Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #3 – “Shaman (Part 3)”! In the previous installment, a connection is starting to make itself clear between the Gotham drug trade, the mysterious Chubala/ritual killing problem, and Officer Al Kelly being the only victim not from the fake-ass Caribbean island Santa Prisca. And by “starting to make itself clear”, I mean “being written about by a comic book nerd who seems to be making stuff up as he goes along”.

Also a loser named Bennet Young got killed before he had a chance to “tell Batman something”.

No further statements, Your Honor. Let’s get this show on the road.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #3 [January, 1990]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Shaman (Part 3)”

These cover arts aren’t very comic book-y. But they are art-y, I’ll give them that. Is that supposed to be Bruce Wayne with his Batman cowl shedding away around him like an orange peel? What’s the symbolism here, that the man behind the mask is never that far away from being completely exposed and vulnerable? And sexy? Hmm?

“A few seconds ago, he watched a man die. It is something he has never seen before. He will never get used to it.”

Thanks, mysterious narration! Are we talking about Bruce fucking Wayne, who has watched a man die? That man was his father? Hello?? A very pivotal “watched a man die” scenario in Bruce’s life? Are you serious?

Ugh. Well, at any rate, Bruce tries to comfort the maid, but he’s not very good at it. He mentions that she should call a doctor even though the doctor won’t be able to help one bit, so that’s some good bedside manner! “I’m going to check the ballroom. Maybe the killer is still around,” he says, just making an excuse to leave the room so that he doesn’t have to continue watching the dead man bleed out. Gross, right? Not really Bruce’s cup of tea.

Bruce moseys around the building, contemplating the fact that Dr. Madison “Alaskan Artifact Stealer” Spurlock was just holding a party here two days ago with laughing patrons and washed-up celebrities! Now it’s quiet and disturbing and someone died! What the fuck! People don’t just die!

Looking around the display cases, he notices artifacts absent from their respective locations: a lance (that’s in Bennet Young’s gut now, lol), a bat mask, and the bow and arrows.

Hey, only Alfred’s allowed to be snarky in this comic! Stay in your lane.

The illustrations are pretty fucking bad here, so I’ll try my best to interpret what’s going on in the next three panels: an arrow appears to be flying toward Bruce Wayne out of nowhere, Bruce Wayne notices it and catches it in mid-air, then a police officer points a gun at him and says “FREEZE! You make a move and I’ll blow you to kingdom come.”

And this police officer isn’t blowing anyone tonight! The two maids confirm that, yes, this big hunk ‘o man was with them when the other guy was dying and/or dead. Officer ACAB, who looks like a completely different person in every panel he’s in, puts down his gun and goes “daaaarrhhhh, oookkaaayyy, but you hafta make a statement.”

“I trust you used words of one syllable or less,” Alfred asks Bruce later as the story is recounted. Ha! I love you, Alfred. Unconditionally.

I suppose we’re moving on from the dead guy for now! Alfred’s driving Mr. Wayne to the Gotham City Athletic Club’s board meeting, aka the GCAC’s…BM! And while Mr. Wayne is wasting away some precious life during his performative appearance at said meeting, Alfred is to secure a plane ticket to Otter Ridge, Alaska. Why? Because don’t ask any fucking questions, Butler. That’s why!

Actually, here’s the reasoning: “Tina, the girl who killed herself…she panicked when she saw me as the Batman. Now the bat mask is stolen– a mask that came from Otter Ridge. There has to be a connection.”

Thanks Bruce, you’re a real Sherlock Robert Downey Heroin Addict Jr. Holmes with this stuff. Sounds like someone just wants to go back to bone the hot Inuit lady. Pretty transparent, sir.

BUT, before Bruce shoves off to the Last Frontier and bones the eskimo woman, he’s going to have a man-to-man chat with Dr. Madison “Supersize Me” Spurlock.

“Ah, Alfred? Shouldn’t you be making notes on my instructions?” prods the micromanaging Bruce.
“Why? Have we acquired stock in a paper company?” responds the ever-deadpan Alfred. This fucking guy! My man!

On his way to the board meeting, a banker named Carl Fisk accosts Bruce on the street and invites him to a party that night. Fisk is very interested in buying up some Wayne property! But Bruce Wayne is all like “no way, dude, I’m gonna hella put on tights tonight and play around in the frigid cold Gotham City winter nightscape.”

