Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 3), Issue #5 – “I Am Gotham (Part 5)”! In the previous installment, Gotham Girl is traumatized and Duke Thomas takes advantage of the situation for four panels before Alfred tells him to go away. Gotham Dude can’t take the pressure of superhero activities. He accidentally gets his parents killed and he snaps, all like “GOTHAM CITY WILL DESTROY EVERYTHING YOU LOVE, SO I MUST DESTROY GOTHAM CITY!” Now Batman has his work cut out for him, and he’s going to have to slap the hell dick out of his mouth and get him back to reality. That’ll be the last two issues of the story, guaranteed.

Duke Thomas is supposed to be the new Robin but I haven’t seen him once put on the sexy red, yellow, and green Robin costume with the eye mask and the codpiece. Will DC ever read my letters??

Batman (Vol. 3), Issue #5 [October, 2016]
Written by: Tom King
“I Am Gotham (Part 5)”

Yeah, covert art! Fuck you, Batman! Get your ass kicked! Stain the world with your blood!

The first thing Batman does is cry to Alfred about Gotham. He’s going to destroy the city if we don’t hurry! “I’m on my way,” Alfred says. “But I won’t be there in time.”

UNACCEPTABLE! Get your tender ass here pronto, Alfred!

So Alfred backpedals and says “ugh, fine”. But he gets a glint in his eye as he dons his own Batman costume and sits at the wheel of the Batmobile. He looks like he’s ready to uppercut a bitch. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: my dude fucks.

Before you know it, Alfred drives the car right into Gotham’s back at 196 miles per hour. This would kill a rhinoceros, but we both know that Gotham’s going to get up right away and grit his teeth and—oh, there he goes.

“Fear not, the citizens of Gotham,” Alfred announces to no one in particular. “The Dark Knight has returned!”

Gotham looks at this fucking guy with the John Waters pencil mustache, tries to argue with him that he’s not actually Batman while Alfred weakly defends his initial point that, yes, he is indeed Batman.

The two-minute distraction worked. The real Batman shows up, much to Alfred-Batman’s relief. “Oh, thank God,” Alfred says, relieved.

Batman starts kicking Gotham around the face area and politely tells him that they need to chat. Then Batman pulls out a detonator and pushes the button while politely telling him that they need to chat. His Batmobile blows up, raining organ-lacerating shrapnel all over the place at the speed of sound and surrounding Gotham with fire and smoke. Killing nobody.

Just get another one out of one of those Japanese car vending machines that have on the side of the highway.

Duke Thomas is watching the action on Batman’s many screens; apparently, Batman has installed 190,000 cameras all over the city to keep surveillance. 185,000 of those are in public women’s bathrooms! “What is this?” asks Gotham Girl behind Duke. She’s still disoriented by being infected by the Psycho-Pirate. While Gotham is mad with rage, Gotham Girl is still uncontrollably fearful. You can tell because she stammers and has her eyebrows pointed in the direction of worry.

“Stop. Listen,” Batman growls at Gotham. “I understand. You got hit. Hit hard. And now you’re hurt. But just because you’re hurt. Doesn’t mean you get to hurt my city.”

Ah, there it is. The GOTHAM IS MYYYY CITY, NOT ANYONE ELSE’S, WAAAAHHH!!! stuff. We all knew this was coming the moment this dude showed up and said “I am Gotham.”

Gotham is defiant. “What are you going to do, Batman? Shoot a rope at me?”

Batman shoots a rope, but not at him. “No, Gotham. I’m going to crash a plane into you.”

Buh?

Batman grapples out of the way while Batman’s Batplane just falls from the fucking sky and lands on Gotham’s head.

The only thing Gotham says is “No.”

Batman then gets Alfred on the horn and asks him to “make the call”, which either means he’s ordering pizza or contacting the President. Alfred is astonished to be asked to perform such a task! It has never happened! Is Mr. Sir absolutely sure?? “Yes, Alfred. I’m certain.”

Gotham Girl, watching the footage of her brother get creamed by an entire airplane, becomes so stricken with grief that she throws a glass case containing a Robin uniform right at the console, smashing all the screens and ruining $4.5 trillion worth of equipment. Duke tells her to calm down, ho. Gotham Girl accepts Duke’s embrace. “I’m alone,” she says in a small voice.

And, for some absolute batshit reason that eludes me, Gotham is still alive and unharmed.

Think of Gotham City as the biggest unlubricated dildo in the world and it’ll all make sense.

Batman agrees that Gotham City cannot be saved. So Gotham and Batman exchange heartfelt goodbyes before Gotham tries to kill Batman with the laser eyes he has for some reason. Just then, the lasers are deflected and/or absorbed by a shield.

The Justice League has arrived! And not at all six days late!

“Hello, Gotham,” says Superman. “My name is Superman,” says Superman, “and this is the Justice League. “We’re Batman’s friends,” says Superman. “And we’d greatly appreciate it if you would surrender,” says Superman.

The rest of the justice league stares down at this wretch like “do it.” But, instead, like a completely moronic asshat, Gotham clocks Superman in the jaw. It looks like it actually did some damage! Batman is floored.

He contacts Duke. “Mister Thomas. His power. How strong he is, how fast, it’s not fixed. It varies. It adjusts to what he’s fighting. The minimum of what he needs. I need to know how he does it, why he does it. I need you to get Gotham Girl to tell us.”

Duke looks sheepish, as if getting into the conversation will be some sort of cockblock. Gotham Girl continues hugging him; continues saying that she’s scared. Duke is scared, too. “Yeah, well, apparently, Batman just put the fate of the city on me.”

So, here’s the scoop: Gotham and Gotham Girl bought their powers. Like, with money. Strength. Invulnerability. Ultra vision. All for the low, low price of years off their lives. “It was enough for t-two years,” Gotham girl says. “T-two years to save the city. And then we’d… we’d die.”

The kicker is that they can choose overtime. Normal for decades. Super for years. God for hours. Anyway, they bought these powers at Walgreens. And–

You know how God can create a corndog so big that even He couldn’t eat all of it? Gotham can eat that corndog, son.

“He won’t stop until he does what he needs to do,” Duke radios to Batman. Batman is writhing on the ground, surrounded by crumbled concrete. “Fine. Fine. Do it, then. Kill Gotham.”

Duke looks incredulous. Really? You fucking do it, superhero. Duke’s outta here. *throws down mic*

“You want to kill Gotham?” Batman says, nose bleeding, as he approaches the Big Scary Gotham Man. “I AM GOTHAM. KILL ME.”

Ha! A revelation! Gotham likes that idea. That’s much easier than destroying a whole city. That’s why atomic bombs exist. Gotham is just about ready to pulverize Batman before Gotham Girl flies in and knocks Gotham to the ground!

Epilogue monologue! “Later, after we were married, after Bruce did what he did, after he died how he died… after I… after I killed him, I mean. Duke and I, we’d come here once a year, on the anniversary of my brother’s death. Just to take time to remember. Remember that this is where it started. The origin of Gotham Girl. The death of Batman…”

Final Thoughts

That gets a big ol’ “WHATEVER!” from me! See you next time for the thrilling conclusion!