Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #15 – “Prey (Conclusion): The Kill”! In the previous installment, Dr. Hugo Strange is able to infiltrate Batman’s head with a hallucinogen that causes him to vividly relive his parents’ murder and freak out about it and stuff. Captain Jim Gordon finds out that Sgt. Cort is feeding Dr. Strange information from the police department, and that it is known that Gordon is aiding Batman. All the while, Dr. Strange is holding the Mayor’s daughter hostage and she is not too happy about it. He’s being really weird with it.

This is the conclusion, but I don’t know what exactly is to be concluded. The whole story revolves around the cops trying to catch Batman, but I don’t know what Batman has to do to get them on his side. Ain’t gonna happen! Gordon’s going to have to leak hallucinogenic gas into the department!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #15 [February, 1991]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Prey (Conclusion): The Kill”

Bruce is crying in his Batcave, head a-swimmin’ with all sorts of thoughts. A whole page of thoughts that amount to this: Dr. Hugo Strange got under his skin even though he specifically made a point to avoid letting Dr. Hugo Strange get under his skin.

He can’t shake the invasive voices of his parents giving him shit for letting them get murdered right in front of him. “You should be ashamed, Bruce, and we’ve decided you must be punished. We’re going to haunt you…”

Ghosts are always hauntin’. Don’t ghosts have better things to do with their time? Catch up on some books? Have friendly encounters with their loved ones, talk about the weather and movies? Sports? Come on, now, what about sports??

Meanwhile, Night Scourge keeps striking innocent people down. Spilling blood everywhere. The ground, his clothes, on other peoples’ blood. Nothing is safe from the blood spillage! The news report calls out the Gotham Police Department to stop the unpredictable serial attacks. Do your jobs, you ACAB poster children!

Alfred pops into the cave to ask Bruce when he’s going to get out of the cave. The answer is a resounding “not yet”. Alfred advises against trying to recover in the cave. Bruce tells him that the cave is the best place for it. So get the fuck out of the cave and let him stay in the cave. So Alfred exits the cave, but not before he leaves Bruce’s dinner in the cave.

Cave.

Bruce spends a chunk of time ruminating upon what the cave symbolizes for Batman and what Batman symbolizes for the city and what being Batman means to him. He’ll turn in the full report to his fourth grade teacher tomorrow morning. Batman = Bat Man. As in, man like a bat. As in, swirling around caves and eating rats and skulking in the night. This is what Bruce wants to do, and he’ll be goddamned if he’s going to let Dr. Strange prevent him from reaching his goals! And so on and so forth. What’s Gordon up to?

Put the knife down, Gordon. You’re drunk and high.

Here’s what Gordon’s up to! He’s going to slice his hand and become blood brothers with Batman! OR, he’s rooting through Sgt. Cort’s desk to look for clues as to why he’s coming into the office tired and vacant. “…as if he’s spending his nights doing something other than sleeping… other than police work.”

Bruce does a Hail Mary here and calls up Gordon. One last chance to keep the trust. Will Gordon do as Batman asks?? The answer is a resounding “huh, maybe”.

Dr. Strange is doing what Dr. Strange does best: being a complete wackaloon. What’s-her-name is still bound and gagged, he’s still yammering on and on about the superficiality of women and why a NICE GUY like him can’t get the ladies. He’s dressed as Batman now, pretending to be the object of her affections and pretending that it’s she who can’t have him. SHE who can’t have HIM! Madness! I’m starting to think this guy’s not playing with a full deck!

We don’t get to know what Bruce asked of Gordon yet, but it was probably “sex”. Gordon is on board with the plan. “A simple plan,” Gordon muses. “The oldest in the book – and a perfect opportunity for betrayal. The perfect chance to bag the Batman and keep my job. Exactly what the Mayor ordered.”

“Only problem is… if I obey, he may never see his daughter again.” Well, that is a problem unless – hear me out on this – Mayor Klass doesn’t really even like his daughter that much! Not a problem anymore! She can stay tied to that bed for the rest of her life without a shred of guilt or shame on anyone’s part now. Whew, that’s a load off my mind!

In the Batcave, Bruce assures Alfred that things are better. He has spent three straight days in the cave, but he’s better! Better than better! In fact, he finished work on his whip. The Batmobile! It makes such a grand, vroomy entrance that it scares Alfred to bits! “It seems you’ve spent your time down here, sir, on more than healing,” he says as Batman readies himself to cruise on out of there. “I’m off, Alfred,” he grins.

Yeah, off his rocker.