And he does just that!

It’s -2°F and this dumbass is hanging out on the windy roofs of tall buildings in his thin spandex, catching frostbite on all manner of extremity. And I do mean ALL manner. Use your imagination.

Batman is keeping his eye on a guy named Grandy Jimenez, who meets with associates at midnight for a dope deal at an under-construction office building. Are one of these associates the aforementioned Robert Downey Jr.? This is 1990, after all. He was probably really getting into it then.

Anyway, Batman springs into action!

BATMAN IS ON THE SCENE! NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA-NA!!

He swoops down and kicks a drug dealer right in the face. Then he leaves.

“What was that?”
“Where’d it go?”
“Was a big bat?”
“No…was the Bat Man!”
“We in trouble!”

Looks like the Man Bat’s reputation precedes him out on the streets, and these fools are scared shitless! And that’s good, I already can’t take anymore of this awful dialogue. Wait, here’s some more:

“Hey, I din’ buy no hassle with no Bat Man! I’m trippin’!”

Lovely. Makes me miss the slurred, guttural croaking of Stan the smelly Gotham pimp. Batman takes these bitches out one by one. A gun is pulled out, bullets are unloaded, but it’s fruitless! *punch*

Grandy Jimenez is the last one left standing. Batman rifles through some pockets and pulls out a fat stack of bills. Fifty large, son. “Grocery money, Grandy?”

Grandy gibbers and twitches. “You do remember me, don’t you?” Batman asks as he grabs the kid’s coat lapels and shakes the bejesus out of him. “You recall what happened on the hospital roof the night you tried to murder a cop?”

Oh, we were supposed to know this guy was named Grandy Jimenez before? It was never mentioned! Is this what we call non-linear storytelling? What is this, Pulp Fiction?

Hey, this wasn’t part of the deal! I’m supposed to hurt you! Not the other way around!

Well, Batman went easy on him then. Now he’s not feeling as charitable. And as he blah-blah-blahs intimidatingly, someone unaffiliated with this troupe of thugs sneaks up behind the caped nerd and bashes him in the dome with a large sack of concrete mix.

The thugs don’t see who did it. “Somethin’ fell on him. Must be Chubala magic,” one postulates as Batman lies crying and hurt and totally bitchmade on the ground. “Chubala on our side, we okay. We can kill him.”

Batman looks sad and helpless as these dudes just start kicking his torso with their pointy thug boots. He’s pretending to be a big man about this, pretending that this is all part of his plan as this situation “buys him time” and he “tenses his muscles” to avoid the “real damage” like he’s pulling off a huge grift here. He pretends to be out cold as the guys drag his limp bulk up eight stories of the building construction. “We push him over the edge. Yeah, it’s eight stories down. That’ll bust more’n his nose.”

Speaking of bustin’ noses, at the last second Batman pops into gear and bashes two heads together. A couple more panels of successful ass-kicking commences…until he gets an arrow in the back. He wasn’t watching this one!

He sees a vision of big, scary, bat mask shaman bullshit as he becomes disoriented and topples over the edge of the building. Perhaps this is the Chubala? I dunno. He really wants to kill Batman though, aiming more arrows at his face. Batman thinks quickly and uses his cape to guard his gloves as he slides down a steel cable. His cape is torn to shreds, but he’s relatively unhurt…except for the giant arrow wound in his back.

Presumably, Batman scuffles back home as soon as possible so he can regale Alfred with all his heroic tales. As if he cares.

Getting turned into Swiss cheese by a barrage of arrows is less than ideal, sir. I don’t really want to…touch your lumpy torso.

“If you continue to involve yourself in these contretemps, our clothing bill will soon exceed the national debt,” Alfred scolds, inspecting the shredded cape, “and our bandage bill will exceed that.”

As usual, Bruce doesn’t acknowledge Alfred’s prattling. He’s thinking about why his assailant was wearing a dang shaman bat mask at all. Alaska is the key! Gotta go to Alaska! Gotta bone that lady…

Alfred has some insight. These ritual cult killings in town? They’ve been going on long before Dr. Spurlock’s trip. Hell, long before Bruce even helped fund Spurlock’s research. Bruce admits that it doesn’t make sense, but the connection is there, and you can’t very well talk this man out of anything! Not until he gets a little bit more symmetrical with his back wounds, at the very least!

