Last time Batman was asked to kill Commissioner Gordon – we’ll see what his response is this time.
Legends of the Dark Knight #18
Written by Denny O’Neil
Layouts by Trevor von Eeden
Pencils by Russell Braun
Inks by Jose Luis Garcia Lopez
Letters by Willie Schabert
Colors by Steve Oliff
Edited by Kevin Dooley & Andy Helfer
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Batman does not believe that he’s just agreed to kill Commissioner Gordon. That said, he doesn’t even try – instead, in a very clumsy kind of awkward way Batman warns Gordon about Porter and General Slaycroft, and lets him know to go after them if Batman fails to bring them down – showing his own lack of confidence.
Batman tries to take down the two – and fails. Not because of a sneak attack, or because cause he’s overpowered. He fails because he’s distracted by drugs. Batman realizes what they’re doing to them, and calls Alfred, telling him to lock him into the Batcave and not let him out for a month.
Meanwhile, General Slaycroft, his son, and Porter are on a plane to the island of Santa Prisca, after cleaning his home of any clues to their plan. There they continue the experiments with a new test subject – General Slaycroft’s son, Junior, starting with an updated version of the steroid.
Over the course of the month, Junior falls for a local girl – Consuela, but as the steroids make him more pliable, aggressive, and reduce his overall intelligence. During this, the General casually lets slip to the reader his own racist and homophobic views, along with implying that he had his wife murdered – if we didn’t already hate him for being a fascist and considering his son expendable.
Over the course of this month, Alfred has been monitoring the Batcave, listening to make sure Bruce is still alive.
Finally, at the end of the month, all is complete. In Santa Prisca, Dr. Porter has completed a series of dermal implants on Junior to make him bulletproof, and the drugs have made him violent and pliable enough that his father is able to order him to kill Consuela without hesitation. Back in Gotham, Batman is now clean of the drugs and is ready to go after Slaycroft.
