Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #17 – “Venom (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, Batman fails to save a little girl from drowning in the sewer and he gets all hard on himself as he usually does. Alfred snarks his way through this, but starts getting concerned when Bruce continues to Bat around even after attempting to deadlift 600 pounds and busting his shoulder up something terrible.

The happy father of the dead girl makes these awesome pep pills that Batman starts taking so he can be Mr. Tough Guy! He laughs like a loon at the end of the issue, signifying a descent into madness! MADNESS!

I wanna see how mad he gets! Batman’s madness knows no bounds.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #17 [April, 1991]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Venom (Part 2)”

Look at the cover art! MADNESS!

I forgot to mention Mr. Fedora Man in the “Previously On” section, but this guy is mysterious as all get-out. Long story really short, he busts up some kind of hideout and beats the absolute shit out of a few burly dudes. Strong as shit. He holds one up against the wall by his neck: “The man. The connection. Your supplier. The scum that sells you drugs.”

Panama! Ha!

“Willie…” gibbers the victim of this hand-against-neck crime. “Big guy, who hands at Slick’s car service…”

Oooooh, Slick eh? Slick is a slippery fellow. Like oil. Slick.

“I’d put Willie in the hospital six hours earlier,” Fedora Man says, slamming this dude’s head against the ceiling. “It’d been fun. I hate junkies.”

Well, that’s been quite a trip. Time to see what kind of sass Alfred has to dish out right now! OHHHH SNAP! Oh snippity snap! Mr. Fedora Man was Bruce Wayne this entire time. Fucking loony, man! This nutter is off his rocker, for serious! “And what, may I ask, was the point of this exercise?” Alfred asks this smiling douchebag.

“Scare ‘em, Alfred.”

Alfred says they committed no crime, but you know what? FUCK those guys! Here’s a list of crimes for ya: 1) pulling the tag off the mattress, 2) wearing white after Labor Day. The list goes on! 3) ketchup on steak.

OK, well, they did none of this stuff recently and—oh, never mind. I see you’re going to bench press a 600-lb load of garbage again. Very well.

The Toxicology 101 final is tomorrow and you’re just now buying the book, sir?

Bruce got himself a book on toxicology, probably to learn more about the pills he’s crushing up and snorting by the handful. Meanwhile, he lifts 690 pounds over his head. “Not to shabby, huh?” Bruce says, grinning like a doofus. “I am positively choked with admiration,” Alfred responds.

Alfred, man. That guy fucks.

The butler points out that all this crushing and melting and injecting of the pills into his overly large veins was supposed to free up gym time in order to read up on stuff like toxicology and current events and My Little Pony fan fiction. And yet here he is, hunched over barbells and basically showing off his penis. “Maybe I’ve gotten past the need to read,” Bruce responds, dropping another couple of pills into his hand. “Maybe that was just a phase I had to get through? You ever think of that?”

That shut Alfred up! For about three microseconds. He lifts up Bruce’s smelly Batman uniform and asks why he has abandoned it for trench coats and fedoras like a real neckbeard incel. Bruce’s answer is basically this: “I ‘unno.”

“I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of,” Bruce retorts after Alfred says something along the lines of “You should be ashamed of yourself”. “And if you think I do,” he continues, “maybe you’re one of them!”

“One of whom?”

“The weaklings, the snivelers who’ve let the city become a sewer because they’re afraid to do what has to be done.”

Alfred has had enough. He’s walking away, never to return. See you soon.

Batman decides in a brief moment of “clarity”, whatever that even is in his old state, that perhaps he too hard on his old boy. No matter. He decides that he does want to don his Batman jammies and hit the town.

Hit the town to get more delicious pills, that is!

“Good to see you again,” says Dr. Randolph Whozits, eyeballing Batman evilly. I mean, come on. Batman sniffs and twitches and tells him “good to see you too yeah yeah where are they man where are the pills man good to see you too”.

NO! First, Randolph Porter wants Batman to meet a one General Timothy Ashton Slaycroft, President of Toilet Paper! He looks like he’s the president of toilet paper. Also, he was in the military for forty wasted years. Also, he smells like starch.

Nice to meet you champ now the pills please ok?

You can go fuck your whole entire self, Smiley.

First, General Timothy Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore wants to strike a deal with the cowled one. Be a consultant for a project he’s working on. Batman says ok but the pills please now.

There are only four! WHAT THE FUCK! FOUR PILLS! THEY’RE GONNA BE GONE BEFORE HE EVEN WALKS OUT OF THE ROOM! GAHHH! Dr. Porter needs to make more. The well of the secret ingredient has run dry (human feces). “Can you return later in the week?”

Sure sure fine sure ok fine whatever. He’ll just check on the punks who kidnapped Porter’s daughter. The one he doesn’t care much about? Maybe he can wring some necks and blow dandelions in their faces.

Batman leaves, and now it’s a pow-wow between Porter and General Mustache. “You notice how dull he seemed?” Porter cleans his glasses. “And how anxious he was to get the capsules? Another week and he’s ours.”

A problem arises! If Batman catches wind that Porter’s been feeding him information that comes directly from the bad guys he’s trying to thwart, then there’s going to be HELL TO PAY! Porter has been using Batman to wipe out their competition, facilitating Porter’s business ventures! Tee hee hee!

However, now that Mr. General is paying for Porter’s pill endeavors, that makes these goons useless. Go bomb them immediately, Colonel.

Meanwhile, Batman catches a kid hanging out in Porter’s yard and tackles the everliving fuck out of him. “Okay, punk. You’ve got about three seconds to tell me who you are and what you want before I rip your head off.”

