Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #13 – “Prey (Part 3): Night Scourge!”! In the previous installment, things start heating up when Batman sticks his nose into something just because the police force is too incompetent to do any of this stuff themselves, but he should just leave it alone because he keeps making Jim Gordon’s life harder than it has to be! That’s about the gist.

Specifically, Sgt. Cort has a vendetta against Batman. Dr. Strange has a fixation about Batman, and they’re both going to team up to try to thwart Gordon and stop Batman. Also, Catwoman is somewhat involved, but she doesn’t want to be. I don’t want her to be either, for what it’s worth.

Welcome to the third issue of the storyline, right in the middle! Things are going to get worse before they get better, and I’m here for it.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #13 [December, 1990]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Prey (Part 3): Night Scourge!”

Dr. Strange is having that dinner with the Mayor’s daughter, the one that she didn’t want to have in the first place. Something must have happened to sway her, and I’d bet my dick and balls that it has nothing to do with Strange’s looks or personality or disposition or existence. Something’s up.

She makes faces at him while he talks himself up. All “your father picked the right guy for this job” and “I’m the only one capable of handling this with aplomb” and “man, I’m so smart”. Catherine is her name, and she tells this bald fucker to change the subject.

“Oh, I’m boring you, is that it?” he shoots back with gritted teeth. “Our date is not going well, is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

Most women would be afraid of getting murdered and thrown in a ditch later than night, but Catherine maintains unflappable poise! “If you want the truth, Doctor,” she smirks, “I accepted this dinner date solely as a courtesy – and because you happen to be associated with my father.”

Take that, you self-involved man. She asks for him to take her home, and he huffs and puffs, conceding. Well, that was fun. I thought this Dr. Strange fellow was a real stand-up guy, but this scene has proved me wrong! He later cries while confiding in his Batman-cowled sexy mannequin. “Her type never gives me a chance, because they know a man like me would pierce their armor! But why should I care? She was just a trifle.” Strange had called Sgt. Cort over, hopefully for a rebound, so he hides his true love back in the closet. This guy is a real cool dude, I’m back on board with him.

The first thing Strange does is offer to hypnotize Cort, which is presumptuous and unsettling. Cort is being coy about it instead of punching his lights out, which I also find odd.

…you are imagining us frolicking through a verdant meadow. I shower you with kissies…

Cort agrees to this hypnotism thing, I guess, and he goes all in. He pictures the moon, and it’s quite a relaxing moon! Very peaceful, as moons tend to be. Strange starts talking shop at this point while Cort lolls to a hypnotized stupor. “These police files you gave me – the ones Gordon tried to hold back… they’ve been very helpful, Max… as have your own investigations…”

Strange shows him photos of Batman’s recovered hang glider. The struts are made of a very expensive lightweight plastic, and since this guy prowls at night and sleeps during the day, he likely doesn’t have a real job or anything. Rich as the dickens. And that’s not all. He’s in his 20s, single, lives alone, an accomplished athlete, and a widower. He likes long walks on the beach, short walks on the beach, and other beach-related sauntering.

The problem is that this character profile doesn’t match police records. They’ve likely been doctored, perhaps by police who have been paid off. Police like Gordon. “Whatever brutal incident spawned the Batman, it’s been expunged from the records.”

Dr. Strange holds up a costume; he thinks this will help track down Batman and thwart Gordon. I can’t tell what the costume is. It’s either Snagglepuss or Sexy Nurse. Strange wants Cort to one-up Batman on the nighttime prowler game. “Become more than him… become out own myth…” Sounds like a real pain in the ass to me. First Cort gets hypnotized and now he’s going to jump around town in a skintight costume? Who the fuck is this guy?

Later, Cort thinks this has all been a giant heaping helping of HOOEY, and drives off back to the station.

Take that! *SHUMP* And some of THIS! *SHUMP* And a little MORE! *SHUMP SHUMP*

Meanwhile, Batman has been wracking his overstressed brains about how to handle this whole situation now that he’s up against the police AND the newspapers claiming that he and Catwoman are partners in crime. “I’ll go to Gordon only when I have a plan… or only when I have to.” In the meantime, he beats up a couple of street punks to make himself feel better. Like a real man.

Cort has grabbed an unidentified envelope from the station. “Yeah… this’ll do,” he thinks as he heads back to his car. Maybe it’s full of photos of Batman in various half-naked, provocative poses! That will do! I agree!

A couple of no-name uniformed cops discuss where the file went. The “Skeleton’s Closet”, and Cort took it even though he’s working on the Vigilante Task Force. Curious curious curious, ain’t it? (No.)

