title: Anarky

text: Grant laconically described Lonnie Machin as "a serious-beyond-his-years teenager who wants to set the world to rights". As the character was based on a theme of ideas, he had initially been given no personal, tragic past, a common motivator in superhero fiction. This was intended to contrast with Batman, who fought crime due to personal tragedy, while Anarky would do so in the name of ideals and beliefs. As the character was further developed, he was also intended to contrast with common teenage superheroes. Referring to the tradition established by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby of saddling teenagers with personal problems, Grant purposely gave Anarky none, nor did he develop a girlfriend or social life for the character. As Grant wrote for the "Batman: Anarky" introduction, this was intended to convey the idea that Anarky was single-minded in his goals. In one of the earliest explorations of Lonnie Machin's back story in "The Anarky Ultimatum", Grant described Lonnie as a voracious reader, but also of being isolated from peers his own age during his childhood. This was elaborated upon years later in the "Anarky" storyline, which described Lonnie as having lost a childhood friend living in an impoverished nation, the latter suffering the loss of his family due to civil war and strife before disappearing entirely. The resulting shock of discovering at such a young age that the world was in turmoil precipitated Lonnie Machin's rapid maturation and eventual radicalization.


title: Anarky

text: Anarky's introduction during the late 1980s was part of a larger shift among supervillains in the "Batman" franchise of the time. While many naive and goofy villains of previous eras were abandoned, and more iconic villains made more violent to cater to tastes of a maturing readership, some were introduced to challenge readers to "question the whole bad/good guy divide". Falling into "the stereotype anarchist bomb-toting image", Anarky's design was countered by his principled stances to create an odd contrast. In a review of the "Anarky" miniseries, Anarky was dubbed an "anti-villain", as opposed to "antihero", due to his highly principled philosophy, which runs counter to most villains: "In the age of the anti-hero, it only makes sense to have the occasional anti-villain as well. But unlike sociopathic vigilante anti-heroes like the Punisher, an anti-villain like Anarky provides some interesting food for thought. Sure, he breaks the law, but what he really wants is to save the world ... and maybe he's "right"".


title: Anarky

text: Breyfogle's characterization of Anarky has shifted on occasion, with him at times referring to Anarky as a villain, and at other times as a hero. In his 1998 introductory essay composed for "", Breyfogle characterized Anarky as not being a villain, but rather a "misunderstood hero", and continued that "he's a "philosophical" action hero, an Aristotle in tights, rising above mere 'crime-fighter' status into the realm of incisive social commentary". A year later, Breyfogle conceded that Anarky was "technically" a villain, but insisted "I don't consider him a villain ..." Breyfogle later reconsidered the character in more ambiguous terms for a 2005 interview: "Anarky isn't a villain, he's his own character. He's definitely not a superhero, although it depends on who you talk to".


title: Anarky

text: Grant has been more direct in his description of Anarky's virtuous attributes: "In my eyes, Anarky's a hero. Anarky's the hero I want to be if I was smart enough and physically fit enough". Acknowledging that Anarky's moral perspective was guided by his own, Grant expressed that the conflict between Anarky and other heroes is a result of their political divisions: "In my eyes, he's a hero, but to others, they see him as a villain. That is because most people might gripe about the political situation, or various aspects of the political situation, and wouldn't advocate the total overthrow of the system under which we live. Anarky certainly does that, and more".


title: Anarky

text: In creating stories involving Anarky, other writers have played off this anti-heroic and anti-villainous tension. James Peaty made the heroic and political comparisons between Lonnie Machin and Oliver Queen the central theme of his 2005 "Green Arrow" story, "Anarky in the USA": "Anarky comes to find Ollie because of his reputation and is quite disappointed in Ollie's reaction towards him. However, as the story unfolds, Ollie has to re-assess his initial reaction to Anarky and his own much vaunted 'radical' credentials".


title: Anarky

text: On two occasions Grant nearly went against Dennis O'Neil's early wish that Anarky not kill opponents. These events include his appearance during the "" saga, in which Grant briefly portrayed Anarky as preparing to kill both the Scarecrow and Batman-Azrael. Grant also implied Anarky was a lethal figure in "The Last Batman Story", part of "Armageddon 2001" crossover event. In the story, a time traveler shows Batman a possible future in the (relatively) not-too-distant year of 2001. An aged Batman is framed and sentenced to death for murder, but Anarky, now an adult, sympathizes with the fallen hero and breaks into the prison in an attempt to rescue Batman. The latter resists his help, on the basis that Anarky has killed others in the past, and the two never reconciled their differences.


title: Anarky

text: Grant later expressed relief that he had not fully committed to portraying Anarky as a potential murderer, as he felt "Anarky would have compromised his own beliefs if he had taken the route of the criminal-killer". Anarky was given a non-lethal approach in "The Batman Adventures" #31, "Anarky", written by Alan Grant, who acted as a guest author for the issue. Anarky takes business elites hostage and places them on public trial, broadcast from a pirate television show. He charges these men with such crimes as the creation of land mines that kill or cripple thousands, funding Third World dictators, polluting the air with toxic chemicals, and profiting from wage slavery, and threatens each man with a bomb if the public should find them guilty. When the explosions take place, it is revealed that the bombs are fake, and the public trials were only intended to expose the men and raise public awareness. One bomb explosion carried a specific message. It unfurled a banner that denounced lethal weapons.


title: Anarky

text: Contradicting Anarky's non-lethal portrayal, entries for the character in "Who's Who in the DC Universe", "The DC Comics Encyclopedia", and "The Supervillain Book", have falsely referred to Anarky as having killed criminals in early appearances. Norm Breyfogle was also under the false impression that Anarky had killed for several years, having failed to realize the original script for Anarky's debut storyline had been rewritten. Grant eventually explained the situation to Breyfogle in 2006, during a joint interview. Despite this regular equivocation of Anarky with murder and villainy in DC Comics character guides, the company made efforts to describe the character in heroic terms in promoting the 1999 "Anarky" series. During this time, DC Comics described Anarky as an "anti-establishment loose cannon trying to do good as a hero to the disenfranchised".


title: Anarky

text: In the initial years following Anarky's creation, Grant rarely incorporated the character into Batman stories, being reserved for stories in which the author wished to make a philosophical point. Originally, Grant created Anarky as an anarchist with socialist and populist leanings. In this early incarnation, Anarky was designed as an avatar for Grant's personal meditations on political philosophy, and specifically for his burgeoning sympathy for anarchism.


title: Anarky

text: Within the books, the nature of the character's political opinions were often expressed through the character's rhetoric, and by heavy use of the circle-A as a character gimmick. The character's tools often incorporate the circle-A motif into them. In his earliest incarnation, he would also use red spray-paint to leave the circle-A as a calling card at crime scenes. The circle-A has also been used to decorate the character's base of operations, either as graffiti or suspended from wall tapestries.


title: Anarky

text: In some instances, Anarky's political behavior would stand as the only political element of the story, while in other instances, entire stories would be framed to create a political parable. In "Batman: Shadow of the Bat" Annual #2, an "Elseworlds" story entitled "The Tyrant", Grant made dictatorship and the corrupting influence of power the primary theme. Batman (under the influence of Jonathan Crane) uses his resources to usurp power in the city of Gotham and institute a police state in which he exercises hegemonic control over the city's population. Anarky becomes a resistance leader, undermining the centers of Batman's power and ultimately overthrowing Bruce Wayne's tyranny. The story ends with a quote by Mikhail Bakunin: "(For reasons of the state) black becomes white and white becomes black, the horrible becomes humane and the most dastardly felonies and atrocious crimes become meritorious acts". During the early years of the character's development, virtually no writers other than Grant used Anarky in DC publications. In the singular portrayal by an author other than Grant during this period, writer Kevin Dooley used Anarky in an issue of "Green Arrow", producing an explicitly anti-firearm themed story. Throughout the narrative, dialogue between Anarky and Green Arrow conveys the need for direct action, as Anarky attempts to persuade Oliver Queen to sympathize with militant, economic sabotage in pursuit of social justice.


title: Anarky

text: Literary cues illustrated into scenes were occasionally used whenever Anarky was a featured character in a comic. During the Anarky limited series, fluttering newspapers were used to bear headlines alluding to social problems. Occasionally, the titles of books found in Anarky's room would express the character's philosophical, political, or generally esoteric agenda. In both "Detective Comics" #620 and "" #40, a copy of "V for Vendetta" can be seen on Lonnie Machin's bookshelf as homage. Other books in his room at different times have included "Apostles of Revolution" by Max Nomad, "The Anarchists" by James Joll, books labeled ""Proudhon"" and ""Bakunin"", and an issue of "Black Flag". Non-anarchist material included books labeled ""Plato"", ""Aristotle"", and ""Swedenborg"", and a copy of "Synergetics", by Buckminster Fuller. The character also made references to "Universe" by Scudder Klyce, an extremely rare book. When asked if he was concerned readers would be unable to follow some of the more obscure literary references, Grant explained that he hadn't expected many to do so, but reported encountering some who had, and that one particular reader of the 1999 "Anarky" series had carried out an ongoing correspondence with him on the topic as of 2005.


title: Anarky

text: Over the course of several years, Grant's political opinions shifted from social anarchism to libertarian socialism and then to precepts associated with Objectivism. Grant later speculated that this transformation would be detectable within stories he'd written. By 1997, Grant's philosophy settled on Neo-Tech, which was developed by Frank R. Wallace, and when given the opportunity to write an "Anarky" miniseries, he decided to redesign the character accordingly. Grant laid out his reasoning in an interview just before the first issue's publication: "I felt he was the perfect character" to express Neo-Tech philosophy, because he's human, he has no special powers, the only power he's got is the power of his own rational consciousness". This new characterization was continued in the 1999 "Anarky" ongoing series.


