Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #406 – “Black Dawn”! Chapter Three of the gripping Year One saga! In the previous installment, we see Bruce Wayne’s early failures, and some of his successes, as Gotham’s newest masked vigilante! We see Lieutenant Gordon receive early, but minor, vestiges of respect among his fellow police officers! We see Gordon chasing down Batman only to realize that he might be good!

We see a building Batman is in get firebombed! Oh no!

Who will save the Batman?!

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #406 [April, 1987]
Written by: Frank Miller
“Black Dawn”

Batman is certainly trapped within the bombed building! All around him, fiery debris is falling and smoke is filling the room. The thermite in his utility belt starts igniting, so he loses that off his person as fast as fucking possible. He finds a locked metal trapdoor on the floor with a “DANGER: ELECTRICITY – 80,000 WATTS” warning, and banking on a longshot that the warning isn’t real, he grabs a lockpick from his glove and works on the lock.

June 7. Are we in a brothel again? Remember Holly, that child working the street? And Selina, the short-haired cat-like woman who was probably Catwoman? So, yeah, there’s no way this woman isn’t Catwoman. She’s sleeping in a bed with about 12 cats crawling all over her whining and meowing! It’s the middle of the night and these cats are waking her up. She asks Holly, who is at the window of the same room, what time it is. Holly tells her that there are explosions blowing up at Robinson Park. “Maybe Branden’s cornered a jaywalker.” Selina responds, quite humorously! Everyone has that SWAT fuckface Branden’s number, don’t they? LET’S GO BRANDEN. Am I right, folks?

Gordon’s head is wrapped in a big goddamned bandage and he looks like he doesn’t even know what planet he’s on right now. Batman’s made enemies of the whole city, he thinks, and they’ve only got him cornered because he was trying to save an old woman’s life…

Selina and Holly are watching the scene unfold on TV. When they drop Batman’s name, Holly wants to go check out the action in person. “What the hell. Grab your coat.” Selina responds, tempering her own enthusiasm a bit. She’s feeding her horde of cats.

80,000 Watts?? Blow that fucker up before I dishonorably discharge right in your face.

An 18-member SWAT team is inside the building, which didn’t even look that big to begin with! They scour the wreckage looking for the masked one, passing by an innocuous chimney. Eventually, they come across an unlocked metal trapdoor on the floor with a “DANGER: ELECTRICITY – 80,000 WATTS” warning. Sound familiar? They decide that it sounds like a cool thing to shoot at with their many semi-automatic rifles! THEN they decide to lift the trapdoor, which contains a staircase leading to a basement.

It turns out this abandoned building is lousy with dead winos! They just keep finding them everywhere! But no sign of Batman. Once team-leader Branden decides that the basement has nothing of interest (unless you like Jesus-y artifacts on the walls of what looks like a dang basement prison cell or some shit) and he’s ready to leave, a voice tells Branden that he’s just fine where he is! Batman pops out of the innocuous chimney with a walkie-talkie! A pile of wreckage has been placed upon the trapdoor! The SWAT team is trapped! Jiminy Jillikers!

Batman drops a smoke bomb down the chimney, which leads to a hole in the wall in the basement which used to be a fireplace. “GAS MASKS! FAST!” Branden instructs.

Outside the building, Gordon ignores Branden’s radioed calls for help due to “orders”. Holly is excitedly atop a cop car front hood trying to get a better view, perhaps even a possible glimpse of Batman himself!

Commissioner Loeb is hovering above the wreckage of the building in a helicopter, where it’s revealed that a sniper is atop an adjacent building at the ready. Once day breaks, it should be easier to take Batman out. Until then, Commissioner Loeb, be patient, you big stupid baby.

How undignified, under the stairs like this. Sad as Harry Potter.

Batman, laying low under some stairs, takes stock. Without his utility belt, he has no rope, no thermite, no tear gas, no batarangs, no moisturizer, no toothpicks, no protein bars, no cockrings! All he has left of any use is a blowgun that he keeps in his boot. As another SWAT team makes their way down the stairs, they startle a cat that was serving as Batman’s companion, almost giving away his location. I mean, come on, he’s barely hiding! Look at this shit.

Anyway, Batman also remembers that he has an “untested unofficial Wayne Electronics invention” affixed to the heel of his boot. Then he says this about it that makes no sense: “Too bad I can’t afford to patent it. I’d make a fortune. But then, I already have a fortune…” yeah, ok Bruce, then fucking patent it since you can afford to, dingus.

So this device, once Batman turns it on, an ultrasonic signal is sent all the way over to the Batcave where every bat residing in the cave is summoned. What’s the plan here, then? Getting hundreds of bats caught in the SWAT team’s hair, rendering them skeeved out? Last ditch effort plan there, BatGuy.

While he awaits the bats, there are about twelve SWAT guys milling about the destroyed building just utterly perplexed about Batman’s elusiveness. Batman shoots a poisoned dart at one of their necks (possibly Branden?), with enough snake venom to take a man out for a day! Sounds lovely, I could use some relaxation myself.

Come to me, my pretty! Rawr!