Next thing we know, Batman has entered Strange’s apartment/ hotel room / suite / hovel for a full-on confrontation. Strange takes this as an action of surrender. An admittal of defeat. A confession of uncontrollable horniness.

Oh yes, thank you for asking! Frolicking through meadows. Curing cancer and ending world hunger. Having sex with Scarlett Johansson twins. All the usual stuff.

They start doing the whole hero / villain back-and-forth. How did Strange do it? Supreme intellect! Is Catherine ok? Sort of! He must have had help, right? Hell no, too smart for that!

Strange hates that Batman denies his weird hallucinogenic dreams. He knows that Batman’s parents are dead and that seeing them again opened up some really gross old wounds. “My mother and father live in Paraguay,” Batman says simply. Raarrrgghh! FUCK you! Dr. Strange isn’t having this, but he WILL claim this as a victory and he will call the police post-haste!

“Save your dime, Dr. Strange,” Jim Gordon snarls, entering the room with some no-name cop.

“Then, the Batman wasn’t the kidnapper,” the cop says uselessly. Gordon all but whacks him in the head with a pistol.

Gordon slaps the cuffs on Strange. Batman reveals that he’s been taping the conversation the whole time, except there’s nothing entirely incriminating except Batman lying about his parents living in Paraguay. We all know they were brutally murdered in front of you, ya idgit.

“No… I won… I can’t lose… not fair…” Strange mumbles as he’s taken away. The useless cop points to the bound and gagged woman in the bedroom and is like duuuurrr is dat da mayor’s daughter??

Looks like every thread has been tied up! Let’s all go home to our Salisbury steak TV dinners and– WAIT, WE NEED TO FIGURE OUT WHO HAS BEEN HELPING STRANGE! Was it Jeff Goldblum? No? Then we better start investigating. We were all kinda hoping it was Jeff Goldblum.

Batman nudges Gordon along on this train of thought. He knows that Gordon knows who it is. Gordon doesn’t know that Batman knows that Gordon knows who it is… until now… uhh…

The nerd is a slippery one, Captain!

Somehow, because all police officers are incompetent, Dr. Strange wriggles out of his grasp and runs away going “NYAHHRRRR”. “The predator has become the prey,” Batman thinks as Strange gallivants toward the river.

And while Strange runs away, the mice come to play! Whatever that means! I’m delirious! The “mice” are other cops screeching their tires and cornering the Bat-Vigilante. “Cort said shoot to kill!” wails one of them. The guns go “BRAM”. Dr. Strange, dressed as Batman, gets clipped and he plunges into the river.

Oh the hubris! The cops thought he was the real Batman! ISN’T THAT CUH-RAZY???

“But it’s still not over, Gordon,” Batman hisses. “Whoever helped him, he’s the Night Scourge.” Gordon doesn’t know who it is, but he’s got a funny feeling in his pants that it’s Max Cort minus the Funky Bunch. Batman’s not going to let this one get away, no siree. He follows Cort’s car into a tunnel, where he stops and gets out. Bewildering! Maybe he’s dealing drugs, and–

No, he’s getting his Night Scourge jammies on. Gordon was right! So now the Bat Guy starts following him, laying low, striking sexy poses, but he loses him…

“Hunting for someone?” asks a sinister voice from behind. SHRANK. KANKT. FWHUF. FFFF. Knives a-flutter. Narrow misses. “Better. I’m better than him. Hugo Strange said so. I’m better than the Batman.”

Nope! Go fuck your whole self, sir. They fight for a bit. Night Scourge and his knives. Batman and his… … serrated knives. Usually those are for cutting bread, but not today!

“Drop the blades, Cort.”

“Who’s Cort? I’m the Night Scourge.”

Hmm. A salient point, but has anyone seen Cort and the Night Scourge in the same room at the same time? These are the kind of questions people should be asking.

HWOKK. SHRRRPP. Night Scourge slices Batman’s shoulder. D’oh! These knives, they’re getting in the way. Gotta get rid of them, but how? And why? And where? And who? And how? Aha, some ninja stars will certainly do the trick! SKANG and KTANG, they gone. And now Batman has the edge! Get it? Ha ha ha! D’oh!

This is great! Batman is powerful as shit! No one can stop him now! Ahhh ha hahha haha – oh wait, he’s reaching for the knives again. That wasn’t part of the plan!

Cunts? Is that what you were about to say? Like a wet bag of rotten cunts?

Batman is about to get sliced up badly, but a cat o’ nine tails whips onto the large knife and pulls it toward her. Or him! It could be a “him”. But it’s not. It’s Catwoman. “We’re even. Give him hell on your own now.”

