At least 50 people in Gotham joined a class action lawsuit against Gossip Gerty for defamation of character. Of those people include Jim Gordon, Mayor Hill, Warden Sharp, the last two wardens of Blackgate, Bruce Wayne, Vicki Vale, and somehow Riddler.
Riddler didn't get a settlement though. His claim was based on a passing joke she made about him, saying "if i knew next to nothing, I'd wear a question mark logo too".
Summary: To say the Clock King was pleased to see Hamilton Hill lose his bid for re-election would be an understatement - but suddenly nothing in Gotham is on time anymore, and he has to choose the lesser evil.
Characters: Temple Fugate, Hamilton Hill
Rating: K
A/N: Happy birthday, @vampirenaomi! If you wondered about my radio silence these days, this was why. I was hoping to get the entire thing done by today, but I couldn’t make it. Will do my best to get the second and final part done by Christmas!
(Also, little heads-up for everyone: the plot bunny for this thing actually hit me a long time ago and I promise the election fraud plotline in it has nothing to do with the insanity currently going on in the States.)
***
“Freeze!”
The order comes a quarter of a second after the first cop reaches the roof, predictable as the stroke of midday that will follow in precisely twenty-five seconds. The Clock King estimates it will take him exactly another fifteen seconds to reach the ledge, at which point he will have ten more to turn and throw in a mocking comment before his ride arrives.
Excellent. His plan has been running as smoothly as sand in an hourglass.
“I said freeze!”
Temple Fugate entirely ignores the order and keeps walking to the ledge, pocketing his watch and twirling his cane in his free hand. It is an unspoken rule in Gotham, it seems, to do anything but freeze whenever you’re told to. It only occasionally works - not in a pattern he’s been able to reliably discern, to his annoyance - when it’s Batman to give the order. Or, well, Mr. Freeze, for reasons that should be quite obvious.
An interesting fellow, that one. Intellectually gifted - he wouldn’t mind conversing with, provided that he leaves his freezing gun at the door. Fugate generally pays little mind to his colleagues, even less after having to endure the indignity of being referred to as the White Rabbit by Mr. Tetch - a comparison that he found nothing short of insulting, because he is never late. Not anymore.
Not since the one time he was late and lost everything. But he’s getting it back, one timepiece at a time. The one he just took back from the museum is a priceless one, which he acquired by sheer luck only months before he was forced to sell every single piece he ever collected to pay--
“Stay where you are!”
The Clock King reaches the ledge, turns, and gives the three cops walking towards him with their guns drawn a tip of his hat. He might have thrown an explosive watch or two at them, of course he came prepared, but they are still far away enough he knows he needs not bother. Even if they decided to sprint now, they would never get to him on time.
“Apologies, gentlemen, but I must decline your invite to stay. I have a lot of lost time to make up for,” he declares, and lets himself fall back exactly at the strike of midday. He straightens himself in mid-air, knees bent to prepare for landing on the roof of the eleven-fifty-eight train downtown going through the elevated tracks right no--
Except that there is no train beneath him. Fugate falls past the exact point where a train should be and is thrown entirely off balance. By the time he does connect with something, it’s with his left shoulder first.
“Aagh!”
He cries out, more in outrage than actual pain - though there is pain, train tracks are extremely unpleasant to pull upon from a height - and sits up, dazed, trying to make sense of that nonsense. He looks around, ascertain that there is, indeed, no train in sight. What… what just happened? The eleven-fifty-eight train is always, always precisely two minutes late.
Where is it now? It can’t have been on time, he would have heard it rushing past. Is it even more late than usual? Has it broken down? Has the schedule changed? This is an outrage - is nothing in this world reliable anymore?
“Hey! Are you all right, uh… sir?”
Fugate looks up, and sees the three cops looking down at him from the roof of the museum. “It’s Clock King to you,” he snaps, though without much venom. That is… a rather civil enquiry, and he sees no reason not to be equally civil. “I have had softer landings, but I’ll live,” he mutters, standing up and rubbing his battered shoulder. The one talking, the big one, looks relieved.
“Good! Listen, uh, Mr…”
“Clock King! It’s not that complicated!”
“Right, right. Mr. Clock King, don’t go anywhere - we’ll get you help.”
Of course, on account of not having been born yesterday - his birth took place fifty-seven years, ninety-two days and approximately seven hours ago - Fugate has no intention to wait there until they get help. “Ah, I believe I have to decline your offer, unfortunately, and be on my wa--”
“No, look - things are never so bad. Don’t do this. You’re in a dark place, but it won’t last.”
