Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #486 – “Heavy Metalhead”! In the previous installment of the Prelude to Knightfall story, Batman “thwarted” Black Mask by letting his imposter drown off the docks, which doesn’t help anyone. The False Face Society has been caught en masse and will be sent to prison after being charged with the crime of “hangin’ out with Black Mask”, basically. I don’t even think they committed any crimes! You should probably have them commit crimes before you convict and sentence them to prison. But I’m no college criminal justice major!

So now we likely move onto something else, but the overall theme of this story is that Batman is starting to suck at his job. Which is funny! Maybe Alfred can show him a thing or two, as he should, every single day. Even the stuff about fuckin’, ‘cause if anyone in Gotham fucks it’s Alfred.

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #486 [November, 1992]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Heavy Metalhead”

“I failed, and my head’s still ringing with it,” thinks Batman as he skulks atop what looks like a capitol building. He let Black Mask get away. His cronies are imprisoned, but the leader is still at large. He may as well just tie up the ol’ noose right now and kill himself at the Chick-fil-A.

Not only did he fail miserably, but also and such, Batman’s nose won’t stop gushing blood. My advice is to eat some cookies and drink some orange juice, but Batman takes nobody’s advice about anything. “Here’s where the clitoris is, Bruce!” It’s like, fuck you bitch.

Down at the docks is a really seedy bar called Pheeney’s. A man clad in black with a spikey hood (METALHEAD, I PRESUME) asks the locals if they’ve seen anyone suspicious lately. Bat guy, wearing the bat cowl? The locals laugh at this dweeb wearing what looks like a Halloween costume, asks him if he’s the Great Pumpkin! Metalhead hates comedians, and he takes it out on a mug of beer by smashing it with one of his extendo-spikes. The guy with the beer gets up all “WHY I OUTTA” and Metalhead stabs him in the torso with his head, leaving the guy bleeding to death.

“For the third time… I’m looking for someone. I’m looking for… Black Mask.”

I guess I was wrong. I’d rather look for Batman, honestly. That guy has money to steal.

The patrons of the shitty bar are now scared out of their little wits. One tells Metalhead that Batman threw the fucker into the river about six hours ago. Another tells Metalhead that it wasn’t actually Black Mask that they fished out of the river. A third tells Metalhead sweatily to try Sharkey’s, all the degenerates and lowlifes love to hang out at Sharkey’s! Black Mask might be there, heh. You’d be in good company yourself! Heh heh.

Metalhead, satisfied, walks out. The stabbed guy keeps saying “I’m stabbed”. I’m tired of his whining and I will move on.

Bruce is playing Space Invaders in the Batcave. Alfred comes down to tell his honey to get some sleep, to which Bruce says “NO!” and kicks Alfred in the balls. “Very well, sir, I can understand self-imposed starvation and sleep-deprivation… but if your nose is broken–”

You look like a dipshit, sir. At least let me get a band-aid.

Bruce, bleeding all over the fucking place, kicks Alfred in the balls again and tells him to leave him alone about his nose. He’s got work to do. Papers to shuffle. Salt to dig out of the mines. Leave him be.

Elsewhere, some Kurt Russell mullet head named Tim is visiting a Dr. Shondra Kinsolving about acupuncture. His father is responding well to hydrotherapy, so let him give the acupuncture a try, Tim. Eh, Tim? Tim.

“Dad hates needles,” says a hesitant Tim. An unsure Tim. A reluctant Tim. But he promises to try talking him into it…

Tim pushes his dad out of the hospital in a wheelchair. Daddy thinks Dr. Kinsolving is a miracle worker! He might actually get out of this wheelchair *checks watch* today! Well, pops, that’s great news, because she wants to shove a thousand needles into your tender flesh. Thoughts?

Bruce finds nothing in the files, reports, newspaper clippings, microfilm, documentaries, fortune cookies, or airplane advertisements about Black Mask. About Roman Sionis. About nobody and nuthin’. He puts on his cowl and decides to try looking in non-obvious places (just an excuse to play in the sewers again, honestly). Alfred is ready to serve his master tea and scones when Batman zips away in his Batmobile. Alfred scowls. Bruce does not care about Alfred’s feelings one bit, that’s for sure.

Did anyone order a little BDSM??

Metalhead enters Sharkey’s and asks around. He gets the same kind of guff he got at Pheeney’s, so he starts whipping around his spiked mace intending to fuck up a cunt or two…

Robin shows up to Wayne Manor looking for Brucey W., but Alfred says he’s already gone cavorting around town looking for Black Mask again. I learn that Robin is Tim, so there’s that uneventful reveal. Fuckin’ Kurt Russell mulleted nerd. Alfred is starting to get worried about Bruce because he hasn’t touched a meal in 17 days and he keeps howling about masks. It’s unsettling. He needs an exorcism.

