Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #407 – “Friend in Need”! The fourth and final chapter of one of the most universally acclaimed Batman stories. In the previous installment, after Gordon witnesses Batman save an old woman’s life, and then the subsequent battle between Bat and SWAT, Gordon is having second thoughts about his opinion of the caped vigilante. Meanwhile, with Gotham’s entire police force against him, Batman realizes he needs an ally on the inside…

Other big things: this particular story shows the origin of the whore-turned-masked-somethingorother Catwoman, and also Gordon is cheating on his pregnant wife with his sexy, blonde cop partner! I RECKON EVERYTHING WILL TURN OUT FINE HERE.

Onward.

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #407 [May, 1987]
Written by: Frank Miller
“Friend in Need”

September 2. This is about two and a half months after Gordon and Essen sucked each other’s faces in the rain. They’re sitting in the same little diner that they sit in every night together after their shift is over. Gordon looks Sad Mustache. It appears that they’re both sadly breaking things off. Good to do it now before Barbara breaks something else off, Jim, knowwhati’msayin’?

A news report shows Gordon’s successful bust of narcotics dealer JEFFERSON SKEEVERS, which is a great name to give your kid if you want him slinging drugs around! Looks like Gordon’s doing good things for the city of Gotham! Spoiler Alert: He sticks around!

I’d like to point out at this point, if I may, that I’m way more fucking interested in the Jim Gordon side of this storyline than the Bruce Wayne side. Bruce Wayne can go suck a barrel full of lemons! In fact, every character around Batman is way more interesting than Batman. Where’s my 400-issue Albert spinoff? HUH? ANSWER ME!

Snoggin’ dat ass.

September 7. Whoops! Well, I was wrong earlier, those two lovebirds are still going at it like a couple of, well, like a couple of lovebirds! Heh.

As the two of them chew on each other’s lips in Gordon’s office, Gordon’s inner monologue goes nuts, talking about how in love he is with her. About how she requested a transfer out of Gotham City. He seems to be mulling over whether or not he will accept the request.

Another news report shows bail set for Jefferson Skeevers by a district court judge, a decision that Assistant DA Harvey Dent had agreed with…

September 10. Gordon’s getting feisty in Harvey Dent’s office! “HWAH HWAH BLAH BALHRB ABLAHB” Gordon argues his point! “I understand how you feel, Lieutenant” Dent responds, smilingly.

September 11. THE PLANES HIT THE TWIN TOWERS! Lol. No, something else is happening to a building right now: Batman is climbing up the apartment complex where Jefferson Skeevers is snorting lines while his lawyer berates him. “I want you in a blue suit at the inquest. With a tie. Make it black. Same for the shoes. None of that pimp stuff.” Skeevers’ lawyer tells him as he’s huffing nose candy at the coffee table. She leaves him there and locks the door. Now is Batman’s time to shine, baby!

A giant crash brings his lawyer back to the door. “–Skeevers. Are you all right?” she asks.

“Better lay off that coke. Bad on the nerves.” she says and walks away again.

“You can never escape me. Bullets don’t harm me. Nothing harms me. But I know pain. I know pain. Sometimes I share it. With someone like you.” This is Batman talking, and then the scene fades to black. Skeevers is gonna get some Gotham Justice courtesy of the Justice…Guy.

Are you SKEEVED out yet?

September 12. Hunched over in a trench coat and a hat, Skeevers is in Gordon’s office asking for a plea bargain. He’s willing to talk about Flass, about Loeb, about whoever he needs to talk about. Gordon sends for Dent.

A news report shows Flass getting indicted for cooperating with Skeever’s drug operation. Fuck that guy!

D’oh! How did I miss that giant 1987 surveillance camera that was nine inches away from us?!

September 13. No more Mr. Nice Bowtie! Commissioner Loeb has a few choice words for the Lieutenant. Perhaps he’s going to start really boxing his ears! You don’t fuck with Flass, Gordon! He’s a buddy!

“Friendship, Gordon. Loyalty. These words still count for something in Gotham City.” Loeb scolds the man. Gordon stands his ground, though, says this is exactly the kind of thing Loeb brought him in for. “You get good press, I’ll give you that.” Loeb starts with a sinister glint in his pasty, prickly, pudding face. “But they don’t know you. No they don’t. Not the way we know you…”

And now Gordon’s eyes are bloodshot at seeing the dirt laid out in front of him. Start playing nice, Gordo, or it’s curtains for your crumbling marriage!

