Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #10 – “Walpurgisnacht”! We’re at the end of the story here, ladies and effeminate gentlemen like myself. In the previous installment, Batman has a run-in with Mr. Whisper and learns what he’s been doing putzing around for 300 years. He also learns that Whisper plans to unleash a plague upon the town to collect a few million souls for the devil so that he can keep on livin’.

Batman’s got 24 hours before this shit goes down. He’s probably going to spend 21 of those hours strapped to that rolling conveyor grunting and sweating. Sexy.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #10 [August, 1990]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“Walpurgisnacht”

lmao, look at this loser on the subway tracks. lol and, also, lmao. I don’t know what suddenly happened to bring Batman to this horrible predicament, but my interest has been verily piqued!

A candle burns. The wax melts. Slowly, the lever it sits on rises, bringing the other end slowly toward a button. Batman’s gettin’ nervous!

The button sends a small rolling cart hurtling toward a balloon. The cart has a stick of dynamite strapped to the top; fuse on one end, point needle on the other. Batman’s startin’ to sweat!

The popped balloon causes another lever to rise, sending the ball down a ramp. The ball knocks a platform down, sending a ball on a chain swinging to hit a lit candle on a rolling cart, knocking it down a ramp. Batman’s startin’ to get tired of trying to suspend his disbelief with this elaborate and needless Rube Goldberg device!

The candle ignites the rope holding the big oil barrel that is ready to crush Batman’s skull. Somehow he is already standing up. There is nothing to show how he got out of the ropes. One second he’s sitting there clenching a fist, the next second he’s looking at the crushed rolling conveyor with a look of smug satisfaction. “Nice try,” he smirks. All that suspense for naught. Naught!

Elsewhere in the cathedral, Whisper’s got the young nun by the wrist and he’s dragging her through the hallowed halls. “At precisely thirty minutes to midnight, the full moon will be magnified by the central panel of the rose window,” Whisper tells her, explaining the beginnings of what seems to be another stupid Rube Goldberg device. This guy likes his Rube Goldberg devices. He must have watched the beginning of Pee-wee’s Big Adventure quite a few times.

I’m no nun, I’m Peter Lorre! Can’t you tell?

Whisper shakes, rattles, and rolls this girl, asking why she doesn’t care that he’ll be unleashing a plague upon Gotham! *slap slap* Everyone’s gonna die! *slap*

This girl seems to be possessed while Whisper continues to prattle on about how the moonlight will activate the secret switch carved onto the crypt door. “Ashes! Ashes! We all fall down!” she gurgles, appearing to be on Jupiter right now. All is going according to plan! He can trust this weirdo to help carry things out, right?

“What is this?” Whisper asks, faltering a tad. He picks up a piece of paper. “My hour has almost come when I to sulph’rous and tormenting flames must render up… myself… Batman put this here! It must have been…”

An explosion. A door blasted off its hinges. Batman in the flesh! *Arsenio audience starts whooping*

Whisper is not happy about this. Not now. Not ever! The nun’s eyes are still rolled in the back of her head like she’s having a terrifying orgasm. The moon centers itself over the cathedral’s glass dome. Nun keeps singing Ring Around the Rosie. Whisper starts getting giddy. “The whole cathedral is in motion! Wheels revolve! Gears mesh!”

Sir, this is an Arby’s.

Whisper runs off excitedly. Batman tells the scared nun to wait right where she’s at, possibly because she doesn’t want her to start hollerin’ in the street about the ashes.

Right into his trap, Batman. Whisper wants to follow him, right into the cathedral rumpus room that he built 200 years ago. Centuries of musk fill the air! Breathe it in, that’s INVIGORATION baby! Go ahead, breathe! That’s some good plague air! BREATHE, DAMNIT!