The Skeleton’s Closet appears to some kind of Nazi bar. Unseemly men, an almost-nude woman. Some guy enters looking like a samurai. “I’d offer to take on every man in the house… if this hellhole was good enough to pass for a house… and if there were any men in it.”

Zing! “Who’s he supposed to be?” asks a smiling woman. “Who knows?” answers a smiling man. “Maybe the Great Pumpkin – lookin’ for Halloween… or maybe the Bat-Guy’s boyfriend.”

Zing! Samurai man grabs this dude by the shirt and starts kicking his ass. He kicks everyone’s ass! WAP OOF THWAK WHUD KRAK TEEEESH KRATCH.

Then this dude’s head gets WUNKed right against the wall, where he leaves a large splotch of blood.

Mr. Samurai Jones has been tipped off that the Skeleton’s Closet sells guns. “Now… when they leave here to pick up the goods… where do they go? Where?!”

Uhhhh… Kazakhstan! Heh heh. Uhm…

It’s the middle of the night, and a ringleader of sorts of this Skeleton’s Closet operation gets a call. He’s very pissed in his lavish bed with a luscious nude lady next to him, but he changes his tune once he learns that the Skeleton’s Closet has been infiltrated and busted up. Rather rudely, I might add. “You what–?! You gave him my address?! I’ll kill you!”

Yes, and Samurai Smith shows up to throw some knives and cause a ruckus. Selling unregistered guns? That makes him quite angry! Ringleader tries to shoot him with an unregistered gun, but he does a flip and gains 34 EXP.

Ringleader thinks this guy is the Batman, but he ain’t the Batman. He’s the Night Scourge, and he’s at least THRICE the man that the Batman will ever be! Darn tootin’!

Ooooh, a gift for moi??

“A new vigilante, calling himself ‘The Night Scourge’, struck twice in Gotham last night, first starting a brawl at the Skeleton’s Closet, a so-called ‘biker bar’, then attacking a man in his bedroom less than an hour later.” Bruce listens to this news with brow-furrowed consternation as he tinkers with his car.

Dr. Dollfucker Strange holds a press conference to admonish the “massive violations of civil rights across the board”. All this points back to that ne’er-do-well Batman! He started all this nonsense and now every Joe Vigilante thinks they can just go out and be a vigilante! What nerve! “Absolute anarchy,” Strange froths. “If I were a twisted, tormented soul like the Batman– I would surrender myself to someone like me for immediate treatment–”

Of course you would, psycho. Bruce picks up his radio, intending to smash it to the floor into a trillion foot-lacerating pieces, but thinks better of it. “No. Can’t take the bait. But now… even without a plan… I have to go to him.”

The “him” is handsome Jim Gordon trying to tuck his baby into bed while Batman throws rocks at his window to get his attention. Batman asks if the child is healthy and well, to which I would respond with “until he was threatened with rocks” but, of course, Gordon is still grateful that Batman saved his son’s life. Batman has earned Gordon’s trust, but straight-laced Gordon is a cop first. “This is our last meeting for now…” Gordon warns, “…maybe forever if you can’t stop this ‘Night Scourge’.”

Funnily enough, the Night Scourge is Sgt. Cort. By the book, indeed! “It worked last night,” he says, removing his mask. “I am better than him… but now I gotta prove it.”

Batman goes on and on and on and on about not having a plan and needing a plan and wanting Gordon’s help to come up with a plan but Gordon won’t talk to him until he has a plan and he doesn’t have a plan and he needs a plan.

As Cort heads back to home, or the station, or Dairy Queen, he spots Catwoman scaling a building. He sweats when he realizes it’s not Batman, it’s yet another asshole thinking they’re Jane Vigilante! Well, no mas! Cort puts his mask back on and ambushes her at the rooftop door before she can break into the building. “Why crash the party, babe? – when we can throw down right up here!”

How very droll, sir! That reminds me, I sure hope nobody in costumes are fighting four feet above our heads!

Catwoman and the Night Scourge fight very visibly next to the glass roof above a ritzy party. She’s no match for him because, let’s face it, she sucks at this whole cat burglar thing. He basically suplexes her and leaves her moaning and groaning. Then the Night Scourge crashes through the glass deliberately like it didn’t just slice him up really badly and lands upon the party full of screaming guests. “TERRORISTS!” and whatnot.

Batman is already there for some reason! What a plot hole! So they beat each other up for a little bit, naturally, WAP CHUD DUFT. Man, “DUFT” is a great one.