He pauses, taken aback. Their tactics to get fugitives to surrender certainly seemed to have changed since last time. “... Come again?”
“Get off the tracks, there is no reason to do anything drastic. I am sure we can help - professionals can help.”
The cop standing right next to him - the third is surely coming down the building heading his way - nods in agreement. “It’s going to get better, okay? It will be all right.”
… Wait. Wait a moment.
Fugate sputters a moment, face ablaze as incredulity and outrage threaten to choke him. “Is this-- are you-- is this some kind of suicide prevention talk?” he yells, pointing up accusingly with his cane. “What in the world makes you think it is the appropriate response now?”
The two of them blink a moment, then exchange a glance before looking back down at him. “... You just jumped off a roof on the train tracks.”
“I am aware! But the eleven fifty-eight train is always exactly two minutes late! Is should have been--”
His words are covered by a warning cry from one of the cops first, then vibrations on the tracks, and finally by a dreadful, loud horn.
Ah. There it is.
Right after turning to see the eleven fifty-eight train rushing towards him, Temple Fugate has enough time to make two calculations: the first is that it’s five minutes late, which is entirely unacceptable. The second is that he has approximately nine seconds to get off the tracks before he’s turned into something resembling strawberry jam, which is highly concerning.
He doesn’t quite manage to estimate precisely by how many seconds he manages to avoid that fate, but later on he decides that is probably for the best.
***
Hamilton Hill, former Mayor of Gotham City, is rather enjoying his retirement.
Well. Perhaps losing re-election for Mayor and spending most of his time in his mansion to lick his wounds is not precisely what most people would consider a vacation, but saying he is ‘taking some time to spend with his family’ got most attention off his back for now.
There is the fact he’s been divorced fifteen years and Jordan is off to college, so the house is empty aside for himself and some domestic staff, but that isn’t something the general public needs to know. He needs some time, is all, to recover from a loss that was unexpected as it was painful, and then to figure out where he’s going from here.
Back to practicing law, probably. He enjoyed that. Maybe returning to the courtroom having to worry only about the fate of the person he represente and not the entire city will do him good. Gotham is far from an easy city to serve as Mayor, so much so that some of his closest friends delicately suggested he belonged in Arkham for just wanting the job. And maybe they were not too far off, Hill muses. Maybe losing the election was a blessing in disguise.
… Maybe he needs another glass of port.
He is pouring himself said glass when the glass door leading to the balcony opens, letting in a gust of cold wind. That could mean a number of things in Gotham: that the latch of the window was not closed properly, that a criminal is breaking in, that Batman is breaking in.
All three things have happened remarkably often in the past decade or so, and Hill simply got used to visits from a masked vigilante, or the occasional kidnapping scheme that would later be foiled by said masked vigilante, so he’s not overly worried. But perhaps, as he no longer is the Mayor, this is simply a matter of closing the glass door properly and--
“Hill,” a voice proclaims.
Well. It was not the latch.
Hamilton Hill makes the decision to gulp down half the glass before he turns. “Mr. Fugate,” he greets politely, before his eyes even rest on the figure standing rigidly on the balcony. He recognized his voice quite well, of course. When someone tries to squish you between the hands of a giant clock, you do tend to remember what they sound like. “What do I owe the pleasure?”
Temple Fugate lets out a noise of mild disgust. “I highly doubt you’re any more pleased to see me than I am to see you,” he informs him, stepping inside. “But as the situation in Gotham City is most dire--”
Hill downs the rest of the glass. Fugate trails off, then reaches into his pocket to pull out - of course - a watch. He stares at it for a moment before he looks back up at Hill, at the glass in his hand, at the liquor cabinet he’s standing at. “It’s eleven thirty-two in the morning,” he finally informs him.
“So it is.”
“Not even noon yet.”
“And…?”
“Don’t and me, Hill! Isn’t it-- far too early to be drinking whatever it is you’re drinking?”
Ah, Gotham truly was like no other city, was it? The only place where a man who kidnapped and tried to kill you can later show up to lecture over socially acceptable times for alcohol consumption, without any self-awareness whatsoever. Hill supposes Fugate truly is a man born in the wrong time: he would have been right at home during prohibition. He considers voicing that thought, but in the end he shrugs.
“I’m only having a glass. I’m not drinking myself into a stupor.”
