Chapter 1679: No Time to Die (Part 42)
Batman knows a lot about Martha Wayne, but not enough. He only knows that his mother was once the eldest daughter of the Kane family. She received the most traditional elite education. After getting married, she balanced career and family and was a good wife and mother.
But after really looking into the history of the Kane family, Batman discovered that Martha Kane was actually marrying down.
Perhaps many DC fans have only heard of the Wayne family and Batman's wealth, but that was actually after Batman was born. In many comics, for a long time, Gotham had four major families.
The Kane family is actually the richest family in Gotham for the longest time, and even the most powerful family for a long time. It is the head of the four major families, while the Wayne family is a relatively young upstart.
The marriage between the Kane family and the Wayne family can be called a strong alliance, or it can be said that the old and the new join hands. Since then, no one can stop Gotham.
One of the reasons for the decline of the Kane family is that the leader of the previous generation of the Kane family had only one daughter, Martha. After Martha married into the Wayne family, the other children of the Kane family were relatively ordinary and could not support the family, which made the Kane family gradually fall behind the Wayne family.
In addition, the Wayne family produced a peerless genius like Bruce in this generation, which made the Wayne family develop into today's giant with industries all over the world.
In the Gotham era of gangster rule, no family can be called innocent, especially the generation of Bruce's grandfather. In such a city, who can have no dealings with darkness?
Old Kane was very thoughtful about the education of his only daughter. From the fact that Thomas in the Flash Universe became Batman and then Martha became the Joker, it can be seen that the two of them are evenly matched and very similar.
In most comics, Thomas and Martha run the Wayne family's industry together, instead of Thomas taking on the heavy burden alone, and Martha taking care of her husband and children at home. They are not the traditional family structure of men working outside and women working inside, but a strong combination.
When Martha was still alive, the Kane family, although slightly declining, was still a giant in Gotham City, and the Wayne family was not much behind. But now that Martha has returned to the Kane family, she finds that the Kane family is almost obscure.
Twenty hours is enough to make a huge business empire fall apart, and twenty years is enough for the situation to change and the class to change. Although the Kane family is still a big family in Gotham, it has declined too much compared to the huge figure in that glorious era.
Now, they are entrenched in a small piece of land on the edge of Midtown. The leader of this generation of the Kane family is Martha's cousin. He reacted a little slowly when the war started, and was a little slow when moving. This resulted in their family residence not even being able to stand in the most prosperous business area of the Kane family, but being squeezed into the next block.
Martha, who had just had a quarrel with her husband, was in a bad mood. When she saw this scene, she was even more furious. She and Thomas were more tactful when they quarreled because they had been married for many years and had shared hardships. Now they met again after a long separation, so naturally they couldn't say anything too harsh.
But how good could the temper of an only daughter of a top family at that time, a daughter who had been trained as an heir since childhood, be? Martha's background destined her to be the kind of woman who would swallow her anger and marry into a wealthy family, let alone look at the face of her junior, not to mention that this junior was stupid.
Martha's words stabbed the stupid cousin's face and turned blue, and then she didn't care about him anymore. She quickly counted the number of people, checked the reserve materials, checked the stock of munitions, and then closed the defense line of the garrison, so that the hyenas who wanted to take advantage of the fire had no chance to take advantage of it.
The more Martha checked, the more anxious and angry she became. She had been dead for more than 20 years, how could the Kane family be so bad?
Martha immediately decided that she couldn't go on like this. This was no longer a question of whether the Kane family could be revitalized, but whether the family's name could be preserved and not be eliminated by the times.
Unlike the current generation of family leaders who were in a state of panic, Martha's education was originally in the context of the era of gangster rule. She had learned about turf, gunfights, and street fighting.
In short, sir, the times have changed again.
Martha and Thomas were originally from the gangster era, and they were dying when the Gotham era changed.
When Falcone was fighting in Gotham, they saw a lot of fireworks falling. When they saw the gunfire, the beautiful scenery they were familiar with in their childhood was back, wasn't it?
So Martha organized people, distributed equipment, and made tactical arrangements with ease, preparing to attack Huanglong.
Martha's cousin had always planned to take back the streets where the Kane family's industries were concentrated, but Martha was full of contempt for this idea, and her decision was full of gangster style.
What is a gang? The gangsters are like this: whatever I can rob is my property, so why should I care what the property is called?
What is a gangster? A gangster is someone who spends the least money to do the biggest thing. If they can rob 100, they will never rob 50. If they can rob the best, they will never rob the worst.
Whose best and most high-quality property is in the entire Midtown area?
Martha declared war on the Wayne family straightforwardly. Less than ten minutes after the declaration of war was issued, the Wayne family's motorcade was intercepted by the Kane family while they were eating hot pot and singing songs.
In fact, with the assets of the Wayne family, there should have been no rivals in Gotham City, but Bruce Wayne couldn't show too much advance. In order to disguise, he deliberately slowed down when the war started, and didn't take special care to maintain his territory afterwards.
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This led to the fact that when Thomas took over, the defense of the base was not bad, but the logistics and transportation system was a semi-finished product, and because of the sanctions on raw materials, the chemical plant, the lifeline of the economy, was also in a semi-shutdown state.
Thomas was so angry. In fact, he could understand Bruce's need to hide his shortcomings. He knew without thinking that Bruce in this world must have become Batman. In order not to expose his identity, it was understandable that he developed slowly.
