No Man's Land (comics) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

Gotham City suffers the results of a magnitude 7.6 earthquake in the Cataclysm storyline. In response, the U.S government declares Gotham a "no man's land," destroys all bridges leading to Gotham and forbids people from entering or exiting.

The city is swiftly carved up by gangs and various supervillains Batman had battled over the years. Jim Gordon and several members of the Gotham police department stay behind to protect civilians. Oracle and Huntress also end up on the inside. Bruce Wayne leaves the city to lobby the government to continue aid to Gotham, but fails. Gordon and his men wait for Batman's return, but he disappears for months, leading the police to believe that he has abandoned Gotham.

Huntress attempts to keep order, fashioning a Batman costume. She soon discovers that criminals fear her more as the Bat than they do Huntress and succeeds in holding territory of her own. When Batman returns, he allows her to continue to use the costume. However, when she fails to hold off Two-Face and his army of men and loses Batman's territory, she abandons the costume.

Batman and James Gordon's officers work separately to reclaim Gotham, piece by piece, by beating and subduing the gang leaders and then marking the reclaimed territory with graffiti. Various subplots emerge through the battles. Poison Ivy takes up residence in Robinson Park, and Batman — after helping her defeat Clayface's attempts to control the park and thus Gotham's fresh fruit supply — allows her to remain there as long as she cares for various orphans who had retreated to the park, as well as distributing food to the rest of the city. Superman briefly visits the city to restore some degree of order, but quickly realizes that the city's current state of anarchy and 'might-makes-right' requires a greater effort than the 'quick-fix' he had been expecting, and departs. A simultaneous story in JLA reveals that the Justice League keeps an eye on Gotham during this time by preventing various villains from claiming the territory for themselves.

Gordon briefly allies himself with Two-Face to reclaim vital territory, but Two-Face betrays the alliance to claim a greater amount of land for himself. Two-Face also hires David Cain to kill Gordon, but Cain is thwarted by his daughter Cassandra, who has become one of Oracle's agents. Cassandra later takes up the mantle as the second Batgirl to help clean up No Man's Land. Later, Two-Face kidnaps Gordon and puts him on trial for breaking the alliance. Police officer Renee Montoya reaches out to Two-Face's Harvey Dent persona, whose defense leads to Gordon's acquittal, Dent's questioning concluding that Two-Face had essentially blackmailed Gordon into the alliance; hence, any agreement between them is void.

Lex Luthor arrives with his helicopters to rebuild Gotham. However, Luthor's philanthropy is a cover for his true intentions: to take the deeds and much of the property in Gotham. Lucius Fox discovers copies of the original documents and notifies Luthor. Luthor then attempts to kill Fox, but Batman intervenes and reveals that he is the one who anonymously tipped the Wayne Enterprises' CEO. He tells Luthor that Gotham is not for sale, and warns him to leave.

The United States government reverses the No Man's Land order and allows Gotham to rejoin the United States. Gordon and his surviving police officers are promoted. In the final scenes of the comic, the Joker attacks Petit's compound. Petit is killed and the Huntress barely survives. The Joker later kidnaps all of Gotham's babies, but does not kill any of them. When Sarah Essen Gordon discovers the babies, the Joker shoots her in the head while she holds an infant. Batman later convinces a grief-stricken Gordon to not kill The Joker in order to prove that their city can still maintain its morale. When the Joker, who in the course of the Post-Crisis narrative has harmed Gordon's entire family, mockingly asks Gordon if he has a son, Gordon shoots Joker through the kneecap instead; Joker laments that he may never walk again, but then laughs hysterically upon realizing that he did the same thing to Gordon's daughter Barbara. Gordon then breaks down as Batman comforts him.

The story ends with the new year ringing in, as Batman prepares to spend another year as the watchful protector of Gotham, and Gordon says his last goodbyes to his wife, wishing her a happy new year.