All the hubbub was enough of a distraction for Night Scourge to get back into his Cortmobile and drive the fuck away. “Strange was wrong!” he panics. “I’m not better than him – not even as good – but I got away! I’m still free!”

His getaway is very successful, as long as your definition of “very successful” means Cort flipping his car over almost 30 seconds later. Batman chases him down in his very intimidating BatCar. “High ground!” Cort yells. “And my gun! Any gun!” He runs into the safe haven of the police station, as long as your definition of “safe” means a room full of cops who are looking for the Night Scourge. This guy sure is a dummy.

It’s me, I swear! Can’t you recognize my swirly orange eyes??

Cort takes off his mask and pleas for a halt on the gun-aiming-at-his-face part of the situation. Batman has to tell these guys that Cort is Night Scourge and Night Scourge is Cort. And also he helped abduct the Mayor’s daughter. Also, to a lesser extent, he was mean to Batman. Jim Gordon can corroborate that being mean part of it.

Cort babbles like an insane loser under hypnosis while the police radio calls backup for the Batman who was shot and fell into the river (DR. STRANGE, IF YOU RECALL). The police continue to be confused until Gordon “Mustache” Jones shows up to explain everything again. By now, Cort is feral and ready to take down anyone and everyone who stands in his dang ol’ way. He even calls Gordon “bad for morale”! Ouch!

This went too far! The police literally shoot dozens of holes into his body. Disproportionate response, but hey. This is Gotham City!

Later, Gordon is able to convince the Mayor that the Batman was integral to apprehending the real villain, if your definition of “apprehending” means getting someone killed. Mayor Klass takes a liking to this Bat Fellow and calls off the Task Force.

“And one last thing Captain… keep it up, and one of these days you’re liable to be appointed Commissioner!”

Ha! We’ll see about that!

Aftermath! There’s no sign of Dr. Strange’s body. Either dead or not dead, it seems. Time will tell.

Batman has really helped get in the good graces with the police AND the Mayor! Good job, kiss-ass.

Then Gordon and Batman fondle each other. The end.

Final Thoughts

What a heart-warming story! My favorite part was when Dr. Strange was fucking the mannequin! What’s next for America’s favorite bat-like superhero? Maybe he’ll get his hand caught in a pickle jar and Alfred will need to fetch a shoehorn. D’oh d’oh d’oh!

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #14 – “Prey (Part 4): The Nightmare”! In the previous installment, Catwoman and Max Cort as a Bat-like Man fight on the roof of a fancy gala event. He wins, but then when the real Batman swoops in, he loses! Not good!

Still under Dr. Strange’s spell, he feels like a danged loser. But, oh ho ho, it’s time to put on a real Batman suit and give it all he’s got! And that means kidnapping the Mayor’s daughter, probably because she was being mean to Strange! This is all about insecurities and bedwetting, it is.

I’m gonna see where this goes. Join me.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #14 [January, 1991]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Prey (Part 4): The Nightmare”

The Mayor is UP IN ARMS! His daughter is gone, Captain Gordon, you bastard. Your eyeglasses frames match your hair color and you’re a bastard. “I’m the Mayor. I run this town. And I want her back… you hear me?”

Loud and clear, Mr. President! Er… guv’nor. Because if Gordon doesn’t fix this shit in five days time, he’s off the force. He’ll never police anyone else again in his life! Eek and erp! Gordon walks away discombobulated. He knows Batman is innocent on this, he just has to figure out how to prove it! Perhaps he can set up an elaborate series of traps, each one more elaborate than the previous, in order to–

No. Oh well. If nothing else, it’s time to let Max Cort know the current situation. “We have order to bring in the Batman,” Gordon tells him grimly. “Using whatever means necessary.”

Cort gets out his nutcracker. Time to crack some nuts!… and after he does that, it’s time to look for the Batman and give him a stern talking-to! “And here I figgered that was the purpose of the task force in the first place.” Well, he’s really got Gordon there, doesn’t he? Stay away from that nutcracker.

Cort finds his men scarfing down donuts in the local diner. “Unofficial, you understand, but straight from the top… shoot to kill.” I mean, Cort isn’t wrong here. The whole “using whatever means necessary” thing was a mistake on Gordon’s part, the dumb bastard. He should have just told him to get Batman via an elaborate series of traps that–

Next, we are treated to a gritty noir sequence of Bruce’s parents biting the big one. “I’ve lived their deaths a thousand times, and the dream is always the same… a nightmare giving birth to the other dream, equally dark – the dream of the Bat.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Strange is being a real gentleman.

