Congress.

However, Gordon is now completely disappointed with the people in the city council, and all their actions are in line with the Justice League's plan.

"Bruno still doesn't want to die!"

The guards at Blackgate Prison did not use all the measures on Bruno, and his body was not restrained.

After watching for a while, Martin knew that Bruno still had illusions about Apocalypse and was not truly desperate.

"If a person really wants to die, you can't stop him, even if his hands and feet are tied. He has subjectively given up his life, and his body functions will slowly fail."

"Does this guy have any other tricks up his sleeve?"

Barbara looked at the surveillance cameras around the prison, alert for any jailbreaks.

"If there really was a back-up plan, he wouldn't have been locked up for so long."

Martin shook his head: "I just still have illusions about Apocalypse. I think we will definitely lose, so I don't want to commit suicide."

"I really don't know what these people are thinking. The leaders of Apocalypse are all new gods. How could they possibly take humans seriously?"

Barbara saw clearly that there was no difference between the new gods and the old gods of Apocalypse, except that their means of ruling and violence were stronger.

"This guy has come this far and can't turn back, so he can only continue to deceive himself. If he was really that kind of steadfast person, he wouldn't have sold clues about the Earth to Apocalypse."

Waiting is a torment, especially when the goal is uncertain. Waiting for the unknown tests one's patience even more.

Martin also thought about whether he should do other things first, but in the end he suppressed his anxiety and waited patiently.

If the Justice League's goal was simply to crack down on arms smuggling, the moment they got Bruno's account book, the matter would be declared over, and the next step would be to arrest people.

But what Martin wants is to dig out those people who are related to Apocalypse, so he must sort out the identities and backgrounds of those recorded in the account books.

This is a very difficult task. Even if Martin joins in, he has to collect clues bit by bit according to the procedure. There is no other way.

As for the activities of the League, Martin consciously avoided getting too involved and let the superheroes do it themselves, so that the League as an organization could mature quickly.

"I really hope that Bruno's allies are more reliable and willing to pay a price to save him. This way, we can save ourselves a lot of trouble."

Martin is not afraid of direct conflicts with others at all now, but he is worried about the lack of reliable people to coordinate those complex daily tasks.

"I hope they don't come. Now that we have the account book, we will be able to find those people sooner or later. Why should more people die?"

Barbara knew almost every officer stationed at the prison.

She grew up in the police station. Before she met Bruce, she worked in the journalism industry. As a result, she became familiar with the police officers.

There are good and bad police officers in Gotham, but those who are willing to follow Gordon are almost all risking their lives, and they don't make much money.

"The situation in Gotham was complicated in the past, and there were many things we couldn't control. Now that the League has begun to intervene in this city, I hope that those who risked their lives to fight my father will have a good ending."

"You're right. I was too impatient. Bruno has been hiding for many years and has never been discovered. His friends may do better. I really shouldn't have imagined that I could solve everything in one day."

Martin listened to Barbara's true feelings and temporarily gave up his big plan.

Barbara was right. There was more than one way to dig out the informant from Apocalypse.

Although this matter is urgent, it is not urgent enough to involve human lives.

"Perhaps we can think in a different way. Bruno's method is not limited to jailbreaking. The other party can also use legal means to transfer people to a place under their control."

"You mean there are people like this in the government?"

Barbara disagrees with this idea: "Although conspiracy theories are always advocating deep government and secret plans, we all know that it is impossible to hide a large-scale plan from everyone. Hiding the truth from everyone may require more resources than the plan itself."

"No matter how bad the officials in the White House are, they as a whole cannot just surrender to Apokolips."

Martin is not into any conspiracy theories, or rather conspiracy theories themselves are a form of escape.

“But do those officials really care about what their partners are doing? Maybe you overestimate their IQ.”

Meat eaters aren't necessarily mean, but they often don't care.

What's more, under the American system, everything has become part of a general whitewashing mechanism in order to convert the resources they have gathered in the name of public into private commercial capital.

Therefore, they may not be too serious about every aspect of the operation of this problem.

"Perhaps we should remind Alfred and ask him to pay attention to what is happening in Washington. Perhaps we will gain more."