title: Anarky

text: The limited and ongoing series were both heavily influenced by Neo-Tech, despite the term never appearing in a single issue. New emphasis was placed on previously unexplored themes, such as the depiction of Anarky as an atheist and a rationalist. Grant also expressed a desire to use the comic as a vehicle for his thoughts concerning the mind and consciousness, and made bicameral mentality a major theme of both series. While this trend led the character away from the philosophies he had espoused previously, the primary theme of the character remained anti-statism. In one issue of the 1999 series, a character asked what the nature of Anarky's politics were. The response was that Anarky was neither right-wing, nor left-wing, and that he "transcends the political divide". Grant has specified that he categorized Anarky politically as an anarchist who "tried to put anarchist values into action". Norm Breyfogle also stated in 1999 that the character represented anarchist philosophy, but said in 2003 that he believed the Neo-Tech influence allowed Anarky to be classified as an Objectivist.


title: Anarky

text: Grant developed Anarky as a gadgeteer—a character who relies on inventions and gadgets to compensate for a lack of superpowers—and as a child prodigy. In early incarnations he was portrayed as highly intelligent, but inexperienced. Lacking in many skills, he survived largely by his ingenuity. In accordance with this, he would occasionally quote the maxim, "the essence of anarchy is surprise". By 1991 a profile of the character, following the introduction of Anarky's skills as a hacker in the "Rite of Passage" storyline of "Detective Comics" #620, described that "Lonnie's inventive genius is equaled only by his computer wizardry".


title: Anarky

text: Anarky's abilities were increased during the character's two eponymous series, being portrayed as having enormous talents in both engineering and computer technology, as well as prodigiously developing skills in martial arts. This was indicated in several comics published just before the "Anarky" miniseries, and later elaborated upon within the series itself.


title: Anarky

text: Described as physically frail in comparison to the adults he opposes, the character often utilizes cunning, improvisation, and intelligence as tools for victory. During the "" saga, the character states: "The essence of anarchy is "surprise" – spontaneous action ... even when it does require a little "planning"!"


title: Anarky

text: Early descriptions of the character's gadgets focused on low-tech, improvised tools and munitions, such as flare guns, swing lines, throwing stars, small spherical shelled explosives with burning fuses (mimicking round mortar bombs stereotypically associated with 19th-century anarchists), gas-bombs, smoke bombs, and his primary weapon, a powerful electric stun baton shaped as a golden cane.


title: Anarky

text: As a wanted criminal, Anarky's methods and goals were described as leaving him with little logistical support amongst the heroic community, or the public at large, relegating him to underground operation. When in need of assistance, he would call on the help of the homeless community in Gotham who had supported him since his first appearance.


title: Anarky

text: Anarky was described as having developed skills as a computer hacker to steal enormous sums of money from various corporations in his second appearance, part of the "Rite of Passage" storyline in "Detective Comics" #620. This addition to the character's skill set made him the second major hacker in the DC Universe, being preceded by Barbara Gordon's debut as "Oracle", and was quickly adapted by 1992 to allow the character to gain information on other heroes and villains from police computer networks.


title: Anarky

text: According to Alan Grant, the urgency with which Anarky views his cause has necessitated that the character forsake any social life, and increase his abilities drastically over the years. In his introduction of "Batman: Anarky": "The kid's whole life is dedicated to self-improvement, with the sole aim of destroying the parasitic elites who he considers feast off ordinary folks". A review of the first issue of the 1999 series described Anarky as akin to a "Batman Jr." The reviewer continued that "[Grant] writes Lonnie like a teenager who is head and shoulders above the rest of the population, but still a kid".


title: Anarky

text: In 1995, Grant used the two part "Anarky" storyline in "Batman: Shadow of the Bat" to alter the character's status quo in several ways that would reach their fruition in the first "Anarky" series. To accomplish this feat, several plot devices were used to increase Lonnie's abilities. To justify the character's financial independence, Anarky was described as using the internet to earn money through his online bookstore, "Anarco", which he used as a front company to propagate his philosophy. A second front organization, "The Anarkist Foundation", was also developed to offer grants to radical causes he supports. A "Biofeedback Learning Enhancer" was employed to increase Lonnie's abilities. The cybernetic device was described as being capable of amplifying brain functions by a multiple of ten. Anarky was also described as having begun to train in martial arts, following the character's time in juvenile hall.


title: Anarky

text: The 1997 "Anarky" limited series saw the earlier plot devices of the preceding "Anarky" storyline become narrative justifications for drastically upgraded skill sets. Anarky's earlier brain augmentation was now described as having "fused" the hemispheres of his brain, in a reference to bicameral mentality. Meanwhile, the character's business enterprises were said to have gained him millions of dollars in the dot-com bubble. The character's combat abilities were described as having progressed remarkably, and to have included training in multiple styles which he "integrated" into a hybrid fighting style. Even the character's primary stun baton weapon was enhanced, with a grappling hook incorporated into the walking stick itself to allow dual functionality.


title: Anarky

text: With this enhanced intelligence and financial assets, the 1999 ongoing series narrates that Anarky went on to create an on-board AI computer, MAX ("Multi-Augmented X-Program"); a crude but fully functioning teleportation device capable of summoning a boom tube, and secretly excavated an underground base below the Washington Monument. Portrayed as an atheist by Grant, Anarky espoused the belief that "science is magic explained", and was shown to use scientific analysis to explain and manipulate esoteric forces of magic and energy. Anarky's skill in software cracking was further increased to allow him to tap into Batman's supercomputer, and the Justice League Watchtower.


title: Anarky

text: This evolution in Anarky's abilities was criticized as having overpowered the character in a "Fanzing" review of the "Anarky" ongoing series. The rapid development was seen as preventing the suspension of disbelief in the young character's adventures, which was said to have contributed to the failure of the series. This view stood in contrast with that of Breyfogle, who considered Anarky's heightened skill set to be a complementary feature, and contended that Anarky's advanced abilities lent uniqueness to the character. Breyfogle wrote: "Anarky's singularity is due partly to his being, at his age, nearly as competent as Batman".


title: Anarky

text: In Fabian Niciza's stories for "Red Robin", Lonnie Machin's abilities as Moneyspider were revamped, with the character taking on the persona of an "electronic ghost". Comatose, Moneyspider was free to act through his mind via connections to the internet, and interacted with others via text messaging and a speech synthesizer. In this condition, he acts to "create an international web that will [access] the ins and outs of criminal and corporate operations". Within virtual reality, the character's augmented intelligence was described as a "fused bicameral mind", able to maintain a presence online at all times, while another part of his mind separately interacted with others offline.


title: Anarky

text: Anarky's costume has undergone several phases in design, the first two of which were created by Norm Breyfogle, in accordance with Grant's suggestions. The original costume was composed of a large, flowing red robe, over a matching red jumpsuit. A red, wide brimmed hat baring the circle-A insignia; a golden, metallic face mask; and red hood, completed the outfit. The folds of the robe concealed various weapons and gadgets. Breyfogle later expressed that the color scheme chosen held symbolic purpose. The red robes "represented the blood of all the innocents sacrificed in war". The gold cane, face mask, and circle-A symbol represented purity and spirituality. The connection to spirituality was also emphasized through the hat and loose fabric, which mimicked that of a priest. Breyfogle believed the loose clothes "[went] better with a wide-brimmed hat. It's more of a colloquial style of clothing ..." However, observers have noted that Breyfogle's Christian upbringing may have also inspired the "priestly analogy".


title: Anarky

text: This costume was also designed to disguise Anarky's height, and so included a "head extender" under his hood, which elongated his neck. This design was also intended to create a subtle awkwardness that the reader would subconsciously suspect as being fake, until the reveal at the end of Anarky's first appearance. Despite the revelation of this false head, which would no longer serve its intended purpose at misdirecting the reader, the head extender was included in several return appearances, while at irregular times other artists drew the character without the extender. This discontinuity in the character's design ended when Breyfogle finally eliminated this aspect of the character during the 1997 limited series, expressing that the character's height growth had ended its usefulness. In reality, Breyfogle's decision was also as a result of the difficulty the design presented, being "awkward [to draw] in action situations".


title: Anarky

text: Anarky's second costume was used during the 1999 ongoing "Anarky" series. It retained the red jumpsuit, gold mask, and hat, but excised the character's red robes. New additions to the costume included a red cape, a utility belt modeled after Batman's utility belt, and a single, large circle-A across the chest, akin to Superman's iconic "S" shield. The golden mask was also redesigned as a reflective, but flexible material that wrapped around Anarky's head, allowing for the display of facial movement and emotion. This had previously been impossible, as the first mask was made of inflexible metal. Being a relatively new creation, Breyfogle encountered no editorial resistance in the new character design: "Because [Anarky] doesn't have 50 years of merchandising behind him, I can change his costume whenever I want ..." Within the "Anarky" series, secondary costumes were displayed in Anarky's base of operations. Each was slightly altered in design, but followed the same basic theme of color, jumpsuit, cloak, and hat. These were designed for use in various situations, but only one, a "universal battle suit", was used during the brief series. These suits were also intended to be seen in the unpublished ninth issue of the series.


title: Anarky

text: In 2005, James Peaty's "Green Arrow" story, "Anarky in the USA", featured a return to some of the costume elements used prior to the "Anarky" series. Drawn by Eric Battle, the circle-A chest icon was removed in favor of a loose fabric jumpsuit completed with a flowing cape. The flexible mask was replaced with the previous, unmoving metallic mask, but illustrated with a new reflective quality. This design element was used at times to reflect the face of someone Anarky looked at, creating a mirroring of a person's emotions upon Anarky's own mask. This same effect was later reused in two issues of "Red Robin". For the usurpation of the "Anarky" mantle by Ulysses Armstrong, Freddie Williams II illustrated a new costume design for Armstrong that featured several different design elements. While retaining the primary colors of gold and red, the traditional hat was replaced with a hood, and a new three-piece cuirass with shoulder guards and leather belt was added. The mask was also altered from an expressionless visage to a menacing grimace. This design was later re-illustrated by Marcus To in the "Red Robin" series, but with a new color scheme in which red was replaced with black.


