Prologue

Gotham City

1st Bank of Gotham

October 20

The bank was one of the oldest and more respected in the city. Founded over one hundred and fifty years ago by an act of Congress, it became one of the first National Banks to be opened after Andrew Jackson had nullified the National Banking system a quarter century before. Over the years it has seen many trials and tribulations. It survived the holocaust that Sherman and his army unleashed as they went through the south, burning everything in their path. It survived the dark days of the Great Depression. Over the past thirty years or so the First Bank of Gotham has been battling an enemy that has been slowly strangling the city: crime.

That problem was solved about five years before by an up-and-coming business man named Salvatore Maroni who, in a secret deal, bought the bank from its prestigious owners, who retired away from Gotham City. Maroni, it was rumored, was a very shady character. With suspected mob ties and rumors of disappearances of those who questioned his morals and his history, people became suspicious of how exactly Maroni bought the bank. Federal inquiries were launched but ultimately produced zero incriminating evidence against him. Now, four years removed from those investigations, the First Bank of Gotham sits just as it has for the past century and a half. Nestled at the heart of downtown Gotham City, the building is a symbol of the proud history of Gotham. Made of marble with Roman columns in the front, three stories high, it is one of the few remaining landmarks that remain untouched by the brutal crime war that has sprung up throughout the city within the past month. Until today.

Harry Harris has been the Bank Manager of the First Bank since Maroni took over ownership of the bank five years ago. He was tough, having grown up on The Narrows Island, not too far from the infamous Arkam Asylum. It was in the Narrows that he learned the ways of the street. He learned how to use his fists, winning every fight he had ever been in without ever even getting a bloody nose. It was also in the Narrows that he was first introduced to organized crime. He was fifteen years old when he met his first gangster. And God how he loved the life they lived. His clothes were brand new, his wallet was fat with cash, and he had a personality about him that Harris loved. The man was cocky, but at the same time he didn't come across as snobbish. Harry longed to be like this man and thus set his life on a path of servitude to the crime bosses of Gotham City.

He was seventeen when he was introduced to a fairly young, but powerful man they called Sal Maroni. He was of Sicilian descent but didn't look it. The two men became friends fairly quickly. Harris couldn't have struck it any richer. Within months of the two forming their friendship, Maroni began to rise through the ranks of the Falconi Crime Family, of which both of them were a part of. Maroni became so rich and powerful inside the family that Falconi allowed him to form a satellite company that Maroni named after himself. Sal took Harry with him and the two of them founded the Maroni & Associates Investment Group. It looked as if things couldn't get any better for the two friends. That was until the night of the Fall of Carmine Falconi. Almost immediately powerful members of the family began to act. The family became embittered in a civil war. Harris didn't know what to do, however, Maroni acted quickly and decisively.

Everyone in the family knew that Maroni had been a favorite of Falconi. Maroni used this to his advantage. He knew that if he challenged the other heads for the top spot, the majority of the family would support him. And this he did. Within a week the fighting had ended and the last bosses who opposed him were executed. Maroni was now the supreme leader of the Falconi family. And here Harris sat, still the manager of First Gotham Bank but in a position of far greater power than he ever dreamed. He was rich, important, and no longer anonymous. He was everything that his parents were not. And he liked it that way.

Unbeknownst to Harris or anyone else in the bank, there was mischief brewing on the streets outside. Mischief that was aimed toward the First Bank of Gotham. High above Harris and his customers, in a large, dark office building that rose into the sky from behind the bank. It was called the Daltex Building and was the headquarters for Maroni & Associates. As the people in the streets below it went about their normal routines, an explosion of glass shot out from one of the windows high above. Inside the office of the blown out window were two men whose faces were covered by masks. More specifically their masks were the faces of two of the seven dwarfs from the movie "Snow White". In the hands of the one who had the mask of Doc was a shotgun that had been used to blow out the window.

