Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5 – “Shaman (Part 5)”! The last installment of the story. In the previous installment, Bruce saves the nameless Inuit woman and the old shaman man and learns that Thomas Woodley is still alive and fucking with his shit. He breaks into Woodley’s estate and discovers a bunch of Chubala Shaman cult supplies! So it sounds like he’s masterminding the Chubala cult (Gotham branch), but we still don’t know who the Chubala cult leader is yet.

Time to head home, but Woodley’s at Wayne Manor threatening a bound and gagged Alfred and waiting to pop Bruce in the face with a knife.

I’m rooting for the knife.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #5 [March, 1990]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Shaman (Part 5)”

Let’s review the cover art progression: Issue #1 shows the shaman bat mask. Issue #2 shows the shaman bat mask breaking away, revealing the Batman cowl. Issue # shows the cowl breaking away, revealing Bruce’s RUGGED, HANDSOME, 007 visage. Issue #4 shows Bruce’s face shattering, revealing a SCARY SKULL. And now, we see the skull fragmenting and revealing… Batman. Like one of those Russian dolls. Underwhelming.

Woodley, clad in his shaman garb, rants and raves like a schizophrenic lunatic. And not the fun kind. “He comes through this door, I put my knife in him,” he mutters with little regard for spoken grammatical correctness. “I put it in his throat and watch him die.”

It’s very tense! Panels bounce between Bruce walking up the steps to his front door, Alfred sweating profusely in the chair, Woodley assuming his stabbin’ stance, the doorknob, a jar of mayonnaise, the glint of the knife, a jar of pickles, etc.

“Where is he? What’s takin’ him so long?” Woodley fidgets in the splendor of the foyer’s Christmas tree glow. Here’s what’s taking him so long: Bruce went in through the backdoor, baby.

Good thing it snowed! Bruce saw no footprints leading out of the house, and certainly not to Alfred’s car. Unless Alfred learned how to float two inches above the ground on a magic carpet (and he might have, for all we know), then that means he’s tied up and gagged in Bruce Wayne’s foyer! Not today!

So they tussle for a spell. Bruce avoids the knife a few times before he definitely doesn’t avoid the knife. It goes right in his chest almost to the hilt. “If I hadn’t been wearing this padded disguise, I’d be bleeding now,” he thinks, slightly stunned anyway. I’m stunned. The guy is wearing a six inch layer of padding? Fat fucking chance, this guy should be dead.

Whatever.

They take this fight outside, and there are several panels of grabbing and kicking and punching and more attempts at stabbing. Bruce is able to overpower Woodley by a hair, but Woodley’s got the crazy gleam in his eye! Crazy usually wins!

“Saved by the padding–again,” explains the narration as Woodley tries to rip through Bruce’s abdomen and pulls up the squishy, gelatinous padding like so much sticky, sweet saltwater taffy!

Eventually, Bruce wrests the knife out of Woodley’s hand and it gets tossed too far away to retrieve. Gettin’ all cocky like he already won, Bruce lets his guard down and gets flipped onto his back like a turtle by the crazy man! “He’s outfoxed me again,” he declares, delicately and whimsically. I’d use a lot of words to describe the drooling, rambling Stabby Man’s disordered maneuvering, but “outfoxed” implies a certain cunning.

Woodley runs into the woods. And why wouldn’t he? He’s Woodley. He was born to run into the woods. Bruce doesn’t even bother chasing him. He’s still recovering from the disastrous outfoxing!

“I’d never have caught him in this ridiculous suit, anyway,” says Bruce later after freeing Alfred from the SHACKLES. Your grapes appear to be sour, sir! There’s no time to rest, though, he needs to go back downtown and end these ritual killings once and for all.

Woodley may be harmed but he’s OUT there like a FOX in the woods and is still a dangerous asshole, so Alfred is advised to drive into town and stay at a motel for the night. Poppycock! That’s a coward’s way out, and why bother when they’ve already got HBO in the manor? No no, he’ll be staying here tonight.

Bruce is like “do it”.
Alfred is like “no way, José”.
Bruce is like “do it”.
Alfred is like “not a chance, Lance”.
Bruce is like “do it”.
Alfred is like “go away, Bobby Flay”.

Sounds to me like Alfred needs some immediate alone time with his erection.

Plus, it’s Christmas Eve and Alfred wants to go to his own home for some reason. Why? To be all alone there too? Alfred doesn’t have anybody! Why would he have a home? Wayne Manor has 14,000 rooms in it and there’s never more than just Bruce and/or Alfred in any of them at any given moment. Stupid!

Bruce is a benevolent slave driver, so he allows Alfred to go home on Christmas Eve just this one time, but the next 20 Christmas Eves you’re staying here, Buster!

