By Mark Rodriguez
I was somewhat keeping tabs of Batman and the BatFamily back in 2015. Around this time Dick Grayson became a secret agent since his identity was exposed during the Forever Evil storyline. Damian died and came back to life, and Stephanie was brought back in the New 52 reality. The more important thing was that both Batman and the Joker lost their memories during an epic battle. At this time, Alfred took the chance to give Bruce a chance to finally get over his parents' deaths and move on without risking his life night after night.
'Mad House' starts off within Wayne Manor, that was actually used as Arkham Asylum for a while since the original was destroyed. A bearded Bruce Wayne and his date Julie arrive and Alfred tells them they're done escorting the patients out. Bruce sees a portrait on the wall of his regular clean shaven business suit wearing self which makes him pause as he sees the man he used to be.
A business woman named Geri Powers arrives to make sure Bruce is ok with
the new adjustment. It seems Mayor Hady signed the mansion over to
become Arkham for a while as Bruce filed for bankruptcy before Geri
would but his assets. Geri also got the branding rights for Batman and
says Jeremiah Arkham wanted her help to expand the Asylum and help heal
people... before he would also go crazy and start killing people. The
Arkham inmates were sent to mental hospitals while Blackgate Prison
would deal with the crazier ones. They only had problems with three in
particular. Clayface and Mr. Freeze were sedated to be easier to deal
with. They didn't want to risk the Riddler escaping during the transfer
so they actually ripped the entire prison cell out of the building and
transported it with him still inside it.
Bruce asks her why turn over the manor back to him when she could have
sold it for millions. She agrees her people are furious, but she says
it's not her house, nor her history. Bruce says it's not his anymore
either. Alfred is still glad to keep the manor in the family.
Alfred asked Geri if there were other changes made besides the big hole
in the wall due to the Riddler cell. He says the office room is supposed
to be the ballroom and it's supposed to be five times it's current
size. The entire room is actually Clayface in disguise... and the
Riddler and Freeze are with him.
The bad guys send Geri off to another room and want to have a private chat with Bruce. The Riddler points out that Clayface made fake doubles of themselves that were taken away while they hid in this fake office room. At this time Bruce Wayne has amnesia and Riddler taunts him, he isn't able to know if someone knows him as a real friend or just recognizes him as the millionaire celebrity. They offer to help him out.
Riddler wants to play mind games with Bruce but has Freeze take him away
for the time being. Alfred suddenly comes in and takes Mr. Freeze down
with a shotgun. Alfred takes Bruce down to an room where he kept Thomas
Wayne's hunting rifles, that he hid from him, since Bruce hates guns. He
hands over a shotgun to him, to at least use as something to hit with.
Bruce doesn't understand why the villains are after him and why Batman
isn't coming to help rescure Geri. Just then the room starts getting
cold.
Mr. Freeze busts in and carries Bruce away. He tells him he could kill
him now if he wanted, but it wouldn't mean anything if he didn't
understand why. He tosses him into a room and tells him he'd recognize
the view. He sees statues of his parents, with a shocked look on their
faces, presumably from the night they were shot. Riddler taunts Bruce
with how that would have affected him as a child and how he dealt with
that loss. He says that Julie remembered this too. As he goes to hug
her, she turns to sand.
Riddler says Bruce actually went to Arkham once to ask for shock therapy to help deal with his loss. He backed out in the last minute, and shortly after he vanished from the world. Bruce runs to find the Riddler sitting in his chair and asks if he has figured everything out yet. Bruce is still confused, and Freeze starts to attack him. Alfred, Julie and Geri are being up by Clayface as Riddler asks what losing his parents had done to him to have made him disappear to the edges of the world. Bruce admits he turned crazy. Riddler says he should have stayed in Arkham, instead he returned and found 'a maniac in a cape' and funded him with money, weapons and cars. Batman is his legacy.
Riddler shows him the scars on his chest from all the beatings he's endured from Batman and blames him. He says he doesn't believe that his mansion went into bankruptcy, and claims the villains he broke were purposely put into Wayne Manor to constantly remind him of who put them there. They all tell how their stories would have gone differently if Batman wasn't there to stop their evil plans back when they first started. Riddler pulls out a gun, an exact replica of the gun that killed the Waynes and plans to shoot Geri, Julie and Alfred.
Bruce takes aim with his shotgun and shoots at Riddler. Everyone is
confused since Bruce Wayne's aversion towards firearms is common
knowledge in the public eye. Bruce says he's changed, and also says he
was aiming for the signal blocker that prevented Geri from calling the
huge Batman robot that was outside. Bruce also says 'Conasta' which was a
secret word that makes a chandelier collapse on top of Clayface, which
makes him fall on top of Mr. Freeze and ruin his suit.
Bruce says they're the ones that are really crazy for wasting time
making the mansion into a fun house instead of just escaping when they
had the chance, and being so obsessed over ruining someone's life rather
than improve their own. He says all the things the previous Bruce did
might have been insane, but they were because he felt he was doing the
right thing, and he hopes he can live up to that legacy. Bruce then
kicks Riddler across the face and asks if that will scar.
My Opinions-
Wow, this was a hell of a good read, and Batman himself isn't in it! So I guess in recent events Bruce Wayne lost his memory, Wayne Manor was Arkham Asylum for some time before turning it back to normal.... and Alfred lost a hand (I did Wiki that, Joker chopped it off during the End Game story I missed out on). And I guess now we have a mecha Batman picking up the slack in his absence (as if Batgirl, Damian, Red Robin, Red Hood and Batwoman couldn't do it).
Everything boiled down to Bruce calling out the bad guys in the end. They could have just gotten away instead of staying in the manor and forming this overly convoluted plan to get payback against him. Of course there's an irony here as the bad guys have no idea that they're killing Batman himself, which is intensified as Bruce himself has no idea that he is Batman either. I can't blame the bad guys too much though, Bruce Wayne did publicly announce that he was funding Batman and Batman Inc (whatever happened to that?). I'm just surprised noone came to the conclusion that he himself was Batman.
Another thing is that the bad guys themselves blame their scars and beating obtained over the years on Batman and by extension Bruce for making it possible... when they're to blame for their own downfall for committing crimes in the first place. Riddler has an impulsive compulsion disorder so he just can't help himself. Mr. Freeze, if we're to go by the New 52 origin, is obsessed by 'Nora Fries' who isn't really his wife, but some random woman he never even met but for whatever reason sees as his wife... So yeah, he's really messed up and anyone he kills on his crusade to cure her is unjustified, he NEEDS to be stopped. Clayface is the possibly the most tragic example on account of him being a dumbass. Yes, he could have used his powers to be one of the best Hollywood actors ever and made millions the legit way..... but he had to start going around killing people and committing crime and of course someone needed to stop him. That's his own dumbass fault, not Batman's. If anything, he even could have joined the Justice League with those powers.
This is basically like that Animated Series episode 'The Trial' where all the Batman villains blame him for all the things that happened to them, without seeing that it was their own fault for trying to do bad stuff in the first place.
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