Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #655 – “The Anvil of War”! In the previous installment of the Prelude to Knightfall story, a young whipper-snapper named Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong (bleh) gets bullied in military school so, naturally, he decides to burn down the academy and then travel the city of Gotham, a city he has no ties to, in order to conquer it and defeat the Bat-Man.

Armstrong builds up an army of gang members. He steals guns from an armory and uses the guns to shoot people in order to procure more guns in order to shoot people in order to procure MORE gang members!

They must acquire gang members. They must gain the respect of Black Mask. They must be feared by the police.

And, above all else, they must KILL BATMAN!!

And donuts. They must steal all the donuts.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #655 [January, 1993]
Written by: Chuck Dixon
“The Anvil of War”

So Batman is wounded and tired and dripping fluids out of many orifices.

“The Raymond Rudolph projects. They were supposed to offer decent housing to the working poor of Gotham. But these days they’re the fortress of one of the city’s deadliest street gangs. The Bad Boy Runners.”

lol. “The Bad Boy Runners”. Dangerous, indeed! You better watch yourself or they’ll steal your penny candy.

Someone took out the Eight Avenue OGs, and Batman thinks it’s these Bad Boys. So he’s staking out the Bad Boys to see if any of them are going to start being Bad.

But no, Batman instead sees a small convoy of army trucks filled with nuisances in army uniforms who run into the projects guns ablazin’. The leader of the Bad Boys, Bojack, is angry and well-muscled! “Who’d have the juice to put a hurt on me? Who are they?”

One of the Bad Boys gets killed, and Bojack takes out his gun. “Who’s got the stones to take on the Runners?” he says, pointing his gun in the direction of a plume of smoke and flames. “The Runners are no more, Bojack,” says a voice. “We’re here to take your power away.”

Smiley-Boy Ulysses Armstrong enters the room with his posse; tells Bojack to give up the goods, the money, the guns, the sultry women, anything that he’s got. “I’m the general and these are my wardogs. Recognize our superiority and you may join us. Or you can die right here.”

Bojack, resplendent in his fluffy red rockabilly mohawk and flowing red mustache, chooses to die right here! But before he can be a dumbass and shoot the leader of an army of ne’er-do-wells, Batman crashes through a window and kicks Bojack in the face! WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP WHOOP!

But Bojack is strong! Bojack is resilient! Bojack is like a Horseman, you might say!

Whoa whoa whoa, hold on there! I’m a Bad Boy! I’m a Bad Little Boy!

Batman calls Armstrong a “child” that Bojack has as a “hostage”, but he’s stupid and no one is going to correct him yet anyway. “The gangbangers are getting younger every year,” he thinks.

Bojack drags Armstrong up a bunch of steps. Too many steps for Batman to handle. He starts getting winded and woozy. But eyes on the prize! Save the child. Save the child, save the world. Something to that effect.

“Put the boy down!” Batman yells as Bojack dangles Armstrong over the top of the roof. Bojack is like “fine” and drops the kid. Batman leaps after him, tearing up his sutures. Blood all over the place, side of his body feels like fire. The guy should go home and go to bed, but we all know he won’t go to bed. He won’t go to Hell. He just won’t go anywhere.

Both Batman and Armstrong fall on a landing, with Batman much more worse for wear than the springy little hooligan. “The child is safe. That’s all that matters,” Batman thinks before Armstrong bashes the back of his head with a chunk of concrete. Batman topples off the landing and down to the street below. The audience laughs and cheers and claps, of course. “And I thought you were a warrior,” Armstrong grins.

Batman hoists up his fat, lazy bulk. My dude is bleeding everywhere like a complete nerd. “Lights. Sirens. Pain cuts like a knife. Stop whining. Get moving. Can’t let them find me like this. Can’t let them see me.” Batman scrambles away while the cops show up to the scene, leaving gallons of blood as a trail back to his manor.

Maybe some gasoline and a Brillo pad for your horrible acne.

Meanwhile, Alfred is yapping at a kid named Harold who is *peruses thousands of gigabytes worth of Batman lore* the Batcave mechanic? Yeah, right. Bruce doesn’t let anyone handle anything.

