Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #487 – “Box of Blood”! In the previous installment of the Prelude to Knightfall story, a masked piece of shit named Metalhead horns in on the action and starts stabbing patrons of ugly, divey bars looking for Black Mask. In a startling coincidence (!), Batman is also looking for Black Mask! But while Batman wants to murder Black Mask via disembowelment and feeding him chili until he explodes, Metalhead wants to join Black Mask’s cult of arson and noogies.
So they fight to the death! And Batman barely wins, but he hasn’t eaten in 20 days and hasn’t slept in 45 days so he’s worse for wear. In this issue, I expect Bruce to be snuggly in his bed while Alfred dons the Batman uniform and actually gets some shit done. It’s like, come on. You all know he’d be way better at this.
Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #487 [December, 1992]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Box of Blood”
lol, who’s this punkface on the cover art with the skull tattoos on his cheeks and my mother’s hoop earrings and the weird gun with the hexagon barrel? Tell him I hate him and I think he looks like he sucks melon rinds for a living.
Batman is so hurt that he can’t sleep and he’s so tired that he can’t scream. He’s wobbly. Alfred probably has a syringe full of fentanyl for the poor guy if he asks nicely enough. “Breathing is an effort. Dying is almost an option,” says the overdramatic narrator. Flat top Robin offers to help. Batman slaps the dick out of Robin’s hand and says he doesn’t need any DAMN help.
“He wishes for a wind strong enough to blow them both away.”
Everything about the cave is no comfort. Lights are bright! Shadows are dark! The echoes are too loud! The piles of poop are too smelly! The computers keep buzzing and bringing up their Blue Screens of Death. Did I mention the piles of poop yet?
Alfred looks like he’s about to cry, but Batman tells him to fuck off and that he’ll be fine. What’s with all the mothering, Alfred? Go home to your house lol you don’t even have a house, do you?
When Batman, of his own volition, claims that he’ll see a doctor tomorrow, both Alfred and Robin look at each other with their BUUUHHHH-WHHUUUUTT?? faces. This has never happened before!
The story shifts to one Mr. Morelli, a greasy, craggy so-and-so who is rotting away in prison. He has a visitor, Johnnie, a guy who agrees to hire a hitman to Hit a Man. Specifically, the Man who put Mr. Morelli in prison! *ALF theme song plays at 140 decibels*
I’ll rest juuuuuust after I finish jumping around all the build rooftops in town and doing nude jumping jacks in order to lure the Joker away from his secret lair.
A week later, Bruce Wayne gets his lab results back. Everything is negative! Herpes, syphilis, hepatitis, gonorrhea, mono, and strep throat. However, he has tested positive for PSYCHOSOMATIC MALAISE, though! Hypochondria! Hysteria! As in, it’s all in your head, you loony toon. Stress, exhaustion, fatigue, trauma about dead parents, that sort of thing. Bruce doesn’t like this answer one bit, but accepts (performatively, probably) that he needs to rest.
Johnnie is on top of a parking garage talking to one of his buddies about “Headhunter”, a guy who’s “dead” who whacks other guys dead. He don’t mind whacking guys dead ‘cause he, too, is dead, you see. Headhunter’s the dumb-looking guy on the cover. He also leaps on Johnnie and his friend out of nowhere and shoots the guns right out of their hands as self-defense! The real deal, this guy! And don’t you forget it!
“Relax, greaseballs. You’re hiring an assassin of honor — who prefers payment in full.”
Well, you’ll get your money only if you whack the biggest whack-job in town, so to speak! The hardest person to kill in all of Gotham! I’m speaking, of course, of Harrison Ford! So go get’em.
At Wayne Industries, a rather bandaged Lucius Fox is starting to relax about all the rampant arsons on the Wayne-owned buildings. Probably because there aren’t any buildings left to even worry about anymore! But seriously, folks.
“Bruce, are you… feeling all right?” Fox asks with ellipses in all the right places.
“We both went through Black Mask’s hell, Lucius, and we both survived… but maybe you’re… handling it better,” responds Bruce with his own barrage of ellipses. He offers Fox more money, but Fox declines like the biggest idiot in town and tells Bruce to get some fucking rest.
I’ve already got by gaudy green raincoat on, Sarah! Your shit is over!
Sarah Gordon, the eighth wife, wants Jim Gordon to stay in their house. Jim Gordon wants to burn the midnight oil and slams the door shut in Sara Gordon’s face behind him while she stands there forlornly in her underpants.
At Wayne Manor, Robin is eating a grilled cheese sandwich with the crusts cut off. They’re discussing Batman, so they fail the Batman Bechdel Test yet again. Bruce suddenly walks into the kitchen and chides Robin for wearing his Robin costume in a room full of windows. “You know the rules,” says Batman, bashing him in the head with a tire iron. Bruce frowns like the saddest man this side of the Gotham River!
Bruce admits he saw a doctor and everything’s fine, so he’s going to go out solo again while Robin does his algebra homework. Alfred is starting to get very worried about Bruce – even more worried than usual. And he’s always a little worried.