title: Anarky

text: In attempting to present the character as a figurative mirror to Batman, the costume worn by Anarky in "Beware the Batman" was radically redesigned as entirely white, in contrast to Batman's black Batsuit. It consists of a tightly worn jumpsuit, cape, hood, flexible mask with white-eye lenses, and a utility belt. Upon the chest is a small, stylized circle-A in black. The design was negatively compared by reviewers to the longstanding design for Moon Knight, a Marvel Comics superhero.


title: Anarky

text: The costume redesign for Anarky in "Batman: Arkham Origins", while stylized, attempted to thematically highlight the character's anarchist sentiments by updating his appearance utilizing black bloc iconography. Donning a red puffer flight jacket, hoodie and cargo pants, the character sported gold accents decorating his black belt, backpack and combat boots, and completed this with an orange bandana wrapped below his neck. His metallic mask was replaced with a white theatrical stage mask, evocative of the Guy Fawkes mask made popular among protesters by "V for Vendetta" and Anonymous. The jacket is itself emblazoned with a painted circle-A. The creative director of the game, Eric Holmes, commented that "he looks like a street protester in our game and there's no accident to that". This design was later used as model for a DC Collectibles figure, released as part of a series based on villains featured in the game.


title: Anarky

text: In the years that followed the creation of Anarky, both Norm Breyfogle and Alan Grant experienced changes in their personal and professional lives which they attributed to that collaboration. Each man acknowledged the primary impact of the character to have been on their mutual friendship and intellectual understanding. In particular, their time developing the "Anarky" series led to a working relationship centered on esoteric debate, discussion, and mutual respect.


title: Anarky

text: Over time, Anarky emerged as each man's favorite character, with Grant wishing he could emulate the character, and remarking that "Anarky in Gotham City" was the most personal story he had ever written, and the foremost among his three favorite stories he had ever written for the Batman mythos. Of Breyfogle, Grant complimented that the former "draws Anarky as if he loves the character". While Breyfogle acknowledged that Anarky was his favorite of the creations they collaborated on, he felt that his own appreciation was not as great as Grant's, commenting that Anarky was "Alan's baby".


title: Anarky

text: With the cancellation of the "Anarky" series, and the eventual departure of each artist from DC Comicsfirst by Grant, followed by Breyfogletheir mutual career paths split, and Anarky entered into a period of obscurity. During this period, Breyfogle came to suspect that the treatment each man, and Anarky, had received from their former employer was suspect. While acknowledging that he lacked evidence, he held a "nagging feeling" that he and Grant had each been "blacklisted" from DC Comics as a result of the controversial views expressed in the "Anarky" series' second volume.


title: Anarky

text: While professing that Anarky was the character for whom he was proudest, and that the character's narratives were among his best achievements for the amount of reaction they generated among readers, the character was also a source of some regret for Grant. Reflecting on his early secret plan to transform Lonnie Machin into a new Robin, Grant has stated that though he came to appreciate the character of Tim Drake, he occasionally experiences "twinges of regret that Anarky wasn't chosen as the new sidekick for comics' greatest hero". Grant has also stated that he attempted to distance himself from the direction of Anarky following his termination from DC Comics, and actively tried to avoid learning about the fate of Anarky and other characters he had come to care about. He often found himself disappointed to see how some characters were used or, as he felt, were mismanaged. Grant later joked on his disillusion in the handling of Anarky, "if you create something that's close to your heart and you don't own it, 'Oh woe is me!'" In 2011, DC Comics initiated a special "DC Retroactive" series of comics, exploring different periods in the publication history of popular characters. Both Grant and Breyfogle were invited to participate, and collaborated to reproduce a story in the style of their classic "Batman: Shadow of the Bat" series. Grant chose to author a story featuring the Ventriloquist. However, he had been tempted to author a story featuring Anarky, only reconsidering the idea on the basis that his disassociation from the character had left him unfamiliar with what had become of Anarky's canonical status at the time.


title: Anarky

text: As Anarky was created while Grant and Breyfogle were operating under "work-for-hire" rules, DC Comics owns all rights to the Anarky character. Following the cancellation of the "Anarky" series, both men attempted to buy the rights to Anarky from the company, but their offer was declined.


title: Anarky

text: When an interviewer commented that Anarky was popular among fans in 2003, in the midst of the character's period of obscurity, Norm Breyfogle offered a caveat: "Well, in certain segments of the comic book industry, I suppose". Breyfogle continued: "It has some diehard fans. But, DC doesn't seem to want to do anything with him. Maybe it's because of his anti-authoritarian philosophy, a very touchy subject in today's world".


title: Anarky

text: The sense that Anarky is appreciated by certain fans is one shared by Alan Grant, who noted that the character's stories routinely generated more reader mail than any other he wrote. Commenting on the popularity of the "Anarky" series, Grant acknowledged the failure of the series, but pointed out that it was very popular among some readers: "It wasn't terribly popular in the States, although I received quite a few letters (especially from philosophy students) saying the comic had changed their entire mindset. But Anarky was very popular in South America, where people have had a long and painful taste of totalitarianism, in a way the US is just entering".


title: Anarky

text: Sales of the "Anarky" limited series were high enough to green light an ongoing series, with Breyfogle commenting, "[it] did well enough so that DC is willing to listen to Alan's idea for a sequel if we wanted to pitch them". Despite the sales, Grant was still concerned the character lacked enough support among fans to sustain an ongoing series. While the ongoing series did find an audience amongst Latin American nations - Mexico and Argentina in particular - it failed in the United States, where Alan Grant has lamented that the comic was doomed to eventual cancellation, as DC Comics "[doesn't] take foreign sales into consideration when counting their cash".


title: Anarky

text: Acknowledging the failure of the ongoing "Anarky" series, Grant has conceded that its themes, in particular his interest in exploring esoteric concepts such as philosophy of mind, likely resulted in "plummeting" sales. Breyfogle claimed the difficulty of combining escapist entertainment with social commentary as his explanation for the series' failure. Breyfogle wrote at the time: ""Anarky" is a hybrid of the mainstream and the not-quite-so-mainstream. This title may have experienced exactly what every 'half-breed' suffers: rejection by both groups with which it claims identity". Besides the themes, commentators have also found the escalation of Anarky's skills and special heroics as a source of criticism among readers. One critic for "Fanzing", an online newsletter produced by comic book fans and professisonals, wrote: "I liked the original concept behind Anarky: a teenage geek who reads "The Will to Power" one too many times and decides to go out and fix the world. But the minute he wound up getting $100 million in a Swiss Bank account, owning a building, impressing Darkseid, getting a Boom Tube and was shown as being able to outsmart Batman, outhack Oracle and generally be invincible, I lost all interest I had in the character".


title: Anarky

text: In 2014, Comic Book Resources held an informal poll which asked readers to vote for the best characters within the Batman franchise, in celebration of the 75th anniversary of the 1939 creation of "the Caped Crusader". Anarky was placed at No. 31 among the best villains, coming nearly 25 years after the character's own creation.


title: Anarky

text: The philosophical nature of the character has invited political critiques, and resulted in comparisons drawn against the political and philosophical views of other fictional characters. Of the various positive analyses drawn from Anarky, two points which are continuously touched upon by critics are that Anarky is among the most unusual of Batman's rogue gallery, and that his challenge to the ideologies of superheroes is his best feature.


title: Anarky

text: The authors of "I'm Not Fooled By That Cheap Disguise", a 1991 essay deconstructing the Batman mythos, refer to Anarky as a challenge to Batman's social and political world view, and to the political position indirectly endorsed by the themes of a Batman adventure. As the Batman mythos is centered on themes of retribution and the protection of property rights, the invitation to readers to identify with Batman's vigilantism is an invitation to adopt political authoritarianism. The authors summarize that position as "the inviolability of property relations and the justification of their defense by any means necessary (short of death)". The authors commented that Anarky "potentially redefines crime" and invites the reader to identify with a new political position in favor of the disenfranchised, which Batman "can not utterly condemn". The authors also said that the creation of Anarky and dialogue by other characters represented a shift towards "self-conscious awareness of the Batman's hegemonic function, questioning the most central component of the Batman's identity—the nature of crime and his relation to it". However, the authors remained skeptical of Anarky's commercial nature, pointing out Anarky could be "incorporated as another marketing technique [...] The contradictions of capitalism would thus permit the commodification of criticisms as long as they resulted in profits".


title: Anarky

text: With the publication in 2005 of an issue of "Green Arrow" in which Anarky guest-starred, writer James Peaty juxtaposed Anarky's radical philosophy with the liberal progressive beliefs of Green Arrow: "Everyone always goes on about what a radical Ollie is and I wanted to show that maybe that isn't the case ... especially as Ollie's radical credentials are pretty antiquated ... Anarky as a character—and as a broader idea—is much more radical than Ollie".


title: Anarky

text: Greg Burgas, of "Comic Book Resources", critiqued Anarky as "one of the more interesting characters of the past fifteen or twenty years [...] because of what he wants to accomplish...", comparing the nature of Anarky as a change agent against Batman: "He is able to show how ineffective Batman is against the real problems of society, and although Batman stops his spree, we find ourselves sympathizing much more with Anarky than with the representative of the status quo".


title: Anarky

text: Anarky's appearance in "Batman: Arkham Origins" included a speech delivered at the conclusion of the character's story arch. The player is given the opportunity to observe Anarky after he has been defeated, and watch as the teenager enters a monologue in which he laments the downfall of society, tries to reconcile his admiration for Batman, and ultimately denounces the Caped Crusader as a false hero. Nick Dinicola of PopMatters, in comparing the game to its predecessor, "Batman: Arkham City", asserted that the narrative of "Origins" consistently challenged Batman's ideological reasons for acting as he does, whereas "City" uncritically took his motivations as a given: "Anarky's wonderful speech takes Batman to task for the contradictions in his symbolism. Considering that Batman is very explicitly a symbol of fear, Anarky is equating the rise of Batman with the downfall of society". Dinicola was also of the opinion that the willingness to use characters like Anarky to scrutinize Batman's heroism, rather than simply assert it, allowed the game to ultimately prove and uphold Batman as a heroic figure in a way "City" could not. To Dinicola, this validated the act of challenging a superhero's traditional interpretation in service to the story.


