Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #491 – “The Freedom of Madness!”! In the previous installment of the Prelude to Knightfall story, the Riddler was all like “hee hee hee, I’m the Riddler!” and a) almost blew up Gotham, and b) almost poisoned Gotham. So he was a busy boy. Batman stopped his evil antics even though he’s a squishy, gibbering mess these days. Someone needs to give that guy a Red Bull.

Meanwhile, Bane is going to bust the Joker out of Arkham Asylum and he’ll probably do some blowing up and poisoning of his own.

And this is the last issue of Prelude to Knightfall! Knightfall hasn’t even started yet! Shit’s about to go down and I’m “here for it”.

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #491 [April, 1993]
Written by: Doug Moench
“The Freedom of Madness!”

“VRRRRRRRRRRR”

“Hey, what’s that–? Over there!”

“I don’t know, man… but it’s comin’ this way…”

“Halt! Identify yourself!”

“VRRRRRRRRRRR”

So, like, a squashy-faced smiling man with a ponytail is controlling a really shoddy robot who starts attacking with its grabby-claw arms. The two armed men who say “Whuzzat” and “It’s coming to get us ahhhhhh” start shooting bullets at the mechanical “monstrosity” who looks like R2D2 with a shinier chrome polish. It doesn’t stop the robot. The guards run away from this Erector Set motherfucker, and now Bane and his goons are clear to enter the room.

“Load all the weapon crates you can…” says Bane. “But don’t forget the stingers.”

I’m not up on the hip weapons-stealing lingo, but I think he’s referring to bees? He’s definitely talking about bees.

Back at police headquarters, Harvey Weinstein, or whatever his name is, stuffs his beefy fat face with pizza. The pizza looks like the cheese has been sprayed on with a Windex bottle. He happily reports to Commissioner Gordon that a whole bunch of really awful and dangerous weapons had been lifted from some warehouse that specializes in storing really awful and dangerous weapons. No one was hurt, but someone will assuredly be hurt within the next few pages!

“You think those munitions were stolen for domestic use, Montoya?”

“With that M.O., Commissioner, I don’t know what to think,” says Montoya. Montoya is Harvey’s partner. She looks more competent than Harvey who continues wolfing down his sloppy-ass pizza. Gordon furrows his already-well-furrowed brow. Looks like he has to find some rogue weapons on top of his already tall order of solving every crime that has ever happened in the city! A police commissioner’s job is never done well. I mean… done. Never done.

Meanwhile, Bane’s going to launch nukes and BB pellets at Arkham Asylum. Who are they going to free from their padded prison cell first? How about this green-haired loser? The one who looks like the child-molesting clown from Bane’s fourth birthday party?

But at least he keeps his hair combed. Probably with some product in there, too? Old Spice pomade, maybe?

While Bane plans on hitting the Joker’s cell with a wrench, Robin is giving Jean-Paul a haircut. The dude is starting to unnerve Robin a little bit. First he ditches his glasses for contact lenses, and now he wants his hair short? Like a man? What gives? And then he wants to hit the gym? You’re moving too fast, pal. Let’s start by waking up before 2pm.

Bane and Co. stand outside at a reasonable distance from the asylum. The blueprints have told them where Joker’s cell is, and Joker’s cell they intend to blow up. How’s this for a Rube Goldberg device: they tie a balloon to a bird, who flies over to the cell. Bane then shoots the balloon with a fucking assault rifle, and the balloon contains a bomb, and the bomb hits the building, and then there’s a “BAMM BAOUMM”, and then Dr. Arkham is like “GHAHTAGTHBA”.

Success! Joker has been not-killed and is now happily shooting guards with his giant, comical gun. Then he cranks a giant, comical switch and all the cell doors swing open. “FREE! YOU’RE ALL FREE!” he exclaims while sticking his hand in his pants and jerking off tenderly. More guards get shot and killed. More inmates escape. Bane arranges for a payload of crates to be dropped from a helicopter. “GUNNNNS!” shriek the inmates with unbridled joy. By now the police have arrived, but the impossibly executed damage has already been done!

The Joker has cornered Dr. Arkham in his office. Time for a good ol’-fashioned hostage situation! Too bad the Batsignal has been blaring for about 45 hours now with no sign of the masked vigilante. “With any luck, he’s already heard about the Arkham riot – halfway there by now.”

Nope! Batman is eating chili in his underpants while Robin wonders from the privacy of his own child-sized bedroom why the Batsignal went out. Suddenly, Batman calls from his Batmobile (pink sedan) to tell Robin that he’s on his way. Robin is concerned that Bruce is still sick with stress-flu and that he should stay in bed. Before he expresses this concern, Batman tells Robin to cork it and he’s off the phone.

Kill me with that gun and two more Dr. Arkham’s will take my place!

Joker is taunting Dr. Arkham with scary words and giant pistols while the useless police see the Batguy streak through the sky. Bane and his crew also see this hero-who-always-saves-the-day. Bane is confident that he will not save the day, but his mulleted best friend tells him to be wary of the Bat. His turds are poisonous, you know. Plus, the rabies.

Batman enters the ruined building. “Even if he could stop them, he won’t,” observed Bane through binoculars. “He will choose the saving of lives over the apprehension of killers. He always does.”

They got his number, all right. Batman wastes time checking the pulse of some obviously dead guards. Joker continues giving Dr. Arkham the old psychological horror tactic. He tells him that he stinks and that his whole operation stinks! The tactical team outside spends their time wondering what weapons were used to blow up the walls. I grab another bowl of cereal.

By now, Commissioner Gordon is talking to the mayor. Gordon assures the pinstriped mayor that all manner of forces have been dispatched. Mayor Pinstripe asks if anyone has been trained to splatter Joker’s brains all over the walls. Gordon is like “uhm, no” and the mayor is livid. He ran on a law and order platform, and over Dick Wolf’s grave is he going to look the fool! Gordon grits his teeth and reminds this disheveled crook of a mayor that he ran unopposed. Things will be done Gordon’s way or the highway, and if that means that his team is armed with Super Soakers then so be it!

Joker tells Dr. Arkham that he will enjoy the freedom of madness once he gets his skull shattered and loaded with madness juice. “Trust me! Madness is the only freedom – and all the madness once restrained under your strict control will soon be free to run WILLLD! HA HA HA HA HA!”

That was the Joker talking. You can tell because the string of “HAs”.

Batman pulls the switch and locks Joker in the cell. Bane and Co. start launching missiles at the tactical teams’ trucks. The inmates keep shooting their newly-acquired guns. Pandemonium reigns supreme. A wall gets blown up that allows Joker to leave the building while Batman attempts to free the Good Doctor.

But at what cost?

With all the inmates freed, Gordon does a big “God Help Us” while pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose.

Batman has failed yet again!

lmao

Final Thoughts

This guy is just no fuckin’ good at his job! Just comic book after comic book, issue after issue of Batman beating himself up over failing to save a girl from drowning, or failing to save a dude from jumping off of a building, or getting his zipper caught in his penis like Ben Stiller.

That’s enough of the Prelude to Knightfall collection. Next is Knightfall proper, and we’re going to assuredly see a lot more penis zippers. You can take that to the bank.