So Bruce gets up to put on his Batman spandex, intending to have his audience with Dr. Spurlock come hell or high water! Just…just after…just after he passes out a bit…

Bruce almost tips over in an exhausted daze. Alfred helps the tuckered-out little bat boy to his quarters. “It’s nearly five in the morning, you’ve been up for forty-eight hours, and I believe bats sleep during the day.”

When you’re right, you’re right, Alfred! And you’re always right! What would Bruce do without you, sweetie? *kiss*

And then he dropped his pants and took a giant dump in my mouth.

The next day, Bruce pops into Dr. Spurlock’s Gotham University office, looking like a complete pile of shitty, busted up, smiling garbage. All bandaged and bruised and roughed-up and tenderized. “Absolutely ferocious game of tennis at the club yesterday,” he chuckles, the cut-up that he is! Soooo cute!

Spurlock ain’t charmed. He looks annoyed that this pretty boy is even speaking in the same room that happens to presently be within.

Bruce cuts to the chase. Alfred’s niece, let’s just say her name is “Alfreda”, is doing a term paper on primitive religions! And since she ain’t got no internet in 1990, Bruce is here to bend Spurlock’s ear. Ever heard of the “Chubala”? Lay it on him. Spill.

Chubala, huh? It’s a Santa Prisca cult based around a vulture god. A real motherfucking savage. The only way the god can be appeased is to throw him some human meat, yo. Ritual killings, sacrifices. I mean, which cult isn’t killing people these days? There’s also no Heaven with Chubala, only Hell. Neat, huh? If the vulture god is displeased, to Hell you go! And in Hell, you get a stomach full of rats that just gnaw away for all eternity! However, if you’ve been a good girl or boy by killing enough people, the vulture god will spare you by just ending your life and you get to enjoy an eternity of nothingness.

Or, you could just not be part of the cult. That seems like a less laborious option. Not as much baggage with that one.

The leader guy for the ritual killings is an avatar for the god. He becomes Chubala, so to speak. At least until the sacrifice is over. Cool, huh?

“Does this Chubala have a connection to those Alaskan Indians of yours?” Bruce asks. Now you’ve gone and done it. Spurlock eyeballs this young millionaire playboy like he said the most filthy, racist thing since the Third Reich and begins to give him a verbal licking!

Spurlock doesn’t get to say much, though. Something funny happens instead!

Total cuck move, dude, getting killed with an arrow in broad daylight on a major college campus.

So this guy’s dead now. Another arrow flies through the air, which Bruce narrowly ducks. And it’s too bad, too, because Alfred’s soft hands are just what the doctor ordered at the moment.

Bruce sees the masked assailant, who starts fleeing. Bruce doesn’t even bother running after him.

“In broad daylight, Alfred,” Bruce says incredulously. He doesn’t know what’s worse: that the guy was killed, that the guy was killed in broad daylight, or that Bruce did nothing. NOTHING! NOTHING! He was helpless! Like a fragile, little, helpless baby! Wah, Alfred! Goo goo ga ga! WAAAAHHH!!

Alfred suggests he suck it up. But no, this is three times this assailant has won! THREE TIMES! WAAAAHHH!!

“Maybe I should just admit that he’s better than me. Maybe there are hundreds more like him.” Ah, so this is what it’s about? A bigger dick contest? It’s always this with you, isn’t it? Feeling inadequate?

“Before you abandon your nocturnal activities and resign yourself to a life of sanity, you might consider pursuing other theories,” Alfred nudges, not content to see Bruce blither and stew in a pool of his own hapless, sad-sack filth. There’s still the whole Otter Ridge, Alaska connection. Huh, buddy? Go get your dick wet.

Yes…yes, that’s a good idea Alfie m’boy! Have you arranged for a flight to– that a boy! Bruce is fired up now! Let’s go hang out with some moose.

“Shall I pack this?” Alfred asks, holding up the ratty Batman uniform. Yeah, sure, it might come in useful. Maybe he can use it as a shammy or something.

Bruce is on his way! I guess this little community was really developed since he was there…like, seven months ago? What does that mean, exactly? They got a 7-Eleven?

Woo! Bon Jovi’s really tearing it up tonight!

Upon landing in the little town, Bruce immediately spots the shaman healer shaking his moneymaker in the town square and recognizes him (a little too vaguely, honestly) as the man who helped save his life when his ass was turning into a large, ugly ice cube in the middle of the tundra.