On his way to “look for Black Mask” in the sewers, Batman hears a radio broadcast about a mystery metal-headed Metalhead terrorizing tough guys in bars. Batman is like “huff, another one already?”

Robin and Alfred continue to have a little chat about Bruce. Some armchair psychology. The guy just won’t quit, won’t stop. He keeps pushing himself and pushing himself. Maybe it’s because his PARENTS DIED lol, but something else is going on. Normal people go bowling and shit in their spare time. Bruce has decided to do dangerous things instead. “Things which have begun to prey on him,” Alfred says. “Perhaps even… control him.”

Oooooh, scary. Yawn. What’s next? Batman enters Sharkey’s where people are bleeding. He’s told some Spikey Man is looking for Black Mask. Some guy said Black Mask might be in a cemetery. The dude just kept hacking and slashing, though! Wouldn’t laugh at any of the jokes about him at all! Terrible sport, that guy.

The Sionis Family Crypt! Of course! *Batman music plays* “Nowhere else to go. And I feel dead anyway,” says Batman. Ok, then.

Look at these guys with heads full of brains. Bruce Wayne is as complex as a two-piece jigsaw puzzle.

Robin and Alfred keep talking, and it’s a really inane conversation. Batman isn’t out for revenge, necessarily, he’s out to stop injustice. It’s compassion, not revenge. And he’s obsessed because Bruce has no self-control. He should join a bowling league, but he won’t. He’s just going to keep being Batman because he doesn’t know how to do anything else at all whatsoever.

Batman’s nose keeps bleeding as he drives up to the crypt. He recognizes the fact that he’s hungry and tired, but he won’t give up now. “Sleep is an unnecessary crutch,” he says stupidly. “The stiffness and soreness only makes me want to punish my muscles more, stretch them to their limits… Got to beat my weakness, not surrender to it.” And he thinks it’s working! He actually thinks he’s alert and fast and sharp and cunning!

Batman trips over a pebble and falls down a well; dies.

Batman walks into the crypt and a voice behind him declares that he’s looking for someone. Then, without warning, Batman gets hit in the hand with razor-sharp spikey spikes.

They both share a common goal: finding Black Mask. But while Batman wants to pin him to the floor and impale his butt with a flagpole, Metalhead wants to join his merry gang of masked folk. And since Batman wants to bring him down, well, that makes him an enemy innit?

So they fight. They fight and fight. They fight and fight and fight and fight. Too bad Batman is stinky and tired, he’s really losing miserably. Getting all cut up and sliced like a ham. Like an oversized, sad ham. “I will not give up!” he keeps saying to himself like an overconfident ham.

Alfred and Robin drive up to the crypt in Alfred’s unmarked child-molestin’ van. They find Batman victorious, somehow, and when asked who the man behind the spikey mask was, Batman goes “LET THE PO-LICE SORT IT OUT!”

But it wasn’t Black Mask, so Batman still thinks he failed.

Kick him over a canyon while he’s not looking! Quick!

“Maybe Black Mask isn’t down, but you stopped him – and when he makes his next move, then we nail him, right?” asks Robin, desperate to talk some sense into his mentor. Batman thinks on that for a second, but he’s so, so tired… “M-Maybe you’re right…” Batman concedes, nose still bleeding.

So Robin hoists Batman up so he can take him back home and get him into his jammies.

Final Thoughts

This Batman guy just won’t give up until someone forces him, huh? It’s like “HEY! YOU’RE BLEEDING EVERYWHERE! LIE THE FUCK DOWN AND WATCH GOLDEN GIRLS!”

And Bea Arthur is the goldenest girl of them all.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #485 – “Faces of Death”! In the previous installment of the Prelude to Knightfall story, all of Wayne Industries’ property starts burning down to the ground one-by-one and Bruce speculates that it’s the work of Roman Sionis, a wimp of a man with a penchant for arson who lost everything he ever had and seeks twelve kinds of revenge!

This guy is out for blood for sure, and he intends to lure Batman by way of his fresh new hostage Lucius Fox. If it’s a war Batman wants, then it’s a war Batman gets!

Robin’s also in these issues, much to everyone’s major disappointment.

Batman (Vol. 1), Issue #485 [October, 1992]
Written by: Doug Moench
“Faces of Death”

“Why me?” Fox cries, blood pouring out his nose. Glasses broken. Hairline receding. Two answers to this sad little “why me?” question: 1) he made Black Mask lose face, so to speak, and 2) his blood makes perfect warpaint. Does that answer your question at all? Too bad.