The partygoers first want to call the police, but then they don’t want to call the police because the BATMAN is here and he’s BETTER than the police. He’s like TWO polices in one, he is.

“Strange was wrong,” Night Scourge says as he scrambles out of the building like one of those scared puppies from the Sarah McLachlan commercials that have been abused for their whole lives and then shoved in front of TV cameras. “I’m not good enough… not yet… I’m not the Batman!”

Well, you barely even tried! You should’ve said something like “your stupid parents are dead” and he would’ve sobbed right in front of you, leaving himself open for pummeling blows!

Batman gets on the roof looking for him and gets whacked in the head with a pipe by Catwoman. “She was playing dead waiting for me,” he thinks as he grabs the back of his head in pain. Way to not kill him, Selina Kyle. Terrible name, by the way.

“I don’t need your help!” she says firmly. “But maybe you should become my partner. After all… you know you love the dark side.”

Uh huh.

Later, Max Cort lies on Strange’s couch, defeated, in his wet-looking underpants. Strange gives him a pep talk under hypnosis and he’s going to try again at this vigilante-busting thing, by God. Time to wear the Batman suit!

As Batman, Cort knocks Catherine Klass unconscious and then strikes the Mayor himself in their own residence! “You ever want to see her again, Mr. Mayor… call off your dogs. Gotham is mine.”

The real Batman still struggles dazedly on the roof. Here’s what he mumbles before falling unconscious. It’s very essential stuff:

“Can’t see… can barely hear… sounds like… all the noises of hell… shrieks and laughter… booms and squawks… alligators playing trombones… like… like the party… will never end…”

Final Thoughts

ALLIGATORS playing TROMBONES! The comedy never ends in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, does it folks?!

I just wish this series was actually gritty and dark, you know?? This shit is like Clown Town!

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #12 – “Prey (Part 2): Dark Sides”! In the previous installment, the Mayor of Gotham City has assigned Captain Jim Gordon to head a Vigilante Task Force in order to stop people like Batman from stealing the thunder from really shitty cops like… well, everyone but Gordon. This doesn’t go well when one of Gordon’s men, Sgt. Cort, decides to go rogue with his own team to raid a dealer’s warehouse. A few of Cort’s men are corrupt enough to warn Fish, the ringleader. Batman also decides to raid the warehouse at the same time. It’s a real mess.

Meanwhile, Dr. Hugo Strange, a psychologist also assigned to the Vigilante Task Force, prances around in a Batsuit to try and get into Batman’s head. And he gets into his head, all right. He’s gonna go do Batman things and get himself torpedoed right in the face.

Catwoman’s also around for some reason. That doesn’t seem to matter much right now.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #12 [November, 1990]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Prey (Part 2): Dark Sides”

Yuck, what the hell is this cover? It’s like Paul Gulacy had to figure out just how far away from this hairy bald man’s junk that Batman had to be AND had to make sure that Batman’s pointy, pointy cowl wasn’t anywhere near it! Ouch, man.

OK, enough of that horrible poppycock. Bruce Wayne recounts to us, the loyal reader, of his unsuccessful evening. The Batmobile broke its wheel and the Fish got away. He’s made an enemy out of the jacked Sgt. Cort. He couldn’t even hang glide his way back to his McMansion! Ugh, and he loves hang gliding! That’s the real tragedy here, that he had to walk all the way home. Couldn’t even take a cab, this guy. He’s too good for that.

That weirdo Dr. Strange continues to prance around in his own makeshift Batsuit. “Yes! The dark thrill conferred by the costume – the freedom and power of frightening anonymity – almost omnipotence!” He keeps talking about omnipotence without actually using the word “god”, which he most certainly wants to say. This puny twink thinks he’s a god, even as he stands at the edge of a very tall building and almost topples right over it.

Sweating, he gets that wave of reality right on top of his head. “I can know how it feels to be the Bat-Man psychologically… but not… not physically.

How DARE you have a head in my presence!

“And you–!” he hollers at his fuck-mannequin. “What are you looking at?! You think it’s funny–?! You enjoy seeing me humiliated?!”

After punching some sense into his beloved hunk of plastic, he grips his pained wrist tenderly and wonders how Batman feels when he punches his foes. Does he get a thrill? Do his genitals moisten up with anticipation? Does he go home and celebrate with a can of Clamato? Oh, how enigmatic this Bat Fella is!

