Batman Confidential (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Rules of Engagement (Part 1)”

* Part 1 of 6 of the Rules of Engagement storyline *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman Confidential (Vol. 1), Issue #1 – “Rules of Engagement (Part 1)”!

I’m doing a brief Batman detour from the immediate post-Crisis era to cover what seems like an interesting series from the mid-late 2000’s. Batman Confidential is purported to be a gritty crime noir series that focuses more on Batman/Bruce Wayne as a character study than a MAN OF ACTION. As in, what makes this guy tick? What were the more influential moments in his life? What made the man who he is today?

Or maybe not. Who knows? Seems like it might be my kind of thing, though, so here we go.

Batman Confidential (Vol. 1), Issue #1 [February, 2007]
Written by: Andy Diggle
“Rules of Engagement (Part 1)”

See? Batman is literally frothing at the mouth on the cover! We’re off to a fantastic start! The world needs more rabid Batman.

“Wind. Traffic. Sirens. Music. From this height, the sounds of the city meld into a dull roar…”

The sounds of the city, all right. Horn honks and farts. A young prostitute is assuring her tiny little child that everything will be normal some day. They’ll head somewhere out west, and she’ll go to a real school and play with real toys and eat real pizza and sleep in a real bed and have real dreams and stare at the real sun. Then a fucking guy in a Jason Voorhees mask shows up in the apartment to be scary. “P–please tell him… Tell him he can’t have her.”

Well, sorry toots, but it looks like he can have her!

“Even before I reach the apartment window, I know I’m too late–” Batman thinks as he fails, yet again, to rescue someone in dire need of rescuing. “Another life I failed to save. How many more?”

Probably a million more! The young woman is splayed out on the floor all dead and stuff while the toddler plays in her crib. The door was triple-locked, so she obviously was anticipating someone coming by to rough her the hell up.

“He came in through the fire escape. Used newspaper to muffle the breaking glass.” He looks around the room, pointing out some very obvious clues like “a guy broke in” and “the woman is dead”. There are bloody boot prints on the floor, but none on the windowsill. Hmmm… perhaps he teleported out of there! Barring that, maybe he’s still in the apartment!

Then, from the closet, Jason Voorhes unloads two Uzis in Batman’s direction, three feet away, and completely misses.

Ugh. What’s with everyone trying to make me eat things? You can’t make me eat anything.

Batman batarangs one of the guns right out of Jason’s hand, but he’s still got the other one! Shit! “THAT’S RIGHT, FREAK! YOU BETTER HIDE!” he yells as he continues to completely miss every shot he takes. The kid, understandably, is now crying. Jason is about to kill the kid, but Batman pops out to roundhouse kick his throat, successfully knocking the second gun out of his hand. He yells “FUHH–!” about this, which is undignified.

As a last resort, Jason reaches back into the closet and pulls out a few grenades. Batman grabs the kid and leaps out of the apartment before everything goes kablooie. What a mess. Batman notices that Jason had escaped and is now running away like a little chicken wuss. Batman is in hot pursuit!

Isn’t this great, kids? ACTION!

“Alleyway ahead of him must be twenty feet wide at least. Thinks he can make it. Probably would have…” but Batman throws his grappling hook and successfully wraps it around Jason’s neck mid-jump, stopping his momentum and causing him to crash and dangle down the side of the building. “Scary, isn’t it?” Batman says from the roof above. “To have your life in another man’s hands. Feel it slipping away.” He taunts this mofo as he barely holds onto the rope. “Do you think that’s how she felt? Helpless?”

He pulls the guy up onto the roof and threatens to DO AWAY WITH HIS LIFE, which he is not a fan of! He pleads for his life. Batman assures him that he can do worse things to him than kill him, and demands to know who sent him. “Who bought the hit…? And why?”

Well, sir, it was Johnny Depp and he’ll thank you not to pry any further. Jason’s not going to fess up, and it doesn’t matter anyway. He gets sniped by an energy weapon, reducing him to a pile of ash and a stupid hockey mask. Batman looks beyond to a tall building where he sees the sniper leap down and start running off. Perhaps Jason wasn’t the target. Perhaps it was The Bat Man.

Well, stop waving that thing around before you put a bullet right through your Eggs Benedict, sir.

Back at Batman HQ, aka smelly Wayne Manor, Bruce is hanging out in the Batcave moping and brooding. The gun that his parents’ murderer used that fateful night, he stole it from the Gotham City Police Department evidence locker a year ago. “…there was nothing more they could learn from it.”

