Awesome / Batman: Year One

• "You're the one who tried to shoot the cat."
  • This entire showdown with the Gotham PD under Brendon and Loeb's ill-conceived direction in a bombed-out apartment block, ending with Batman kicking all of their collective asses, is among the highlights of the story. It is the moment that Batman changes in the public's eye from a crazy vigilante to the Dark Knight that no evildoer is a match for.
  • It also boasts the first (and so far, limited) appearance of Batman's sonic wave emitter summoning a swarm of bats. You know this is awesome when Batman Begins pitched it as one of its key scenes.
    Batman: Backup.
• Batman's first salvo against the upper echelons of the mob and the city's corrupt elite also qualifies. They're sitting down to dinner, talking about how Batman isn't a threat. So far, all he's done is take down low level mooks, not something that concerns them. Since it makes the people feel safe, they think that he might be a good thing to have around, and that the real problems are Harvey Dent and Jim Gordon. Batman proceeds to cut the lights, blow up the outer wall and give this badass speech to the now terrified gangsters and corrupt officials:
  Batman: Ladies. Gentlemen. You have eaten well. You have eaten Gotham's wealth. Its spirit. Your feast is nearly over. From this moment on, none of you are safe.◊
• Gordon gets the crap beaten out of him by a group of dirty cops. He returns the favor with his bare hands.
• Throughout the early acts of the book, Gordon has done a grand job of telling us that his crooked partner, Detective Flass, is a Green Beret, and that fighting him would probably be a dumb choice. So when Gordon, a former US Marine, looks for payback, he tosses Flass a baseball bat, and destroys him. Before doing so, he explains that it's been a long time since he's had to take down a Green Beret. So he's not concerned that he has to fight someone with such training, only that he might be a little rusty since the last time he had to whip one.
  Gordon: I do just enough — to keep him out of the hospital. I toss his gun into the woods. It should be rusty by morning. I take his clothes off and leave him in his own cuffs by the side of the road. He'll never report it. Not Flass. He'll make up some story that involves at least ten attackers and never admit I did it. But he'll know. And he'll stay away from Barbara. Thanks, Flass. You've shown me what it takes to be a cop in Gotham City.
• Gordon single-handedly resolves the hostage situation by going in unarmed and taking out the lunatic. It make a big enough impression In-Universe that Loeb can’t go after Gordon because of his good press.
• A small one, but an awesome point has to be given to the young DA, Harvey something or other, for refusing to cave to pressure from the corrupt Gotham PD... and making himself a clandestine ally of the Batman as well.

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