Batman: Gargoyle of Gotham #3 (2024)

In Strasbourg's apartment, as the sun rises over Gotham, Gordon demands that the pale faced woman tell him who she is. In response she makes contact with him telepathically and in a panic he fires his gun right next to her head but misses. He pushes her to the ground and holds the gun to her temple, saying that if she does that again he'll kill her. In response she tells him that if he takes her to a police station the police will kill them both. Meanwhile at the Hotel Townsend, Batman demands to know who the man on the throne is. He replies that he is Doctorgeist, grandmaster of the Stadtgeist, but that isn't the important question. Batman remembers the demon cub and realises that the Stadgesit are responsible for his missing memories. He charges at Doctorgeist, but the man dodges with incredible speed and Bruce smashes the top of the throne while trying to hit him. Doctorgeist shocks Batman at the base of his skull, the same place Franz Ebner and the serial killer victims were stabbed, and tells him that there was a memory lock implanted in his mind as a child as his rage needed to be contained before it destroyed him. He says that fate pulled them apart, but the violence that Crytoon released on the city has finally brought them back together. Doctorgeist calls in a masked, sword-wielding fighter called "Wounder" and orders him to attack Batman. He tells Batman to release his "dark aura" or he will die. Batman recovers from the shock and grabs one of Wounder's swords, slashing him. He then goes on a rage-fuelled rampage attacking the Stadgeist. Three of the cultists pull off their robes and masks, revealing that they are teenagers, and help him attack the others to Doctorgeist's confusion. He shocks Batman again in the chest, saying that the demon cub has become the devil. Batman is hurled back and crashes through a nearby wall. The three kids follow him and leap out of a nearby window, carrying Batman's unconscious body with them. Doctorgeist orders Wounder to chase Batman down and bring him back. Crytoon escapes the overturned prison van and walks off the road into the desert outside Gotham. He finds a remote trailer and hides inside a nearby shack. A young boy approaches him and asks if he wants to hear a joke. Meanwhile at the Batcave, Alfred has been unable to contact Batman and sends a message to Gordon telling him where Bruce is, but it goes unread. In the sewers the teenagers, who are known as the Ratz, carry Batman to their base and deliver him to their leader "Sage". Bruce Wayne's dismissive response to Nia Garcia goes viral and Gotham's elite rally behind him; they use the mainstream media to slander Nia as a grifter and her support evaporates. In the Ratz's headquarters, Sage has the unconscious Batman hooked up to various medical scanners. The screen of one shows all the energy points along his spine lighting up as Bruce remembers when he was a child and was afraid of a gargoyle statue at Wayne Manor that he called "the bat-man". His mother told him a story about a demon cub who fell to Earth and broke its wing; a man saved it and the demon grew up to be a gargoyle and protected the man from evil. He then dreams about the night his parents were killed, attacking the shooter, and swearing to fight even for the rest of his life. He then remembers that he refused to leave his parent's graves, and in desperation Alfred took him to Dr. Quinton and Arkham. Bruce told Quinton that it was the bat-man's fault his parents are dead because it didn't protect them. Quinton performed some kind of hypnosis on Bruce to lock away the memories and the anger. He told Bruce that the demon cub didn't become a gargoyle, it became a devil and killed the man, and has Bruce repeat "It becomes the devil and kills the man" while he is under. Later, Gordon returns to the police station without the pale woman. He recharges his dead phone and finally receives Alfred's notification. Meanwhile in the sewers one of the Ratz reports to Sage that they found the TNT Crytoon was manufacturing at the Hotel Townsend. He tells her to assemble the Ratz, but when they go into the infirmary to pick up the one who was supposed to be watching Batman, they find him unconscious on the floor. Bruce drops down from the ceiling and tackles the Ratz leader Lady Rat, but she is able to judo throw him and knock him out again. The Ratz return to the Hotel Townsend just as Gordon is arriving. Gordon sneaks in through the loading dock and sees masked men loading the barrels of TNT into a truck. He is spotted and they fire on him; he runs back to his car and they drive off. Gordon chases them and the Ratz jump down from a rooftop above onto the truck. One of them pulls a passenger out of the cab and throws him onto Gordon's car; but the driver shoots him in the chest. The truck gets away and Gordon loses control of his car, swerving and crashing through the window of a convenience store. The masked man is grievously injured but survives and points his gun at Gordon, swearing he will kill him. Gordon draws his own gun, but suddenly has an intense vision of the pale woman, and the store owner shoots