Jim Gordon drives out in the rain and arrives at a bar called “Nitro’s on Tap”. He opens the front door for six seconds and doesn’t see what he’s looking for, so he leaves and starts driving 45 minutes to the west side of town.
Speaking of rain, Batman skulks the city in the torrential downpour, preoccupied by his sheer exhaustion and pain. Frankly, I’m getting pretty fucking sick of hearing about it! It’s an effort to breathe, yada yada yada, the “freedom of his costume is suddenly a trap”, boo hoo hoo. He sees the Batsignal and springs into action!
Gordon is driving, internal monologue whirring about how he would have gone mad if he stayed in that house one more second!
The Batsignal was activated by Sarah Gordon because, as part of the marriage, she gets the codes to the Batsignal! It was in the contract. “He’s gone,” she says of Jim. “I tried to stop him, but he… walked out on me.” She says he hasn’t been the same since he put Vincent Morelli away in prison. (yikes!)
Preach, sister!
Sarah makes it very clear to Batman that she thinks he smells and is also nutso cuckoo in the brain. “You take down the weird ones! The freaks who wouldn’t even be here if not for you! You attract them – while he deals with the “normal” crime – the simple atrocities committed with guns and knives and baseball bats – all the dirty work that’s beneath you!”
Batman is like “please stop hurting my feelings”, but Sarah is on the verge of tears and wonders why her husband is out fighting crime alone. Batman doesn’t know what she’s talking about! She’s acting cuh-raaaazy! And why did she even signal him in the first place? Because she needs his help?!?! Ninja, please.
Well, she had nowhere else to turn to. Stop rubbing it in, ya bastard.
So, back up a bit, lady. He left for some other reason besides marital bullshit? Yes, Batman, you dingus whom Sarah despises with every fiber of her being. Her husband, James Lorelai Gordon, has a contract out on him. Vincent Morelli is seeking revenge. Some psycho took the contract, and Jim didn’t want to wait so he’s looking for him! Isn’t that fucked up?? That sounds like some Batman-levels of fucked up, right?? Now go find him. The psycho is named Headhunter, and he can’t be swayed by pussy. Money, though. Money’s the stuff.
Batman leaves Sarah in the rain on the cold roof. She expected to be whisked away to her snuggly warm bed! She’s so angry that she shoots the Batsignal with a gun, symbolizing her desire to murder a guy. Hopefully we’ll see this in fruition if for no other reason than it would be really, really funny.
So all this stress and exhaustion? There’s no time for that now when JIMMY JAM GORDON is in trouble! “There’s a neighborhood on the west side,” Batman thinks, knowing where to go instantaneously. “…used to be Headhunter’s turf…”
Sarah had booked it downstairs to the offices and is now trying to scream at Jim through the radio. He will not answer her distress calls. He’s too busy furrowing his brow and wiggling his mustache. Headhunter rides in what looks like Homer Simpson’s pink sedan and aims his scoped gun at Jim’s eyeglasses.
I hope you like ripe cantaloupe, Jim Gordon, because your head almost exploded like one.
Completely fucked by the near-miss (or near-hit, as it should be called), Jim runs off the road and smashes his car into a street sign. Headhunter laments his first miss ever and bounds to the scene. Jim is now returning Sarah’s call because he’s like “oh shit, if my brain gets splattered all over the pavement I’ll be in the doghouse for sure!”
Batman had watched Gordon smash into the pole and, too, bounds to the scene. Headhunter got there first: “You’re my first miss, Commissioner Gordon… the first to make my second shot meaningful.”
He makes his second shot “meaningful” by not killing him outright – instead, he shoots the gun out of Gordon’s hand. “And now it’ll have to be my third,” Headhunter says, wasting precious seconds for dramatic effect.
Batman shows up to throw Bat toys at the assailant. Headhunter shoots them down effortlessly. “…the Batarangs as a diversion… to cover his real move…” the narrator points out as Batman grapples Headhunter’s leg and drags him over. Now it’s knives out! Headhunter is miffed that he needs to kill some other guy now, one he’s not even getting paid to kill!
While Batman and Headhunter fight for 17 hours, Gordon slinks away back to the station.
Did what? Drive into a fucking stop sign? You’re damn right I did. You’re welcome.
Sarah is grateful, but Jim tells her to thank Batman. He’s the one that saved the day! Sarah opens her eyes wide like “ugh, shit, fine.”
Batman wins the battle by throwing Headhunter down to the pavement, breaking his pearly whites.
EPILOGUE! The Batsignal looks cracked in the sky, symbolizing Batman’s hella decrepit state. But he got out alive, and with the bad guy subdued, and everything back to normal!
Batman answers the Batsignal and finds Sarah on the roof again. “It’s me again… thank you,” she concedes. “Now get lost and leave us alone.”
“How long, he wonders, before all the broken brittle pieces… are swept away?”
Final Thoughts
Quit while you’re ahead, sir! Your “best friend’s” shitty wife hates you? Who gives shit? Sounds like some broken brittle pieces you can just leave on the floor to me. They’re going to get divorced in about ten issues anyway, so go home and smack Robin around some more for humping the kitchen window while fully costumed.
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