September 25. Gordon is cooperating with Loeb on hunting down Batman. We see Gordon and his wife enter Wayne Manor. A blonde woman wearing a pink nightshirt and holding a bottle of liquor is slumped in a loveseat in Bruce’s study. The Gordons are told that Bruce has a hangover this morning, but he will be down to talk shortly. They are welcome to wait in his study until then. Barbara is quite frowny.

Bruce Wayne, in a robe, pours a drink while cozying up next to his little floozy. “It is Batman you want to talk about, isn’t it? About my being him?” Bruce says casually. Gordon starts asking him about his whereabouts on certain dates in the last few months…

Later, once they start driving away, the Gordons discuss their, uh, pleasant stay at Michael Keaton’s Manor. Jim starts to see the parallels between him and Bruce Wayne going to great lengths to keep their respective closely-guarded secrets. Jim stops the car. “Honey, there’s something we have to talk about…” he begins. Uh oh!

Back at the manor, Bruce is looking out the window, wary of Gordon’s ten-minute stop before starting to drive again. “Alfred, how did you like my performance?” Bruce asks his faithful, to a fault, servant. “Hmf. I suppose you’ll take up flying next. Like that fellow in Metropolis.” Alfred responds, breaking the fourth wall a tad for the amusement of the readers! Ho ho! Oh, Alfred, you slay me, sir!

October 2. Flass is in hot water! I big tall Flass of hot water! He’s facing ten years in prison for his association with Jefferson “Big Sniffy” Skeevers! “That’s if Skeevers is alive enough to testify.” Flass says to Dent while his sweating lawyer gibbers.

October 5. Gordon got to her before Loeb could. No more leverage.

Yes, sir. Penis in vagina. I know how it works.

October 7. Jefferson “Skeevy McGee” Skeevers is poisoned, but his stomach is pumped before he dies.

October 10. Dent seems amused while Gordon insists that Skeevy will testify no matter what. He got poisoned, so what! His lawyer quit on him, so what! So the city is working their ass off to try to scare the drug guy, so what!

October 12. Big day all around! James Gordon Jr. is born! Commissioner Loeb’s $40,000 collection of shitty trinkets has been burglarized!

November 2. CAT burglarized, that is! By a CAT! A CAT-like Woman, you might say! The TV in the background of Selina and Holly’s, uh, dwelling, indicates that Batman is the prime suspect of the burglary. Meanwhile, Selina is ripping a head off a Charlie Brown figurine wondering what the hell she’s going to do with all this trash. “Thought he’d have jewels, or paintings” she mumbles. The news report only adds insult to injury, giving credit to the fucking Batman?! Please, this shit takes finesse.

She gets an idea to leave a calling card for the next victim: a single scratch across the cheek. They wouldn’t think it was Batman then. Perhaps she’ll target the Roman next, who was hogtied and ransacked himself only two issues ago! “Where’d I put that damn costume…” she says as she kicks around the Loeb clutter.

Oh my! Not the dreaded Womggahhh!

Elsewhere in the city, Batman is soaring across the night sky in his makeshift Batman hang glider. Let me look up the name of it…ah, the Bat-Glider. Very creative! What a coincidence, he’s heading over to the Roman as well. The Roman literally operates out of a Roman Pantheon temple structure on top of a large city building, complete with bathhouses and everything. How very subtle. The Roman is doing mafia things that don’t seem critical to the story while Batman stalks the roof.

Suddenly, a hissing woman garbed in cat pajamas claws a guard’s face outside the front of the Pantheon. As he’s doubled over crying, the Roman runs out and demands her alive and in pain. “Batman. You work for the Batman.” he yells at her. Meanwhile, Batman is still laying low on the Pantheon roof, dumbstruck.

As the Roman’s men advances on Catwoman, batarangs out of nowhere lodge themselves in the various vital organs and glands of his men, rendering them unconscious? Dead? Only the clawed-face guy is left conscious at any rate. Catwoman smiles in the direction of her unseen accomplice and continues her burglary.

November 3. Bruce is listening to a recording he made of the Roman doing mafia things that don’t seem critical to the story still maybe? He’s doing one-handed push-ups in his underwear less than a foot away from where Alfred is sitting and reading the newspaper. Alfred doesn’t seem to be…entirely…aroused… Bruce is speaking out loud about what to do about the Roman.

That evening, Selina watches the news report about the incident with the Roman. The anchor calls her “a woman with claws, presumably Batman’s assistant.” We’re one step closer! But, obviously, Selina doesn’t like that either.

OK, so the mafia stuff was critical to the story! I know when I can stand corrected, make no mistake. The Roman is working with Loeb to put a hit out on Lieutenant Gordon’s family. On a night Gordon is off-duty, the commissioner calls him in for some piddly low-ranking officer shit. Loeb then lets the Roman know that Gordon has left his apartment.