the gunman. In the sewers, the Ratz have locked Bruce in a makeshift cell. He calls to a homeless drunk nearby to give him drink but when the man, Wilbur, gets close enough Bruce grabs him and orders him to let him out. Sage runs in and tells him to release Wilbur or they'll never let him out. Bruce recognises Sage from his awakened memories and demands to know what he put in his head. Sage replies that he's not with Doctorgeist, but Bruce's "aura" has been unlocked and he stabilised the process to prevent his brain collapsing. He admits that he's afraid of what Doctorgeist may have awakened in Bruce and he and Wilbur leave. At the trailer outside of town, the boy sketches a drawing of himself holding a knife and signs it "Joe" written underneath it. He asks Crytoon to finish the drawing, then folds it into a paper airplane and throws it at him. While Crytoon is working on the drawing, the boy tells him a joke: at his birthday party, Little Joe told the clown "let's play hide-and-seek"; the clown replies "Okay, but I'm really good at hiding"; and Joe was never found. Crytoon throws the drawing back: he has added red eyebrows and a broad, green smile; and changed the label to "LITTLE JoKeR". The boy begins painting his face like the drawing and laughing hysterically. In the city, a shaken Gordon drives away from the crash while drinking from a flask. The woman again appears in the car and he brakes to a screeching halt. Terrified, he scrambles out of the car and starts begging God for forgiveness. The pale woman takes them both into the calmest corner of Gordon's mind and tells him that she is not the enemy. She reveals that when her telepathic powers first began to manifest, her parents gave her to Strasbourg to try and help them, but he handed her over to Doctorgeist instead. She tells Gordon that Doctorgeist tortured her and turned her into a weapon, and they did the same to others, showing him Crytoon, Moth-er and Wounder's faces. Gordon realises that Quinton used Franz Ebner's methods to turn his child patients into monsters. The woman tells him that Gotham is in grave danger and she was working to eliminate the Stadtgeist before they could carry out their plan; she tells him he needs to free her before the bells ring to save the city. Gordon returns to reality and drives to a garage where he has the woman bound and gagged, and tells her that he believes her. Two GCPD officers tracking Crytoon come to the trailer and ask the one-eyed man who lives there with the boy if he has seen anything but he denies it. One of them spots blood near the shed and runs over with his gun drawn. He orders Crytoon to surrender, but Crytoon runs out and stabs him in the chest with a hand scythe, to the boy's glee. He then stabs the other cop, who is revealed to be working for the Stadtgeist, through the head. The cop who was stabbed in the chest is still alive and tries to reach for his gun, but the boy slowly stabs him through the temple with a kitchen knife stuck in a doll head. He laughs hysterically, to which Crytoon responds with "Jesus" and walks away. The boy chases after him and asks to come along. Crytoon says that he needs to stay with his father but the one eyed man frantically tells Crytoon that he isn't the boy's father, and a "weird clown" dropped him off. He begs Crytoon to take the boy with him, implying that he is the one who cut out his eye, and swears that he will hide the bodies for him if he does. Crytoon considers it and agrees when the boy shows he can cry on cue. They steal the police car and drive back into the city. Bruce carves Wilbur's cross necklace, which he stole when he grabbed him, down into a key. He escapes his cell and steals a hat and coat off a passed-out Wilbur. He walks through a homeless encampment and climbs a service ladder into the subway. As he walks along the tracks he half-wishes that a train will come and kill him so he won't have to deal with the emotions that have been awakened in him. When he reaches a station he climbs onto the platform and thinks that he needs to call Alfred, but all the payphones have been vandalised. He tries to get a civilian to give him their phone but they all ignore him, and when someone bumps into him he explodes, screaming at the people around to look at him. He tries to calm himself and notices a vagrant sleeping nearby, realising that people are deliberately avoiding him because they think he is a mentally ill unhoused. Behind him, Bruce hears the sounds of slashing, and turns to see that Wounder has murdered everyone on the platform. Enraged, Bruce leaps at him and Wounder says he can see Bruce's dark aura. Bruce kicks Wounder off the platform onto the rails, knocking off his helmet and revealing that he is deformed with no eyes. Bruce remembers that what is inside him is more than rage; it is power. He impassively watches an oncoming train run Wounder over and he is splattered with the man's blood. He smiles slightly and calmly sits down on the platform. Nia Garcia is on the train and it stops with her directly in front of him; they make eye contact through the window. In the Stadtgeist's hideout, a set of bells begin ringing.