The Rats were a tightly-knit terrorist cult comprised of the most desperate members of Gotham society operating primarily within the sewers of Gotham at the instigation of the elusive Rat King, with the mission of dismantling the legal system of the city.
The common refrain of the Rats was a list of their targets for destruction: "The Cops, The Courts, The Clink". Unbeknownst to the Rats, their absentee leader was actually an alternate persona of Harvey Dent, one of the political authority figures the movement sought to overthrow.
Incident Reports[]
Before Arkham Shadow Incident[]
Due to a troubled childhood, a family history of mental illness, a stressful career, and the unfortunate choice of Dr. Jonathan Crane as a therapist, Harvey Dent's latent dissociative identity disorder was getting worse. At some point, this resulted in a new persona, the "Rat King", taking over for periods of time without Dent being aware of it. This persona began spreading radically anti-authoritarian propaganda, primarily via radio.
This propaganda found an audience in the most desperate and disillusioned members of Gotham society, who quickly flocked to the cause. What began as a political movement quickly became a cult with a manifesto ("Rodent Recipes: Formulas for Rebellion") and a confused mythology, including a prophecy that the Rat King would be "born" in Blackgate Prison. Would-be Rats began trying to get sent to Blackgate, holding "rallies" that were little more than riots, which ivolved fighting and looting. Four were arrested in connection with a series of poisonings at Taco-Whiz. Rats referred to Gotham as "a sinking ship". Anti-Rat propaganda referred to them as a "socialist cult".
Arkham Shadow Incident[]
On Independence Day, during the third year of Batman operating in Gotham, the Rat King made another broadcast announcing that July 4th marked the beginning of a countdown to the "Day of Wrath", at which point Gotham would be destroyed. He announced there would be "no rest for the wicked, nor the just. Only more violence from those who rise in anger". The evening was marked by more riots. A small contingent of Rats in the sewers captured GCPD officers who had been sent to flush them out. Batman went in after them and rescued the survivors, only to discover that the Rats had tunnelled from the sewers into the vault of Gotham Merchant's Bank, getting away with millions, an MO that matched other crimes throughout the city in recent weeks. Officer Marks was killed in front of his partner, Pettit, by a particularly furious Rat out of anger for shooting a fellow rat. This resulted in a frantic standoff between a visibly-on-edge Pettit and the vengeful Rat, who called out the late Marks’ actions as murder, and condemned Pettit for his hypocrisy. In response, Batman subdued Pettit and the vengeful Rat to prevent further bloodshed.
Elsewhere, the rioters robbed Jezebel Guns for guns and ammunition, performed attacks on various city officials (including Dent himself, since, as he and the Rat King were unaware of being the same person, the Rat King had included him in the list of targets - though luckily for him the attack was unsuccessful) and laid siege to the Pigsty, a semi-secret GCPD task force office in the Bowery where Commissioner James Gordon kept his most trusted officers separate from the corruption of the rest of the GCPD. Boone Carver, AKA Shrike, one of the Rat King's top lieutenants, sniped Gordon, who survived due to seeing the red dot and quickly moving to cover. Batman gave chase.
In his pursuit of Shrike, Batman cleared the Rats out of Monarch Theatre, where a young Rat named Dick Grayson was showing Rat King propaganda films. Batman then followed Shrike to Solomon Wayne Courthouse where the Rats had taken Harvey Dent and Leslie Thompkins hostage, intent on setting Dent on fire. Batman saved the hostages, and interrogated Shrike, at which time Shrike set himself on fire and flung himself off a balcony to his death.
For the next several days the Rats in Gotham prepared for their Day of Wrath, while the Rats in Blackgate went missing. Carmine Falcone believed an attack on his life was made by Otis Flanagan and that Flanagan was therefore the Rat King, but Flanagan turned out to merely be a recruiter for the Rats.
On the Day of Wrath, the Rats in Blackgate, who were whisked away from their cells against their will by corrupt guards on the Rat King’s payroll, kidnapped an undercover GCPD officer, commandeered the USS Halsey, and set a course for Gotham. The Rat King, who was already on board, had disabled the ship's steering and rigged it to explode on impact with Gotham harbor, as his Harvey persona, unaware of being the Rat King, wanted to eliminate the Rats. Batman rescued the officer and defused the explosives, but was unable to restore the ship's controls as it ran aground in Gotham.
In the aftermath of the Day of Wrath, the public believed that Irving "Matches" Malone had been the Rat King, and without their leader to continue guiding them, the Rats soon became defunct and forgotten, and their threat to Gotham gone. The remaining Rats were sent back to Blackgate to carry on their sentences, some of whom were given additional sentencing by Vanessa Rios, who declared that despite the circumstances of their escape, Prison Escape is still a crime. Malone was presumed dead in absentia, as he was nowhere to be found.
Slogans[]
- "BITE BACK"
- "They will hear us now"
- "Cops, Courts, Clink"
- "Rats spill blood, not secrets."
- ”We follow our king forward…not backward.”
- ”When you have nothing, you have nothing to fear.”
Game Over Lines[]
- "Gotham belongs to the Rats!" (Batman)
- "Nothing to lose, nothing to fear, and nothing’s gonna stand in our way!" (Batman)
- "Pick him up! Let’s show the world what we’ve done!" (Batman)
- "Blackgate is Ratgate! Soon Gotham burns!" (Irving “Matches” Malone)
- "The Day of Wrath is upon us!" (Irving “Matches” Malone)
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- Hypocritically, if a police officer resorts to murder in front of a Rat, the Rat in question would generally call out their actions as being hypocritical of them, as seen with Pettit’s confrontational behavior after his partner, Marks had been killed. However, in this particular instance, the rat in question was condemning Pettit for even thinking of killing the former, even pointing out that as he was a police officer, he would be punished for murder, which is considered a federal offense.