Before we get back to Abattoir, let’s finish up the plotline with Bruce’s recovery and search for Shondra Kinsolving.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #59

Written by Dennis O’Neil
Pencils by Ron Wagner
Inks by Ron McCain
Colors by Digital Chameleon
Lettering by Willie Schubert
Edited by Archie Goodwin & Jim Spivey

We open on a doctor berating Bruce Wayne for running around the world instead of staying home and recuperating. Bruce is not deterred, especially after the deaths in Monkleigh.

Elsewhere, Benedict Asp now has lost his leverage over Dr. Shondra Kinsolving, after Jack Drake was rescued, so he tries drugs instead. Dr. Kinsolving tries to escape, sending her foster brother to Dick Kick City in the process, but is stopped by Asp’s Russian partner. After he retrieves Dr. Kinsolving so Asp can drug her, Asp then asks the Russian if he would deal with another troublesome individual – Sir Hemingford Grey.

At the flat that Wayne has rented as Grey, Wayne explains to Alfred why he’s keeping the Grey persona up. Basically, Wayne’s own public facing persona is too high profile, and would attract attention to him outside of any attention that Asp might have now that he’s aware of Grey.

As Wayne talks to Tim about Dr. Kinsolving’s background over the phone, he spots some goons coming to kill them (Wayne and Alfred) lead by the Russian. They has fight, and Bruce ultimately gets the upper hand.

This leads to Bruce & Alfred returning to the US to investigate the home and family that adopted both Asp and Kinsolving.

Intercutting between Asp & Kinsolving (with Asp using drugs to break down Kinsolving’s resistance to murder), and the foster mother of the two being interviewed by Bruce, we learn that they were adopted by a pastor who was also a domestic abuser and a racist, who the two’s foster mother suggests, adopted Shonda to have a child he could feel good about beating.

Eventually, Asp and Shonda learned about their powers, with Asp’s power (when used in tandem with Shonda’s) allowing them to kill at a distance and without trace – letting them kill their abusive father, before both ran away. Their mother says that she did not intervene to stop the abuse because (it’s implied) she did not think she could do so. The foster mother is also aware of Shonda’s powers (at least), having received a postcard from Shonda after she graduated from med school (having also changed her name), where she also mentioned that she had not used her powers since.

And Bruce & Alfred don’t get much more information out of the two’s foster mother, as Asp manages to break through Kinsolving’s defenses, and the two of them kill their last surviving foster parent.

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