Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman and the Mad Monk, Issue #4 – “Dark Moon Rising (Part 4)”! In the previous installment, Julie Madison happens to get within earshot of Dala at a bar and invites her to visit Niccolai to help with her very broken, very sad, very very rich father. He sucks on her neck a little, but he’ll keep her alive to try to make bank on the Madison fortune first.

But uh-oh, Bruce Wayne sees the comically large bite marks on Julie’s neck and now knows where to bust heads next! Yeehaw, son! Let’s keep this train moving!

Batman and the Mad Monk, Issue #4 [January, 2007]
Written by: Matt Wagner
“Dark Moon Rising (Part 4)”

A man is screaming from inside an iron maiden torture device. Niccolai is gettin’ horny just hearing his screams. Apparently, this man has been accused of snitchin’. He keeps screaming while Niccolai addresses his Brotherhood with words like “y’all gotta be careful not to fucking snitch on the Brotherhood”. “Encased here is one who let himself be captured and questioned by those who would unveil us!” Niccolai points an accusing finger.

Dala opens the iron maiden, revealing a very hole-filled person. Holes bleeding all over, spikes dripping red. He’s moaning and groaning. Dala licks her lips at the sultry torture of her beloved iron maiden. “The maiden’s embrace is ultimately fatal, but punctures are shallow so as to prolong the victim’s agony.”

The bleeding man falls to the floor, begging for mercy. He didn’t mean to get captured and questioned! He was lured by the promise of Beefaroni!

Niccolai brings out the wolves. Dinner time, and raw human flesh is on the menu! Giddyup!

“Such will be the fate of any who betray the bonds of our brotherhood,” Niccolai continues. “The night, you will find, is an unforgiving mistress.”

Meanwhile, Bruce lounges in his chair going over some facts in his peanut brain: there’s a vampire on the loose! Bluh!

“If I am to combat such a menace, I will need extraordinary weaponry. Garlic and religious icons seem to be mainly defensive measures.” Maybe you should watch all seven seasons of Buffy to prepare for your battle, Bruce ol’ buddy. It’s always a good time to watch Buffy!

Alfred chastises Bruce for stealing all the candlesticks from the dining room, but Bruce doesn’t care. He needed pure silver to make silver batarangs to defeat the vampires with even though vampires aren’t real. Get it now, Alfred? Go make me a steak.

Pull some fillings out of your rotten teeth next time. And I would’ve made a giant silver dildo to beat them over the head with.

Julie wakes up groggy in her 19th-century four poster bed. She just experienced a sleep so deep that she’s surprised that she even woke up from it. The phone rings. Hungover, Julie picks it up and hears Niccolai’s sultry voice on the other end. “I’m calling to summon you to another of our… sessions. You understand? You will return to the castle. You will leave as soon as you are able.”

And Julie’s response? She drunkenly accepts. Stumbling downstairs, she puts on her shoes and jacket and leaves the house while, of course, Batman lurks in a shadow in the next room. It’s weird, though. Julie never gets told what to do by anyone. She’s always like “fuck you, fucker”, so why is this man she met once luring her so successfully? Hmmm…

“It’s after 3am,” Batman thinks. “Where could she possibly be headed?” He smartly decides to start trailing the addled woman unsafely driving the car. You know, vampires are able to exercise full control over their victims. Interesting that she’s not dead yet, though. Usually it’s all corpses with giant, gnawed-out holes in their necks! Julie’s neck doesn’t seem entirely gnawed-out… yet…

Norman Madison peers out the window completely frightened. “He knows my name. And, as I feared… he knows where I live!” Dude, no one cares about you. Get out of my comic.

Just a case of SIDS! Whew!

Jim Gordon has a bad dream about trying to stop a rival cop named Jensen from killing his family. Jensen is a bad guy who hates Gordon for being a good guy. Gordon wakes up in a cold sweat and retires to his study for a calming smoke. Shit’s been stressful to say the least! Wubba lubba dub dub!

Dala has a whole monologue about how she met Niccolai. It’s overwhelmingly uninteresting, so I’ll spare you the specifics, but she kind of wants to fuck him and he’s taking her as a trusty assistant. Dala welcomes Julie as she arrives at the castle. Batman’s already outside the place glaring intimidatingly. He thought this castle had been long abandoned! Now there are vampire squatters? This is bullshit!

The castle used to be owned by the Rallstone family, who were even richer than the Wayne family! Of course, it was all shady Trump-style dealings. Bootlegging, slave trafficking, all that fun wholesome stuff. “What dark secrets do its stone walls contain?” he says as he makes his way around the labyrinthian tunnels under the castle.

Oh damn, there’s some wolves down here.

Batman throws a few smoke bombs down to the floor and the wolves leap through it like they were air bombs! That’s ok, because Batman cold cocks these wolves instead and it works. He ties up one’s legs successfully, but the other bites him savagely on the leg. Batman decks the wolf in the face a few times, but the wolf will not let go. Jaws are thoroughly sunk in, and it’s tetanus time for The Bat!

So Batman shoots him with mace and that works.

Rape!

Funnily enough, Batman accidentally maces himself! Caught slightly off-guard, the wolf lunges at Batman again… but Batman retains composure. He grabs the fucking wolf and swings him against the wall repeatedly until he breaks its spine. One quick visit from the ASPCA later, and Batman’s on his way!

After spending 185 minutes getting the bleeding leg under control, he feels woozy from the mace. Julie’s life is in danger, man! There’s no time for this fooling around! Move it!

Deep inside the castle, Niccolai is chewing on Julie’s neck when Dala interrupts him. The wolves have been howling for hours, making a racket. Go do something about it. Niccolai, always one to care for the wolves, goes to figure out the wolf situation.

Niccolai is like “we’ll finish this up later, but please try and remember your father’s account numbers and password and his social security number” before fucking off to check on the wolves. She hazily agrees to do so.

Batman marvels at the workmanship of the dank and musty stone walls as he traverses the corridors. Suddenly, like a booby trap in a shitty cartoon, the steps he’s descending retract and turn into a super fun happy slide à la Bart Simpson. Batman slides into a dungeon! And the dungeon walls start closing in on him! And the dungeon walls have spikes on them! And there’s no way out!

Final Thoughts

Tropes galore in this issue! Hopefully no one kills Jim Gordon’s kid and, oh yeah, Batman gets saved or something. I don’t really care either way. I’m getting lunch.