Doc gently set the shotgun down on the floor and motioned for his partner, his face hidden by a Bashful mask, to hand him the Grappling gun. Bashful quickly picked up the gun and handed it to Doc, who took aim at the First Gotham Bank below them and opened fire. A grapple was instantly fired out of the gun and sent flying toward the rooftop of the bank. It was able to catch and exhaust pipe and tie itself around it. Doc, pulling on the rope to make sure that it was taut, turned to Bashful and nodded. It was clear to slide down. Both men picked up two large blue duffle bags and placed them on their shoulders. They then grabbed onto hooks attached to the rope and pushed off from the Daltex Building, sliding down the rope high over the streets of Gotham until they landed safely on the roof top of the bank.

Down on the street was another man standing silently on the corner, his head down, looking down at the ground. In his right hand was a large, blue, sports duffle bag. In his left hand was a Grumpy mask. He sort of stood out there on the street corner as people looked at him oddly as they walked by him. After a couple of minutes, a white city van came to a screeching halt in front of him. Without any delay, the man quickly transferred the duffle bag from his hand to his shoulder before quickly putting on his Grumpy mask. Opening the door to the backseat and throwing the duffle bag into the very back, he got into the van and closed the door. The van sped off just as quickly as it had arrived.

Inside the van there were two other men riding with Grumpy. The driver had on a Dopey mask while the man riding shotgun had on a Happy mask. Grumpy pulled a handgun from inside his loose thin jacket and cocked it, readying himself for the job ahead.

"All right," Dopey said as he navigated the van through the streets, "three of a kind. Let's do this."

"That's it?" Asked Happy, "Three guys?"

"Two guys on the roof." Dopey replied, "Every guy gets a share. Five shares is plenty."

"Six shares," Happy corrected him, "don't forget the guy who planned the job."

"He thinks he can sit it out and still take a slice." Dopey said with a tone of disbelief. "I know why they call him the Joker."

Back up on the roof, Doc and Bashful were arguing about the same thing that the three men in the van were discussing. Just who was this guy who planned the heist and didn't bother even showing up for it?

"So why do they call him 'The Joker'?" Bashful asked as they jogged quickly to a circuit breaker box located on the roof of the building. Doc quickly took a wrench out from his duffle bag and smashed the lock to the breaker box before opening it up.

"I heard he wears make up." Doc replied.

"Make up?" Bashful repeated.

"Yeah. To scare people." Doc said. "You know? War paint?"

Bashful didn't think that made any sense. As he watched Doc plug into the various outlets on the breaker with his equipment, he couldn't help but see the paradox in his previous statement. Why would a guy trying to scare people with make up want to go by the name of the Joker? Don't think, he told himself. You're here to do a job.

Down at the front entrance to the bank, the van containing the other three bank robbers had pulled up and parked along the curve. They quickly piled out of the van, carrying their duffle bags and taking out their weapons. As Dopey and Happy charged up the front stairs toward the entrance of the bank, Grumpy walked backwards, checking to make sure the coast was still clear. Seeing that the streets around them were largely devoid of people, Grumpy turned around and ran up the steps to catch up with his two partners.

Harry Harris was sitting in his office when it happened. Unseen behind the ice white glass that surrounded him and his desk, Harris was working on his weekly bank report when he heard the front entrance slam open violently. There was a short burst of machine gun fire that echoed through the main lobby. This was quickly followed by the screams of the customers who were waiting patiently in line in front of the long bank teller desk.

"All right everybody! Hands up! Heads down!" Yelled Dopey as he charged into the lobby.

Although no one in the lobby could see through the glass and into Harris's work space, Harris could see the outer lobby quite clearly. There were three men. He saw three dressed in casual clothes whose faces were hidden by what appeared to him to be clown masks. They were heavily armed and in the process of corralling his patrons and employees.

"I said hands up, heads down!" Dopey repeated. "Let's go pal! I'm making a withdrawal here!" He growled as he pulled a teller up over the counter and onto the ground below.