I hate it when real-life mannequins start talking back to me!

Strange then slaps Catherine Klass and ties her mouth up. “WOMEN! You are all alike! No man’s ever good enough for you – unless he’s the high and mighty Batman! Well, I’ve got news – the Batman’s about to fall!” Geez, I hope he doesn’t hurt himself. You know. After the fall.

Later, a bunch of cops are shooting at Batman. “Does Gordon know about this?” he thinks as he dodges bullets like a ballet dancer, all prim and pretty. “If he does, something big has happened. But what?” He probably took a big, stinky dump. That’s the something big that happened.

Batman thinks this madness and nonsense is as bad as the nightmare. How is he supposed to stop ol’ whatsits…Night Scourge… if the police are shooting at his young, supple buttocks? “Every turn blocked by guns. How can they justify this? What has changed?”

Then a cop calls Batman a “kidnapper” and things click like a nerf ball hitting a pile of feathers. By that I mean it doesn’t click. Not yet.

Batman is seen jumping in a car, and one of these dickheads he’s gonna be the one to get him. To “ace the Bat”, as it were. It doesn’t work at all, of course. The Bat jumps out of the trunk and CHUPs the guy upside the head. Or perhaps CHUPside the head! Ha!

I heard he can melt brains with his brain-melting eyeballs and turn your genitals into a pile of ugly applesauce.

Enough of this. Batman opens a manhole and hides in the sewer until the coast is clear, even though he loves hanging out in the sewers anyway. The cops think he’s some sort of Bat-Demon, disappearing into thin air with his trickery and witchery! Then one realizes they need to go into the sewer, but that ain’t fuckin’ happening! Time to get more donuts, bye bye.

Batman heads down three blocks and gets back up to the street. Coast is clear, but news of a Batman vigilante wanted for kidnapping the Mayor’s daughter is heard as a couple of guys walk by with a boombox. It clicks like a nerf ball hitting a lightswitch, which DOES make a clicking sound! With this new information, Batman prepares… something. Lunch?

Yeah, a knuckle sandwich! Special delivery for Dr. Strange’s mouth and teeth! Batman breaks into Strange’s apartment, sending the guy into a mild panic. But he regains composure, asking why Batman felt compelled to “enter the lion’s den”. Pffft.

“To tell you I had nothing to do with the kidnapping – and I think you know it.” Well, no fucking shit, sir. The guy you’re talking to orchestrated the whole thing. It’s clicking like a nerf ball hitting a pile of other nerf balls. Plus, maybe Strange has something to do with this Night Scourge fellow! All the pieces are falling into place like four jigsaw puzzles thrown into a woodchipper!

“Denial and displacement of guilt,” Dr. Strange responds, eyeballing a nearby baseball bat. “How banal.”

Who’s the Bat Man now?! Ha ha haaaa!! Strange waves the thing around while commenting on Batman’s smelly sewer odor, then he knocks the head off of his mannequin girlfriend. She laughed at him again! Even his inanimate objects think he’s worthy of constant ridicule!

But here’s the real good stuff: the mannequin head is full of noxious gas! It’s leaking out of her forehead in ribbons of yellow vapor. A hallucinogen. Batman’s going to start thinking he’s a glass of orange juice, and if he leans over too much he’ll spill!

Now Batman is incapacitated like a wuss, and Strange thumps him on the head with the bat. Then he knocks him off the side of the building. SWUMP WUMPT WOKT. Batman screams for mommy and daddy as he plummets to the street. Strange finds this revelation quite delicious.

Batman launches his Bat Bungee and he’s able to stop his fall to just slow enough to WUMP on the ground and not die! Meanwhile, Strange calls Cort to tell him the last piece of the jigsaw puzzle had been recovered from this metaphorical woodchipper I made up a few paragraphs ago! “Get me the police files on all the double murders – husband and wife – going back twenty years,” he smiles with smug-ass satisfaction. Like he isn’t a creepy little twit.

Batman is having another nightmare, and it’s worse than last time. Once his parents are shot, it takes them forever to fall to the ground. They also have about 50 liters of blood each. “Thicker than quicksand”. And he’s stuck in it as he screams and cries.

A fantastic position for all kinds of sucking.

And then he gets up, and the man with the gun chases him down. “Now it’s your turn, kid…” he says as an older Batmanned Bruce runs into traffic. In reality, a cop is pointing his gun and asking Batman to stop moving or he’s dead.