Fox doesn’t understand because he’s Batman’s biggest dullard friend, apparently. Black Mask tells him to stop being a moron. Black Mask was Roman Sionis and Fox fucked his world up. By… uh… bailing him out? Yes! And then stacking the Janus Corp. with Bruce Wayne’s men!

Bruce, horribly disguised as one of Black Mask’s henchmen, stands there awkwardly rigid and feels that he might have to blow his cover soon to save Fox. I think he should just watch the carnage. Maybe he’ll learn a thing or two about how to actually torture someone!

“Wh- What… do you want?” snivels Fox.

“Other than ruling Gotham as its new crimelord, Mr. Fox, there’s only one thing I want…”

It’s pussy.

“The absolute destruction of the Wayne empire followed by the painful death of Bruce Wayne himself.”

Ah, well, that’s easy. Roll his flabby ass out here and we’ll make sure he’s pumped full of fentanyl and poisoned ice cream.

But no, Fox tells Black Mask to go to hell. Black Mask is about to pull out his little pea shooter when Ugly Circe stops him in his tracks. “NO! If he’s dead, Black Mask, he’s no use to you – and Bruce Wayne won’t even care.”

Financial directors are a dime a dozen! Bruce can find another one working behind the cash register at Safeway. While Black Mask compliments Circe on her good idea, Bruce continues standing like a constipated zebra trying not to blow his cover and intervene.

Black Mask instructs Skullface (Bruce) to escort Fox into the Mask Room with the help of Tattoo (Not Bruce).

War! War war war! How about get a hobby, psycho.

In the Mask Room, Bruce whispers loudly to Fox that he’s actually Bruce and that he should relax, guy. He’ll get him a snack and a Superman comic book soon. Outside the room, he tells Black Mask that he knows some pretty nifty torture tricks, which Black Mask agrees to let him use tomorrow night. Like pulling a rabbit out of his butt. Tricks like that. For now, it’s almost 10 o’clock. Time for the “meet”. A real man’s night out. Group howl. Running naked through the woods.

At Gotham Police Headquarters, Robin is talking to Gordon about the abduction of Lucius “Fancy Pants” Fox. Robin tells him that Batman is with Black Mask right now, and Gordon is like “What the fuck, son? I could’ve sent my fatass cop friends to bust the place up”. Robin tells Gordon to hold his beautiful horses; Bruce wants to learn all he can from the inside, take down the whole operation. Real clandestine stuff. He even told Robin to go home and stroke his schlong for a few days. Sit this one out. No one needs you, kid.

“But what if he’s forced to make a move alone?” Gordon asks. Robin says he’ll take care of it (which gives Gordon the most severe drop in his stomach you could possibly imagine) and fucks off into the night.

The “meet” is at a seedy bar called Sharkey’s. A bunch of masked thugs are enjoying some brewskies and an Edmonton Oilers game on the telly while Tattoo tells all the monkeys to cork it and listen up: no more arson for now. Let’s move onto extortion, hijacking, drugs, making some money so they can get clout and then shut down Wayne Industries with all their dirty money. And get some hookers on the side. And some new video games. And a pizza.

Suddenly, a couple of wiseguys start griping about the masks. “Why do we gotta wear these dumb things?” one asks, causing Bruce to smile behind his own shitty mask. “A revolt – interesting to see how he’ll handle it…”

This is how Tattoo will handle it:

This one’s for askin’ ‘bout da mask! And this one here’s ‘bout askin’ ‘bout da mask some more! And this one here…

Tattoo reiterates that Black Mask is in charge and that tall drink of water tells them all to wear masks, so wear the fucking masks. Capisce? Now “meet” at Sharkey’s tomorrow, same time, for more specifics and for nickel martini night. Go Oilers!

Later, Tattoo gets asked by Black Mask what he thinks of Skullface (that’s Bruce, remember!), and Tattoo tells him that the fucker asks too many questions. Someone should teach him a hard, board-with-a-nail-through-it lesson…

Robin later tells Batman that he rigged the windowpane of Black Mask’s lair with a transmitter so he can hear every thrust of his dick into Circe’s ravaged nethers. Robin warns Batman that Black Mask’s group is getting wise to him, but Batman disagrees even after Robin insists that they’re all suspicious of Skullface. Batman tells the kid to put a sock in it and go stroke that schlong, citizen! Or, rather, keep those headphones on and let him know if they start pounding Lucius Fox’s face into raw hamburger meat. Batman out.

In Gordon’s smoke-filled office, Jimmy talks to his bride-to-be Sarah about his relationship with Batman some more. As you recall, Sarah doesn’t trust Batman as far as she can throw him and she can throw a shotput from Manitoba to Alberta (Go Oilers!). Batman opens the window behind Gordon and makes himself at home. Sarah gets up and walks the hell out of there.

