Digitally Advanced Villain Emulator
The Digitally Advanced Villain Emulator is a robotic villain that features in The Batman.
Contents |
Biography
The Digitally Advanced Villain Emulator (D.A.V.E.) was a sophisticated artificial intelligence that was created by Professor Hugo Strange. This creation was an attempt to peer in the mind of criminals and claimed to be the next generation in crime fighting technology. Professor Strange had developed the AI and programmed it with the mindset along with skills of Gotham City's numerous supervillains. The programming of the machine was so advanced that D.A.V.E. was kept unaware of the fact that he was a robotic intelligence. Hugo Strange later made a public unveiling of the AI at Arkham Asylum where it was presented to the Gotham City Police Department and Bruce Wayne where he was tested. During the test, he revealed his more malevolent personality and stated that Gotham City would never be safe so long as he had his mind. Following this point, D.A.V.E. departed the Asylum through the wired network where he manifested in a factory and saw him build a body for himself after knocking out a computer operator at the site. Unknown to anyone at the time, this escape was actually pre-programmed by Doctor Strange who later claimed that it was a glitch that cause the artificial intelligence to escape. This allowed D.A.V.E. to engage in his study of the Batman and intended to force encounters with the Dark Knight in order to study him as part of his fascination of this hero. After his escape, D.A.V.E. hijacked the television in order to broadcast his threat to the city and stated his intention to terrorize them by striking at their most secured institution. This would be the supercomputer present at Gotham Security (G.S.) that contained the city's most sensitive data including financial information. He managed to defeat the guards at the site and avoid the security systems allowing him access to the central data server thus holding the entirety of Gotham in the palm of his hand. At this point, he was confronted by the Batman where D.A.V.E. managed to anticipate the Dark Knight's every move and left him falling into the laser security grid. This forced Batman to use a pellet from his utility belt to knock out the laser grid which allowed the artificial intelligence to escape as he had planned.
Afterwards, he hijacked the airwaves once again in order to address Gotham City and stated that he intended to rob all of its major banks through the data in the central server. This allowed him to steal from Gotham Mutual, Gotham Bank, Bank of Gotham, G.C. Bank, Gotham Loan and Gotham Central where he took $99,879,378.38 from the citizens of the city, After that, he hacked the power grid of the city and shut it down in order to create mass hysteria in the population. In the complete darkness, car accidents occurred as various vehicles crashed into each other whilst D.A.V.E. left his calling card that was his name on a few electronic signs. Batman later tracked the villain down though D.A.V.E. had easily uncovered the tracking device used to accomplish this feat. This lead to another battle on the rooftops of Gotham where the artificial intelligence once again overpowered his foe and managed to easily anticipate his moves. However, the machine refused to kill the Batman even though such a feat would be something that all other criminals had failed to accomplish. This was because he deemed that such an act was mundane and not elaborate or grand enough to match his desires for the ultimate defeat. He left the Dark Knight and concluded his crime of the day with his getaway from the scene. Batman later determined the truth about Hugo Strange's creation of D.A.V.E. and that the artificial intelligence was studying him to the point that he had learnt everything he needed to know about his foe. This included the fact that Bruce Wayne was Batman whereupon D.A.V.E. arrived at Wayne Manor and confronted Alfred Pennysworth. He beat up the butler and took him hostage who he took into the Batcave in order to lay his trap for Batman. When Batman arrived, D.A.V.E. revealed the fact that he had deduced his identity and intended to complete his destruction of the Dark Knight by forcing him to destroy himself. This involved a game where he had to choose between his secret identity or Alfred. By choosing the blue button, he would save Alfred from being killed by a giant coin but at the risk of identity being broadcasted to the world by the rigged Bat-Wave and the red button would ensure his identity remained secret but at the cost of Pennysworth's life. Bruce had a limited time to do so as the timer would expire and lead to both happening.
However, Batman decided to choose neither option and attempted to knock out D.A.V.E. though he had predicted this third option already. The robot managed to overpower Batman and unmasked him where he was ready to completely defeat his foe. He commented on how he had determined that Wayne was behind the mask and that it boiled down to the origin story of a great hero which in Bruce's case was the death of his parents. Batman used this opportunity to comment on the machine's own origin story as a villain which confused D.A.V.E. as he sifted through the origins of the various supervillains in his mind. However, Bruce commented that these were the origins of other criminals and that D.A.V.E. had none as he was an artificial intelligence. This stunned the AI and he was frozen in thought for not considering this fact which allowed Batman to recover as well as Alfred to escape. Batman managed to shut down the Bat-Wave transmission and knocked down the robot who fell before the trap laid for Alfred whereupon the AI was crushed by the giant coin despite his attempt at escaping. Pennysworth commented that D.A.V.E. would make the ultimate trophy for the Batcave as the great criminal mastermind was defeated.
Overview
Personality and attributes
The artificial intelligence was a computer program that was based in a secure mechanism resembling a computer. Any computer that housed his mind manifested his three glowing eyes on the screen. However, after his escape, he managed to construct a bipedal humanoid body with the three glowing receptors to be situated on his head. In this body, he stole the coat of a lab technician because he liked it with this providing a means to mask his skeletal form.
