Gotham Central: In the Line of Duty - Part 2

[espanolbot]

First Part here,
http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/4178969.html#cutid1

Renee tells the MCU what's going on, and what leads they should pursue to try and capture Mr Freeze.





The cops search their leads, interviewing Victor's former associates, suppliers of the diamonds he needs for his suit (both legal and illegal) as well as suppliers to refridgeration equipment he might be buying from to walk around without his suit.

They manage to find out that someone recently stole $20 million from the Odessa Mob (Gotham's Russian mafia group for most of the 2000s), which they reason could either keep Freeze alive for a long time OR make a really big freezing device of some sort.

As they go through what they know so far, Marcus' mind drifts to what Victor told him ealier...





They alert Batman via the signal, and then pile tons of policemen into the Gotham State University presentation hall (both in disguise and in uniform) to try and capture Freeze when he shows up. The SWAT guys don't fair so well against a guy with a freeze-ray though, but while Victor's attention is distracted by using his tech to supercharge the award ceremony's AC someone else gets the drop on him.







Marcus hears about Freeze's arrest over the radio while he's waiting in the car outside, which is then immediately followed with news that the girl he and Charlie were searching off has been found. Turns out she's been dead for days. Batman approaches Driver, but the accumulated frustration of recent events tied with how they had to rely on Batman... AGAIN makes Marcus tell Batman to go to hell before driving off to the new crime scene...

Several issues later, Marcus is called forth as a witness in the Freeze trial. Victor stands accused of murdering Detective Fields, his henchmen, four SWAT members of the roof of GSU and the attempted murder of several hundred people in the auditorium.





Freeze is ruled to be insane, and is sent back to Arkham for treatment.

Comments

[filthysize]

Oof. I've always liked that scene because it attempts to show the emotional toll the Arkham revolving door has on Gotham cops. Still, it's never a great idea to shine a light to that side of things, since legally it doesn't make a lick of freakin sense.

I wish they would just say that Gotham is located in an unspecified state that has abolished the death penalty, and instead of being an asylum, Arkham is just the only facility in the entire state to have the special equipments to hold supervillains.

[icon_uk]

Is that Steve Yeowell on art in the first part (at the University)

And the courtroom scene is good, but again gives us the problem between "irrational" and "insane". Simple irrationality would not give you an insanity defence AFAIK.

[bizarrohulk]

In the real world, NONE of the Bat-rogues, not even the Joker, would meet the conditions for a successful insanity defence. Well, maybe Amygdala. And possibly the original Ventriloquist, since he seemed to have a variant of DID. That's about it, though.

However, this is set in a universe where a judge can apparently decide to impose a punishment on a defendant even after the jury delivers a not guilty verdict, so who the hell knows how the legal system works there?

[silicondream]

Furthermore, Freeze's behavior (the bit they're discussing here) wasn't even irrational. He was confronted by cops and he's a wanted man with a grudge against the law. Why wouldn't he attack them? It's not as if he's crazier for using an ice gun than a regular gun; the ice gun works really well.

Most of the Gotham supervillains are obviously very rational on a day-to-day basis, which is why they keep managing to kill lots of people and rob banks and make money and evade conventional law enforcement. They may have weird life philosophies and dress codes, but the law doesn't care about that.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

I know we didn't see it, but man, it seems like Batman took Freeze down with little difficulty this time. Relative to the norm, anyway, right?

[outlawpoet]

I like the idea that Batman and Freeze have some monstrous epic battle offscreen, and we just don't see any of it, because the cops don't see it either.