Shortly after leaving his apartment building’s parking garage, Gordon watches a man on a motorcycle, whom he doesn’t recognize, enter the garage. Gordon starts putting some of the pieces together, does a u-ey and guns it back to his pad.

Stealthily, he stakes out the parking garage, gun out. “I’m ready for you, bitch. Cunt bitch.” he mutters! Ha! That’s my own writing! The crying of his newborn son gives away the location of the Roman’s mafia lapdog holding the baby in a car with a knife brandished. “Drop the gun, Lieutenant. Go to the office. Wait for our call.” Mr. Mafia says coldly. More goons are pushing Barbara into the car. If I let them go, they’re dead- Gordon thinks as two men have their guns trained on our favorite Ginger Mustachioed Do-Gooder. He aims and fires to kill.

Not only does he have a gun, but he’s got BULLETS! We didn’t plan for this!

Looks like he takes one out before catching a bullet in the shoulder. The two men who are already in the car are taken by surprise at Gordon’s reaction and attempt to peel out of the parking garage. He takes out the motorcycle driver as he tries to leave on his bike. Gordon instructs Barbara, who was still out of the car, to call the police. He hops onto the motorcycle and chases after the car, which still contains his newborn son.

There’s a man lying down in the parking lot. Barbara has a gun aimed at him and threatens to kill, but the man insists that he’s not here to hurt her son. It’s revealed to us that it’s Bruce Wayne, and why he’s there and how he knew to be there right at that time confuses and bewilders me! But he’s there, and he hops on a bicycle to chase after the motorcycle which is chasing after the car! Oh my!

Gordon shoots a tire out while the car is crossing a suspended bridge. The out-of-control car plunges into the railing into a ear-splitting cacophony of crunching metal and breaking glass. The driver is dead. Gordon hops off and books it to the car. He can’t hear his son crying.

The guy with the Moe Howard haircut opens his passenger door into Gordon, knocking him back. The baby is still alive. Moe Howard pushes Gordon against the rail of the bridge, and Gordon is giving everything he has to keep Moe’s knife arm away. Holy shit, dude, the baby is dropped over the side.

Who’s that Pokemon?! It’s Tentacool! Plus a man holding a baby.

The last thing Gordon sees is his newborn baby plummeting toward the water. What he doesn’t see is Bruce Wayne launching down from the suspension cables to grab the baby mid-drop. As this is happening, the Stooge and Gordon are both knocked over the side.

Barbara runs up to the side of the bridge to see the damage. Bruce triumphantly holds up the unhurt, but crying miserably, baby. Gordon is also unhurt, but exhausted. Barbara is beside herself with anxious relief. Stooge lies unconscious, but face-up in the shallow water.

December 3. At Flass’ court hearing, he brings to evidence a book of notes he had taken with every meeting he had with Commissioner Loeb. Very diligent notes. It took him two weeks and five days to…ahem…remember where had left his notebook.

Commissioner Loeb is preparing the terms of his resignation. It is unlikely he will serve jail time. They’re lining up a replacement immediately.

All this media attention puts Gordon in the spotlight. He gets promoted to Captain.

Sarah Essen is in New York City. Gordon wishes her well.

Jim Gordon and Barbara are making some progress in marriage counseling.

There’s news of a guy who calls himself the Joker threatening to poison the Gotham reservoir. Gordon better give a ring to his new favorite late-night vigilante…

Final Thoughts

Holy Christ, guv’nor! Absolutely, utterly fantastic!

This is the legitimately gritty, unapologetic, brutal, and emotionally uncompromising comic book story I’ve been looking for since I started this whole undertaking. Very real, no fluff character actions and consequences. A depiction of the city of Gotham that truly feels like the worn-down, crime-ridden shithole that it actually is. Interpersonal politics and non-rosy relationship conflicts. Realistic portrayals of urban government and police corruption. It’s all there, baby. It’s like The Wire if there was a guy in tights flying around town (The Wire kind of does! Omar coming, yo. RIP).

What really sells me on the whole Year One arc is that it’s not a Batman story at all! This is Jim Gordon’s story all the way through. Batman just happens to be in it! And, let’s face it, Batman is the least interesting part of Batman comics. As an added bonus, we get Catwoman’s origin story as well. At least one version of it.

As I understand it, the four-part Catwoman limited series from 1989 overlaps with the timeline of the Year One story, so my next venture out of the New 52 will be to dig into that and see what else Selena Kyle was up to behind the scenes while Gordon was doing some extramarital cop-kissin’ and Bruce was getting shot in all his limbs!

But, until then, the New 52 I will continue.