Doc and Bashful were still on the roof top. Doc was bent over the circuit breaker box, while Bashful kneeled behind him. They could not leave the roof until their job was done. They needed to prevent the police from coming too early. And, in order to do that, they had to keep the silent alarm from sending out a signal.

"Here comes the silent alarm," Doc said confidently, "and there it goes."

Doc had a computer key pad in his hand that was wired into the circuit box. He typed a few things in it and pressed the "enter key".

"That's funny." Doc frowned. "It didn't dial out to 911. It was trying to reach a private number."

"Is it a problem?" Bashful asked.

"Nah man. I'm done here." Doc replied.

Bashful pulled out a weapon from his jacket, aimed, and fired. He watched with mild satisfaction as Doc slumped to the ground. He was dead. Bashful's job was done. Picking up his duffle bag, Bashful ran across the roof top, opened the door to the roof exit and ran down the stairs.

In his office, Harris instantly knew what to do. Below his desk lay a sawed off shotgun. Picking the gun up from the floor, he opened one of the drawers to his desk, rummaged through the contents until he came across a pack of shotgun ammunition. Ripping open the package with absolute calm, Harris began to load the shotgun.

Outside Harris's office, Dopey, Grumpy, and Happy were finishing up corralling the employees and the customers. Taking out grenades from their duffle bags, Grumpy and Happy began to place them into the hands of their hostages. Pulling the pins out of the grenades, the hostages were forced to hold down the clamps on the grenades to prevent them from going off.

"Obviously we don't want you doing anything with your hands except holding on for dear life." Dopey chuckled with amusement.

Bashful had reached the ground floor of the bank. Bypassing the lobby, he ran straight into the vault room. Setting down his duffle bag in front of the vault, Bashful pulled out a large drill that was equipped with a magnet. Activating the magnet, the drill attached itself to the steel of the vault. Squeezing the trigger on the drill, Bashful hung on as the drill began to burrow into the lock of the vault. After a few moments, Bashful felt a stinging shockwave go through him. Sparks flew from the vault and Bashful felt himself being thrown away from the drill and onto the cold, marble floor. He had just been electrocuted. What kind of bank uses an electric shield to secure their vault, he thought.

Harris was ready now. His gun loaded, he began to search for a target. He didn't have to wait long. Happy, his back turned away from Harris, had stepped in front of the glass separating Harris from him. He was waving his gun in the air, yelling for everyone to stay on the ground. Taking aim, he calmly looked down the sight and opened fire. The shot shattered the glass in front of him and Happy grunted as he fell to the ground. Harris was sure that it had been a kill shot.

Dopey and Grumpy ducked for cover behind tables set up in the lobby. They were both surprise as they hadn't anticipated any armed resistance. Harris got up from his chair and charged out into the lobby. Walking down the line of desks and tables in the middle of the lobby, Harris took aim at the table hiding Grumpy and fired. Grumpy promptly got up and began running toward a different desk, his head low. Harris smiled. This was too easy. He popped off another shot but missed. Grunting in frustration, he fired twice more, missing on both occasions. Grumpy ducked behind another table and saw that Dopey was also hiding there as well.

From what Harris could see it looked as if there was another robber hiding behind the table that the other fleeing delinquent just hid behind. He fired another shot, hitting the top of the desk, throwing torn papers and pens into the air. His rage and confidence finally got to him. He had to say something.

"Do you have any idea who you're stealing from?!" Harris screamed. "You and your friends are DEAD!"

Dopey, hearing this, looked at Grumpy and smiled from behind his mask. He had been counting the number of shots that the man had been firing at them and had come to the conclusion that all of his shots had been exhausted. He decided to double check with his partner just in case he had miscounted.

"He's out right?" Dopey asked. Grumpy promptly nodded to him.