title: Anarky

text: In "Batman and Philosophy", an analysis of various philosophies which intersect with the Batman mythos, Anarky's critique of the state is compared favorably to that of Friedrich Nietzsche: "The Nietzschean state constitutes a 'new idol', one that is no less repressive than its predecessors, as it defines good and evil for, and hangs a 'sword and a hundred appetites' over, the faithful. No Batman villain sees this as clearly as Anarky ..." However, Anarky's behavior was also interpreted as an attempt to impose an even more restrictive order, with examples presented from "Batman: Anarky", in which Lonnie Machin lectures fellow juvenile detainees in "Tomorrow Belongs to Us", explains his motivations in a self-righteous farewell letter to his parents in "Anarky", and creates a fantasy dystopia in a distorted reflection of his desired society in "Metamorphosis": "His [Anarky's] search for an organizing principle that is less repressive than the state fails". This is sharply compared with Batman, described as moderating his impulses towards social control. Dialogue from "Detective Comics" is employed, in which Batman compares himself to Anarky and denies the latter legitimacy: "The fact is, no man can be allowed to set himself up as judge, jury and executioner".


title: Anarky

text: Far less favorable views of Anarky have also been offered. Newsarama contributor George Marston was especially scathing of the character's politics and costume, placing Anarky at No.8 on a list of the "Top 10 Worst Batman villains of all time". Deriding the character as a "living embodiment of an Avril Lavigne t-shirt", he pointed out the pointlessness of being inspired to super heroics by radical philosophy, and the contradictory nature of fighting crime as an anarchist. He concluded by referring to the "Anarky" series as proof that "bad decisions are timeless". Similarly, "Cracked" contributor Henrik Magnusson listed Anarky's debut at No.3 on a list of "5 Disastrous Attempts at Political Commentary in Comic Books". Magnusson's scorn focused on Anarky's speeches, which he derided as "pedantic" and laden with "pseudo-philosophical catchphrases". Referring to the original identity of Lonnie Machin as a "naive pre-teen", Magnusson considered this fine satire of "base-level philosophy" and teen rebellion. On the other hand, the understanding that Grant had intended Anarky to be a vehicle for his personal views, and that the "Anarky in Gotham City" narrative describes Batman as sympathetic to his goals, if not his methods, upset Magnusson.


title: Anarky

text: Several global events of the early 2010s included the rise of hacktivist groups such as Anonymous and LulzSec; large scale protest movements, including the Arab Spring, Occupy movement, and Quebec student protests; the crypto-anarchist activity on the part of Defense Distributed and Cody Wilson; and the various information leaks to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, the Stratfor email leak by Anonymous and Jeremy Hammond, and the global surveillance disclosures by Edward Snowden. The rapid succession of these events led some media commentators to insist that Anarky's relevance as a character had dramatically increased, and recommended that the character receive a higher profile in media. This sentiment led the creative team that developed "Batman: Arkham Origins" to include Anarky in the game. Describing Anarky's anti-government and anti-corporate agenda, Holmes acknowledged the relevance of anarchism in the contemporary protest movements of the time as a factor in the choice to include the character in the game, and to update his appearance to that of a street protester with a gang resembling a social movement. Holmes stressed in one interview: "In the real world, this is Anarky's moment. Right now. Today". Even as early as 2005, James Peaty recommended that Anarky should be included in more publications in the midst of the ongoing War on Terror, stating "Anarky is a terrorist! How can that not be interesting in the modern climate?"


title: Anarky

text: Critics have commented on the character's depiction as an anarchist since his first appearance. According to Alan Grant, anarchists with whom he associated were angered by his creation of the character, seeing it as an act of recuperation for commercial gain. Neither Grant nor Breyfogle could fully agree with this criticism. As Grant put it, "I thought I was doing them a favour you know?"


title: Anarky

text: In the years following the "Anarky" publications of the late 1990s, more receptive critiques have been offered. In assessing the presentation of anarchist philosophy in fiction, Mark Leier, the director for the Centre for Labour Studies from Simon Fraser University, cited Anarky as an example of the favorable treatment anarchist philosophy has occasionally received in mainstream comic books. Leier took particular note of quotations derived from the dialogue in "Anarky in Gotham City" story, in which Batman speaks positively of Anarky's intentions. Following the cancellation of the ongoing series, Roderick T. Long, an anarchist/libertarian political commentator and Senior Scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, praised Anarky as "an impressive voice for liberty in today's comics". Margaret Killjoy's examination of anarchist fiction, "Mythmakers & Lawbreakers", afforded Alan Grant and Anarky brief mention. Explaining the relationship Grant had with anarchism, Killjoy reviewed the characters' early incarnations as "quite wonderful".


title: Anarky

text: Greg Burgas, in reviewing the career of Alan Grant, specifically cited Anarky's anarchist philosophy as one of the character's most empathetic traits. Lamenting the obscurity of the character, Burgas wished Anarky and anarchism would be presented more often: "... anarchy as a concept is often dismissed, but it's worth looking at simply because it is so radical and untenable yet noble".


title: Anarky

text: As a lesser known character in the DC Universe, Anarky has a smaller library of associated comic books and significant story lines than more popular DC Comics characters. Between 1989 and 1996, Anarky was primarily written by Alan Grant in Batman-related comics, received a guest appearance in a single issue of "Green Arrow" by Kevin Dooley, and was given an entry in "Who's Who in the DC Universe".


title: Anarky

text: In the late 1990s, Anarky entered a brief period of minor prominence; first with the publication of the first "Anarky" volume in 1997; followed in 1998 with the "" collection; and in 1999, with featured appearances in both "DCU Heroes Secret Files and Origins" #1, and the second "Anarky" series. After the cancellation of the ongoing series, Anarky lapsed into obscurity lasting approximately nine years. This ambiguous condition was not complete, as Anarky was sporadically used during this time. These appearances include marginal cameos in issues of "Young Justice", "Wonder Woman", and "Green Arrow".


title: Anarky

text: Anarky made an appearance in a 2008 issue of "Robin" as part of an effort to return the character to regular publication, and became a recurring cast member in the "Red Robin" series in November 2010, until the series was cancelled in October 2011.


title: Anarky

text: Lesser known among the cast of characters in the DC universe, Anarky went unused for adaptations to other media platforms throughout much of the character's existence. In 2013 the character was chosen to recur in "Beware the Batman", an animated series on Cartoon Network, voiced by Wallace Langham. Anarky debuted in the third episode, "Tests", and appeared in seven total episodes of the series before its cancellation. Later that year, Anarky was also included in the Batman video game, "", voiced by Matthew Mercer, and "". Lonnie Machin made his live action debut in 2016, during the fourth season of "Arrow", in a villainous adaptation portrayed by Alexander Calvert.


title: Anarky

text: . "52" was promoted as a comic that would attempt to incorporate as many DC Comics characters as possible. In a Q&A session hosted by Newsarama.com, "52" editor Michael Siglain answered a series of questions regarding which characters fans wanted to see in the series. Question No.19 asked: "We were told Anarky would be playing a part in 52. Could you please tell us when we can expect his appearances?" Siglain's simple response to readers was, "check back in the late 40s". Speculation centered on the prospect of Anarky appearing in issue No.48 of the series, as the solicited cover illustration was released to the public several weeks before the issues' publication. On the cover, the circle-A could be seen as a minor element in the background. In a review for "Week 48", "Major Spoilers" considered the absence of Anarky a drawback: "It's too bad we didn't see the return of Anarky as hinted by this week's cover". Pop culture critic, Douglas Wolk, wrote: "I guess this issue's cover is the closest we're going to get to Anarky after all (and by proxy as close as we're going to get to the Haunted Tank). Too bad".


title: Anarky

text: . The 1990 "Detective Comics" #620 story, "Rite of Passage Part 3: Make Me a Hero", chronicles Tim Drake's first solo detective case, as he pursues an online investigation against an advanced grey hat computer hacker. The unknown hacker, operating under the alias "Moneyspider", has stolen millions of dollars from western corporations, including Wayne Enterprises, outmaneuvering Batman's own data security in the process. He is revealed by Drake to be Lonnie Machin by the end of the issue. This functioned as the antecedent for Fabian Nicieza's reintroduction of Machin under the name "Moneyspider" in 2008.


title: Anarky

text: . As a result of the increased renown the character gained from this appearance, speculation that Anarky would reappear in the "" franchise simmered in the lead up to the release of "", with commentators predicting that the enigmatic "Arkham Knight" character would be revealed to be Anarky in adult form.


title: Anarky

text: . In warning readers to avoid spoiling potential surprises for their experience in playing "", Eric Holmes specifically referenced the Wikipedia article on the character as a resource to avoid: "You know what? If you want to enjoy the game, don't bother reading up on him, because there are a few surprises about him which will turn up in the game, and if you go read Wikipedia or something like that, it'll rob you a little bit on some of the stuff in the game, because there are some surprises about Anarky".


title: Anarky

text: . Following Anarky's debut in "Anarky in Gotham City", the character's design incorporated the head extender in "Robin Annual" #1 (1992), "Green Arrow" #89 (August 1994), and "The Batman Adventures" #31 (April 1995). The head extender was not included in "Batman: Shadow of The Bat" #18 (October 1993), and "The Batman Chronicles" #1 (Summer 1995).


title: Tau cross

text: The tau cross is a T-shaped cross, sometimes with all three ends of the cross expanded. It is called a “tau cross” because it is shaped like the Greek letter tau, which in its upper-case form has the same appearance as Latin letter T.


title: Tau cross

text: Another name for the same object is Saint Anthony's cross or Saint Anthony cross, a name given to it because of its association with Saint Anthony of Egypt.