Batman finally arrives at his less-than-humble abode. Faithful Alfred is waiting to tend to his every, and I do mean every, need. “I can’t go on like this, Alfred,” Bruce sits with consternation. “Not against the criminals and the police. I’ve got to find a way to make playing this game less draining.”

If I were Alfred, I would suggest NOT DOING IT ANYMORE. But Alfred will always hold his tongue about that lest he gets the firm taste of the back of Bruce’s hand!

“Then aside from the absence of mortal wounds… was it a bad night?” Alfred asks.

“A disaster.”

“Then I shall refrain from saying I told you so, sir, and instead present the day’s mail.”

Bruce doesn’t want to indulge in the litany of junk mail and free AOL 3.0 discs, but Alfred informs him that an invitation to the Mayor’s dinner party is within the pile of pre-approved credit cards and campaign ads to vote for Richard “Dunky” McFadden for council chairperson. Bruce grudgingly accepts the invitation as long as there is shrimp with that really good cocktail sauce that burns holes in your sinuses.

Very good, sir. Other dinner guests will include Dr. “Strange” Strange and Ronald McDonald (as long as he doesn’t cancel).

He plans on calling David Muir over and over again with reports that the Batman is “living too high on the hog”.

Dr. Strange is the toast of the town! A group of well-dressed socialites, businessmen, and Mayor himself, bored out of their skulls, are listening to Strange prattle on and on about Batman. Mayor Klass takes an opportunity to speak with a hungover Bruce Wayne about how close he’s getting to his fair daughter! Look but don’t touch, now!

“Mr. Wayne – how do you feel about this vigilante running amok through the Gotham night?” Mayor Klass asks, which takes Bruce aback. All dropping his monocle in his wine glass. My opinion of Batman?? Oh stop it, now. “Well, I’m afraid I find the subject alien, Mr. Mayor, inasmuch as I devote the night to other pursuits…” Then he deflects to resident expert Dr. “Unsettlingly” Strange, who starts talking about how much the night gives Batman a boner and how strong and invincible he must feel putting on that skimpy suit and jumping around town.

“The difference is… he derives pleasure from violence rather than love,” Strange posits.

“Assuming you’re right, Dr. Strange…” Bruce replies, “and I do wonder how you could know… the man sounds rather… twisted.”

The Mayor’s daughter, Catherine, chimes in with the most deadly serious of faces. “Because he dares to do something about the crime eating Gotham alive–? Because he doesn’t spend his nights carousing or attending elegant dinner parties?”

Now it’s the Mayor’s turn to drop his monocle in his wine glass! How dare she speak this way about elegant dinner parties! My stars!

“Maybe this Bat-Man is an outlaw – technically – but he’s certainly more of a man than anyone in this room!”

…

Heh heh.

Well, I tell you who likes this fiery lass! Dr. “Upsettingly” Strange! He would like to speak more with her about her opinions at another time, but she doesn’t wanna! Gross!

Elsewhere, Sgt. Cort and one of his men are interrogating a really shaggy, smelling looking man about spotting the Bat-Man. “You claim he’s just a normal guy in a suit – a vigilante – but he ain’t. He’s a trans-dimensional elemental humanoid type.”

This guy is certainly worth everyone’s time.

This guy seems cool. I’d love to grab a beer with him.

Next witness! Ugh, never mind. Let’s take a break. We need to show you something we found, Sgt. Cort: *points to a gigantic hang glider* It was on a rooftop near the warehouse! You remember the warehouse, right? The warehouse!

Oh fuck me sideways, that’s excellent! Get that thing over to the lab to check for DNA or bat teeth marks or something! “I wanna know what it’s made of – where the materials were bought – how much they cost – everything!” This surely is a break in the case! Maybe learning that Bruce Wayne went to Michaels last Thursday will put all the pieces together.

Looking down from the catwalk, Captain Jim Gordon thinks that maybe Cort wasn’t a good choice. He calls him “hyper”, and his hatred of Batman is visceral. “It’s becoming a crusade for him, and fanatics are dangerous.” That, and collaborating with Dr. “Getting Increasingly More” Strange will add a brain to his dumbshit energy.

A quick detour to Catwoman reveals her reading the front page of a newspaper implying that she and Batman are partners in crime. She shreds the newspaper while her 45 cats hiss and growl. “Never.”

Bruce watches the news, aka the media weapon, which reports everything that we’ve already heard ad nauseam from Dr. “I Love How” Strange “I Am”. And although Bruce is onto Strange’s tricks, he still finds it difficult to let this stuff get under his skin. Nevertheless, he makes his way through his Batcave to keep tinkering with his car.