Batman is in the room, but he’s breathing through a filter. Whisper holds a corked pink flask while yelling some Edgar Allan Poe plague poetry. Then he sets the flask down, leaps toward Batman, and knocks his surprised ass to the floor. The floor gives out, I think, and they tumble down a very deep shaft, for some reason. Splintered wood lies everywhere. Someone goes “uff”. They are both unhurt after falling 20 feet, just like in real life. I’ve fallen 40 feet before and didn’t get so much as a prolapsed anus. They landed on train tracks. Go ahead and guess what’s to come! Go ahead, I’ll wait…

…no, idiot.

“The bell will strike, Batman! The bell will strike and the crypt will magnify the bell’s tone. The phial will shatter! You’ve lost! You’ve lost everything!”

BEEP BEEP SMASH. Subway train hits the raving man. Batman had already moved to the side, the sly dog. Batman thinks he’s dead, but of course he’s not dead. Why would he be dead? Whisper can’t just die, dummy.

“Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird,” Whisper croaks before karate-chopping Batman’s wrist. This old man is holding his own pretty well. He keeps punching and whipping Batman around, causing him to grunt and honk and moo.

It’s Utility-Fucking-Belt time! He didn’t want to do it, but Whisper pushed him to it. Let’s see… matches, pins, screwdriver, magnifying glass, beaker of sulfuric acid, paper clips, forklift, anime porn, toothpick, aha! Pepper spray! SQUIRT!

Whisper calls the cowled one a bastard. The bastard kicks Whisper across the face. Upper hand is a glorious thing. It’s better than the lower hand by a long shot. Too bad it’s short-lived. Whisper turns the tables and half-nelsons Batman back onto the train tracks.

Embrace me, sweetie. I want this moment to last forever.

“I promise you, Batman…” Whisper whispers whisperly into Batman’s tender ear. The train is coming. “This will hurt you more than it hurts me.” Yes, yes, very bittersweet. A tear to my eye, it brings.

Batman tells this guy to shut the fuck up and throws him forward over his head. Whisper plows through the windshield glass of the train, scaring the goddamned crap out of the conductor. Batman ducks under the train as it rolls over, because apparently subway cars have 20-inch wheels. The bell will start tolling for thee soon. Four minutes until midnight. Then it’s Happy New Year, Gotham! I mean, no it’s not. It’s the plague thing. That’s right, I forgot.

Batman runs up to the bell tower and tries to keep the bell away from the clapper. He uses his fancy Apple Watch to call for Alfred, who is likely sound asleep in his cozy bed wearing a nightcap and slippers.

The definitely-not-dead Whisper books it back to his hotel room where the creepy nun is waiting for him. “What the hell are you doing here?” he cries. “Who let you in?”

Oh, Whisper. Whisper Whisper Whisper. Shhhhh. Shhhh, Whisper. Shhhhhh…

Shhhhhh…

Don’t you recognize her? You made a deal with her 300 years ago. I mean… not her. You know what she means. All I can think of right now is how she did NOT stay put like Batman asked! That’s gonna piss him the hell off.

“You are mine beyond reprieve, false monk. You always were,” she smiles devilishly. And since you thought to deceive me, your last day is forfeit.”

Whispers stands there, hands raised in front of his face like a crying lump. Two minutes until this bitch is gone forever. “No. Oh no. Christ, save me! Forgive me my sins and let me live forever!”

How pathetic. Christ isn’t going to save you now, you loathsome dingus. Try not bringing the plague next time. Let’s go, sir. Time’s a-wastin’.

NOOOO. What an ugly shade of violet! NOOOO!!

Later, the same news reporter from Issue #6 stands in front of the cathedral again. The Mayor’s time capsule stunt is a no-go. The reconstruction is an abject failure, considering that now there’s only more reconstruction to be done. What a waste of time, let’s just go home everyone. See ya.

Bruce Wayne is watching TV in what looks to be a greenhouse. Alfred, the best character in DC Comics, enters the room with his package. Bruce’s package, not his package. Well… nevermind.