“Hey man, I gotta tell ya ya’d flop on American Bandstand!” heckles some blond sex offender mustache guy. Shaman Healer Man collects his busking money and takes a large swig from a bottle. “What happened to his dignity?” Bruce thinks as the Shaman Healer Man’s sexy granddaughter helps him to his feet and starts dragging his shiftless butt home.

“Hey, wait up!” Bruce yells, chasing down the woman. As I recall, he never learned her name. She remembers him, though, hoo boy. Just moist in the nethers with recollection, I’m sure. Here, maybe this will take the wind out of your little horny sails, Bruce: “You! How could I forget you, you–”

“–bastard!”

Eep!

Then a smack across the face! Take that, ya bastard!

She walks away, but he has the nerve to follow her to her car.

“What did I do?” he asks sheepishly.
“You are telling me you do not know?” she responds puzzled. Then allows him in her truck. Then tells him that he’s the reason that dead piece of shit Madison Spurlock visited their sacred village. Everything was simple, comfortable, impoverished yet satisfying. Then this fucking entitled white guy showed up, showed them all shit like cable TV and alcohol and Julia Roberts! Tongues loosened! All hell broke loose! Now everyone knows our secrets!

This still-nameless woman, she thinks Spurlock drugged her grandfather with truth serum. Now he is filled with shame, drowning out his sorrows with booze and snorting crushed-up rohypnol.

So, yeah, your fault Bruce Wayne. I guess.

“I told you we wanted nothing of your generosity– why did you not listen?” she asks, tears running down her face.

Bruce already forgot what he was ashamed about. “Did Spurlock take anything back with him?” he asks her, smiling like a Ken doll. Like a former-Batman Michael Keaton in Toy Story 3 Ken doll. Yes, he took a bunch of medicine and a bat mask. Ha ha! The plot thickens! Sort of.

He tells this STILL-nameless woman that Spurlock and his assistant are dead. Some dude in the bat mask killed both of them.

“I’m not surprised. I can explain–” she begins, but she can’t even start her explanation. Someone is going to collide with her truck.

Look out for ugly, tasteless sedans with at least three different colors.

They collide, not even with a crash! They collide with a TLASH! And I can’t believe this dinky little car won the momentum war. Her truck gets pushed off the road, off the side of the mountain cliff, then breaking through an icy lake.

The truck begins to submerge under the water.

Final Thoughts

What the fuck, not every issue has to end with a completely nuts cliffhanger! First a a lady dies. Then a a guy dies. What’s this now? A lady and a guy dies? Madness.

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #2 – “Shaman (Part 2)”! In the previous installment, Bruce Wayne gets stranded in the Alaskan mountains in his underwear, essentially, and gets rescued by a tribal family who heals him with witchcraft bullshit. He returns home permanently for the first time in years.

Then he decides to become Batman. He thwarts a robbery at a free clinic in a bad part of town, but the young pregnant woman that was almost kidnapped and raped decides to stab herself in the chest.

It’s very uplifting so far.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (Vol. 1), Issue #2 [December, 1989]
Written by: Dennis O’Neil
“Shaman (Part 2)”

All right, then! Issue #2! A man is tied up to a support of wooden sticks and placed nearly naked over a cauldron of steaming, hot coals. He is surrounded by a throng of people in black hoods. Either there’s some cult shit going on, or this another one of Alfred’s orgy parties! It’s going to take a lot of time to figure out the difference.

A Leader-type in warpaint, donning a bird skull with eagle feathers, holds a giant dagger. He approaches the man. He smiles. The man says “AAAAAAAGGGGGHHHHHH!!”. The group smiles. Still unclear about the orgy thing! But we’ll get back to this.

Two cops sit in their car on a dead street. Al and Jimmy, a couple of off-duty knuckleheads, heard the scream. Al thinks it’s the wind, but Jimmy knows it ain’t no wind. The sound was coming from that building over there. *points* The deserted tenement! The one we just happen to be right outside, off-duty, hanging out together in a car late at night for no reason. Let’s bust into it and check it out!

Al, the more reasonable one, insists that if they’re going to nose around then they should call for back-up. “Look, you wanna keep poundin’ a beat all your life, fine for you,” Jimmy chides while he crams bullets into his ugly cop gun, “Me, I wanna make detective. And a way to do that is a big bust without anybody else around to take credit.”