Anyway, Bruce knows the identity of the Chubala cult leader out of nowhere. The banker named Carl Fisk who we barely saw in passing two issues ago. It should’ve been figured out a long time ago, actually, but Bruce was too busy talking to dancing old guys in the airport and putting on fat suits. It clicked when he was fighting at the half-completed construction building. There were no guards to stop anybody, as if they all had been called away. Someone who didn’t want to have witnesses for the drug deal. Since Fisk is also financing the construction, he was the prime suspect!

How very flimsy. I think the cult leader is none other than Nipsey Russell! I have my own theories and I shall keep them to myself.

Now this Fisk guy, he’s supposed to be bankrupt and poor and not in a position whatsoever to be interested in buying a handful of scratch-and-wins, let alone some Wayne real estate. So what gives?

WELL, Alfred dug up some Fisk dirt; learned that he had visited Santa Prisca in order to take control of the drug operation, and he accomplished this by scaring all the dealers with superstitious Chubala Shaman nonsense! Plus, he wore a big trench coat and threatened to open it up full frontal to anyone who naysayed and/or refused to cooperate, so that helped!

We found him prostituting and cramming Coke bottles up his rectum while squatting seductively.

Now, tonight, it’s fucking on, bro. Fisk is outfitted with, like, a million tracking devices. The whiz-bang 1990 GPS tracker takes Batman near the river, where a ton of redevelopment projects are underway. That means empty buildings. That means plenty of space for creepy, private rituals. That means piñatas and cake.

“If my stunt works, Fisk’s own weapons – fear and superstition – will destroy him…” Batman is very good at masterminding ironic punishments! Let’s watch…

Carl “Wilson” Fisk “Chalupa Shaman” is cooking this dude over a flame while saying scary cult things. “It is time. Time to trade – an eternity of torment – for the peace – of oblivion.”

Fisk gets his knife ready. He’s about to poke a big hole into the mustachioed human sacrifice. Then Batman presses a button on a remote and a squib goes off on Fisk’s costume. “AAGH” he says! Foiled!

“Chubala is a fool,” Batman begins his monologue, billowing into the room, “Chubala is a god of old women and small children. The other gods laugh at this Chubala. The other gods call his priests WEAKLINGS.”

Batman blows up another squib. “OWH” he says! Foiled again!

At this point, Mr. Jim Jones is tired of Batman setting off little fireworks on his person and tries to sic his followers on the cowled one. They don’t move.

“You are the servant of a powerful god? Then, Priest of Chubala, strike me yourself,” Batman taunts, striking the Priest of Chubala himself. With another squib. “UNGH” he says! We’re running out of grunt sounds, I think.

So this keeps happening, this back and forth, padding out the issue with a lot of “what are you afraid of, bitch?” and then “OWH! HURN! HABRF!”.

Then Batman takes Chubala Shaman’s big sword and pokes him in the nipple, drawing blood. To show that everyone’s Dear Leader can bleed blood, I guess?

Now Mr. Jim Jones pulls out his gun. Playtime is over.

Shooting blanks?! Not again!

Playtime has just begun! Shaman’s acidy kevlar vest doesn’t work. His blanky gun doesn’t work. Batman sets off one more squib, and it’s a biggun. It blows Fisk’s skull hat clean off his dome.

All the while Batman shows all of the cult followers that this guy ain’t shit. None of this would work for Trump supporters, though. They would all be there witnessing this happen and Trump would say “this isn’t happening right now” and they would believe him.

Batman cuts loose the human sacrifice and tells him to go find the police. Let them know that Batman HIMSELF will deliver the serial killer in only a few hours. This victim doesn’t even have any clothes to wear. Gonna run all naked around town, I guess.

Turning to Carl Fisk, Batman tells him he will draft up a written confession! In ink! Calligraphy! On only the finest loose leaf paper money can buy! Fisk pleads for mercy. After all, he had to do it! You don’t understand, sir, he wanted money! So that he wasn’t poor! And Batman, who would likely shudder to think of having to be poor for even seventeen minutes, pretends to show no empathy…but you can tell being poor would worry him too. As if Bruce Wayne isn’t ABOVE starting a death cult to get some money back.

Ew. Did you keep the receipt?

The cops find this dude hanging on a lamppost, which I’m starting to gather is Batman’s preferred way of turning in criminals. Captain Jimface Gordon is all smiles! He’s even smoking a dang pipe, he’s feeling so celebratory at the moment. He tells a sergeant to get a warrant and check Fisk’s safe deposit box at the bank, where he’s stashing 30 kilos of cocaine. That’s a lot of kilos of cocaine, man. That’s, like, 1/100th of the amount that Charlie Sheen has in his own safe deposit box.

So that’s that, eh? The bad guy has been thwarted. Gotham City is now safe forever. *dusts off hands*

Bruce discusses the victory aftermath with sourpuss Alfred Pennyworth. And what’s a penny worth? Getting out of this conversation! Haha! Does that make any sense? Probably not.