title: Tau cross

text: The Greek letter tau was used as a numeral for 300. The "Epistle of Barnabas" (late first century or early second) gives an allegorical interpretation of the number 318 (in Greek numerals τιη’) in the text of Book of Genesis 14:14 as intimating the crucifixion of Jesus by viewing the numerals ιη’ (18) as the initial letters of Ἰησοῦς, "Iēsus", and the numeral τ’ (300) as a prefiguration of the cross: "What, then, was the knowledge given to him in this? Learn the eighteen first, and then the three hundred. The ten and the eight are thus denoted—Ten by Ι, and Eight by Η. You have [the initials of the name of] Jesus. And because the cross was to express the grace [of our redemption] by the letter Τ, he says also, 'Three Hundred'. He signifies, therefore, Jesus by two letters, and the cross by one."


title: Tau cross

text: Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – c. 215) gives the same interpretation of the number τιη’ (318), referring to the cross of Christ with the expression "the Lord's sign": "They say, then, that the character representing 300 is, as to shape, the type of the Lord’s sign, and that the Iota and the Eta indicate the Saviour’s name."


title: Tau cross

text: Tertullian (c. 155 – c. 240) remarks that the Greek letter τ and the Latin letter T have the same shape as the execution cross: "Ipsa est enim littera Graecorum Tau, nostra autem T, species crucis".


title: Tau cross

text: In the "Trial of the Court of the Vowels" of non-Christian Lucian (125 – after 180), the Greek letter Sigma (Σ) accuses the letter Tau (Τ) of having provided tyrants with the model for the wooden instrument with which to crucify people and demands that Tau be executed on his own shape: "It was his body that tyrants took for a model, his shape that they imitated, when they set up the erections on which men are crucified. Σταυρός the vile engine is called, and it derives its vile name from him. Now, with all these crimes upon him, does he not deserve death, nay, many deaths? For my part I know none bad enough but that supplied by his own shape—that shape which he gave to the gibbet named σταυρός after him by men"


title: Tau cross

text: The Greek word σταυρός, which in the New Testament refers to the structure on which Jesus died, appears as early as AD 200 in two papyri, Papyrus 66 and Papyrus 75 in a form that includes the use of a cross-like combination of the letters tau and rho. This tau-rho symbol, the staurogram, appears also in Papyrus 45 (dated 250), again in relation to the crucifixion of Jesus. In 2006 Larry Hurtado noted that the Early Christians probably saw in the staurogram a depiction of Jesus on the cross, with the cross represented (as elsewhere) by the tau and the head by the loop of the rho, as had already been suggested by Robin Jensen, Kurt Aland and Erika Dinkler. In 2008 David L. Balch agreed, adding more papyri containing the staurogram (Papyrus 46, Papyrus 80 and Papyrus 91) and stating: "The staurogram constitutes a Christian artistic emphasis on the cross within the earliest textual tradition", and "in one of the earliest Christian artifacts we have, text and art are combined to emphasize 'Christus crucifixus'". In 2015, Dieter T. Roth found the staurogram in further papyri and in parts of the aforementioned papyri that had escaped the notice of earlier scholars.


title: Tau cross

text: In the view of Tertullian and of Origen (184/185 – 253/254) the passage in in which an angel , "set a mark ["tav"; after the cross-shaped Phoenician and early Hebrew letter] on the forehead of the men" who are saved was a prediction of the Early Christian custom of repeatedly tracing on their own foreheads the sign of the cross.


title: Tau cross

text: The Hospital Brothers of St. Anthony, known as the Antonines, were a Catholic religious order of the Latin Church founded at the end of the 11th century. They wore a black religious habit marked with a blue tau. This habit became associated with their patron saint, Anthony of Egypt, who accordingly was represented as bearing on his cloak a cross in the form of a tau.


title: Tau cross

text: Through its association with the Antonines, this cross became known as Saint Anthony's cross, as the disease of ergotism, to whose treatment the Antonines devoted themselves more particularly, became known as Saint Anthony's fire.


title: Tau cross

text: In about 1500 the Antonines still had 370 hospitals, but with the identification of the fungus that caused ergotism, the reduction of epidemics and the competition from the hospitals of the Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem (generally known as the Knights of Malta) their numbers decreased. Their last house in Europe was finally closed in 1803.


title: Tau cross

text: Another explanation proposed for the association of the tau cross with Saint Anthony is that the tau cross a stylized representation of the saint's staff, topped by a horizontal bar, on which he supported himself when old. A staff of that kind is represented in his hand in a painting by the German Renaissance painter Matthias Grünewald (c. 1470 – 1528) on an outer panel of his "Isenheim Altarpiece". In this painting the saint remains tranquil in spite of being threatened by a fearsome demon depicted as breaking the panes of the window behind him. The saint is not shown as wearing the emblem of the Antonines.


title: Tau cross

text: The Antonines survive in the Middle East, especially in Lebanon, as a Maronite Church order with 21 monasteries and many schools and seminaries. They still use the bright blue tau cross on their black habits.


title: Tau cross

text: With the disappearance in the Western Church of the Hospital Brothers of Saint Anthony, the tau cross is now most commonly associated with the Franciscan Order and its founder, Saint Francis of Assisi, who adopted it as his personal sign after hearing Pope Innocent III talk about the Tau symbol. It is now used as a symbol of the Secular Franciscan Order.


title: Tau cross

text: The cross’s use in Franciscanism dates back to St. Francis of Assisi himself, who used it as his signature and personal seal.


title: Tau cross

text: During the time of Francis and from the Fourth Lateran Council, called by Pope Innocent III, the Tau was a symbol widely used by the Catholic Church, in general, as a sign of conversion and sign of the cross.


title: Tau cross

text: In inaugurating that Council, Pope Innocent III preached on Ezekiel 9 and called all Christians to do penance under the sign of the tau, a sign of conversion and the sign of the cross. As Omer Englebert recounts in his "Life of St. Francis of Assisi", the Pope, after describing the sad situation of the Holy Places trampled by the Saracens, lamented the scandals that discredited the flock of Christ and threatened it with divine punishment if was not amended. He evoked the vision of Ezekiel, when the Lord, patience exhausted, exclaims with a powerful voice: «""Come near, you who watch over the city; come near with the instrument of extermination in your hands'. And behold, six men arrived with two whips in their hands. Among them was a man dressed in linen, with a writing-message around his waist. And Yahweh said to him: 'Go through Jerusalem, and mark with a tau the foreheads of the righteous who are in it.' And he said to the other five: 'Go through the city after him, and mercilessly exterminate as many as you find; but do not touch anyone who is marked with the tau.' "[...]" Who are" - continued the Pope - "the six men in charge of divine vengeance? Those are you, Council Fathers, who, using all the weapons you have at hand: excommunications, dismissals, suspensions and interdicts, you have to relentlessly punish how many are not marked with the propitiatory tau and are obstinate in dishonoring Christianity.'" "[...]" In his Lateran speech, Innocent III had marked with the tau sign three classes of predestined: those who enlisted in the crusade; those who, prevented from crossing paths, fight against heresy; finally, the sinners who really commit themselves to reforming their lives."»


title: Tau cross

text: St. Francis of Assisi, who participated in the Council as superior general of an Order approved by the Church, must have taken Innocent III's invitation very seriously, since, according to his companions and his first biographers, he loved and revered the tau , ""because it represents the cross and means true penance"". At the beginning of any activity, he crossed himself with said sign, preferring it to any other sign, and painted it on the walls of the cells. In his conversations and sermons he often recommended it, and drew it as a signature in all his letters and writings, ""as if all his concern was to engrave the sign of the tau, according to the prophetic saying, on the foreheads of the men who moan and weep, truly converted to Christ Jesus.""


title: Tau cross

text: Among St. Francis of Assisi's autograph manuscripts in which he signs with the tau is his famous "Blessing to Brother Leo", a relic that is preserved in the Basilica of St. Francis of Assisi.


title: Tau cross

text: In discussions of Roman execution crosses, the tau cross is called the . This term was invented by Justus Lipsius (1547–1606), who used it to distinguish this T-shaped cross from the now more familiar †-shaped cross and the saltire ☓-shaped cross.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: The Flying Dragons (), also known as FDS, is a Chinese American street gang that was prominent in New York City's Chinatown from the 1970s to the early 1990s. Formed in 1967, by immigrants primarily from Hong Kong, they are affiliated with the Hip Sing Tong. Throughout the 1980s, the gang often engaged in bloody turf wars with the newer Ghost Shadows gang. Their activities have included extortion, kidnapping, murder, racketeering and illegal gambling. The gang moved heavily into heroin trafficking after the Italian-American Mafia lost the trade as a result of the Pizza Connection prosecutions in the mid-1980s.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: Similar to the Triads of China, and the Yakuza of Japan, the Flying Dragons are likely to operate with people of their own ethnicity. Unlike western gangs, gangs such as the Flying Dragons remain fairly unnoticeable by police outside of their own homelands. In the leader Johnny "Onionhead" Eng's criminal case, it is reported the Flying Dragons are a fairly violent gang, being involved in murders and drug trafficking.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: The Flying Dragons are said to have operated heavily in Chinatowns in the United States and in Hong Kong. As many Asian gangs did, the Flying Dragons dealt with illegal drugs; mainly heroin. They are also known for extortion and kidnapping. Along with South America, Asia entered the market around the 1970s and have played a larger role in supplying drugs to American consumers. The steady demand for illegal drugs by U.S. consumers, which Asian gangs were a significant part of, has led the U.S. government to wage a war on drugs since the 1980s.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: Gang leader Johnny Eng, otherwise known as "Onionhead", was brought up on charges of masterminding an international heroin importing scheme. Prosecutors in Brooklyn federal court say there is a mountain of evidence against him such as 300 pounds of heroin shipped to New York in stuffed animals, strapped to couriers and sealed in steel machines used to wash bean sprouts.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: While the Flying Dragons' current leadership is unknown, the most well-known boss in the history of gang was Johnny "Onionhead" Eng (aka Machinegun Johnny). His notable tenure as leader is estimated to have lasted from a rise to power in the early 1980s, to his incarceration in the 1990s.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: Eng is widely believed to have first emigrated from Hong Kong to the United States in the early 1970s, aged around 13. Several sources agree that Eng took over the Flying Dragons in 1983, after the murder of his predecessor, Michael Chen in the spring of that year. Nicknamed "The Scientist" for his cool and calm demeanor, Chen had been killed in the doorway of the Hip Sing credit union, suffering a total of 14 gunshots, including four rounds that were fired directly into his eyes.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: It was during Eng's period of leading the Flying Dragons that the organization gained much wider notoriety, specifically during the intense rise in media coverage at the launch of Eng's criminal trial in 1992. Prior to this event, Eng had made attempts at evading stateside prosecution, even fleeing to Hong Kong in 1989. However, these plans ultimately failed as Eng was eventually extradited back to the United States to face charges of smuggling and distributing heroin. During Eng's trial, one element that drew special attention from the press was his unusually confident demeanor. Despite facing the strong possibility of a life sentence in prison, media outlets noted how Eng regularly smirked during his court appearances and was even rumored to be planning an extravagant roast duck dinner to celebrate a not guilty verdict. Yet, despite this apparent bravado, Eng did not win his case and in 1993 he was sentenced to 24 years in prison on 14 counts of heroin running and conspiracy.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: It is believed that at the time of Eng's conviction, an unspecified cousin took over the Flying Dragons and has possibly remained in control since. While Eng was eventually given early parole in 2010, he has not been seen in public from that time. However, in 2011, media attention was drawn to Eng's family once more when it was reported that his wife Lori Eng had been shot and killed by David Chea, a member of the Flying Dragons.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: Despite no longer likely being in control of the Flying Dragons, Eng is thought to have amassed a massive fortune during his tenure as the organisation's head and almost certainly remains a multi-millionaire. One example of Eng's high income during his leadership was his purchase of a large estate (since confiscated) located in Pennsylvania, where Flying Dragons members allegedly trained outdoors with firearms. Eng is also believed to have bought land in South America and to this day still maintains several business interests in Hong Kong.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: The Vietnamese Flying Dragons were a former branch of the Flying Dragons gang that consisted of primarily Vietnamese members. One of its former members, David Thai, a Vietnamese refugee who had joined the gang in 1983, decided to leave the gang in 1987 after being disaffected by the lower status of the members that were consigned to this particular branch of the gang, who were mostly viewed as "coffee boys" and were ordered to carry out crimes that carried the stiffest penalties such as robbery and murder, and were cut off from the main gang's more lucrative activities such as drug dealing. David Thai would later go on to build his own gang that would rival the Flying Dragons, called Born to Kill, which began to compete with the Flying Dragons and the Ghost Shadows for control and territory over Chinatown.