“Your demeanour suggests otherwise.” Fugate frowns, or at least it looks like he’s frowning. It’s hard to tell, with those glasses, but he seems mildly offended. “A reasonable reaction upon seeing me would be fear,” he adds, pointing towards him with that curious cane of his, part sword and part clock hand. “Possibly a scream, if not too drawn out or grating, followed by an attempt at running for your life.”
Ah, here comes the lecture in proper hostage etiquette. “Let me reassure you, it is not down to alcohol,” Hill informs him, putting down the empty glass. Honest to God, he would be more worried if he found himself facing a run-of-the-mill goon with a gun; people like that are more likely to simply shoot you dead. But those like the Clock King, or the Joker or whoever was out in the streets that week? They would come up with an elaborate scheme that gave Batman plenty of time to intervene.
Maybe the best course of action would be to stall for more time, until Batman does intervene.
“Don’t take it personally, Fugate, but I have been Mayor of Gotham for too long not to get used to some things,” Hill adds. “No Tuesday is complete without at least an attempt at kidnapping me.”
The frown turns into something closer to disgust. “It’s Monday, Hill. have you truly lost all sense of time?”
“Happens when you’re on holiday, I suppose. I am no longer Mayor of Gotham City.”
“I am aware. About that--”
“I am a private citizen with a lot of time on my hands.”
“Not for long!” Fugate snaps, stepping forward with the cane pointed at Hill’s chest. Ah, yes, there come the death threats and-- “You must return into office!”
… Wait. What? Hill blinks, and moves the cane aside with one arm to look at the Clock King’s face more closely. “... Come again?”
“Are you deaf? I am here to make sure you take back your office.”
Who are you, Hill thinks, and what have you done to Fugate?
“Are you well?” he finds himself asking instead, and Fugate groans, throwing up his arms. The cane very nearly knocks a very expensive lamp right off the nearest table.
“Of course I’m not! Two months with a new Mayor, and this entire city is in shambles, Hill!”
That’s not exactly what Hill expected to hear. He has been told that his replacement made a few… questionable choices, appointing questionable people in delicate roles, and there have been some complaints - but no account he’s heard so far made the situation sound quite that dire. Not that he doesn’t get some vindication over being told that the man who ousted him is making a dreadful mess of things.
“Is it now?”
“Of course it is!” Temple Fugate paces back and forth, features twisted in what’s nothing short of anguish. “Nothing - and I do mean, nothing - is on time anymore! The trains, the buses, everything is all over the place!”
“Yes, I did hear that the public transport office had an overhaul--”
“Not that your administration was ever able to make things run on time,” Fugate cuts him off, clearly not inclined to hear a single word from him at the moment. “But most things were reliably late. There was a schedule, there was a pattern! Now there’s nothing but chaos! How am I meant to carry on in such a world?”
Hill opens his mouth to suggest he loosens up, remembers what happened last time he advised him as much, and chooses not to. “Surely, it is not quite that bad--”
“Yesterday there was the inauguration of a new mall. It was meant to be at midday - the ribbon was cut almost sixteen minutes late, Hill! What sort of administration is sixteen minutes late?”
"Yes, that is, er. Absolutely unacceptable,” Hill says. He knows better than dismissing it as something minor, considering that it’s distressing Fugate enough to make him turn to the man he probably despises the most in the entire world. “However, there isn’t much I can do--”
“Once you’re the Mayor again, you can put things in order,” Template declares, pointing at his chest with his cane again. “And everything will be just as it was before. Until I exact my revenge on you, that is. Which will be--” he pauses, and a look of discomfort crosses his features at the realization he doesn’t have a set time for that. “... Soon,” he finishes, not very threateningly.
Hill frowns, pushing the razor-sharp tip of the cane away from his rather expensive shirt and, rather more importantly, the general vicinity of vital organs. “Fugate, as much as I’d like to help you - possibly with better results than last time I attempted to - there is nothing I can do. I lost my bid for re-election. I cannot just waltz in my old office and declare--”
“You can,” Fugate cuts him off once more.
“Yes, I suppose I could, only to be arrested before--”
“This election was rigged.”
Hill trails off, his brain grinding to a halt. “... Come again?” he hears himself muttering, searching Fugate’s face for any sign that he may be joking despite his strong suspicion that Fugate is simply incapable of uttering a joke. All he gets is an annoyed hum.
“Get your hearing checked,” the Clock King mutters irritably. “Surely you must have suspected it.”