Martin has no plans to go to Washington just yet.

It is one thing for the Justice League to act as a whole, but it is another thing for him to go directly to Washington as a representative to meet with White House officials.

It would be unwise to directly confront the government before the identities of those informants are uncovered.

Although Americans themselves often complain about the government, they are very loyal to the concept of the United States as a country.

If a person is labeled as unpatriotic, it will be difficult for him to be accepted by the community or parish, which is equivalent to being expelled from society in disguise.

The Justice League as an organization is not subject to such moral constraints, but it also has to consider the reaction of the public.

If this matter is publicized without any evidence, it will erode the reputation of superheroes among the people.

Reality is not a game. Once you lose your reputation, you will be pushed to the bottom and it will be difficult to get a chance to turn things around.

"I will go and inform them now. Don't be too anxious. Good will prevail over evil. Those people sold out the interests of Earthlings for their own interests. Their shameless behavior will eventually be exposed."

Martin smiled and nodded to Barbara who was comforting him.

He knew Barbara wanted to share the pressure with him.

Barbara called Alfred and talked to him about Gotham and the conflict between Martin and Dick, then left the monitoring room.

As an elder, Alfred inevitably cares about Dick's future. Although the Wayne family's assets are enough for Dick to live a wealthy life, this is never what his family pursues.

Martin did not ask about the Wayne family affairs, although he and Bruce were very close now, and some things were difficult to explain. After Barbara left, he did not just stare at Bruno, but began to look through the documents Arthur sent.

Arthur, who was educated by the king since childhood, is much more wild than Bruce when it comes to personnel work.

Although he did not make many changes to the personnel within the league, he directly raised the threshold for entering the league.

Out of American folk tradition, the Justice League selects those young people according to a certain club principle, that is, most of them are recommended by acquaintances.

Arthur believes that this method of selecting people is creating some kind of small group. If people from peripheral organizations want to join the alliance, they must find an acquaintance to write a letter of recommendation for themselves. As time goes by, they form a close relationship with each other.

In addition, the Justice League did not formally propose a strict organizational concept, which led to the trend of small groups becoming more and more serious.

Bruce fired and persuaded a group of people to quit this time, and almost all the work was done, but it still caused such strong opposition. It is hard to say that he was not affected by these small group trends.

Bruce doesn't see the issue clearly. The imprint of the Wayne family on him is so deep that he doesn't think there is anything wrong with it.

Of course, the same goes for the rest of the Justice League.

Batman has his Bat Family, Superman has two people in the Daily Planet, the Flash relies heavily on the help of Team Flash, and Paradise Island is still a tribal system...

In short, those successful superheroes all have a small team, which has even become a kind of tradition.

But Arthur did not enter Atlantis to become king, and Martin's influence made him hate this tradition.

Today those people can unite to oppose Bruce's personnel changes within the league.

You can guess what they will do tomorrow with your toes.

So Arthur wants to change the way the Justice League recruits people, and lists many ways.

Martin took a quick look and didn't think there was any problem. The modern mechanism for selecting talents was already very complete. They didn't need to create anything. It was enough to combine the advantages of the existing system.

However, although Martin agreed with Arthur's idea in principle, he still needed everyone's approval before actually carrying it out.

Moreover, it is better to do this kind of thing later than sooner. Bruce has just cleared out a group of people, and now is the time when there will be least resistance to establishing a selection system.

But in this case, it becomes necessary for Dick to leave his current position.

If everyone waits for him to repent and then implements these systems, it will be too late.

When Arthur learned of this, he immediately said, "I am responsible for the personnel transfer within the alliance. Leave these matters to me. You just focus on dealing with those lackeys of Apocalypse Star and don't think about anything else."

"Since this is my decision, I have to make it public. It's unnecessary for you to prevent a conflict between me and Bruce, because Bruce may not be angry about it. I don't want Dick to leave the league, I just want him to change to a simpler job."

Of course Martin knew that Arthur wanted to take the blame for him, but as leaders, they had to take responsibility for many things.