But being beaten by his wife was related to a man's self-esteem. Thomas showed up in anger and took over the business of the Wayne Group and became the direct leader of the Wayne family.
Not to be outdone, he sent people to surround the small Kane family base, betting that the Kane family didn't have so many supplies to fight him, but Martha contacted her former best friend, Vanessa Elliot, the aunt of the silent Thomas Elliot, and stabbed the Wayne family base from behind.
Then, Thomas repeated his old tricks and contacted the Sullivan family, who run casinos in Gotham, blocking the traffic hub between the two Kane family bases, weakening the connection between the two places, and making it impossible for their internal circulation system to be successfully built.
The two of them fought back and forth happily, and more importantly, they were born in the gangster era and were really familiar with this kind of fact, which made the young leaders of other families in Gotham dazzled and stunned. In the final analysis, your father will always be your father.
But Batman is in a more embarrassing position. His current thoughts can be roughly summarized as: Is there anyone who can pay attention to me?
What should I do if my parents in middle age not only want to divorce but also fight? Waiting online is urgent.
Soon, Batman had something important to do again. Thomas and Martha finally remembered him, but it was better not to remember him.
Every child will experience the dilemma that their parents quarrel and ask you who you want to follow. Batman never dreamed that he would have to face this problem in middle age.
"Bruce, listen to me, your mother is very upset now. I have explained to her before. I just hope that Wayne Group can have an excellent successor, so I pay too much attention to Damian, but I have not neglected other children. Dick and Jason like me very much."
"As for smoking and drinking, it takes a process to quit. I was very busy and stressed in that universe before. I really didn't have time to pay attention to these, but she just didn't listen to my explanation."
"You must help her calm down with me. What can't the family sit together and talk about? You say, right, Bruce."
Batman just put down the phone, and the phone rang again, and Martha's urgent voice came from the other side.
"Little Bruce, you have to come quickly. Your father has already ignored everything for the sake of business. If he continues like this, those children will definitely be sad because of what he did."
"There is also the problem of his smoking and drinking. Apart from other things, Aisha has just started kindergarten. Is it appropriate for him to go home with the smell of cigarettes? What if the children are suffocated?"
"The girlfriend of Bruce in that universe often comes to Wayne Manor. If he gets drunk, what will happen if others see him? If it gets out, will the reputation of the Wayne and Kane families be ruined?"
"We must resolutely stop his behavior of disregarding his family. More importantly, let him withdraw from his beloved business and listen to us. What can't a family sit down and talk about? Don't you think so, Bruce?"
Batman felt something was wrong.
Because while they were saying "What can't a family sit down and talk about?", they were almost throwing missiles at each other's heads. What on earth were they doing? ? ?
In fact, this is also caused by the cognitive gap. In the era of Batman's parents, this level of gang fighting was normal. This city has never been reasonable. Any crime is an exaggerated version. It is reasonable for gang families to dominate several streets and start small wars with each other, right?
So, in the eyes of Thomas and Martha, although they may be venting their anger in the quarrel, this level is at most testing and warning each other.
But when Batman was born, the gangs were already insignificant, the class was completely solidified, there was nothing to fight for, and Gotham was dead everywhere. He had never seen such a scene.
Even if he took a step back, he would have to accept the fact that his parents had died for many years for a while, right?
But while he was stunned, Thomas and Martha used their wisdom and knowledge to let Batman see what it meant to form alliances in the heyday of gangs.
When they found that the warnings and tests were fruitless and their sons did not express their opinions, they were both surprisingly angry, and the result was that they both showed their true abilities.
Although the Kane family, an old aristocratic family in Gotham, has declined, they still have some connections. After making private contacts, Martha summoned almost all the old wealthy people in Gotham, and taking advantage of their many bases and manpower, they broke through the logistics blockade of the Wayne family in one fell swoop. Instead, they built a complete logistics system on this basis and directly occupied the largest dock in Gotham so far.
As old money, they know the collusion between officials and businessmen best. Martha spent a large sum of money as a political donation to Mayor Oswald Cobblepot, and strongly supported his construction of a deep-water port. Cobblepot was in the limelight for a while, and the old nobles also took advantage of it.
Thomas made full use of his advantage of abundant liquidity to fully participate in the arms industry, gambling industry and smuggling industry, and then used economic warfare to force the other party to reduce the overall shareholding ratio of urban industrial construction, and constantly eroded the other party's industrial scale.
So what is Batman doing?
He is mixing it up on both sides.
There is no way. If he doesn't mix it up, the two people will really fight. If they really get angry and become enemies, there is only one benefit, that is, the Joker who is now locked in the Batcave can die of joy.
Therefore, Batman has to run around everywhere. When Wayne picks up food, he turns the table, when Kane drinks water, he drives, when his father listens to the cards, he draws by himself, and when his mother raises the glass, he drinks first. Anyway, as long as none of them can do anything, the crisis will naturally be resolved.
But in fact, this is a bit like when parents quarrel at home and the child blows up the stove, the quarrel is indeed over, and the next step is to stir-fry the meat with a belt.
Thomas and Martha finished their operation and realized at the same time that something was wrong. Why did they work for a long time but couldn't fight?
So, on a dark and windy night, Batman just came home and saw Thomas and Martha sitting on the sofa, one on the left and one on the right, and Alfred was desperately winking at him.
If Batman knew Alfred well, his eyes should say "Run!" at this time.