Harold wants the following at the store: electrical cable, 500-pound magnesium weld rods, a dozen terminal joints, and some donuts (I fucking knew donuts would be in the mix!) Bruce arrives just in time to add to Alfred’s grocery list…

What Alfred doesn’t expect is that Bruce is going to flop out of his Batmobile like a drunk fish. “SIR!” Alfred yelps lovingly. And, of course, Alfred is all like “My Big Beautiful Sir, you need your rest!” and Bruce is like “Absolutely go fuck your whole damn self, idiot.” You know, their usual banter. Bruce stumbles up the stairs spilling more of his shit O-Positive who-cares blood all over the place.

Elsewhere, Armstrong is Hitler-ing in front of many, many new recruits. “GOTHAM IS A CITY OF TRIBES. THE TIMES FOR TRIBES IS OVER.” Yada yada yada, rile up the troops. Bojack, the leader of the Dirtiest Dudes in Town, is dead. The Batman threat has been eliminated. Now we rattle Black Mask’s cage! Hallelujah! Allahu Ackbar!

Deputy Armpit-Sniffer runs up to Armstrong with a couple of mopes in masks. One’s a pig. One’s a clown. “You think a bunch of snotnose punks are going to shake down Black Mask? He’ll roll over in his sleep and crush you creeps!”

Dem’s fightin’ words, Clowny! It’s your lucky day, though. Armstrong hates clowns! Oh wait, that makes it your unlucky day. Nevertheless, *bullets to face*

Now it’s Piggy’s turn. “None of us has seen Black Mask,” he oinks. “He could even be dead. Batman busted out the whole gang a few weeks ago.”

Ha! HAHAHA! So Black Mask is wormfood, eh? Perfect! Then it’s time to take out Gotham’s biggest, rudest, meanest, evilest, nastiest piece of shit gang of all! “The Gotham City Police Department”.

Hell yeah! Go Armstrong! I’m rooting for Armstrong now! Fuck tha police!

They ain’t even got faces! Piece o’ cake!

Bruce Wayne dresses up as a filthy, poop-smeared homeless man, undercover and prowling around W. 11th St. In East River. Because he doesn’t have the internet in 1993, he needs to do this gather intel about what happened to all the gangsters. “I hide in plain sight and hear all the stories,” he says, snorting cocaine in front of everyone as a front. Yeah, that’s right. A front. Heh heh.

“There is one name mentioned more than any other. ‘The General’.”

Bruce has been out there sticking broken bottles up his butthole for the better part of a week, but he never actually hears the General’s God-given name! Some thugs kick down his grocery basket full of empty bottles and start teabaggin’ his face and mouth. “Trying hard to stay in character,” he thinks as the balls go in and out of his mouth. “Tired of getting beat on,” he continues, nutsacks slappin’ his eyeballs. “I’m not about to let two junkies roll me.”

These could be anybody’s colors, man! Maybe I just really like Captain Planet!

So he kicks their asses and puts one in a chokehold. “Who’s uniting the gangs? Who’s the General?” Bruce asks the guy, who is ignorant of this whole General business. Bruce pops him in the mug. “You’re going to tell me where the General hangs out. And then you’re going to put all my empties back in the shopping cart.”

Ballsy play, sir. Let’s see if they call or fold.

“THE FOOD CENTER, MAN. GENERAL’S HOUSE IS AT THE OLD FOOD CENTER.”

Checkmate. Rack ‘em.

“I should have called Gordon. I should have called an army of cops down on this place. From what I’ve heard, the General and his troops are armed for a world war. That could mean a massacre for the police. I’m not going to let that happen.”

Go stick your tongue down a cop’s throat, you punk-ass bitch.

Batman crashes the food center, which is empty of people except for a dead clown and a dead pig. There’s a large model of… some location in the back of the room. South Lyntown. Six blocks around the 43rd precinct building. Shit, this is quite a setup here. Very impressive! Looks like a tactical assault plan! Look at these cute little soldier figurines! Hey, wait a minute! This isn’t actually a good thing!

“No one here in their hideout. Stripped to the walls and no rearguard. They don’t plan on returning. That means the war begins tonight.”

“TO BE CONCLUDED”

Final Thoughts

Batman’s going to give Armstrong an atomic wedgie, and he’ll cry all the way back to military school. The end. Show over.