He didn’t, not really. The race was rather close from the start, his opponent a new face who made plenty of promises Hill already knew he would be unable to keep but which, apparently, many couldn’t resist; alluring lies often hold more sway than less glamorous truths. He’d thought he would win, sure enough, but that it would be narrow. So his defeat by a rather small margin had been… a surprise, sure enough, but not something he’d thought beyond the realms of possibility.
“I… not really.”
“Hmph.” Fugate scoffs, and sits on the nearest armchair. He may very well be sitting on a stool, because he doesn’t lean back: he remains upright, back rigid, both hands on the handle of his cane. “Unexpectedly gullible for someone sly enough to engineer my demise.”
Oh, for God’s sake. “I engineered nothing. I only suggested you took your coffee break fifteen minutes later than usual because you were so tense--”
“The plaintiffs were represented by your law firm! Am I supposed that your advice making me late for the court date was a coincidence, Hill?”
“Yes, because it was! I had nothing to do with that case, I knew nothing about it - it was only some advice in a conversation you started in the first place.”
The last statement seems to hit a nerve, and there is something on Fugate’s face, a twitch that passes immediately but doesn’t go unnoticed. After all, Hamilton Hill built his career on being able to take note of every telling twitch and expression shown by witnesses and defendants. “... You have thought of that, haven’t you? That it was yourself to start talking that morning, not myself. There was no plan nor conspiracy. You were not targeted. It was a terrible coincidence-”
Fugate’s hands clench on the handle of his cane, so tight the knuckles go white. His jaw clenches before he speaks, words cold and clipped. “I don’t believe in coincidences.”
“It all happened by chance. Out of your control. Accidents happen whether or not we believe--”
“Silence!” Fugate snaps, tapping his cane on the hardwood floor and likely leaving a hole in it. “I will get you back for it, mark my words, but this is not the reason why I’m here. And you have already wasted--” a pause to check his pocket watch. “Fifteen minutes of my time. Now, do you want to hear what I know, or not?”
Hill sighs, and sits on the armchair across him. “How do you know the election was rigged?”
“I crunched the numbers. Something is not adding up.”
“My entire campaign team crunched the numbers--”
“People who were not me,” Fugate cuts him off, a sharp edge to his voice. “And who forgot to keep an eye on the time.”
Ah, of course. Of course it was going to boil down to time.
Hamilton Hill can feel the beginning of a violent headache starting to build up behind his eyes. “All right, I’ll hear you out.”
“You’d better.”
The headache immediately spikes a notch. Hill glances back at the liquor cabinet, thinking he could use another glass of port. “Can I offer--”
“I do not drink. Certainly not before noon.” Fugate’s voice sure is full of judgment for someone who goes around with glasses looking like the face of a clock, stealing timepieces from auction houses and museums and throwing around explosive pocket watches.
“... Right. Coffee?”
“I have my coffee at three in the afternoon. On the dot,” is the stiff reply. “As you very well know.”
Hill almost considers asking why not three-fifteen, then his gaze falls on the razor-sharp tip of the Clock King’s cane and he decides against it.
“... Very well,” he finally says, leaning back on his armchair. “Tell me what you’ve found.”
***
The key, as it’s the case with most things in life, was in the timing.
It was something easily overlooked by most people who poured over the election result, exit polls and whatnot, but Fugate found the answer by painstakingly looking through the transcript of all votes registered by the brand new voting machines, which allowed one to give their vote at the press of a button. There were no names, nor details to match individual voters to any vote, but he found something better.
On each of them, he found timestamps.
One of the tenets of Temple Fugate’s existence is that everything has a chronological order. Everything has a discernible pattern. And where order and pattern are disrupted, it can only mean one thing: human intervention. Bumbling, chaotic, life-ruining human intervention, like sand in the cogs or a too-jovial councillor suggesting a break fifteen minutes later. Fugate has seen human intervention at work more times than he’d have liked.
But until he began looking into this, he had never seen anything quite like it.
“So something is wrong with the… timestamps?”
Unsurprisingly, former Mayor Hamilton Hill is having trouble keeping up with his explanation. “Yes. In the districts of Gotham where you were expected to perform better, the pattern was disrupted.” Fugate pulls out his notes from the breast pocket of his jacket and hands them to Hill, who opens the folded pieces of paper to take a long look. “Your team poured over nonsense like age, or gender, or race and class--”
“It isn’t nonsense, it helps predict--”
“But none of them,” Fugate speaks a little louder, cutting off whatever nonsense he was about to spew, “looked at the time in which each vote was cast. One after another, polling stations in each of those districts had precisely a two-hour window during which not one vote was cast in your favor.”