title: Flying Dragons (gang)

text: The Flying Dragons have many roots in Hong Kong. In 1994, in what law-enforcement officials called a major blow to the largest and last of the traditional criminal gangs in Chinatown, 33 suspected members of the Flying Dragons were indicted on federal racketeering charges. Sources described these charges as three murders, 12 attempted murders, heroin trafficking, illegal gambling, arson, extortion and robberies that stretched from Manhattan into Brooklyn and Queens. They've also been said to be located in parts of Canada and Australia.


title: Podesta emails

text: In March 2016, the personal Gmail account of John Podesta, a former White House chief of staff and chair of Hillary Clinton's 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, was compromised in a data breach accomplished via a spear-phishing attack, and some of his emails, many of which were work-related, were hacked. Cybersecurity researchers as well as the United States government attributed responsibility for the breach to the Russian cyber spying group Fancy Bear, allegedly two units of a Russian military intelligence agency.


title: Podesta emails

text: Some or all of the Podesta emails were subsequently obtained by WikiLeaks, which published over 20,000 pages of emails, allegedly from Podesta, in October and November 2016. Podesta and the Clinton campaign have declined to authenticate the emails. Cybersecurity experts interviewed by PolitiFact believe the majority of emails are probably unaltered, while stating it is possible that the hackers inserted at least some doctored or fabricated emails. The article then attests that the Clinton campaign, however, has yet to produce any evidence that any specific emails in the latest leak were fraudulent. A subsequent investigation by U.S. intelligence agencies also reported that the files obtained by WikiLeaks during the U.S. election contained no "evident forgeries".


title: Podesta emails

text: Podesta's emails, once released by WikiLeaks, shed light on the inner workings of the Clinton campaign, suggested that CNN commentator Donna Brazile had shared audience questions with the Clinton campaign in advance of town hall meetings, and contained excerpts from Hillary Clinton's speeches to Wall Street firms. Proponents of the extensively discredited Pizzagate conspiracy theory falsely claimed the emails contained coded messages which supported their conspiracy theory.


title: Podesta emails

text: Researchers from the Atlanta-based cybersecurity firm Dell SecureWorks reported that the emails had been obtained through a data theft carried out by the hacker group Fancy Bear, a group of Russian intelligence-linked hackers that were also responsible for cyberattacks that targeted the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), resulting in WikiLeaks publishing emails from those hacks.


title: Podesta emails

text: SecureWorks concluded Fancy Bear had sent Podesta an email on March 19, 2016, that had the appearance of a Google security alert, but actually contained a misleading link—a strategy known as spear-phishing. (This tactic has also been used by hackers to break into the accounts of other notable persons, such as Colin Powell). The link—which used the URL shortening service Bitly—brought Podesta to a fake log-in page where he entered his Gmail credentials. The email was initially sent to the IT department as it was suspected of being a fake but was described as "legitimate" in an e-mail sent by a department employee, who later said he meant to write "illegitimate".


title: Podesta emails

text: SecureWorks had tracked the activities of Fancy Bear for more than a year before the cyberattack, and in June 2016, had reported the group made use of malicious Bitly links and fake Google login pages to trick targets into divulging their passwords. However, the hackers left some of their Bitly accounts public, allowing SecureWorks to trace many of their links to e-mail accounts targeted with spear-phishing attacks. Of this list of targeted accounts, more than one hundred were policy advisors to Clinton, or members of her presidential campaign, and by June, twenty staff members had clicked on the phishing links.


title: Podesta emails

text: On December 9, 2016, the CIA told U.S. legislators the U.S. Intelligence Community concluded that the Russian government was behind the hack, and gave to WikiLeaks a collection of hacked emails from John Podesta.


title: Podesta emails

text: On September 15, 2016 the DCLeaks Twitter account sent WikiLeaks a DM about a possible submission, saying they had gotten no response on the secured chat. The WikiLeaks account responded "Hi there" without further elaboration but did not receive a response. The same day, the Guccifer 2.0 Twitter account sent DCLeaks a DM saying that WikiLeaks was trying to contact them and to arrange to speak through encrypted email. Analysis of the metadata on the Podesta emails show a creation date of September 19, 2016. The Mueller Report concluded that this might have been when the emails were transferred to WikiLeaks.


title: Podesta emails

text: A declassified report by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and National Security Agency (NSA) noted that, "Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity. Disclosures through WikiLeaks did not contain any evident forgeries."


title: Podesta emails

text: Cybersecurity experts interviewed by PolitiFact believe that while most of the emails are probably unaltered, it is possible the hackers inserted some doctored or fabricated material into the collection.


title: Podesta emails

text: Jeffrey Carr, CEO of the cybersecurity company Taia Global, stated: "I've looked at a lot of document dumps provided by hacker groups over the years, and in almost every case you can find a few altered or entirely falsified documents. But only a few. The vast majority were genuine. I believe that's the case with the Podesta emails, as well." Jamie Winterton of the Arizona State University Global Security Initiative stated, "I would be shocked if the emails weren't altered," noting the longstanding Russian practice of promoting disinformation.


title: Podesta emails

text: Cybersecurity expert Robert Graham described the contents of some of the emails as authentic by using the DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) contained in these emails' signatures. However, not all of the emails have these keys in their signature, and thus could not be verified with this method.


title: Podesta emails

text: On October 7, 2016, 30 minutes after the "Access Hollywood" tape was first published, WikiLeaks began publishing thousands of emails from Podesta's Gmail account. Throughout October, WikiLeaks released installments of these emails on a daily basis. On December 18, 2016, John Podesta stated in "Meet the Press" that the FBI had contacted him about the leaked emails on October 9, 2016, but had not contacted him since.


title: Podesta emails

text: On October 17, 2016, the government of Ecuador severed the internet connection of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. The Ecuadorian government stated that it had temporarily severed Assange's internet connection because of WikiLeaks' release of documents "impacting on the U.S. election campaign", although it also stated this was not meant to prevent WikiLeaks from operating. WikiLeaks continued releasing installments of the Podesta emails during this time.


title: Podesta emails

text: Some of the emails provide some insight into the inner workings of the Clinton campaign. For example, the emails show a discussion among campaign manager Robby Mook and top aides about possible campaign themes and slogans. Other emails revealed insights about the internal conflicts of the Clinton Foundation. The BBC published an article detailing 18 "revelations" revealed from their initial review of the leaked emails, including excerpts from Clinton's speeches and politically motivated payments to the Clinton Foundation.


title: Podesta emails

text: One of the emails released on October 12, 2016, included Podesta's iCloud account password. His iCloud account was hacked, and his Twitter account was then briefly compromised. Some were emails that Barack Obama and Podesta exchanged in 2008.


title: Podesta emails

text: WikiLeaks published transcripts of three Clinton speeches to Goldman Sachs and an 80-page internal campaign document cataloging potentially problematic portions of over 50 paid speeches. During the Democratic primary campaign, Bernie Sanders had criticized Hillary Clinton for refusing to release transcripts of speeches given to financial firms, portraying her as too close to Wall Street. Donald Trump first publicly called for the transcripts during a rally on October 3, 2016, four days before their publication by WikiLeaks: "I would like to see what the speeches said. She doesn't want to release them. Release the papers, Hillary, release those papers."


title: Podesta emails

text: In the October 2016 presidential debate, Clinton voiced her support for a "no-fly" zone in Syria. In a 2013 speech, Clinton had discussed the difficulties involved. In particular, she noted that in order to establish a no-fly zone, Syria's air defenses would need to be destroyed. Because the Assad government had located these anti-aircraft batteries in populated civilian areas, their destruction would cause many collateral civilian deaths. Clinton's staff additionally flagged comments about regulation of Wall Street, as well as her relationship with the industry, as potentially problematic.