It’s just General Slaycroft’s kid, jerk. Batman unhands him and tells him to stand in the light instead of the shadows so that self-appointed vigilantes don’t murder him in cold blood for no reason. Dig? Bye now.

“He has one more place to be before dawn. A place he’d been asked to avoid,” explains the helpful narration. “But he is who he is, and nobody tells him what to do.”

It’s the hideout of the two whipper-snappers who killed the Sewer Girl.

Refrigerator throwing, coming to an Olympics near you.

Batman looks out the window and sees two men trying to book it to their car. He takes a refrigerator and throws it through the brick wall and right onto the car, smashing it to pieces and killing (I think) one of the two guys. Batman reaches into the crushed car and pulls out the other guy. “You did the dirtbags upstairs. You’re gonna tell me why – but not right away. First–” he throws the fucker to the ground, “–I’m gonna hurt you a while.”

Capital idea, Mr. Good Guy! Too bad you get interrupted by a drive-by shooter who kills the guy that Batman was about to basically kill. Then a sound of an Uzi in the distance. Then the killer gets killed! Then an engine roars! Then tires screech! A sedan peels off and disappears into the night! Where are my pants?! This is insanity!

Sirens blare in the distance! Fuck that noise, Batman ain’t sticking around to answer any question from the pigs. He’s addled on goofball drugs. Time to book it home and see if Alfred made his Kid Cuisine.

Later that night, and I do mean much, much later, we find Captain James W.E.B. Dubois Gordon burning the candle at both ends as per usual. Batman pops in with the intention of heading off rumors, I suppose. “I was wondering when you’d show up – if you’d show up. It’s been three months. Been on vacation?” Batman scowls at this line of QUESTIONING FROM THE PRIME PIG HIMSELF. OINK OINK.

“I don’t know who’s been going around busting heads. Some guy in a hat and trench coat.” Gordon’s face is obscured by the smoke of his disgusting poop-shaped cigar. “Tell me about that.”

“No comment.”

Gordon tells Batman that he looks beefier. Literally. He says the word “beefier”. Batman attributes this newfound beefiness to a healthy breakfast of fortified cereal! Also hella drugs. Also, this meeting isn’t going the way he intended! Captain Gordon gets to stare out the window while Batman suddenly fucks off into the night. “Something is wrong,” says the ever omniscient narrator. “Usually he rejoices in this – swinging across the roof of his city, feeling the energy, the excitement, the sheer life of it… but not tonight. Tonight the city is just an accumulation of stone, steel, and flesh. And he is just a man on a rope.”

I forgot that he took the kids to a motel.

General Halftrack and Dr. Randolph Chumley discuss a sudden inquiry from a one Capt. Jim Gordon. This buttfucker is asking questions? Oink oink! “My contacts downtown tell me Gordon won’t quit and can’t be bought.” The General stares out the front door at nothing in particular. This could not bode well for their crime-related crimes! “And one fine day he’ll arrive with warrants.”

Porter assures General Wedge Antilles that no one can prove he was the one with the machine gun (!) who gunned down the killer last night (!!). So relax.

(!!!)

Plus, it can be proven that he fired the gun to save Batman’s life!

Speaking of the Bat, he’s shirtless again in his Cave of Wonders. No Alfred at his beck and call, either. The guy quit! Can’t stand the ravings of his master anymore! He can go butler someone else. I hear Snoop Dog is pretty low maintenance.

With no one to talk to except the bats hanging around the ceiling, he starts muttering to himself about the previous night. Trying to connect the dots, see? That kid he almost killed, General Slaycroft’s slow son. What was he actually doing there on the property besides stroking his muddy schlong? Did he get into that car? Maybe he got shot? Shit, it’s hard to focus. Where’s muh pills?

Shit, he’s having a hard time lifting 690 pounds! Nothing like a healthy dose of—WHAT THE FUCKING CUNT FUCKING BITCH FUCK?!?! NO MORE PILLS?!?!? ANGRY!!! “Porter. His fault. Should have given me more like I asked. Thinks he can get away with it, does he? He’s got another think coming!”

Immediately, Bruce puts on his Batman outfits and kicks down Porter’s door. “Give them to me.”

Well, that’s rude, sir! Not even a knock or a kiss hello?

“Give what to you?”

“You know.”

“–But I want you to tell me.”

“The pills.”

That mouth of yours sure is pretty, Batman…

“Are you prepared to earn them?” butts in the General. This takes Batman aback. He’s not fucking here to earn anything. Least of all a paycheck. Least of all the pills!

You see, Porter and Slaycroft are in cahoots over a joint business venture! “We’re trying to create a group of special human beings. The first step is the pills you have grown so fond of…”

Step 2 is ???. Step 3 is proft. See what I did there? I’m dating myself with that horseshit meme.

So Porter gets funded. Slaycroft gets to have a bunch of coked-up Batman-types who can rid the city, the country, the world, of “junkies, cheats, shiftless incompetents that are sucking us dry”.

Batman is finding it hard to concentrate on what these two smarty men are saying. They keep talking and it all sounds pretty hunky-dory I guess. Pills please.

There’s just one problem. Batman is presented with a photo of a man with glasses, a mustache, and a pipe. “Do you know who this is?” Looks like Groucho Marx! Barring that, it’s Jim Gordon.

“Very good. Now, what we’d like you to do should be very simple, very easy,” says Porter.

“Kill him,” says Slaycroft.

“Understand?” asks Porter.

…

…

…

“No sweat,” says Batman.

(!!!!)

Final Thoughts

I see that this is the storyline where Captain Jim Gordon bites the big one. And before he even becomes Commissioner! That’s rather inconvenient!

Oh well.