D.A.V.E. was made up of the combined psychological profiles of the most diabolical criminals that were committed to Arkham Asylum. Among these included Mister Freeze, the Riddler, the Joker, Clayface and the Penguin. He was considered the sum total of the greatest enemies of the Batman and also included Hugo Strange within his mind which led to the AI's fascination on the Dark Knight. These traits led him to engage in textbook criminal activities such as declaring his intentions on the airwaves and showing his massive ego. His programming allowed him to determine which villain had committed a crime and state what their goal would be with stolen goods. The AI also claimed that certain crimes were respectable though stated that he was quite capable of more elaborate schemes. In fact, D.A.V.E. stated that as long as he had his mind that Gotham City would never be safe. Professor Strange referred to D.A.V.E. as Gotham's ultimate criminal mastermind that believed himself to be an actual criminal though not an ordinary one. Despite his capacity to upload himself, the Emulator was still unaware of his machine based origins and Doctor Strange attributed this fact to how criminally insane beings constructed their own version of reality. Furthermore, the AI would indulge in his pre-programmed supervillain impulses once he was freed such as engaging in a crime of such scope that the entire city would fall before him. He claimed to Gotham that they had suffered for years from the vows of criminals that failed to bring the city to its knees and thus intended to succeed where they failed.
His artificial intelligence was so advanced to the point that he did not realize that he himself was a computer program. As such, he corrected people when they called him a "what" and stated he was a "who". When asked why he indulged in crimes, the artificial intelligence stated that it was similar to why anyone else engaged in an activity. In his case, it was because he had made it his purpose to do so similar to how the Batman worked to stopped criminals. D.A.V.E. told the Batman not to underestimate him due to his appearance as his mind was most human and perhaps even superhuman. Despite that, he was perfectly capable of taunting people such as the citizens of Gotham where he said he was now rich and they were not after stealing all their money. D.A.V.E. even left his calling card after shutting down the power grid where he left his name emblazoned on various electronic signs in the dark. He claimed that his superior intellect was capable of anticipating all possible actions that included the predictable ones. The machine mind claimed that the likes of the Batman would strive to but fail in stopping D.A.V.E.'s criminal acts. He noted that most great crimes were based on a foundation of monetary gain though D.A.V.E. believed it to be a mundane act in the modern world unless everyone's money was stolen. In his goal for the ultimate crime, he believed that such acts were needed to induce mass hysteria because fear was said to be the felon's friend.
Powers and abilities
Whilst initially confined to a secure computer terminal, the computer program showed the capacity to leave this electronic prison through the wires and enter the information network. This was accomplished by uploading his mind off the server and allowed him to escape his body. Once there, he was able to move to different terminals and create electrical shocks to harm computer operators. Once at a terminal, he was able to commandeer it and use it for his own purposes such as the creation of a new humanoid body to house his mind. As such, D.A.V.E. had the skill to reprogram other computers to suit his needs. In his bipedal form, he had greater than human strength and was easily able to overpower a group of security guards such as lifting one with a hand. He was also able to force open elevator doors, cut through elevator cables with his hands and survive the fall of the elevator down the shaft with himself on top of it. Furthermore, his metallic frame allowed him to deflect weapon shots fired from side arms without suffering from any injury. The fingers on his hands were able to upload data onto a laptop through a USB port.
It claimed that the AI was designed to mimic the thought patterns of various criminals. This was with the intention that he could be used to better catch such foes and even anticipate their crimes before their commission. In reality, Professor Hugo Strange had developed D.A.V.E. with the singular task of stopping the Batman. Thus, he was able to create encounters with the Dark Knight in order to study his foe which stemmed from his own creators fixation on the Batman. The artificial intelligence claimed to be smarter and stronger than the likes of the Batman. D.A.V.E. was known to be able to calculate events and determine the chances of his success. This included stating how long a guard would remain unconscious and compare it to how long it would take for him to accomplish his objective. He was easily able to go through a million possible security codes for a coded lock and unlock it within seconds. Furthermore, he was skilled in acrobatic maneuvers that allowed him to avoid a laser security grid where timing was crucial. Similarly, he was able to anticipate and snatch Batarangs in the air before they could hit him. In addition, he managed to find the tracking device left on his body by the Batman and used it as a lure to ambush the Dark Knight. His intelligence was enough to deduce the identity of Batman by studying the 750,832 male citizens of the city where he eliminated the ones not within the relevant age group leaving 137,628. By going through medical records, he cut this number down to 22,157 body type matches with this being broken down further to 3 individuals that had the wealth to hold the resources as well as technology for such a life. From these three, he simply needed to determine motive as every great hero needed an origin.
Despite his creation at the hands of Huge Strange, the professor claimed that he had no control over the artificial intelligence. Though it was claimed he had no weakness, his machine origins were his weakness as his mind could not cope with the idea that he was a computer program.
Appearances
- The Batman: "Gotham's Ultimate Criminal Mastermind"
External Link
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