Dopey now knew what he had to do. Readying his gun, a Glock 9mm, he took two deep breaths before quickly getting up from behind the desk. He aimed but was met with a blast of shotgun. He felt a stinging pain flare up in his left shoulder and he ducked back down quickly. Grabbing hold of his shoulder, he began to rock back and forth, grunting in pain.

Harris knew that he didn't score a critical hit on his prey and that he was now out of ammunition. He quickly opened up the back end of the gun and began to empty the shells, trying desperately to reload as quick as he could. However the other robber was too fast for him. Grumpy, taking the initiative, readied his weapon and rose up from behind the desk. He aimed at the bank manager's chest and put his finger on the trigger. As he fired, however, he got tangled up in his footing and almost tripped onto his back. The shot would not be on the mark.

Harris felt a burning sensation go through his spine. He grunted with pain as the nerves in his body finally relayed the signals of pain to the brain. Harris immediately lost the feeling in his legs and felt them collapse from under him. He fell to the ground, paralyzed from the waist down.

Grumpy watched all of this unfold with satisfaction and decided that the man was out of the fight. His attention became drawn to his partner. Dopey was getting up off the ground, grasping his left shoulder. Grunting with pain, Dopey looked at him.

"Where did you learn to count?!" Spat Dopey, gritting his teeth in pain and anger.

Dopey, wasting no time with his partner, ran out of the lobby and toward the vault room. Picking up his duffle bag along the way, Dopey entered and was disappointed to see that the vault was still not open. Bashful was drilling through the lock but hadn't broken through yet.

"What's taking you s long?" Dopey asked.

"They vault was wired with about six thousand volts." Bashful replied. "What kind of bank does that?"

"A mob bank, that's what." Dopey replied. "I guess the Joker's as crazy as they say."

He was crazy, Dopey thought. If this bank belong to who he thought it belonged to, then it's a good thing that he was wearing a mask. If he hadn't been, then he would probably be dead by the end of the week. He forced the thought from his mind and turned his attention back to the task at hand. Bashful had just finished drilling through the lock and was in the process of opening the door to the vault.

"What happened to the alarm guy?" Dopey asked Bashful.

"Boss told me that once he was done I should take him out." Bashful replied. "One less share right?"

Leveling his gun, Dopey smiled from inside his mask. "Funny. He told me something similar."

"He Wha-," began Bashful before realizing what Dopey was saying. "No. NO!"

Dopey fired the weapon, capping Bashful in the head. Bashful toppled to the ground, his last breath resonating from inside his mask. Satisfied, Dopey, put away his gun and opened up the vault. With all of the duffle bags now in the vault room, Dopey began packing the money into them. It took every single bag they had to corral all of the money that was sitting inside the bank. Dopey loaded it quickly while Grumpy continued to keep an eye on their hostages.

It took less than five minutes for Dopey to pack all of the money. Sliding the duffle bags into a pile in the lobby, Grumpy and Dopey worked quickly to organize the duffle bags. Finally, their work done, Dopey breathed a sigh of relief.

"That's a lot of money." Dopey said. "If this Joker guy was so smart he'd have had us bring a bigger car."

Grumpy didn't say anything. In fact, Dopey noticed, Grumpy hadn't said a thing since he got into the van back on the street corner. Dopey was now deeply suspicious of his partner. Once Grumpy turned his back on him, Dopey pulled out his hand gun and cocked it back. Grumpy stopped moving and turned slowly around to face Dopey.

"I'm bettin' the Joker told you to kill me 'soon as we loaded the cash." Dopey said suspiciously.

Grumpy casually looked down at his watch before looking back up at Dopey. Cocking his head slightly to the right, Grumpy finally uttered spoken words.

"No, no, no, no." Grumpy said in a care-free, unafraid voice. "I kill the bus driver."

Dopey looked at him. Bus driver? What was he talking about. There wasn't anything said about a bus when they were going over their final plans the night before.

"Bus driver?" Dopey asked. "What bus driver?!"