With only two darts left, and too many men to take out, Batman smartly gives up on that plan. So, instead, he decides to just run through the room while a dozen SWAT guys shoot millions of bullets in the room at point blank range. Batman gets away without a scratch. Except for the part where a bullet connects with his arm! I guess that’s a scratch at the very least. Some cops outside the building get wounded too, because bullets are fucking flying everywhere and the Gotham SWAT teams are the worst in the country! At least the cat gets away clean; it heads right to possibly-Catwoman, jumping right into her arms.

Batman is huddled like a frightened chihuahua in the corner! The team closes in on him, and even though he’s quite wounded, Batman kicks a damn Greek column in half which causes the ceiling above to rain down on everyone in a crumbling mess of stone and dust. “You’re the one who tried to shoot the cat,” Batman says to one of them, punching him right in the bread basket!

And then the bats come…thousands of them, swarming the scene, scaring the bejesus out of literally everybody. Batman hops on a police motorcycle and burns rubber, baby, and the bats follow.

What a dumbfuck. One less shitty cop in the world.

The police chase down Batman and the swarm of bats. Somewhere along the way, shrouded by the bats, Batman takes a turn. The police lose him, they’re just chasing bats, man. One dumb motherfucker drives off a pier. Batman’s gone, he got away, it’s over, flew the coop, show’s over folks!

The entire crowd had to get rabies shots! Five SWAT members suffered broken bones and internal bleeding! The winos who died when the building was firebombed had no relatives to complain about, so that ends that particular chapter! And, per the commissioner, anyone available to ring up charges on Loeb or Branden aren’t available to take Gordon’s phone calls…

June 9. Looks like we’re three days after the exciting adventure in Lieutenant Gordon’s boring office. Bruce Wayne is also not answering Gordon’s calls because, per Albert, he’s been skiing in Switzerland for six weeks. That’s a long time to go skiing, Bruce! 42 days of skiing? Go fuck yourself with that much time skiing. That’s what Gordon should’ve said! Missed opportunity! Anyway, Gordon is pretty certain that Bruce Wayne is Batman at this point. He tries getting a hold of him in Switzerland, and some guy who claimed he was indeed Bruce Wayne tells him that busted up his limbs in a dang skiing accident! But he’ll be back to the States in a month’s time. *wink*

Essen’s there in the office too, tells him that Bruce Wayne could easily afford an impersonator, and casts would conveniently cover up all the bullet wounds he suffered. Then Gordon and Essen call a taxi cab to head over to the Bone Zone.

She goes home and jerks herself with her gun, just like the rest of us cops!

June 15. Well lookee here, Bruce Wayne actually IS skiing! Way to commit to the alibi, Brucey. He’s doing extravagant flips over chasms like a lunatic, almost like he wasn’t shot with bullets at all in the last week! His inner monologue fears how many people want him dead, and his best bet at this point is to recruit Gordon as an ally. Somehow.

June 17. I don’t know who Stan is, but a man is bleeding out from the face on the sidewalk. Selina looks like she damn near killed the man. Other prostitutes look on in horror. Selina’s done with this whoring business! She grabs Holly and tells her that she has a plan for both of them.

Now you’ve gone and done it.

Meanwhile, Gordon and Essen are enjoying a late-night coffee at a diner, as has become their routine before ending their shifts and heading back to their respective homes. This time, a downpour is keeping them both inside the diner and talking, getting to know one another more personally, intimately, nuzzling boners. He finds out her name is Sarah! Pesky little details like that never come out, do they! How scandalous!

Turns out she’s from Chicago too, just like Gordon. They even had the same favorite restaurant! They must’ve crossed paths at some point…although, now that Gordon thinks of it, Essen was probably in high school when he was frequenting it. Hmm, never mind! Kinda gross, though!

Gordon’s running an hour behind and hasn’t called Barbara at all to let her know. Sheesh, gonna be in the doghouse for sure. Dagnabit. The rain eases and they head out, but soon enough the downpour starts up again. They huddle together under a narrow doorway, barely shielding themselves from the rain.

Whoops, they start kissing! How did that happen? Heh heh heh.

August 7. Two months later. We see Selina finally donning a Catwoman costume! Holly whines that they spent all their remaining money on it. Selina tells the little whelp to go screw! “Just watch.” Selina says, and then leaps out of a building!

Not pictured: The inevitable 60-foot fall, splattering the pavement.

And we end with Jim Gordon sitting on his bed in his underwear with a gun (about to jerk himself with it, no doubt). “I hate this city. I hate myself and the night and everything it brings.” he begins, toying with his gun in the dark. He hates how much he and his wife are fighting these days. She says he’s gone too much. Instead of apologizing, he always snaps at her instead. “Tonight she called the office and I wasn’t there, I was out having coffee with Sarah,” he thinks. His mind’s all messed up. He should be focusing on his wife and his unborn child, not Sarah Essen, not the criminal Batman…

…and yet…”he saved that old woman. He saved that cat. He even paid for that suit”.

“The hunk of metal in my hands is heavier than ever…”

Final Thoughts

Yeah, so most of this issue was boring action stuff, but the aftermath made up for it with some actual story. Gordon is way more flawed a character than I ever thought. Batman too, I suppose, especially for a DC hero. Usually Marvel has all the flawed humans, but it’s nice to see it here.

Still liking this! Of course I am. You’d have to be some sort of IMBECILE to not! The next issue is the final chapter of this story, I’ll see you then.