WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Batman #108 by James Tynion IV, Jorge Jimenez, Tomeu Morey and Clayton Cowles, on sale now.
With the world looking increasingly broken to younger generations coming into their own, it makes sense that some would rise up in defiance. This includes the modern DC Universe and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with two notable groups looking to "save" the world in much the same way.
The Unsanity Collective from Batman has a bit in common with the Flag-Smashers from the MCU's The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and they could be on the path to the same sort of ruin as the Flag-Smashers.
Introduced in The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, the Flag-Smashers quickly proved to be a surprisingly understandable threat. In the aftermath of Thanos using the Infinity Gauntlet to wipe out half of all life, the nations of Earth united in a way they'd never previously been able to. However, following the events of Avengers: Endgame, the world quickly turned against itself again. With countless people dislocated by the Global Repatriation Council attempting to repair the world to the way it had been, Karli Morgenthau and other like-minded peoples worked to form the Flag-Smashers, a group dedicated to changing how the world operates and bringing back the element of unity that had been lost. Over time, they increasingly embraced harsh tactics and brutality to achieve their goals.
Meanwhile, in the pages of Batman, the Unsanity Collective has united around the mysterious Mister Wyze. Following the chaotic events of the Joker War and the subsequent massacre of A-Day, a group of primarily young people around Gotham have decided that it's time for the city to "wake up" from the stupor it's been placed under. Rejecting labels of sane and insane, the Unsanity Collective argues that the old power structures have found a way to make people happy with the minor pleasures they spend their whole lives trying to earn, while only helping enforce the powerful. In response, the Unsanity Collective is moving across the city and spreading fear in the rich while trying to help the underprivileged corners of Gotham, even erasing their own traumas and memories in a bid to become something different.
The Unsanity Collective and the Flag-Smashers are actually surprisingly similar, both in intent and action. Both groups see the current societal structures of modern life to be restraining and seek to save the common people by liberating them from those shackles. Both groups pride themselves in targeting the wealthy and are branded as threats for these actions, all the while trying to provide food, shelter and protection for others they empathize with. The Flag-Smashers utilize a large base of supporters and stolen Super Soldier Serums to increase their effectiveness, while the Unsanity Collective has increasingly embraced cybernetic innovations pioneered by Miracle Molly.
Perhaps the most telling bond between the two revolutionary forces is the effect they have on the respective heroes trying to stop them. In The Falcon & The Winter Soldier, Sam Wilson is increasingly empathetic to the Flag-Smashers' motivations and agrees that the world isn't fair, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't strive to be. Batman, meanwhile, can see the appeal in how the Unsanity Collective's Gotham 2.0 could allow people to change into better versions of themselves unburdened by the weight of the world and their previous actions. Both heroes represent dissatisfaction with the way the world works and have to deal with the fact that the people they're often saving from these groups are the impetus of the problem themselves.
The Flag-Smashers prove what happens when that mission is taken too far, too fast. Karli quickly resorted to increasingly brutal acts of violence in her mission, ultimately enraging the Power Broker and not only getting herself killed as a loose end but getting all of her fellow close allies blown up at the conclusion of The Falcon & The Winter Soldier. While the Flag-Smashers as an ideal may survive, some f their enemies have only grown stronger in their defeat. Likewise, the Unsanity Collective has been working with Simon Saint recently -- seemingly unaware of his plans to bring the Magistrate Program to Gotham City and turn it into an automated and ruthless totalitarian society. Hopefully, the Unsanity Collective is able to avoid the brink that proved to be enough to halt the Flag-Smashers in their current form.