title: Podesta emails

text: The excerpts came up in the two subsequent presidential debates between Clinton and Trump. In one of the debates, the moderator Martha Raddatz quoted an excerpt saying that politicians "need both a public and a private position" and asked Clinton if it was okay for politicians to be "two-faced". Clinton replied, "As I recall, that was something I said about Abraham Lincoln after having seen the wonderful Steven Spielberg movie called "Lincoln". It was a master class watching president Lincoln get the Congress to approve the 13th amendment, it was principled and strategic. I was making the point that it is hard sometimes to get the Congress to do what you want to do." In the third presidential debate, the moderator Chris Wallace quoted a speech excerpt where Clinton says, "My dream is a hemispheric common market with open trade and open borders," and asked if she was for open borders. Clinton replied, "If you went on to read the rest of the sentence, I was talking about energy. We trade more energy with our neighbors than we trade with the rest of the world combined. And I do want us to have an electric grid, an energy system that crosses borders."


title: Podesta emails

text: Sandy Newman wrote to Podesta: "I have not thought at all about how one would 'plant the seeds of the revolution', or who would plant them." Podesta agreed that this was necessary to do as Newman suggested and wrote back to note that they had created groups like Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good and Catholics United to push for a more progressive approach to the faith, change would "have to be bottom up".


title: Podesta emails

text: Raymond Arroyo responded: "It makes it seem like you're creating organizations to change the core beliefs of the church," he said. "For someone to come and say, 'I have a political organization to change your church to complete my political agenda or advance my agenda', I don't know how anybody could embrace that." Professor Robert P. George added that "these groups are political operations constructed to masquerade as organizations devoted to the Catholic faith".


title: Podesta emails

text: The leak revealed an email sent by John Halpin, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. The email discussed conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch's decision to raise his kids in the Catholic Church. He wrote, "Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) ... It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy." Palmieri responded: "I imagine they think it is the most socially acceptable, politically conservative religion—their rich friends wouldn't understand if they became evangelical." Supporters and members of Donald Trump's campaign called the email exchange evidence of anti-Catholic sentiment in the Democratic Party. Halpin confirmed that he had written the email, though he contested claims that it was "anti-Catholic" and said that it was taken out of context and that he had sent the email to his Catholic colleagues "to make a fleeting point about perceived hypocrisy and the flaunting of one's faith by prominent conservative leaders."


title: Podesta emails

text: On October 11, 2016, WikiLeaks released the text of an email sent by Donna Brazile on March 12, 2016, to Clinton communications director Jennifer Palmieri with the subject header "From time to time I get questions in advance." The email included a question about the death penalty. The following day Clinton received a similar question from the Townhall host, Roland Martin. Brazile initially denied coordinating with the Clinton campaign, and a CNN spokesperson said "CNN did not share any questions with Donna Brazile, or anyone else for that matter, prior to the town hall" and that "we have never, ever given a town hall question to anyone beforehand". According to CNNMoney, the debate moderator Roland Martin did not deny that he shared questions with Brazile. In another leaked email, Brazile wrote: "One of the questions directed to HRC tomorrow is from a woman with a rash. Her family has lead poison and she will ask what, if anything, will Hillary do as president to help the ppl of Flint." At a debate in Flint the following day, a woman whose "son had developed a rash from the contaminated water" asked Clinton: "If elected president, what course will you take to regain my trust in government?" In a third email, Brazile added: "I'll send a few more."


title: Podesta emails

text: CNN severed ties with Brazile on October 14, 2016. Brazile later said that CNN did not give her "the ability to defend myself" after the email release and referred to WikiLeaks as "WikiLies". Brazile repeatedly denied that she had received the question on the death penalty in advance and has said that the documents released by WikiLeaks were "altered". In an essay for "Time" written on March 17, 2017, Brazile wrote that the emails revealed that "among the many things I did in my role as a Democratic operative and D.N.C. Vice Chair [...] was to share potential town hall topics with the Clinton campaign." She wrote, "My job was to make all our Democratic candidates look good, and I worked closely with both campaigns to make that happen. But sending those emails was a mistake I will forever regret."


title: Podesta emails

text: One leaked email from August 2014, addressed to Podesta, identifies Saudi Arabia and Qatar as providing "clandestine", "financial and logistic" aid to ISIS and other "radical Sunni groups". The email outlines a plan of action against ISIS, urges putting pressure on Saudi Arabia and Qatar to end their alleged support for the group. Whether the email was originally written by Hillary Clinton, her advisor Sidney Blumenthal, or another person is unclear.


title: Podesta emails

text: The American public's interest in WikiLeaks in October roughly coincided with a tightening presidential race between Trump and Clinton. According to an analysis of opinion polling by Harry Enten of "FiveThirtyEight", the release of the emails roughly matched Clinton's decline in the polls, though it did not seem to have an effect on public perceptions of her trustworthiness. Enten concluded that WikiLeaks' activities were "among the factors that might have contributed to [Clinton's] loss."


title: Podesta emails

text: Sociology professor Zeynep Tufekci criticized how WikiLeaks handled the release of these emails, writing, "Taking one campaign manager's email account and releasing it with zero curation in the last month of an election needs to be treated as what it is: political sabotage, not whistle-blowing." In an op-ed for "The Intercept", James Risen criticized the media for its reporting on emails, arguing that the hacking of the emails was a more significant story than the content of the emails themselves. Thomas Frank, writing in an editorial column for "The Guardian", argued that the emails gave an "unprecedented view into the workings of the elite, and how it looks after itself".


title: Podesta emails

text: Glen Caplin, a spokesman for the Clinton campaign, said, "By dribbling these out every day WikiLeaks is proving they are nothing but a propaganda arm of the Kremlin with a political agenda doing [Vladimir] Putin's dirty work to help elect Donald Trump." When asked to comment on the emails' release, president Vladimir Putin replied that Russia was being falsely accused. He said, "The hysteria is merely caused by the fact that somebody needs to divert the attention of the American people from the essence of what was exposed by the hackers."


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Asian Latin Americans or Latinasians are Latin Americans of Asian descent. Asian immigrants to Latin America have largely been from East Asia or West Asia. Historically, Asians in Latin America have a centuries-long history in the region, starting with Filipinos in the 16th century. The peak of Asian immigration occurred in the 19th and 20th centuries. There are currently more than four million Asian Latin Americans, nearly 1% of Latin America's population. Chinese, Japanese and the Lebanese are the largest Asian ancestries; other major ethnic groups include Syrians, Indians, Koreans and Filipinos. Brazil is home to the largest population of East Asian descent, estimated at 2.08 million. The country is also home is a large percentage of West Asian descendants. With as much as 5% of their population having some degree of Chinese ancestry, Peru has the highest ratio of any country for East Asian descent. Though the most recent official census, which relied on self-identification, gave a much lower percentage.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: There has been notable emigration from these communities in recent decades, so that there are now hundreds of thousands of people of Asian Latin American origin in both Japan and the United States.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: The first Asian Latin Americans were Filipinos who made their way to Latin America (primarily to Cuba and Mexico and secondarily to Colombia, Panama and Peru) in the 16th century, as slaves, crew members, and prisoners during the Spanish colonial rule of the Philippines through the Viceroyalty of New Spain, with its capital in Mexico City. For two and a half centuries (between 1565 and 1815) many Filipinos and Chinese sailed on the Manila-Acapulco Galleons, assisting in the Spanish Empire's monopoly in trade. Some of these sailors never returned to the Philippines and many of their descendants can be found in small communities around Baja California, Sonora, Mexico City, Peru and others, thus making Filipinos the oldest Asian ethnic group in Latin America.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: While South Asians had been present in various forms in Latin America for centuries by the 1800s, it was in this century that the flow into the region spiked dramatically. This rapid influx of hundreds of thousands of mainly male South Asians was due to the need for indentured servants. This is largely tied to the abolition of black slavery in the Caribbean colonies in 1834. Without the promise of free labor and a hostile working class on their hands, the Dutch colonial authorities had to find a solution – cheap Asian labor.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Many of these immigrant populations became such fixtures in their adopted countries that they acquired names of their own. For example, the Chinese men who labored in agricultural work became known as "coolies". While these imported Asian laborers were initially just replacement for agricultural slave labor, they gradually began to enter other sectors as the economy evolved. Before long, they had entered more urban work and the service sector. In certain areas, these populations assimilated into the minority populations, adding yet another definition to go on a casta.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: In some areas, these new populations caused conflict. In Northern Mexico, tensions became inevitable when the United States began to shut off Chinese immigration in the early 1880s. Many who were originally bound for the United States were re-routed to Mexico. The rapid increase in population and rise to middle/upper class standing generated strong resentment among existing residents. These tensions lead to riots. In the state of Sonora, the entire Chinese population was expelled in 1929.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Today, the overwhelming majority of Asian Latin Americans are either of East Asian (namely Chinese, Japanese or Korean), or West Asian descent (mostly the Lebanese or Syrians). Many of whom arrived during the second half of the 1800s and the first half of the 1900s. Japanese migration mostly came to a halt after World War II (with the exception of Japanese settlement in the Dominican Republic), while Korean migration mostly came to an end by the 1980s and Chinese migration remains ongoing in a number of countries.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Settlement of war refugees has been extremely minor: a few dozen ex-North Korean soldiers went to Argentina after the Korean War and some Hmong went to French Guiana after the Vietnam War.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Asian Latin Americans served various roles during their time as low wage workers in Latin America. In the second half of the nineteenth century, nearly a quarter of a million Chinese migrants in Cuba worked primarily on sugar plantations. The Chinese "coolies" who migrated to Peru took up work on the Andean Railroad or the Guano Fields. Over time the Chinese progressed to acquiring work in urban centers as tradesmen, restaurateurs and in the service industry. By the second decade of the nineteenth century, approximately 25,000 Chinese migrants in Mexico found relative success with small businesses, government bureaucracy, and intellectual circles. In the 1830s, the British and Dutch colonial governments also imported South Asians to work as indentured servants to places such as Trinidad and Tobago, Suriname, Curaçao and British Guiana (later renamed Guayana). At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Japanese immigrants reached Brazil and Peru. Much like the Chinese, the Japanese often worked as indentured servants and low wage workers for planters. Japanese work contracts were notably more short term than those of the Chinese and the process was closely monitored by the Japanese government to dissuade abuse and foul play. In both cases, the influx of Asian migrant workers was to fill the void left in the Latin American work forces after the abolition of slavery. Employers of all kinds were desperate for a low cost replacement for their slaves so those who did not participate in any illegal slave operations turned to the Asian migrants.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Four and a half million Latin Americans (almost 1% of the total population of Latin America) are of Asian descent. The number may be millions higher, even more so if all who have partial ancestry are included. For example, Asian Peruvians are estimated at 5% of the population there, but one source places the number of all Peruvians with at least "some" Chinese ancestry at 5 million, which equates to 20% of the country's total population.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: The Chinese are the most populous Asian Latin Americans. Significant populations of Chinese ancestry are found in Peru, Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Panama, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Mexico and Costa Rica (where they make up about 1% of the total population; or about 9,000 residents). Nicaragua is home to 14,000 ethnic Chinese; the majority reside in Managua and on the Caribbean coast. Smaller communities of Chinese, numbering just in the hundreds or thousands, are also found in Ecuador and various other Latin American countries. Many Latin American countries are home to barrios chinos (Chinatowns).