The package is wrapped up in Whisper’s soul cord. The box contains a human heart. “Shall I alert the Tin Man, sir?” Alfred asks, which got a legitimate laugh out of me. Alfred’s a fucking baller, dude.

No no no, this calls for a trip on an airplane! Batman recalls what the abbot told him at the monastery in Issue #8, that the Lake Dess cathedral may be tainted with dark magic. Monks have heard things. Seen things. Smelled things. Haunted bells ring in the acoustic gloom. Ghosts that look like bed sheets pop up and say “boo!” then give you a hug.

Batman travels all the way to Austria just to throw the heart into the lake. The end.

Final Thoughts

Anticlimactic, Grant Morrison! Batman should have eaten the dang heart!

But seriously, this was a pretty good story. I should’ve seen the nun thing coming, that the devil appeared to Whisper as the same young nun he tortured and killed 300 years ago. Poetic justice is delicious like so much upper hand.

This anthology series is tops. I’m looking forward to the next one where Batman learns to square dance with Kareem Adbul-Jabbar.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #9 – “The Hangman’s Tale”! In the previous installment, Batman goes off of nothing but a dream clue that he should visit Austria’s Lake Dess, so he does. There he talks to an Abbot of a Monastery, who regales him with a long fable about a monk from the middle ages named Manfred whose hubris led to sinful self-destruction and burning a nun at the stake. The nun still haunts the old Monastery, endlessly searching for Junior Mints. Also, the man who killed her.

Batman visits that old Monastery and discovers a large cathedral hidden behind a trick door. There he sees…

He sees…

HE SEES…

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #9 [July, 1990]
Written by: Grant Morrison
“The Hangman’s Tale”

…doesn’t matter right now. We’re in downtown Gotham, a location of extreme debauchery and depravity, where a hostage situation is underway! A gaggle of police are pointing their guns and telling a man named Hooper – who has a gun pointed to a young girl’s head – to get the fuck out of the building. “You hear me, Hooper?” Fat Mustache Cop yells through a bullhorn. “You can walk out of there or we can carry you out in a bag! What’s it going to be?”

I like Hooper’s undercut. He tells the police to BACK OFF, MAN or else he’s going to fill this kid’s head with very fast-moving metal stuff. We don’t get to see that, though, unfortunately, because the Dark Knight appears before them. “Children are not to be threatened,” he tells Hooper wisely.

BLAAAAHBBB!! BLRHLRHB!!! The kid runs free, Hooper is like “NOOOOO”, and then he gets tossed out like a sack of sugar with a sticky note on his chest that has a Batman symbol drawn on it.

“I guess the Bat-Man is back in town,” the cop observes. NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA NA BAT-MAN, and whatnot.

Morgenstern puffs his pipe in his suite, looking out through his window at the majestic, smelly cityscape. “I’m an empire builder, that’s what I am. An empire builder. Now that Ottavio’s out of the picture, I’m going to run this city. Like clockwork.”

Yeah! Into the ground you pile of crap. Morgenstern’s sitting pretty as long as that Mr. Whisper guy doesn’t start whisperin’ around these parts. A man’s gotta do his thing unfettered by pesky assassins.

Morgenstern turns around and his assistant is prostrate on the floor. Yes, “prostrate”, not “prostate”. His prostate is not on the floor. “What’s the matter, Morgernstern?” Batman grins, apparently having had RUDELY let himself into the suite.

Why I am a little jumpy! Thanks for noticing, Handsome. *flutters eyelashes*

Well, finally, Morgenstern is a little jumpy. This Whisper chap has really gotten under his skin. All his friends dead. He’s next. It’s enough to make a guy lose his appetite from nerves. *chomps on a giant Dagwood sandwich*

“I need information,” Batman growls. “Tell me about Mr. Whisper. Tell what happened when you killed him the first time.”

GULP. Go fuck yourself, Dark Knight. Morgenstern ain’t talkin’ and he has nothing to hide and he ain’t talkin’!

So then he starts talkin’.