Hill blinks down at his notes, adjusting his glasses as though to see better. “What? Not one?”
“Not a single one, you can check the timestamps yourself. Just read - the pattern is clear.”
He sees it, Fugate can tell from the way his eyes widen. He may be dense, but not so dense that he couldn’t see the pattern now that it had been pointed out to him. He stands and begins pacing back and forth, eyes glued to Fugate’s notes.
“I think, these polling places-- I would need to look at a map to be certain, but--”
Well, he has picked that up on his own. If not stubbornly determined not to be impressed by anything this man does or say ever, Fugate could say he is impressed.
“No need. I already did, and saw what you are seeing now. This happened in polling stations close to each other. There was the first one downtown, then another a short distance away, then another a short distance away from that one… and so forth. It, whatever it was, moved across the city with brief pauses consistent with the time it would take to drive from one polling station to the next. This kept up for the entire two days the polls were open,” Fugate adds with no small amount of disapproval.
He sees no reason why the citizens of Gotham would need more than one day to pick their Mayor, but apparently the change was brought forward upon suggestion of Bruce Wayne, along with the decision to hold the vote over a weekend. Something about allowing more time to vote to people working long hours. How typical, catering to people who cannot be on time by giving them more time.
Unaware of his musings, Hill is still staring at the notes, then at him, then back at the notes. “I… how can it be?”
“Is it possible someone was able to sabotage the voting machines?”
Hill frowns, ceasing his pacing, and finally shakes his head. “I don’t believe so. Those machines were inspected before and after, and are not connected to any other device. They store all votes within their own memory and at the end of the day, the data is saved on an external device. There are witnesses for all candidates each time, to ensure everything is transparent.”
“Yes, that is what I suspected.” Fugate frowns, rubbing his chin. “I have looked for a link between your Mayor Sanderson and the company that manufactured the machines, but found none. Well then. This only leaves one option.”
Hill blinks, trying to think what he may mean and drawing a blank. “What option?”
“If the devices and therefore the votes were not manipulated, then the voters were. At least to a more extreme degree than they usually are during your campaigns.”
Hill gives him a look that somehow manages to be insulted, stunned, and confused at the same time. “I beg your pardon?”
“You may not have my pardon, Hill, but I will repeat myself,” is the dry reply. “You must agree this very clear pattern must have been the result of an external intervention. If the machines could not be compromised, then the people in the voting booths were.”
Hill stares. Opens his mouth. Closes his mouth. Stares some more.
“... Not that I don’t appreciate you keeping silent for once, but as I cannot read your mind--”
“Is this-- what are you exactly suggesting, Fugate? Some sort of mass bribery?”
“Of course not, don’t be ridiculous. Word could have got out immediately if such an attempt had taken place. I said the voters were manipulated, not bribed - were you not listening?”
A scoff. “Manipulated with what? Hypnosis?”
“You say that like no such thing occurred in Gotham before.”
For the second time in less than a minute - Fugate probably knows exactly how many seconds - Hill finds himself opening his mouth to speak and then closing it without uttering a single word. He is right, something remarkably similar did happen from time to time in Gotham, usually the work of… of…
“Now, I cannot imagine Mr. Tetch has any stake in this, but the man is not above selling his machinery for money. It is a possibility worth exploring, don’t you think?” Fugate says.
Tetch isn’t above giving people wildly unfitting and unrequired nicknames either - White Rabbit, the notorious latecomer, what an insult that has been - but that is beside the point at the moment, and Fugate doesn’t bring up that particular grievance.
“I… yes, I suppose it is,” Hill is muttering, looking at his notes over and over as though he thinks anything has changed while he wasn’t looking. “I should call the police, perhaps Commissioner Gordon--”
“Forget the police, they’re busy giving misguided anti-suicide speeches these days. Perhaps once you’re the Mayor again, you can see they are hired in Arkham.” Fugate stands, adjusting his tie. “I know exactly where to go to gain some intel.”
“... Right. I’ll get my coat.”
Fugate blinks. “... I beg your pardon?”
“It’s cold outside. I am not sure how you manage to stroll around with only a suit on, but--”
“Whatever gave you the idea that you are coming?”
“Why else would you show you up here to tell me all this?”
“To let you know what an imbecile you are for letting someone steal an election from you. Put that coat down-- Hill!” Fugate barks, but it’s too late: the coat is on and Hill is buttoning it up, looking back at him. Good God, he misses the days Hamilton Hill feared him.