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Most who are of Japanese descent reside in Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Mexico, Bolivia, Colombia and Paraguay. Japanese Peruvians have a considerable economic position in Peru. Many past and present Peruvian Cabinet members are ethnic Asians, but most particularly Japanese Peruvians have made up large portions of Peru's cabinet members and former president Alberto Fujimori is of Japanese ancestry who is currently the only Asian Latin American to have ever served as the head of any Latin American nation (or the second, if taking into account Arthur Chung). Brazil is home to the largest Japanese community outside Japan, numbering about 1.7 million with ancestry alone. Brazil is also home to 10,000 Indians, 5,000 Vietnamese, 4,500 Afghans, 2,900 Indonesians and 1,000 Filipinos.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Korean people are the third largest group of Asian Latin Americans. The largest community of this group is in Brazil (specially in Southeast region) with a population of 51,550. The second largest is in Argentina, with a population of 23,603 and with active Koreatowns in Buenos Aires. More 10,000 in Guatemala, and Mexico, This last with active communities in Monterrey, Guadalajara, Yucatan and Mexico City. More than 1,000 in Chile, Paraguay, Venezuela, Honduras and Peru where Jung Heung-won, a Korean Peruvian, was elected mayor in City of Chanchamayo. He is the first Mayor of Korean origin in Peru and all of Latin America. There are small and important communities (less 1,000 peoples) in Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Bolivia, Costa Rica, Panama, Dominican Republic, Uruguay, Puerto Rico and Haiti.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: Japanese Brazilian immigrants to Japan numbered 250,000 in 2004, constituting Japan's second-largest immigrant population. Their experiences bear similarities to those of Japanese Peruvian immigrants, who are often relegated to low income jobs typically occupied by foreigners.


title: Asian Latin Americans

text: In the 2000 US Census, 119,829 Hispanic or Latino Americans identified as being of Asian race alone. In 2006 the Census Bureau's American Community Survey estimated them at 154,694, while its Population Estimates, which are official, put them at 277,704.


title: Ring road

text: A ring road (also known as circular road, beltline, beltway, circumferential (high)way, loop, bypass or orbital) is a road or a series of connected roads encircling a town, city, or country. The most common purpose of a ring road is to assist in reducing traffic volumes in the urban centre, such as by offering an alternate route around the city for drivers who do not need to stop in the city core. Ring roads can also serve to connect suburbs to each other, allowing efficient travel between them.


title: Ring road

text: The name "ring road" is used for the majority of metropolitan circumferential routes in Europe, such as the Berliner Ring, the Brussels Ring, the Amsterdam Ring, the Boulevard Périphérique around Paris and the Leeds Inner and Outer ring roads. Australia, Pakistan and India also use the term ring road, as in Melbourne's Western Ring Road, Lahore's Lahore Ring Road and Hyderabad's Outer Ring Road. In Canada the term is the most commonly used, with "orbital" also used, but to a much lesser extent.


title: Ring road

text: In Europe and Australia, some ring roads, particularly longer ones of motorway standard, are known as "orbital motorways". Examples are the London Orbital (generally known as the M25; 188 km), Sydney Orbital Network (110 km), and Rome Orbital (68 km).


title: Ring road

text: In the United States, many ring roads are called beltlines, beltways, or loops, such as the Capital Beltway around Washington, D.C. Some ring roads, such as Washington's Capital Beltway, use "Inner Loop" and "Outer Loop" terminology for directions of travel, since cardinal (compass) directions cannot be signed uniformly around the entire loop. The term 'ring road' is occasionally – and inaccurately – used interchangeably with the term 'bypass'.


title: Ring road

text: Bypasses around many large and small towns were built in many areas when many old roads were upgraded to four-lane status in the 1930s to 1950s, such as those along the Old National Road (now generally U.S. 40 or Interstate 70) in the United States, leaving the old road in place to serve the town or city, but allowing through travelers to continue on a wider, faster, and safer route.


title: Ring road

text: Construction of fully circumferential ring roads has generally occurred more recently, beginning in the 1960s in many areas, when the U.S. Interstate Highway System and similar-quality roads elsewhere were designed. Ring roads have now been built around numerous cities and metropolitan areas, including cities with multiple ring roads, irregularly shaped ring roads, and ring roads made up of various other long-distance roads.


title: Ring road

text: London has three ring roads (the M25 motorway, the North and South Circular roads, and the Inner Ring Road). Birmingham also has three ring roads which consist of the Birmingham Box; the A4540, commonly known as the Middleway; and the A4040, the Outer Ring Road. Birmingham once had a fourth ring road, the A4400. This has been partially demolished and downgraded to improve traffic flow into the city. Other British cities have two: (Leeds, Sheffield, Norwich and Glasgow). Columbus, OH and San Antonio, TX, in the United States, also each have two, while Houston, Texas will have three official ring roads (not including the downtown freeway loop). Some cities have far more Beijing, for example, has six ring roads, simply numbered in increasing order from the city center (though skipping #1), while Moscow has five, three innermost (Central Squares of Moscow, Boulevard Ring and Garden Ring) corresponding to the concentric lines of fortifications around the ancient city, and the two outermost (MKAD and Third Ring) built in the twentieth century, though, confusingly, the Third Ring was built last.


title: Ring road

text: Geographical constraints can complicate the construction of a complete ring road. For example, the Baltimore Beltway in Maryland crosses Baltimore Harbor on a high arch bridge, and much of the partially completed Stockholm Ring Road in Sweden runs through tunnels or over long bridges. Some towns or cities on sea coasts or near rugged mountains cannot have a full ring road. Examples of such partial ring roads are Dublin's ring road; and, in the USA, Interstate 287, mostly in New Jersey (bypassing New York City), and Interstate 495 around Boston, none of which completely circles these seaport cities.


title: Ring road

text: In other cases, adjacent international boundaries may prevent ring road completion. Construction of a true ring road around Detroit is effectively blocked by its location on the border with Canada; although constructing a route mostly or entirely outside city limits is technically feasible, a true ring around Detroit would necessarily pass through Canada, and so Interstate 275 and Interstate 696 together bypass but do not encircle the city. Sometimes, the presence of significant natural or historical areas limits route options, as for the long-proposed Outer Beltway around Washington, D.C., where options for a new western Potomac River crossing are limited by a nearly continuous corridor of heavily visited scenic, natural, and historical landscapes in the Potomac River Gorge and adjacent areas.


title: Ring road

text: When referring to a road encircling a capital city, the term "beltway" can also have a political connotation, as in the American term "Inside the Beltway", derived metonymically from the Capital Beltway encircling Washington, D.C.


title: Ring road

text: Ring roads have been criticised for inducing demand, leading to more car journeys being taken and thus higher levels of pollution being created. By creating easy access by car to large areas of land, they can also act as a catalyst for development, leading to urban sprawl and car-centric planning. Ring roads have also been criticised for splitting communities and being difficult to navigate for pedestrians and cyclists.


title: Ring road

text: Most orbital motorways (or beltways) are purpose-built major highways around a town or city, typically without either signals or road or railroad crossings. In the United States, beltways are commonly parts of the Interstate Highway System. Similar roads in the United Kingdom are often called "orbital motorways". Although the terms "ring road" and "orbital motorway" are sometimes used interchangeably, "ring road" often indicates a circumferential route formed from one or more existing roads within a city or town, with the standard of road being anything from an ordinary city street up to motorway level. An excellent example of this is London's North Circular/South Circular ring roads, which are largely made up of (mainly congested) ordinary city streets.


title: Ring road

text: In some cases, a circumferential route is formed by the combination of a major through highway and a similar-quality loop route that extends out from the parent road, later reconnecting with the same highway. Such loops not only function as a bypass for through traffic, but also to serve outlying suburbs. In the United States, an Interstate highway loop is usually designated by a three-digit number beginning with an even digit before the two-digit number of its parent interstate. Interstate spurs, on the other hand, generally have three-digit numbers beginning with an odd digit.


title: Ring road

text: Circumferential highways are prominent features in or near many large cities in the United States. In many cases, such as Interstate 285 in Atlanta, Georgia, circumferential highways serve as a bypass while other highways pass directly through the city center. In other cases, a primary Interstate highway passes around a city on one side, with a connecting loop Interstate bypassing the city on the other side, together forming a circumferential route, as with I-93 and I-495 in the area of Lawrence, Massachusetts. However, if a primary Interstate passes through a city and a loop bypasses it on only one side (as in the Wilmington, Delaware, area), no fully circumferential route is provided. Within cities, ring roads sometimes have local nicknames; these include Washington DC's Interstate 495 (The "Capital Beltway"), Interstate 270 in Columbus, Ohio (The "Outerbelt"), and Interstate 285 in Atlanta (The "Perimeter").