It was 20 years ago, so by my math that would be 1947. Morgernstern and the Boys were making a pretty penny off of their less-than-legal ventures. Problem was, some jerk slaughtered a bunch of kids and now the cops were everywhere. The heat was on! How is a guy supposed to sell black market fringy doilies with Hawaii 5-0 on their tails? Fuck that noise!

So they decided to try to find this killer themselves and slaughter him right back!

They spent a month trying to get information from all the bums and heroin addicts and mimes on the streets. Finally, a tip-off led them to an abandoned apartment building that reeked of cats and hobo piss and pornography-related fluids. There they found Mr. Whisper hunched over a bed with a knife in his hand. There was someone, or something, wrapped in a blanket on the bed. Shots were fired, Mr. Whisper was thrown through the window, and they all thought he was murdered gangland style! “But he was still alive. Still alive!”

At this point the gauntlet was down! Someone named Jack Kane started going after Whisper with an axe, but the guy just wouldn’t die! Like a bad dream, man. Michael Malloy. Just can’t kill him. They were eventually able to tie him to a comically cartoony anchor and send him sinking to the bottom of the sea. Problem over. *dusts off hands*

Morgernstern tries to strike a deal with Batman: meet at the old chemical works on the waterfront. Whisper is going to be there, and this is the chance to really get him, you know?

A recipe for a sexy evening, that’s what.

Batman’s gone though. Oh well. He’s getting his ass back to the Batcave where he can punch in questions and get answers on his 1990 TCP/IP, infecting his computer with DOS ASCII pornography.

“…and how was Austria, Master Bruce?” Alfred asks, reminding me that this guy actually went to Austria for an entire issue. Batman doesn’t really answer the question, he’s too busy thinking about gothic architecture.

What did Batman discover in that Lake Dess cathedral?? Here’s the reveal! Blueprints! A schematic of the cathedral, laid over a schematic of the Gotham cathedral, shows an almost perfect match! WTF! Bananas!

Batman lays down some gothic architecture knowledge. The buildings were designed so that all the framework’s internal forces and stresses of the building pointed upward toward God, because screw that guy and he deserves all the stress that we on Earth can give him. Paybacks. Also something about building acoustics and spiritual alchemy and similar such nonsense. If buildings can direct forces, and they direct evil forces? That is the question! I guess.

Something funky is gonna go down at the ol’ Gotham Cathedral.

I wanna see Texas Chainsaw Sluts!

Batman refreshes Alfred’s memory about his days getting caned at school by Mr. Winchester. After not being able to take it anymore, Bruce snuck out of the school and phoned home like E.T. His father came to pick him up and tried to have a heated argument with Winchester. As Bruce puts it, his father’s face was pale when he came out of the office.

Whatever, though. Bruce was going home. Only good times were ahead! A future of open possibilities! Then his parents got killed, because upon Bruce’s arrival back home, the family would celebrate with a trip to the old moving picture theater! Yippee!

At the Gotham cathedral, a guy named Mr. Wicker is creepin’ around. The cathedral guard recognizes him and is not phased by this weirdo lurking about. It’s the same guy who was talking to the short-haired nun back in Issue #8. He claims he’s opening a “time capsule” in the building, that he’s an “expert”, and that’s “why he was hired”. I’m out of quotation marks.

Nah. Here are some more.

“See? I found this fascinating piece of cord,” Wicker says right before strangling the guard. Then he walks away whistling, I’m guessing, “Gold Digger” by Kanye.

Batman took Morgenstern up on his offer and is walking around the waterfront’s chemical works. “Morgenstern? Morgenstern, I’m here.”

He shuffles into a room where a dozen dead dudes hang by their legs on the ceiling rafters, including Morgenstern. He was tricked! Mr. Wicker/Whisper is there to murder The Bat Man!

Batman throws a batarang at the guy. He’s barely scratched. Whisper throws a large pullet at Batman, which knocks him off the catwalk. Down he goes.