Al, the pushover doormat, stupidly gives into peer pressure and follows Jimmy the Peer out of the car.

The only Voodoo Lounge these cops tolerate is the ‘90s Rolling Stones album. Hey, it doesn’t even exist yet!

These two bastards knock down the locked door and force all these hooded twerps to stick ‘em up!

“You should not intrude here,” says the calm, resplendent, and sumptuous cult leader bird skull chief.
“You kill them, Chubala?” asks one of the cult members. I think his name might be Skip! He looks like a Skip.
“I said…DROP IT!” shouts Al or Jimmy, it doesn’t matter.

Mr. Cult Leader starts swinging his blade.

“I WARNED YOU–” and then blam blam goes the gun. “I hadda do it. He was gonna stick me,” claims trigger-happy Jimmy, shooting first and not even bothering to ask questions later. Here’s the catch, though! Check this out, you’ll never guess, the–

Oh, you guessed? Yeah, you’re right. He didn’t die, but it looks like Jimmy died! It looks like Jimmy died of a “gonna stick me” from the still-alive magic cult leader. Al tries shooting his gun too, but that doesn’t kill anyone either. Now Al tries his last gambit: the running-away kind of gambit. That doesn’t work. He gets a knife thrown at his back on his way out of the building.

Sorry Al. Sorry Jimmy. Should’ve just continued giving each other handjobs in the car and minding your own business.

The next morning, Jim Gordon (that’s Captain Jim Gordon to you, dear reader) is present at the crime scene. He does what he does best: standing around and frowning. Bruce Wayne approaches, saying that he’s hanging around this part of town because, and I quote, “sometimes I just cruise the city, savoring its diversity”. Say what you will about Gotham City, but when it comes to the homicides, the victims are very diverse.

Gordon gives Wayne the rundown of the situation, which is fair. He’s not a cop or anything, but when you have all the money in the world… cops will just tell you shit. “Couple of bodies, both burned – and both mutilated. Hearts cut out.” Sounds delicious.

It sounds like Al’s dead and Jimmy’s still alive? Who gives a fuck. They found Jimmy wandering around with a knife in his back. Just aimlessly wandering for hours, muttering about the Chubala. I guess the other body was Mr. Ritual Sacrifice. Captain Gordon thinks this is all tied to the city’s drug problem! Too many damn drugs! Gordon smokes a pipe while saying this.

Ugh, really dude? Get the fuck out of here. No one asked you anything. Don’t you have a bible somewhere to attend to? With a hole in it to defile?

The ramblin’ reverend who shows up unannounced is Tobias Micah. Jim Gordon wastes no time introducing him to Bruce Wayne and telling him that he used to be Toby Michaels, pickpocket, who found his true calling while in prison. Sounds cool, sir. That probably isn’t a sensitive subject at all or anything.

Sometimes Gordon thinks this Micah Mikey Michaels is on the ball. With all the bullshit going on in Gotham, perhaps demons are to blame! Bruce Wayne wishes both of them the best of luck and fucks off in his limousine. “See you at the reception tonight, Captain?” Wayne asks. The answer is a hard maybe.

Bruce Wayne pats himself on the back. “CRUISING THE CITY, SAVORING ITS DIVERSITY”, haha, what a banger! Alfred calls him out on the lie that it is, but Bruce Wayne defends the statement. He does cruise the city, after all. Savoring diversity? Hardly! Boo to that. But snooping the police scanners, that’s always fun for a rich man with nothing else to do all day. So now he’s got something to chew on: Chubala. Hey, yo Alfred, that’s the same thing the pregnant girl said before she eviscerated herself. Remember? The pregnant girl at the clinic? Before she seppukued her guts all over the pavement. Remember that, Alfred? That was six months ago. That was funny, right?

Well, ok, no it wasn’t (*snicker*), but it still doesn’t make a lick of dang sense! “She was safe. She had nothing to fear,” Bruce insists.
“Obviously, she did not agree,” Alfred politely retorts, “Shall we continue cruising? And savoring?”

Ha! This fucking guy.

Bruce Wayne gears up for the big reception dinner, all tuxed up and ready to get his evening bone on with Vanna White over here.

Get a load of this ugly crowd. Is that Liza Minelli on the right? Andy Warhol next to her? Did someone dig up Lucille Ball’s corpse back there?

