Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 3), Issue #6 – “I Am Gotham (Epilogue)”! In the previous installment, Gotham gets so powerful that he is even able to uppercut Superman and hurt him. This is because part of his powers involves strengthening up to and past the point of what’s necessary at the moment. Cool, right? Well, he had suddenly become a bad guy hellbent on destroy Gotham City for about eighteen pages, so not so cool. Unless you want to see Gotham City crushed into rubble like I do.
The funny thing is, Batman arranges to have an entire plane come down and crash on Gotham and he comes out without a scratch. Invulnerable, right? Well, the issue ends with a monologue that starts with “after Gotham died…” without explaining anything. Are we going to see what happened here in the epilogue? Or is it going to be some bullshit? My money’s on bullshit. It’s never not bullshit with these people.
Batman (Vol. 3), Issue #6 [October, 2016]
Written by: Tom King
“I Am Gotham (Part 6)”
“Hank, I heard the best joke. It’s so good. I mean, it’s, like, one of those things where you hear it and you have to go and tell someone. But I, like, didn’t tell it to anyone. I just wanted to tell it to you first, Hank. Anyway, here it goes–”
“–Why don’t you ever see Batman hiding in trees? Because he’s so good at it! HA HA HA HA!”
Gotham Girl cuts off all her hair and buzzes it down while she’s saying all this. It’s the universal action of “that bitch gone crazy”. This was Monday.
On Tuesday, a screaming lunatic in a blimp, aptly named “Colonel Blimp”, wants 30,000,000 dollars in thirty minutes or else the submarine he’s towing behind him will get… well, not dropped in the ocean, obviously. But something will happen to it!
Hairless Gotham Girl crashes through the blimp cockpit and shoves the Blimp Guy out of the blimp. While this guy is screaming, Gotham Girl talks to herself some more. “Ugh, Hank, I’m tired. I stayed up too late last night watching, like, old reruns. They were showing some of those shows that we watching in the morning, on the kitchen TV…”
There’s a lot more of this while she swoops down, catches the screaming guy, and dons his sexy purple Blimp Hat.
“I’ve been thinking about Mom,” she says as she literally drops this guy off in front of the police station. “Did you ever think Mom was almost too judgmental sometimes?”
Looney toons over here fights crime while mumbling inanities. It’s the superhero Gotham City needs! Better than that bat guy. Who was that guy again?

Don’t you just hate it when you’re driven mad by the Psycho-Pirate after your whole family was killed? Really grinds my gears.
On Wednesday, Duke Thomas annoys Batman like a pesky gnat telling him things he already knows. “Gotham Girl is crazy” and “We have to save her” and “My dick is stuck in my zipper again”.
On Thursday, Gotham Girl looks over the nighttime skyline comments on its beauty, talking to her dead brother. “Isn’t it beautiful?” she says to him (dead).
On Friday, she gets distracted from talking by faint begging in the long distance. It appears that a dandy fop named Captain Stingaree, a piratey-type with his billowing captain’s coat and his luscious eyepatch, has kidnapped a group of pudgy, misshapen men in Batman costumes. He’s making one of them walk the plank, which hangs over the edge of a tall building. “Karl, listen. Please…” begs one of the Batmans. Batmen? “You got to get your meds, man. That’s all… just… please…”
BUT CAPTAIN STINGAREE KNOWS NOT ABOUT MEDS! THIS IS ABOUT KILLING THE BATMAN! WHICH IS YOU! Exhibit A: the Batman costume, of course! Check and mate, dear sir. “Tonight, the sharks’ll feast mightily out of Davy Jones’ locker!”
Then Karl Stingaree shoves this guy off the edge and turns to the other Batmen. “Ahoy, me hearties! Which of ye Batmans is to be next?”
In swoops Gotham Girl ready to throw this landlubber down to the briny deep! She beats the shit out of him until the real Batman shows up on the roof. “We need to talk,” he says, which has become a bit of a catchphrase as of late.

He smells like onions, though. Hey Hank, you’ve always liked onions…
“You need help. I can help you,” he tells her.
“Hank…” she responds dreamily. “I wish…”
“You’re in pain. I can help with the pain. Come with me. Let me help you.”
“Hank… Hank… It’s…” She frowns. “Batman…” She smiles. “It’s Batman! It’s really Batman!” She flies away blissfully, leaving Batman on the roof like some sort of fucking loser who can’t fly.
Batman radios Alfred and asks him – because he was bluffing the whole time – what he did to help him when his own parents died. “Master Bruce, with all due respect…” Alfred begins, which doesn’t bode well. “Each night you leave this perfectly lovely house and go leaping off buildings dressed as a giant bat. Do you really think I helped you?”
Fuckin’ Alfred, man. Always delivers.
On Saturday, a guy named Kite Man, like this was goddamned Mega Man or something, crashes through the window of a very ornately decorated room of rich, well-dressed occupants. He steals pearls right off of a woman’s neck and crashes through another window on his way out. What’s with all the jumping through windows all the time? Lacerations are the #3 killer in America!

Don’t get cocky, Kite Man. Have you met Kite-Eating Tree Man?
“Kite man. Hell yeah,” he says as he hang-glides to safety. And by “to safety” I mean “right into Gotham Girl’s trajectory where she intercepts his ass and drops him off at the police station while talking to ‘Hank’ about the joke she already said she heard that wasn’t funny in the first place”.
Batman catches Gotham Girl’s attention by shining 1,000,000 candelas of Batsignal light in her eyeballs. “I need to know something,” he says quietly. “I need to know why you’re helping this city.”
Gotham Girl swoops down to the roof to meet Batman. “Hank, you think Batman would understand, right?”
Batman glares with intense impatience.
“But no one understands, really. I mean, except you. You always understood. When it hurts… so much… when you’re alone…”
Batman face falls to sad-sacky Frown Town.
“Helping Gotham… it makes it hurt less.”
In short, she feels like she has no choice. She has to help Gotham.
Batman has had enough. He takes off his cowl and shows her his face in all its majestic Bruce Wayneness. He tells her all about his murdered parents, about how he started talking to his mother for a while afterward, about how he still kind of does. They both hug it out.
“I don’t feel good,” she cries.
“I know.”
“I just miss him.”
“I know.”
WHAT DON’T YOU KNOW, KNOW-IT-ALL? Fucking know-it-all over here.
Anyway, epilogue to the epilogue. Amanda Waller talks to Batman about Professor Hugo Strange. He’s nowhere to be found anymore. “He caused a series of disasters around Gotham in order to gain control of Psycho-Pirate. He then apparently… exchanged the pirate for a significant quantity of Venom.”
Psycho-Pirate is in Santa Prisca with Bane. Bane was behind this all along! That scamp! There’s a lot of work to do if you want to avenge Gotham Girl and her dead family.
But… Amanda Waller can help… oh yes yes…
And we’ll find out why another time!
Final Thoughts
*DUSTS OFF HANDS* ANOTHER BATMAN STORY IN THE BOOKS. Check back next time when Batman steals a stack of Hustler magazines and starts licking the centerfolds in the Batcave bathroom.
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