Sgt. Cort is gearing up to take down the Fish! Ammo belts and semi-automatic rifles! “Lot of hardware for one lonely dope pusher,” Gordon comments, which is met with scorn. “Let’s just say we want to be ready for anything, Captain…”

Cort wants to be ready if Batman shows up again, which I personally think is rather reasonable. After all, the guy keeps toothpicks and paper clips in his utility belt. You can never be too careful.

“No shooting,” Gordon warns. Cort looks upset that there is to be no shooting.

Don’t think I’m kidding. This seat is very hot! I think someone left a bowl of soup in my chair again.

The tactical team clears out. “Don’t worry, Gordon,” speaks a gruff figure in the shadows. “They won’t run into me or the Fish.”

Wha! Buh! Guh! Fuh! “If I’d been left alone, Manny the Fish would be in your jail right now,” The Bat Man Man Man says rather arrogantly.

“Or you might be dead – instead of keeping round-the-clock surveillance on Cardona’s house.”

“No surveillance. I planted a recorder inside. The tape’s blank – not so much as a jiggle of the doorknob.” So Fish has been laying low, eh? Perhaps he had a heart attack while eating his Stouffer’s mac and cheese and banged his head on the countertop?

Gordon doesn’t look thrilled, per se. “You don’t approve,” Batman asks. Gordon barely approves, but he does betray a hint of approval. However… “My job’s on the line with this task force – and I won’t lose it.” Well, Batman ain’t letting that happen! Even if it means hiding Gordon in the Batcave until his job isn’t on the line anymore, he’ll do it. What they both need is a system. Perhaps a way for Gordon to only summon the guy on his own terms. Maybe some sort of signal. With a bat on it. We can workshop that one later.

Sgt. Cort and his ragtag team of burly men start ramming their way into the Casa de Fish, which they find empty. No Fish whatsoever. “Ask me, Cardona ain’t been here in days,” says Nameless Cop #1. Time to make lemonade out of lemons and set up camp right in the house. It’s Batman they really want, and he’ll poke his nose around Fish’s house soon enough. He can’t help himself! Just ask Dr. Strange! Something about impotence.

Speaking of impotence, Batman is tying up a man who knows something about Cardona’s whereabouts. “Ever hang from a lamppost?” the cowled one asks, striking what can only be described as intense fear in the guy’s heart. This dude has never hanged from a lamppost and he’s not about the start now!

So he tells him what he needs to know – Fish is in an apartment above Skyline Bar on Comstock – and then Batman throws him in a dumpster. Assuredly, the birds will peck his eyes out.

The guy gave good information. Fish is indeed in an apartment living it up with a gross lady in a gross tub. Both looking awful, not worthy of illustration whatsoever. Fish hears a noise and, like Annie, gets his gun.

THTCH. A batarang knocks the gun out of his hand. Fish ducks under the bar as another batatrang crashes into the mirror with a PEECH. lol. Fish grabs his gun and starts shooting wildly. BAOUM BAOUM BAOUM CHVEW. Who commissioned these sound effects? My anger is palpable.

Aha, they found each other.

The hairy bald man at last!

So they BLASH and SWAKT and RUUAHHH and KRATCH and TUD and SKFF and CHUD! and SPLAMM and KRAKT and SHUMP and TRRMP and WHOK and KUNCH! and FRAKT and SWOKT and WHUMP and K-K-KKKRUMP! and I didn’t make a single one of those up! Except for “TRRMP”, but you didn’t even notice.

Needless to say, Fish has been rendered unconscious and what’s done is done. Batman tells the woman in the tub that Fish needs his pants.

Elsewhere, concurrently, Catwoman has stolen more stuff and digs her claws into a sleeping woman’s back. “Tell them the Catwoman is nobody’s partner.”

The next morning, Cort and his men celebrate a job poorly done! “Either the Vigilante knew the Fish wouldn’t be there – or he knew we would be,” Cort growls, taking a drag on his sad little cigarette. MAYBE FISH WAS ALREADY DEAD! Dumped in a river, how about that, Cort?

“I’m beginnin’ to think the Vigilante was tipped off…”

Catwoman checks the day’s newspaper. “BAT-MAN IN TAVERN ROBBERY?” No Catwoman news, but at least there’s no implication that they work together. Good enough for now.

Cort’s Team of Whipper-Snappers returns to Police Headquarters where they find an extremely bruised and bloody Fish tied up and hanging from a gargoyle bust. “A peace offering,” says the raspy bat atop the roof. “We’re on the same side.”