"Young people always have trouble controlling their passions and like to think with passion. Dick values feelings but is indecisive. If he can't get over it and leaves the Justice League, things will be difficult to handle."

Arthur felt sorry for Dick's talent, but he was more worried that Dick's departure might cause misunderstanding among those young people.

"So we need to inform Bruce in advance. If Dick really can't accept it, then leaving is not a bad thing."

Martin said in a deep voice: "If you can't accept this kind of life, it's better to leave now than to see blood in the future."

"you're right!"

Arthur was much more clear-headed than Dick. He knew very well that bloodshed and murder were inevitable, and he had no intention of avoiding it.

When talking about murder, the atmosphere suddenly became heavy.

Arthur couldn't hear Martin's voice, so he changed the subject: "Has the guest we detained not made any movement yet?"

"Blackgate Prison is very quiet. I don't know whether Bruno's allies have given up or are really determined."

Martin is not a madman who likes to kill people. Even though some things are unavoidable, he will try his best to control them.

"Barry took the account book very quickly. Maybe they didn't react in time?"

Arthur did not interrupt the call with Martin, wanting to get his help in his work.

Martin kept his eyes on all the monitors and replied, "According to the time, Alfred's private plane should have landed in Washington. People like them don't keep a low profile. Bruno's situation will change soon."

Martin glanced at his watch. It was already 10 o'clock in the morning. The entire Blackgate Prison was at its busiest. The prisoners were being taken to work and no one was approaching the prison.

"Not long ago, I was expecting Bruno and his allies to storm this prison so we could follow the trail and find the rest of this informant network.

But now, I hope they can behave themselves, so that at least there won’t be any casualties among the police guarding the prison.”

"We are always faced with various choices, and even people like you cannot control the results of the choices you make."

Arthur comforted Martin and said, "Because of your efforts, we now have many choices to make."

"Today is such a special day."

Martin leaned back in his chair, turned around and said with a smile, "Normally I'm not the one comforting you, but now you guys are the ones cheering me up one by one."

"It's the right thing to do. I can't let you bear all the pressure alone!"

As Arthur finished speaking, Martin heard the cooing of pigeons.

But he thought he was hallucinating until the cooing sound started again, which made Arthur quiet down.

He tilted his head and listened carefully for a while, then opened the small window of the monitoring room, and a white carrier pigeon rushed towards him.

Martin was quick-witted and grabbed the pigeon, and saw the bamboo tube tied to its feet.

"Speak of the devil and he will appear!"

Martin closed the window, sat in front of the microphone, and looked at the message on the note with surprise.

"Well, is there any news from Washington?"

"It's Bruce's old rival, the League of Assassins."

Martin finished speaking before explaining his identity today: "They are summoning assassins from Gotham via carrier pigeons. What do you think they want to do?"

The style of the Assassin's League has always been very religious. When the superior gives an order, the subordinates must complete it unconditionally and cannot even ask what the content of the mission is.

So the note summoning the assassins to gather only stated the address and time, but did not say what the mission was.

"Aren't those crazy people in the Assassin's League followers of the Three Palaces Demon? How come they are related to Apocalypse?"

Arthur really didn't expect that the Assassin's League would get involved in this matter.

"The Assassin's League is a standard religious group. How could the Three Palaces Demon tolerate its followers to believe in the New God?"

Martin put the note away and said, "I can't answer this question either. There is no way that Trinita and Darkseid can cooperate. Lars may be an outstanding person among mortals, but he has signed a contract with Trinita for hundreds of years and has no right to resist."

"At least now I have something to do."

Of course Martin had to go see what these assassins were going to do.

Since the last riot in Gotham, all of the Assassin's League's bases in Gotham have been cleared out.

These people should have left completely, but now they are sneaking back. Even if it is not for Bruno, there must be other conspiracies.

"I am too soft-hearted. I should have killed all the members of the Assassin's League and put an end to it once and for all."

Arthur felt that what Martin was doing was too dangerous.

Even without using his brain, he knew that Martin would definitely not be able to withstand the Assassin's League's tricks and would not be able to disguise himself at all.

But Martin said, you think too much, he never intended to disguise himself and sneak in.

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(End of this chapter)