Who else is at this dumb party? Ah, is that Dr. Madison Spurlock? Something about research, right. Good to meet you, sir! This bald Spurlock guy sucks on Bruce Wayne’s date’s hand a bit while Bruce strokes him in front of everyone. “He’s just back from the wilds of Alaska–where he did what I’m told is some fantastic work on some of the local Indian tribes.” Cool, man, do some well-funded research on not calling them Indians! What is this, 1989? Oh, right.

Bruce asks Dr. Baldfuck if he heard any good tribal tales, but the good doctor is afraid not. They don’t like to tell stories to white losers. Bruce Wayne got special treatment because the young lady of the tribe wanted to bone him. This much I know.

Cool beans, Doc. I’ve got a bat mask too that my butler made for me.

BUT, Spurlock was able to buy a few trinkets and goodies. Masks, mostly. Here’s a creepy one! This thing right here that doesn’t look at all like a bat? It’s a bat.

Theodora Whatshername Bruce’s Date is like, lol! Healing magic! What a load! Durrr! And well, that’s the end of that. Another guy shows up with a Michael Jackson curl over his forehead and an orange sportcoat with dots on it. This suave piece of shit is Bennet Young, who accompanied Dr. Morgan Spurlock on his 30-day McDonald’s binge. I mean, Alaska trip.

Bennet gets a quick hello in before Spurlock curtly shoos him away to “check on the relics”. SUSPICIOUS! Total sus move, buddy.

Jim Gordon shows up! But Bruce Wayne wants to fuck, so he and his gal are on their way out even though it’s like 4:45pm. Total sus move here too. Gordon’s gonna look into that and maybe find out about Batman by accident?!?!

It’s actually Theodora who wants to bone, but Bruce Wayne “has the most taxing day you could imagine tomorrow” and he needs to turn in early. I hope you understand, honey. I’m sure your vagina is very nice, though.

He walks away. She looks horny and put-out. Put-out because she wanted to put out, you might say.

IT’S BATMAN TIME. IT’S BATMAN TIME. SOUND THE ALARMS.

He makes a stop at the Gotham Central Hospital, where he hangs outside to overhear a doctor and a nurse discussing Jimmy Knife-in-the-Back’s status. No improvement. Jimmy keeps babbling like a lunatic about Chubalas and human sacrifices. Batman finds the human sacrifice part interesting. He makes a point to let us, the reading audience know that he finds it interesting, by looking at us and saying the word “interesting”.

What? This comic book? Hardly.

Next stop? The top of the hospital, where Batman finds three seedy young men loitering. “Good evening, gentlemen. Come to pay a call on Officer Fong? Visiting hours are over,” he says, menacingly perched atop a stone pillar like he’s taking a painful dump.

Batman suggests, strongly, that these ruffians leave right now and turn themselves into the police. Or else! The three men take the “Or else!” option and attempt to simultaneously attack the Great Big Bat.

It doesn’t work!

So, fighting ensues. Mostly one-sided fighting. Batman doesn’t get a scratch on him, and handily wastes two of the men right away. The third one gets scared, poops his pants, etc., attempts to run away. “No…I’ll be next–” he says, and takes a leap off of the 900-story building. Batman saves his ass by grabbing his ratty ponytail. Instead of scalping him to death (after which he would fall anyway), this employs cartoon logic and it saves him instead.

“You won’t die tonight,” Batman growls, hoisting this man back up to the roof, “Maybe tomorrow.”

The police later find these three tied up to a street post. All cozy-like and unconscious.

Aftermath! Bruce and Alfred have a good laugh in the car. These three who attempted a cop murder, Bruce found a bunch of cool stuff after rummaging through their pockets. $80,000 in cash, packets of heroin, and an identification card! Alfred, you can have $30,000 and the heroin, but I’m keeping this ID card for sure! “Lukas Wilson”. Hmm… “Wilson”… like the volleyball. That’s the last name of the pregnant dumbass who killed herself. If anyone needs Bruce for the next three hours, he’s gonna spend some time in his sex dungeon. I mean, laboratory.

“It’s heroin, all right,” Bruce declares after lots of extended testing involving a spoon, a lighter, and a syringe. Alfred turns his nose up at Bruce’s heroin experiments, mostly because his lab seems to be in a room with a lot of fancy furniture. He splashed a bunch of sulfuric acid on a priceless antique Chippendale table! Is nothing sacred in this house anymore?