“I am not about to leave you a choice, Fugate,” he says, much too flippantly for the Clock King’s taste. “This is personal. I am certain you of all people understand.”
“That’s not-- well--” Fugate is taken aback, fumbles for words. It is only a couple of instant, but it is enough for Hill to get coy.
“Good to see we reached an understanding. Are we going, or are you inclined to waste more time, mmh?”
The remark makes Fugate want to smack him with his cane, or better yet skewer him with it, but that would be rather counterproductive as a dead man cannot be elected Mayor and he needs Hill alive for… a little while longer. Just enough to fix the utter mess his successor has made of things. A sixteen minute delay on an inauguration, for God’s sake. How is anyone meant to live in such chaos?
The thought of ending that particular brand of chaos is what eventually stills Fugate’s hand. He takes in a deep breath, relaxing his grip on the cane. “... Very well. But you will do exactly as I say. No speaking, no initiatives. And if you’re going to take any advice from me, put your hat on and lose the glasses,” he adds, turning back towards the window. “The place we’re heading to is both rather cold and not someplace you’d want to be recognized if you wish to avoid a potential scandal.”
“Fugate?” Hill calls out, causing him to stop walking and look at him over his shoulder. Chickening out already, is he? He almost smirks, waiting to hear excuses as to why he has just realized he really cannot come with hi--
“You do realize we can get out through the door, right?” Hill says instead, pointing at the door behind himself with his thumb. Something about his raised eyebrow makes Fugate scowl.
“Well, it is not often I get the luxury to go through main doors, since you made me a wanted fugitive,” he mutters, crossing his arms.
“I thought I made you late.”
“It is the same thing!” the Clock King snaps, and stomps out of the room, using the window out of sheer spite.
what happened!I’ll tell you what happened with pictures
So I was sitting there, impersonating the mayor. You know it.
Then The Bat knocks on the door and is yelling and is like “>:(((((( DeNNIS! I know you are in there!”
and he kicks open the door
and he’s telling me if I only did a satirical impression of Hill, I’d be okay. Something along those lines.
I had a thought in the back of my mind about how cats do the thing with their eyes and how Selina also does that. And I started think “does Batman do that?” and I was gonna ask him if he does the eye thing
“-What’s going to happen is absolutely NOTHING. You know it. I know it. We both know it. I just love power, to be honest. So that was my essay on why I“
“Mayor Hill am the best candidate for this city. Nay! The world! Cough cough sarcasm yadda yadda. Make sure to go to the polls so you don’t miss out on that hot and steamy political action!“
“This is your mayor who definitely has not locked the crew out of the studio, signing-“
KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK
“oh. just a moment.“
click!
Dennis! Dennis! I didn’t want to have to arrest you!
Batman: The Animated Series - Paper Cut-Out Portraits and Profiles
Mayor Hill
Hamilton Hill was a successful lawyer in private practice before running for public office. He initially won a position of Councilman and gradually matriculated through the ranks and was eventually elected Mayor of Gotham City.
One of his first acts as mayor was promoting the construction of Stonegate Penitentiary under D.A. Harvey Dent's request, with help of Bruce Wayne and the Wayne Foundation. Early in his tenure as mayor, Hill was highly critical of The Batman, going so far as to assembling a task force to take down the Dark Knight led by Detective Harvey Bullock. Although Hill’s attitudes toward the hero mellowed after his son Jonah was rescued by Batman.
During his time on the city council, Hill was associated with Temple Fugate, who ran an efficiency consultancy that contracted with the city. Hill recommended that Fugate learn to relax and not adhere to such a staunch personal schedule. Fuguate would go on to blame Hill’s advice for his being late to a ruling that resulted in the bankrupting of his company. Years later, when Hill was running for his second term as mayor, Fugate resurfaced as the villain known as The Clock King. Herein, Fugate attempted to humiliate and murder Hill. Fortunately the mayor was saved by Batman.
Hill was one of the city luminaries abducted and replaced by a robotic duplicate by HARDAC. He was also kidnapped by the villainous Lockup who felt Hill was too lenient on crime. Some time thereafter, Hill was held captive by The Joker who threatened to blow up the city with a nuclear bomb. On all of these occasions, Hill was saved by Batman.
Actor Lloyd Bochner provided the voice for Mayor Hill with the character first appearing in the second episode of the first season of Batman: The Animated Series, ‘On Leather Wings.’
