Chapter 1416: Splits, Enemies, and the Start of a Storm

Translator: Henyee Translations Editor: Henyee Translations

The five major TV networks still maintained that strange position, but none of them dared to openly denounce Batman, because they would definitely be bombarded by hardcore fans.

Although older people still didn’t really use their phones to go online, the younger generation had basically taken to it over the last year or so.

Batman was still perfect, and his teammates couldn’t be faulted too much in the videos.

In fact, the superheroes had swiftly turned up that night and had fought fiercely, and most of the fights had happened indoors.

Except for Ivan, who had strutted in front of the TV camera, there were few full-length shots of the other superheroes.

And there were no clear shots of people being accidentally injured in the process at all.

The only evidence was that so-called “victim’s” recount.

In light of this, Luke told Gold Nugget of the many “words of wisdom” from his previous life and let it do whatever it wanted.

Soon, Batman’s hardcore fans adopted a new script.

For example, “Where are the pictures/videos? Pics/vids, or it didn’t happen”; “You fabricated an entire story out of one image?”; “The ministry of breaking news and shock headlines wants you to go work for them tomorrow”; “Your mother is telling you to go home for dinner.”

In any case, Gold Nugget never got tired. Coupled with the special program which Luke had set up for it, it was far faster at posting comments than an ordinary person.

This guy was willing to fork out money, and a lot of its accounts were VIP, member, platinum or diamond types, and so on. Coupled with how snarky it was when it shot its mouth off, a large number of Batman hardcore fans were united under its banner, which gave the paid trolls heartburn.

As for people tracking the IP addresses back to Luke and Selina, big deal.

It would be hard to take any bigshots seriously if they cared about the bickering on the Internet.

Even if they had the time to do so, they would first track down the crazy hackers who were disseminating the videos.

It was because of these hackers that news of Batman kept popping up, and the videos were already being streamed on local TV networks to grab viewer attention.

There was a limit to what the American government could do. The only way to “call” on all TV networks in America to do their bidding was through the Constitution.

Thus, the only ones they could call on were the five major TV networks, which had the most viewers.

It was impossible for the government to call on small and medium TV stations.

Otherwise, there would definitely be a few TV stations who would go all out to blackmail the government and expose this “summons” for what it actually was.

A lot of people liked to scam the government.

This was just news on Batman, and definitely didn’t involve any business interests.

In a situation like this, selling out the government wouldn’t get anyone killed and might even be worth it.

After a month of chaos, Batman’s status in the hearts of ordinary people had changed slightly.

A small number of brainless people turned into staunch haters who insisted that there was something wrong with Batman.

Whether it was a mental illness or breaking the law, from collateral damage to the rights of criminals, everything was pulled out to attack Batman.

Some of the older people were influenced by the TV networks and didn’t think that Batman was that reliable. At least, he wasn’t as good as the rumors said.

Most remained silent.

The New Yorkers whom Luke had interacted with still had the same attitude toward Batman — he was alright. Although he had never revealed his face, he had really saved a lot of people, and there hadn’t been as many problems as described on TV.

A small number of young people had become hardcore fans of Batman.

They didn’t hide their love and respect for Batman. There were even people who went out to the streets in homemade Bat suits at night to “uphold justice.”

Luke could only remain silent.

It was a good thing to have the heart, but frankly speaking, there weren’t many of these people who had the strength to match.

The hoodlums of New York had already been cowed after being thrashed by Batman. They didn’t dare go overboard with these crazy fans in Bat costumes. At most, they would get angry out of embarrassment and throw a few punches before they ran.

Kill someone? Don’t even think about it.

If Batman knew that a New York gangster had killed a fan in a Bat suit, you could bet only a few of his bones would be intact when he was sent to the hospital.

After the attack by the test subjects, Luke simply observed from the side, and several groups took shape.

It was basically clear who were friends and who were enemies.

Of course, the brainless anti-fans weren’t enemies.

These people who only dared to talk big behind their screens were bound to be pitiful creatures whose only power came from their phones and the Internet.

Hm, Luke invented them.

Naturally, Luke, who had brought about this era of smartphones and the Internet, didn’t have any expectations for this doomed group.

There would always be a group like this in any society.

The TV presenters, reporters and “victims” weren’t enemies either.

Or rather, they weren’t even qualified to be Batman’s enemies.

If Luke wanted to, he could send all of them to heaven within a month.

Luke, who had always been an ordinary person at heart, knew that it was very unrealistic to expect these ordinary people to resist the temptation or pressure from the forces behind the scenes and to stand firmly on Batman’s side, even if they lost their jobs or became poor.

Ordinary people were ordinary because they didn’t have enough willpower to break away from their predicaments, and could only become tools.

For example, that female guest, Carly, who had lost her son but whose daughter had been saved, was a neutral yellow in Luke’s teammate panel.

Clearly, she didn’t hate Batman as much as she said she did on TV.

She was also a neutral yellow in the panel of good and evil.

Luke had harassed the system about this.

The system’s response was basically: “Unable to determine the effect of the trap, and no strong hostility toward the host detected.”

Luke mulled over this response and finally realized that the system wasn’t wrong.

Batman was Luke, but Luke wasn’t Batman.

Any attack against Batman wouldn’t hurt Luke himself.

Also, Carly wasn’t genuinely hostile toward Batman, so the system couldn’t deem her a “threat.”

…

In the middle of a hot August, New York was once again caught up in a storm of public opinion.

It started with a video that spread online and was aired on a local TV program in New York.

Luke remembered the name of the show — Trish Talk.

Trish, the host, was Jessica Jones’s friend, and was quite famous locally.

Trish had a unique and incisive perspective, and her analyses were accurate and deep. She also had a pretty face, and had a lot of fans — mostly young men.

At the same time, Trish was a popular F2F blogger.

The two complemented each other, and the ratings for her talk show were pretty good.