“Mom and dad. A good movie. A shortcut. And the head. The head with the drug. The shortcut drug with the men. The movie men with the vibrating guns.” And he just rambles incoherently like this as the hallucinogen fucks up all his sense and the brain parts that allow him to avoid word salads with nonsense dressing!

He jumps into a body of water, presumably a river, and starts sinking…

Elsewhere, two men are robbing a jewelry store, but after a YAARRGH and a SHRUKT, they are both stabbed and/or sliced. Definitely very dead. “Better,” Night Scourge says as he takes off his mask and becomes Max Cort the Strange Puppet. “I’m better. Better than him. Strange is right… and the moon is beautiful… relaxing…

The next day, Gordon catches Cort asleep at the wheel! Asleep at the ol’ desk wheel, that is! And it’s curious, because Cort hasn’t been working nights. “…at least not officially.” Gordon grabs the paperwork that Cort is slumped over like a drunk bump on a log. Reports that are supposed to kept out of Dr. Strange’s hands. Data on Batman sightings. Files on husband/wife murders. Egads! Sgt. Cort is helping Stinky Dr. Strange! Dr. Strange was supposed to be working through the Mayor’s office, not through the police department! A crime of etiquette of the highest degree!

Gordon frowns in front of his phone. He always frowns. Often, it’s in front of his phone. It’s a perfect storm of torrential sewage. Cort helping Strange while the cops are trying to kill Batman, and the Mayor’s daughter kidnapped which is keeping the momentum going. And now Cort knows that Gordon has been withholding sex! I mean… information! And Gordon’s been helping Batman! Hot water for sure on this one. “…and if Batman goes down… I drown too.”

Should’ve thought of that before becoming a high-ranking police officer. Perhaps you should have been an accountant instead. They get shot at only half as much.

It’s like those Lennon/Ono recordings except, honestly, marginally less disgusting.

Dr. Strange tells Cort that he and Catherine “spent half the night making tape recordings”, to which Cort responds that Strange is babbling and making very little sense. Strange throws the phone against the wall.

Batman finds himself washed up on the docks. He’s not covered in quicksand blood after all. It appears to be gross Gotham water! What a relief, but Batman is still unsure if there are still residuals of the hallucinogen making everything all weird and swimmy… until a ship crew spots him, calls him “Bat-Scum”, and proceeds to run at him their pointy harpoons! “You lookin’ for some poor punk to rip to pieces – or maybe someone else to kidnap?!”

Ugh. It’s a living!

Meanwhile, Selina “Cat” Kyle “Woman” works out in her early ‘90s jazzercise outfit, commenting on the news reports of Batman kidnapping the Mayor’s daughter. “He didn’t do it. He’s dark – but not that dark.”

Batman slumps back to his castle-shaped mansion feeling sullen and neutered. Nobody respects him anymore! He’s just a man who people think deserves a nice harpooning. No fear. No power. It sucks.

No, Alfred! Those pills in the medicine cabinet were not for you! They were not for you!!

It’s nice being back in the big, cold, dingy, empty house, but where is the faithful butler who has that ankle bracelet that will inject poison into his veins if he even thinks about leaving the premises? Alfie! Ooohhhh, Alfie! I brought home some McDona– NOOO!!!!

Alfred is supine on the floor, knocked out by an ornate, still-intact vase. Who is in Bruce’s house, infiltrated his private business and snacking on the Wheat Thins that fill his several walk-in pantries?!

“In the kitchen, son,” says a voice that makes Bruce’s heart skip a beat. “It’s all your fault, Bruce… if you hadn’t wanted to go to the movies that night, we’d still be alive. We died so you could live. You should be ashamed, son.”

Bruce starts flipping out, just really losing his marbles while his parents tell him how much dying hurt. “Because of you, Bruce, the worms are getting fat on us.” lol

The reveal here is that, once Bruce starts punching the fuck out of it, it’s Dr. Strange’s Sex Mannequin. It has a giant tape recorder inside its head taunting the bejesus out of him. Alfred, the non-hallucinated Alfred, comes out to try to hold Bruce back. He gets uppercutted! “NOOOO!! Leave me alone!!” Bruce screams like a feral baboon. He stumbles around like a bear with a tranquilizer dart sticking out his neck, howling about going to the Cave! The Cave! Got to return to the Batcave! “The only place I can be safe! The only place I can be sane! The only place they can’t get me!”

And then he fucking falls down the steps of the cave. lmao. The end.

Final Thoughts

This poor bastard done flipped his wig, son. I hope Alfred’s ok. I don’t care what happens to Bruce. Our only hope is that Bruce falls down a well and someone drops a big rock on his head.