Sounds dandy, Mr. Wayne, sir. Stealing guns from the police evidence locker sounds a solid use of your ample free time. Perhaps tomorrow we can start stealing cop cars and driving them off of bridges. Alfred asks him straight-up why the fuck he thought stealing this gun was a good idea. Bruce goes into this whole thing about how cheap the ammo was. He can’t believe his parents died from fifty cents worth of ammunition! It’s like, couldn’t the killer have sprung for something a little more fancy? He owed his parents that much, at least. It’s diabolical!

Bruce goes on to talk about the murdered woman from tonight. He had silenced weapons, no one would have heard them, and yet he decided to kill her with his bare hands. “She wasn’t even worth a bullet,” he says, grunting and hefting himself out of his chair. Her daughter will never even know her. “I could have killed him,” he says, much to Alfred’s pure astonishment. “How can I I expect to make a difference in this city when all I do is mop up the bloodstains…?”

Don’t forget that Alfred is the one here mopping up bloodstains. Constantly. So many transmitted blood-borne pathogens.

Alfred reassures Bruce that his father did some good in the world. Bruce says shut up, he’s dead. Alfred pulls down his vest with a deliberate “fuck you” attitude and leaves the Batcave.

Later, at one of the Wayne Aerospace facilities, Bruce pops in for a friendly visit. Making sure his staff are on top of everything and not taking any bathroom breaks whatsoever or else they get a face full of Murder Weapon courtesy of Bullets McWayne! He gets the attention of some guy named Lucius, who calls Bruce’s presence a “pleasant surprise”. I would never consider my boss showing up a “pleasant surprise”, especially if he looks like he’s gunning to take away more than just the bathroom breaks.

Bruce is just checking to make sure the jet Lucius is working on is in tip-top shape before their bid with LexCorp the next day. Plus, he needs to ask Lucius about ENERGY WEAPONS. Yes, that’s right, ENERGY WEAPONS. As in, WEAPONS that shoot out ENERGY. Like lasers and magnets. “Man-portable energy weapons… with enough juice to say, flash-vaporize a human being at two kilometers in high humidity conditions. Hypothetically.” Looks like ol’ Brucey is looking going over to the dark side! It’s about time, too. You get black helmets with respirators, just one of the many perks. Lucius points out how specific this question is. Oddly specific. But Bruce is the billionaire here, and Lucius gets paid in TV dinners, so don’t ask any more fucking questions.

Why don’t you buy yourself a less craggy face.

Lucius has dabbled in such energy weapons. “Phase particle beam cannon. The power unit was so heavy, you needed a tank to carry the damn thing around. So we shelved it.” Bruce is intrigued! Not at all man-portable, it seems, but perhaps… if… maybe… hmm… uh… zzz….

Wake up! It’s the big day! The defense department remote warfighting contractor is between WayneTech and LexCorp, and let me tell you something, LexCorp smells. They smell like a fungus. Both companies gave their nifty GIF-laden powerpoint presentations and now the floor is open for more jibber-jabber. “Senator Crabtree, thank you,” Bruce says before launching into a monologue about belt buckles and Gilmore Girls. Soon enough, Lex Luthor smiles devilishly with skepticism about Bruce Wayne’s ability to give the defense department what they truly need. Then Lex starts launching into a monologue about Cap’n Crunch and holodecks.

Then Bruce and Lex bicker with each other like old women. Lex wants to put the money into artificial intelligence, but Bruce is skeptical about putting human lives in the hands of machines. Lex is like “don’t worry about it” and that’s the end of that.

Bruce leaves the meeting slightly dejected, but Lucius thinks the final decision will sway in their favor. As they head out, Lex gets their attention. “Lex Luthor,” Bruce says, sneering. “It’s been a pleasure to finally meet you. Shame it had to be under such adversarial circumstances.”

“You did well in there,” Lex sneers back. “It’s heartening to see you aren’t just the vacuous hedonist the media so love to portray.” Bruce admits that he’s also that too!

You bet your butt, Bruce ol’ boy. I’m inventing a Death Star as we speak to rid the universe of that pesky Rebel Alliance…

Lex shares some lip service about it being their duty as leaders of industry to defend society from the outside. He doesn’t get so say much about it with his sunken eyes and his wormy lips before Bruce tackles him to the ground. A dump truck suddenly falls right where the two of them were standing. Alfred screeches by in the Buttfuck Bentley and yells for Bruce to jump in.

They all look above them to the robotic monstrosity that’s attacking downtown Gotham out of nowhere for some reason.

“I hate to be the one to say this, Wayne, but…” Lex looks legitimately astonished. “…isn’t that one of yours?”