He wakes up strapped to conveyor rollers

Now look at ya! Rippling abdominal muscles! Do you lift, bro?

“20 years, eh? You were to be my next victim, did you know that?” Winchester/Wicker/Whisper tells Batman. “You would have been Child Number Eight…”

“You should have killed me then. I’ll make you regret that you didn’t,” Batman grimaces, clearly without anything better to say at that moment. Bruce’s father was on to Winchester, but Winchester was very quick to snuff out any notion Father Wayne had of exposing him to the police.

Winchester remembers seeing the headlines the day after Bruce’s parents were murdered. He pities Bruce, but he tells him not to worry. He’s here to finally put the whiner out of his misery. Winchester set up a complicated, unlikely to work Rube Goldberg device that will eventually crush Batman’s head with a hanging oil drum. “It’s nothing personal, you understand. I do this simply because I cannot allow you to prevent what must occur.”

26 hours from now, at the stroke of midnight, the devil is gonna come to give Whisper a relief from some 300-odd years of continued life! Peace and tranquility in Hell! Not a chance! That ain’t happening!

He produces that stranglin’ cord and talks some cockamamie ramblings about how it holds his soul. He never knew that someone was gonna come by the cathedral, snoop around and maybe find it. That was rude. He had to get it before someone else got it, and that was also an annoying inconvenience.

Wicker begins telling his tale of 300 years ago, back when he started his fucked up narcissistic cultish ways. When he realized the Devil kept his side of the bargain and three centuries of immortality his future, he decided he wanted to figure out how to cheat the devil! Hide aces up his sleeve, you might say.

So I just hung out in the sauna with my kickass Kurt Russel flattop.

So how did he cheat the Devil? Apparently by dragging a whole bunch of plague-ridden dead bodies over to England and then spending the first 100 years there for fun. He “perfected his architectural talents”. He couldn’t build a cathedral in England, certainly not! That’s preposterous! So he traveled to Gotham, the second-best choice. He dragged the dead bodies with him that were still not a pile of non-plague-ridden skeleton bones for some reason.

Here’s the reason: He used the plague to make a DEADLY ELIXIR. It’s like a Covid thing that spreads through the air undetected, killing Herman Cain. The Gotham Cathedral was finished in 1790, right after George Washington became the First Emperor of America Town. “I’d designed the architecture of the building so that it would act as a ‘soul-trap’ such as those used by the American Indians. A soul-trap on a massive scale. An occult geometry towards which the souls of eight million dead would be drawn like bees to honey.”

This sounds absolutely convoluted and dumb, doesn’t it? What the fuck is this guy even talking about right now? Where’s Alfred? I wanna hear from Alfred.

“I hid my own soul cord in the foundations of the cathedral, safe from Satan’s power. All that remained was to prepare the magical architecture of the cathedral.” OK, Harry Potter. Do some alohomoras or something. Oh wait, no, the spilling of innocent children’s blood. That’s what does it, man. It’s all starting to come together.

The plague will be unleashed when the bell tolls for thee. 26 hours. All of Gotham will die, their souls will be trapped in the cathedral, and Wicker will offer these souls to the devil in lieu of his own. Cheating the devil! Ace up the sleeve!

He walks away, leaving Batman strapped in a provocative pose on the rolling conveyor. He looks sad.

Final Thoughts

HOW’S DANG OL’ BATMAN GONNA DANG OL’ GET OUT OF THIS ONE?

They really threw a lot at you here at the end. It’s not enough that some mysterious guy who literally can’t die has been picking off the crime bosses one by one, he needs to unleash a plague upon the city as well.

I am impressed with the storytelling, though. It’s not often that these comics leave clues early and tie it together later. Usually they’re like DICK GRAYSON’S AT THE CIRCUS AND PEOPLE WANT TO KILL HIM AT THE CIRCUS or RED HOOD AND THE OUTLAWS ARE DOING NOTHING FOR SEVEN ISSUES. At least this one has some thought put into it!