I’ll be playing pool at Sharkey’s and eating chicken wings, Commissioner. And no one’s going to stop me!

Batman vows to bring down Black Mask ASAP. Gordon points out that Batman refuses to share where and how he’ll be bringing Black Mask down. Batman tells him his primary objectives are to save lives and bring down bad guys, and if you’ve got a problem with that you can speak to Mr. Fist! He’s Batman’s old buddy Frank Fist, and he handles the books. Got it?

Batman returns to the roof where Robin is eavesdropping on Black Mask’s sexual moaning. “I’ll take over now – you’ve got sleep and school,” says Batman, taking Robin down a peg. Robin protests like a whiny baby for about two panels before shoving off and leaving Batman with the headphones.

“Another night and day with little or no sleep while problems smolder and multiply on Bruce Wayne’s desk… It’s not age, so maybe it’s simply the effects of too much time put in. Maybe sustained and prolonged stress is the one thing no man can train himself to overcome. And maybe there’s a limit to how much evil and madness anyone can endure within a never-ending maelstrom of gunpowder, blades, and blood. But one thing’s for certain… tomorrow night will be… something.”

Thank you, helpful narration! You really petered out at the end there, though. And here I am at the edge of my seat! We gotta keep this show rolling!

The next morning, Batman is dressed as Skullface still staking out Black Mask’s lair. Robin shows up with his HIP SUNGLASSES and insists on taking over. Bruce is like “fine” and lies down for two winks. About fourteen nanoseconds go by before Robin wakes him up. Bruce is woozy and wobbly. Perhaps he’s coming down with something? No matter! He’s here to save Lucius Fox, and if he ruptures a brain vessel in the process then so be it.

It’s basically just 1 part baking soda, water, yellow dye #5, chamomile tea, and 99 parts fluoroboric acid.

Black Mask nudges Skullface (that’s Bruce, remember??) to use his special waterproof makeup! In a diluted concentration, it turns the wearer into a hideous beast like Circe here. *points* Look at that sexy, melted face! Now, Fox, spill everything you know about Wayne Industries’ security system and forces or Skullheadface is going to outfit you with an Ouchie Mask. You feel me?

Fox says “aw hell naw”, and is about to get stuck with mask when Skullface (BRUCE!) leaps over to them and kicks the mask out of Black Mask’s hands with a PAFT. Robin overhears Tattoo call Skullface a cop. Tattoo judo chops Bruce’s neck and starts tearing off his disguise! Black Mask recognizes that dashing young man at once! Time to take out his shooty gun and fill his face full of–

“NOOO!!” Circe knocks Black Mask’s gun arm over to the right a few inches as he shoots, killing no one unfortunately. Bruce lets off a stinky smoke bomb and leaps out the window, using Lucius Fox’s head to smash it into pieces. lol.

Bruce is going back in, Robin! Take Fox and Circe to the hospital forthwith! He’ll distract the goons until the police arrive to eat donuts and kill black people for no reason! Move move move move move!!

Black Mask continues shooting all willy-nilly in the smoke-filled room. Tattoo moves Black Mask out of the building just as Black Mask drops his gun! Evidence! Let’s go back and get it! No no no, no time! Arrgh!

At 10 o’clock, most of the False Face Society is swilling gutter beer at Sharkey’s. The police raid the place. Bye bye, False Face Society. Take that in the pants and like it, Black Mask!

Meanwhile, outside of the lair, Batman starts kicking some ass until Tattoo starts whoopin’ his lights out with a pole. Batman gets knocked back into a pile of crates. Batman pops up with a “DO YOUR WORST!” demeanor. Tattoo kicks him in the face with a SWUNT. Tattoo thinks he has him, but Batman leaps up suddenly and uppercuts the nose right off Tattoo’s face! So to speak.

Batman turns to Black Mask, who screams and leaps off the pier into the four-foot-deep water. Batman is thwarted again!

EPILOGUE! Gordon’s bringing in all the False Face Society mopes. Batman is tired and sore and he’s losing his dang edge.

Bad news about Black Mask, though, son. He wasn’t the real deal. The body they dredged up out of the water wasn’t Roman Sionis, his mask wasn’t burned onto his face, and he didn’t have the swastika birthmark on his left buttcheek. His name was actually Harold Rambeau, a missing Wayne Corp. executive kinda guy.

Looks like you failed again, Batman! Wakka wakka!

Final Thoughts

I guess this is the end of this particular underwhelming Batman adventure! Do you know what would’ve been better? If it was Robin that drowned in the docks. “You gotta go to school, Robin!” How about you keep that kid away from scissors, he might accidentally cut his dick off. God, I hate Robin.