Batman: Arkham Knight #2 (2015)

Months ago, before Batman invaded and helped close Arkham City, the Joker sets up a video camera in Amusement Mile. Applying lipstick and makeup to cover his scabbing face from his worsening illness, Joker announces to the camera that, because he's dying, he wanted to make one last tape for everyone - especially Batman. He begins by discussing his secret origin. Joker claims he was the sole survivor of a humorless alien planet that used a rocket to come to Earth. There, he was raised by two rich circus clown that were tragically murdered - by him - for not being funny enough. Moving forward, Joker recalls his earliest encounter with Batman. How, after blowing up a retirement home, he sat in his hideout drawing up plans to meet the one person that would understand him - the Bat. Although he got the snot kicked out of him, their first fight went perfectly. The hero completed the villain. Together, they fit like a glove. Finally, Joker begins to talk about his bequeathing in case he does die from his disease. He says that, even after everything, there will be a bomb placed in Gotham City. A big bomb but it's also very subtle and hard to find. Joker says a final goodbye to Batman in the video, assuring him his spirit will still live on. Batman pauses the video tape in the Batcave. He's trying to deduce what Joker meant with his final threat. Suddenly, he gets a call from Commissioner Gordon, telling him through tears that, even though the Joker is dead, he's still somehow become affected with Joker Venom. Laughing against his will, Gordon collapses to the floor with a gun in hand in his office as Lieutenant Aaron Cash rushes to his aid. As Cash screams at Officer Dini to call an ambulance, Batman bashes through the window and uses his grapnel to grab Gordon. Saying that he doesn't have time to play around, Batman leaps through the window with Gordon over his shoulder, reeling himself into the Batplane above. At the newly reopened Blackgate Penitentiary, Harley Quinn lays on her bed in her cell, talking to her pillow like its a shrink. While she's thanking the "doctor" for curing her insanity, Batman bashes through her cell wall and uses the grapnel again to grab her. Batman pulls her into the Batplane and ties her up, knowing that she might be able to help cure Gordon before its too late. The Batplane lands at Amusement Mile, still vandalized to be Joker's Funland. Batman drags Harley, still detained, into the main building, demanding that she tell him where the she and Joker hid the antidote to their Joker Venom inside. Quinn, saying that, now that Joker's dead, she can now finally be sane again, gives up the location of the cure in the basement. Batman, with some uneasy trust, believes her and rushes to the basement, leaving the criminal tied up to a pole upstairs. As Batman arrives in the basement, he discovers multiple canisters of what he believes is the antidote. Before he gets a chance to open one though, Croc appears from the shadows, smiling that Batman had fallen right into his trap. Several weeks ago, after Joker had died and Harley tried to take her revenge, she planned ahead and bribed Croc in the sewers. Offering him buckets of fish for his services, she yells to the murky water that all he has to do is protect this room underneath of Joker's Funland, a job he'd probably do for free anyway. Croc's hand reaches out of the water to take one of Harley's fish, accepting her offer. Today, Killer Croc leaps onto Batman, planning to make good on that deal. He immediately aims for Batman's utility belt, the thing that usually stopped the criminal before. Pinning the hero without his belt, Batman and Croc look at each other in the eyes, with the villain saying that the stench of death still lingers on him. Elsewhere in Gotham, the Penguin is having his disgusting, calloused feet massaged by his henchman Gino. Cobblepot flings the paper away after reading about Bruce Wayne's philanthropy, saying that he wished the mugger had popped him too all those years ago. Mr. Hammer, then, walks into the room and reports that his brother Sickle is still tracking down Scarecrow like the Penguin had asked but, downstairs, Harley Quinn is waiting and wants to talk to him, having escaped her captivity from Amusement Mile. Penguin dons a wicked smile and tells Gino to finish up his feet. Back at Joker's Funland, Batman and Croc are mid-fight. The brawl is getting too intense, and a couple of the antidote barrels have been spilled in the process. Aaron Cash calls Batman from the surface and asks what's taking him so long, with Batman responding that he's being held up by the man that bit off Cash's hand earlier in his career. The lieutenant, wanting in on the action, rushes to help the vigilante with Gordon in his arm, guns blazing as some of Harley Quinn's thugs try to ambush him. Batman tries to reason with the monster, but Croc won't hear it. Finally preparing to finish the dark knight off, Batman is saved only by Cash, having just arrived, shooting Croc in the shoulder to distract him. The villain shifts his focus temporarily to kill the annoyance that had just interrupted the fight but, as he's charging, is frozen solid by Batman's last freeze grenade. Together, Batman and Cash rip open the last surviving barrel of anti-toxin and force feed it down Gordon's throat. Instantly, the commissioner's grin disappears, freed from the Joker's last laugh. Back at the Penguin's compound, Harley, back in costume, meets with Cobblepot, who isn't pleased to see her, as usual. Harley insists that they put their differences aside, since the two of them can do a lot of damage together. Taking his hat and planting a big kiss on his mouth, Harley announces that the two are now partners.