Bruce is inclined to barely agree! At some point he’ll need to make a bat-like cave for himself. For now, though, Madison Spurlock is on the tube. Be a dear, Alfred, and fetch the remote.

Ha, check this out. Dr. Spurlock is telling everyone the fable about the raven and the bat. The super-secret story that Bruce wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about ever. Way to go, brain genius. Now we know Spurlock can’t keep a secret. Maybe you should have started something a little more low-stakes, Brucey. Something like “I like to poop in a diaper”.

Elsewhere, these three mopes who tried to murder a cop are now standing in front of Cult Leader McBirdSkull.
“…Thank you for bailin’ us out,” grovels one of them.
“Yeah…that jail, man, was Bummer City,” mutters another.

I’ll tell you what else is “Bummer City”, maaaan. This magic leader is not happy. That shit’s more like Bummer Megalopolis. Heh.

Oh, the hubris of the Ponytailed Man. They never think their hairstyle will be their downfall.

Leader Man performs some more of his voodoo magic and strangles Thug #3 with his own greasy hair decision.

“He died quickly. If you fail again, you will not,” says Mr. Big-Shot.

Yeesh! That’s not very uplifting! Let’s get back to whatever shenanigans are going down in Wayne Manor. They’re spelunking! This huge, underground cavern just sits under the property, waiting to be utilized. This place is perfect for laboratory equipment, a gym, storage, abductees, and some very alone jerkin’ time!

“How long have you known about this cavern?” Alfred asks. Well, when Bruce was four years old, he fell through a sinkhole in the yard and landed here. “Bats, fear, darkness, my father…almost as if the elements beyond my control were conspiring to make me what I am,” Bruce muses. How very poetic for a place you’re just gonna spend a lot of time jerkin’ off in.

Anyway, back to the surface. Lots to do today, Alfie old boy. Scrabble tournaments and chuckin’ rocks and– hold on, the phone’s ringing. It’s Bennet Young, Spurlock’s lackey. He needs to talk to Bruce right away!

“Right away” means 3pm for Bruce. He’s got other shit to do first. Like cave jerkin’. Also, a stop at the police headquarters to talk to Gordie the Mustache.

Like any other day at the police headquarters, a millionaire playboy is masquerading as a homeless man ready to shine the Captain’s shoes and talk shop.

Oh look, continuity!

“What have you learned about the victims of the mutilation deaths,” asks Homeless Joe, face about a foot away from Gordon’s crotch, putting a real good polish on those $8 dollar shoes.

“What we know is that except for Al Kelly they were all from a Caribbean island called Santa Prisca,” says Gordon. Fact check: not a real fucking island.

“The Dope Capital of the Western Hemisphere,” says Homeless Pete with hazy fondness and a shirt covered in drool. It seems this island is where the three hooligans were also from. Drugs and ritual killings appear to be related. Oddly enough, though, these ruffians were terrified. Not of the police, though, fuck the police. They were afraid of something else. Some real Bummer City shit.

Captain Gordon’s flat top-haired female secretary tells him that he’s late for the commissioner’s meeting, so Homeless Jones leaves and heads back to his personal homeless guy chauffeured limousine. “Fear is the common denominator, Alfred,” Bruce declares while pulling off his cheap beard and his nose putty.

Tina Wilson was scared, so she tore into her own guts. Fear, human sacrifice, drugs, sexy Alaskan native women. It doesn’t add up! Not yet, anyway. It will eventually, because as Alfred points out, Bruce will make it add up! Now if you’ll excuse him, it’s 5:30pm. I’m exactly 2.5 hours late for my appointment with Bennet Young. Hope nothing happened to him!

Oops, he’s Bennet Forever-Young now, because he got stabbed with a dang flag pole or something and now he’s dying! Tears are running down his face has he sputters out his last words: “Buh buh bla bub lbub baublk blahb buebh ubahjub burhabhr butamr bramtnan baaaaat maaann.”

“He said Batman!” screams a woman.

“Yes. He did,” says Bruce.

interesting.jpg

Final Thoughts

The star of this show is still Alfred. It’s like being a snarky little bitch after every sentence Bruce Wayne speaks is his only way of maintaining sanity during his sad existence of endless servitude.