“You’re under arrest, dammit!” Cort screams, pointing his gun, missing the parts about the peace offering and being on the same side. At least Fish got his pants! “No, Max!” Nameless Cop #2 shouts. Gordon said no shooting! Don’t, Max!”

BRAM BRAM BRAM SPAK CHOOM BRAM BRAM BRAM SPANG BROKT. All good noises.

One bullet snaps through Fish’s rope and he drops like a stone to the steps. Batman has escaped the Wrath of Bullets, but Cort instructs everyone to get up to the roof anyway.

Limp like a dead fish, you might say.

Dr. Strange is busy trying to call up the Mayor’s office. He needs the police records he requested post-haste! He’s this close *spreads fingers apart to the length of his penis* to a solution, but he needs more pieces of the puzzle. “I was assured full access, and I demand nothing less.”

Meanwhile, Gordon has a few guys installing a signal on the roof. Later, Gordon himself unfolds a piece of fabric shaped like a bat and places it on the giant bulb. “It works–” he says as the signal lights up the night sky, “but I can’t risk leaving it on longer than 30 seconds or so… I just hope to heaven he saw it.”

Guess who else saw it? Max Cort and his Merry Gang of Blowjobs, who are all staking out to get a view of the Police HQ roof. From their angle, they can’t see the shape in the signal. “Why’d he shine it up into the sky? What’s he trying to–”

Oh snap, son. Batman himself arrives on the rooftop to meet Gordon. “The Vigilante!” Cort shouts.

“As far as you’re concerned,” Gordon tells the Masked Bat, taking the briefest of respites from his pipe, “I made a bad mistake in drafting Max Cort for the Task Force…”

Pffft, who cares. Batman eats guys like Max Cort for breakfast. So what if the peace offering didn’t work? Big ol’ whoop. Batman forgot to eat his Wheaties and he’s hungry for breakfast! Time for breakfast! Batman eats guys like–

“A cop with his pride… were you trying to taunt him?” Gordon asks pointedly.

“I was being what I am.”

“What you are is the prime target for Max Cort. And don’t make the mistake of selling him short, as I did. He’s dangerous – maybe verging on psychotic…”

Do you really want to be bested by the guy fucking a mannequin??

Gordon spills all he knows about what Cort’s been doing and why and how come and FROM WHENCE his ambitions have come! And the vendetta, it is oh-so vendetta-y. And he’s suspicious that Batman is being tipped off. And it’s no longer suspicious, per se, because Cort is looking through the binoculars and seeing Batman being tipped off right before his beady eyes.

Jim Gordon has no advice to offer Batman other than “don’t fuck this up”. Batman leaves, fixated even further on Dr. Strange, repeatedly saying that he hasn’t gotten under his skin at all! Gordon worries that the night is going to get even worse than it already has, but he leaves his office all the same.

Sgt. Cort breaks into Gordon’s office and starts snooping around, eventually finding Dr. Strange’s requests for police records AND the police records that still haven’t been given to him.

“He’s turning the public against me… Even Gordon is now questioning my motives and methods. And if I lose Gordon… it may all be over.”

LOTS OF TENSION HERE, FOLKS! Whew, I have the vapors! Sgt. Cort finds the bat-shaped fabric in his office, and this is the final straw that broke the bat’s back!

Do we really have to go back to Dr. Strange? I hate that guy, he’s giving me the heebie-jeebies and I hate his stupid face. “A considerable improvement, my dear, and certainly better than losing your head again, eh?” The lingerie model has now donned a Batman cowl. Heebie-jeebies.

The doorbell rings and Strange springs into action! He grabs his girlfriend and shoves her into a closet. “Coming, coming!”

Who is this tall drink of water at the door? “I’m Sgt. Max Cort, second in command of the Vigilante Task Force.” They exchange pleasantries, Cort asks why Strange is being weird like he’s talking to a fuckdoll, then he offers the documents in person that he requested. “Those reports have been held back – suppressed – by Captain James Gordon… head of the Task Force.” Well don’t that beat all! What a jerkface!

So Cort and Dr. Strange are going to team up to bring Gordon down, nail the Vigilante, and go home to a hearty steak and eggs dinner! Time to strike a deal: “Tell me…” Strange looks rather sly. “Are you as strong and athletic as you look?”

Final Thoughts

This isn’t looking good for the Thee Bat-Man OR Jim-Jam Gordon! How are they going to get out of this pickle!

That reminds me. I better get home to my mannequin.