Here’s what bugs Bruce right now, though. The gun wasn’t full of blanks anymore! Check it out: *points gun at Alfred’s face* *pulls trigger* It’s full of live rounds now, see? *pulls back hammer* *pulls trigger*

“He must have reloaded,” observes Bruce using his eyeballs to look at the gun’s real bullets. If Alfred had a monocle right now, it would be falling into his wine glass. IF he also had a wine glass! That is to say, Alfred is quite SHOCKED! “His aim was faulty?”

That’s the only explanation! Even though it was point blank range, for Pete’s sake!

“The only other explanation is… I was wearing a mask. And that’s no explanation at all,” Bruce rambles. Masks save lives! It stops COVID and bullets.

Anyway, just one last piece of business because Bruce Wayne can relax in his Olympic-size swimming pool full of pussy: find Woodley and bite him in the butt. I guess he’s still chilling in the woods? It shouldn’t be too hard to track the guy since the woods would likely be full of only one guy’s footprints from running around like a lunatic for hours on Christmas. Plus, Batman can tell that he’s bleeding, because snow shouldn’t be red! The red snow really pops in contrast to the white snow, AND, thus, is a good clue! Batman, you shrewd detective you.

Fuckin’ guy in a bat suit screaming in the woods about “white man’s law” on Christmas day.

Batman spends a literal hour running through the empty woods before stopping and yelling for Tom Woodley. “I’ll take you to where you will be tried and punished properly,” Batman calls out, sweetening the deal! It works. Tom Woodley emerges shivering, exhausted, hungry, and stupid, and slumps his way over to where Batman is standing.

“On the mountain, I couldn’t kill you,” Woodley starts pouring his heart out about that which has been obviously eating away at him since the whole incident in Alaska, “Old Willy died easy enough, but not you. Shoulda seen you for what you are, shoulda seen the bat in you then…shoulda seen the shaman…” he starts blubbering A-BLOO BLOO BLOO BLOO, “…save me a lot of grief…”

Woodley throws Batman the shaman mask he took from Otter Ridge, claims he shouldn’t have ever taken it in the first place. Also, during their fight the previous night, Woodley fell on his own sword and got stabbed! In case you didn’t notice the blood all over the woods. Oh, you did! Then never mind!

I don’t know why, all of a sudden, Batman’s being very kind and accommodating to this murderer. All “I can help you” and “do you need me to get you anything?” and “maybe a kiss will make the boo-boo better?” Woodley wants Batman to tell him a story. I think that’s super dumb.

Batman says he doesn’t know any “appropriate” stories. He only knows smutty ones. So he just says three words to him and leaves him to die: “Rest in peace.” He smirks while he says it. Maybe Batman was pretending to be kind! Or he’ll go home and unload all over Alfred during one of those mandatory therapy conversations. Unload all over him.

Man, this story still isn’t over? What more is there to really say here?

Let’s 9/11 this motherfucker.

Bruce flies his $98.15 airplane, looking like it’s going to break apart mid-flight any minute now, transporting Woodley back to Alaska, I guess.

“Speaking of redskins…you hear the one about the Indian chief walks into a bar with a six-shooter, a cat, and a bucket of manure?” asks the grinning, racist pilot. Bruce shoots him a dirty look, the kind that says “only I get to be racist on this plane!”, and the pilot clams up. “Yeah, well, it isn’t real funny anyway…”

Aha, unfinished business! Bruce still has to try to bone the nameless Otter Ridge woman! Well, not today! Her pop-pop died quite recently and she’s not looking to bone anything at the moment.

“He died sober,” she says.
“I’m sorry,” Bruce replies. He must not have heard her.

Bruce also tries to apologize for blabbing about the Raven and the Bat story, but she won’t forgive that one any time soon. They head out for a walk, because there’s way more awkward chit-chat to be had here.

He tries to ask her out! He fucking tries to make a move here! Jesus Christ, dude, keep it in your pants you deplorable dumbass. You ruined her happy little community, you fucking creep.

“In a moment, I will leave you and I will never see you again, but first, listen to me–” she starts, giving Bruce her complete lack of interest in no uncertain terms. She can tell this miserable loser had a very traumatic childhood experience, so she gives him a little piece of advice: channel that energy into something useful. BECOME the mask! How’s that grab ya?

Bruce tries to give back the shaman bat mask. She doesn’t want it back.

“After Bat blew the sickness away from Raven, he collected it and took it to the nest of the Vulture…”

And thus, the man decided to keep being Batman.

Final Thoughts

Bruce Wayne didn’t get to have sex, BUT he did learn a valuable lesson about the importance of wearing a mask. What a timeless lesson.

And was the implication here that Bruce Wayne is bulletproof? No real explanation for those live rounds, huh? Sounds cool.

Also, Carl Fisk’s big money-making scheme was wild. Instead of just dealing drugs and laundering money through a legitimate business front like a normal criminal, he decides to learn some crazy cult shit and kill people with crazy cult shit on top of dealing drugs. Yeah, that’s sustainable.

Oh yeah, and this story was fucking racist as hell! Thanks, 20th century!