His question was answered almost immediately.

There was a crash as a school bus drove through the front of the building, sending glass, marble, and concrete flying in every direction. Dopey, just moments away from whacking his partner, was hit by the back end of the bus and thrown to the ground. He lay there motionless, knocked out cold.

The back door of the bus swung open and out popped another robber, his face hidden by a Sleepy mask. "School's out," he said, "time to go."

Sleepy looked down at the knocked out Dopey and chuckled. "The cat's not getting up is he?"

Grumpy picked up two duffle bags filled with money and handed them to Sleepy who remained standing in the back door of the bus. The process of Grumpy handing up the money while Sleepy loaded it continued until all duffle bags were aboard the school bus.

"Man, that's a lot of money." Sleepy said, jumping down from off the back of the bus. He intended to help pick Dopey up off the ground. Before doing this however, Sleepy noticed that there were far fewer men in the lobby than he was led to believe were a part of the heist.

"What happened to the rest of the guys?" Sleepy asked.

He got his answer rather quickly. Turning his gun on Sleepy, Grumpy fired twice and watched as he fell to the ground dead. Satisfied, Grumpy made to jump onto the bus when he was interrupted by the sound of the bank manager.

Harris wasn't going to let this man leave without a warning. Having been lying there, unable to move, for over fifteen minutes, he had watched everything transpire and it angered him. He needed to express his disgust at this criminal's lack of honor.

"You think you're smart, don't you?!" He shouted, struggling to say every word on account of the pain in his spine. "The guy who hired you is just going to do the same thing to you!"

Grumpy turned around and looked at Harris. Getting off the bus, he began to walk slowly toward the wounded bank manager. Fumbling inside his coat, Grumpy pulled out a grenade and quickly tied string around the pin of the bomb as he walked toward his prey. Harris saw this but was unafraid.

"Oh!, criminals in this town used to believe in things." Harris continued. "Honor! Respect! What do you believe in, huh? WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN?!"

Grumpy was now on top of him. He bent down and shoved the grenade into Harris's mouth.

"I believe," the man began, "that whatever doesn't kill you simply makes you…"

Grumpy took off his mask and had it not been for the grenade in his mouth, Harris might have screamed. A look of terror flashed across Harris's face as he looked into the face of the devil himself. The man's lips were ruby red, with cuts extending from his lips to halfway up his cheeks. His eyes were as black as a demon's and his hair, close up, looked grass green. What was most disturbing about the man was the color of the man's face which was snow white.

"…stranger." Grumpy finished. Then, with a quick smile, he picked up Harris's shotgun and walked back toward the bus, dragging the string attached to the grenade with him. Once inside, the clown-faced man tied the string around the handle of the door and closed it. Harris had no idea that he had just come face-to-face with the Joker himself.

Upon tying the string to the back of the back seat, Joker made his way toward the driver's seat at the front of the bus. With the ignition on, Joker put the bus in gear and began to pull the bus out of the bank.

As the bus moved forward, the string attached to the grenade inside Harris's mouth grew taut and pulled the pin out of the bomb. Harris watched this happen as fear welled up in his eyes. Waiting for the explosion, Harris's only wish was that it would be painless. The explosion, however, never came. Instead of an explosion, a large puff of smoke began to spew out of the back end of the grenade. The grenade being in his mouth, it managed to muffle his cry of shock and surprise. His face fell flat to the ground as he passed out from the fear and shock of his whole ordeal.

As the bus pulled out of the front of the bank, it managed to squeeze into a long convoy of buses that were moving slowly down main street heading toward all of the different schools in the Gotham City area to pick up the kids who were about to get out of school. As the Joker's bus disappeared in the endless line of buses, the sound of police sirens pierced the early-afternoon air. The Joker watched in amusement as the police cars sped past him, heading to the bank that he had just left moments before. They were too late and the Joker could now celebrate the successful robbery of his fifth bank in five weeks.