By Mark Rodriguez
It's time to check in on modern day Batman for a while. Things have been rough for Bruce Wayne these days, seeing that Vandal Savage now owns Wayne Manor and Alfred is dead and has so far stayed dead. He also discovered he has a 'pure Batman' personality named Zur-En-Arrh that is itching to come out and take over. We start off a new story called Dark Prisons, which I understand is part of a longer ongoing narrative, so I'll do my best to jump in and keep up.
Dark Prisons Part 1 opens with Bruce Wayne and the Joker being trapped in Zur-En-Arrh's prison. Bruce is only wearing the lower half of his Batman costume and Joker is stuck in a body brace and strapped to a prison bed. Bruce realizes that Joker knew about his mentors, and it's possible that Daniel Captio trained him to control his mind. Captio was the one that helped Bruce create the persona of Zur-En-Arrh.
Joker says he has only seen Zur twice, who he considers to be the 'real' Batman. Joker states that breaking Batman is easy but breaking Zur would be a triumph. Bruce reminds him that Zur broke Joker's back and left him to rot in prison. Joker says he's loving the current situation since Bruce is stuck in prison with him while Zur out there acting as 'the true Batman' and bringing 'real justice' to the city.
Meanwhile a group of men are loading up boxes full of stolen goods, planning to get them to Bludhaven. Just then small rockets hit their truck and blow it up. Batman arrives and attacks the men, as one of them runs away. Batman grabs the last man and tells him to let everyone know that he is back. We see that Batman is the android Failsafe that is now running around as the city's Dark Knight.
Elsewhere, Jason Todd is speeding towards the scene on his motorcycle while Oracle tells him he should worry about getting better. Batman had conditioned Jason with fear responses if his adrenaline spikes too much. Jason says his recent dealing with the Joker Toxin helped him get through it. Jason sees the burning truck and wonders if another vigilante got there first.
Failsafe sees Jason and says he was hoping he'd be the first to encounter him. Failsafe takes off his Batman mask and an image of Bruce's face appears upon his visor. 'Bruce' explains that after the recent war in the city, he lashed out because he was slipping. He didn't want to burden everyone with his personal war so he set out to defeat Failsafe alone. Bruce won the battle but the fight left his body broken, so he managed to download his consciousness into Failsafe. 'Bruce' says no one else needs to suffer since now he can fight forever.
Jason lunges out at Failsafe with his knives. Failsafe says the slate between them has been wiped clean. He grabs Jason and tells him that he won't hurt him unless he breaks the law. Failsafe blasts off, dropping Jason to the ground. Oracle regains communication with Jason, and he tells her that he doesn't have good news to share.
Bruce is tired and broken but he can't rest while Failsafe is on the loose. He heads towards the Joker's bed, and the clown asks if he's finally to finish the job. He reached behind the Joker's brace and uses some of the clips as a lockpick to escape the prison. He sees they're on the lower levels of Blackgate Prison so he knows how to escape. Bruce wraps bandages around his face to protect his identity and heads out.
He notices that the lower cells are now full with new inmates. He sees that Vandal Savage is also locked up. Vandal says that Failsafe has taken control of the Manor, but he'ss sure the law will help him get it back. Bruce asks Vandal what his game is when suddenly Failsafe's security robots attack and knock him out.
Meanwhile Failsafe appears on every TV in the city announcing that Batman is back and he will rain the pain upon crime. Members of the Bat Family watch this and aren't sure this is really Bruce.
The Mayor tells Commissioner Montoya that if she activates the Bat Signal she might as well turn in her resume. The Mayor doesn't want it known that the police is working with him. Montoya points out that Batman has saved the city countless times. The Mayor says he's getting pressure after Batman and his crew tore up the city with the recent war.
The Riddler is watching the televised message from his hideout when Failsafe suddenly shows up. Riddler is caught off guard and Failsafe tells him that his message was pre-recorded. Riddler tries to run and says he helped him with Vandal. Failsafe busts out of the building and lands on the city street below, holding onto the Riddler.
Failsafe holds up the defeated Riddler in front of the curious public and tells them that the villain will now belong to Batman, the 'true justice'. Damian is watching from the rooftops and Failsafe leaps up to land before him. He asks his 'son' if he's going to fight him like Jason tried to.
Damian asks if it's really him. Failsafe assures him that it's him and Damian asks for proof. Failsafe says after Damian first moved in with him, he would have nightmares. Bruce would sit in his room with him until he'd drift off to sleep and then pretend it didn't happen the next morning. Damian calls Failsafe father.
Meanwhile the Bat-Family discusses this. Tim asks if this is actually Bruce or something else. Barbara says Bruce has been missing for a while, and they think Zur infected him. Jason says he sure sounded like him. Dick says they have to figure out what happened before it's too late.
Back to Blackgate Prison, Bruce is tied up by his old mentor, Daniel Captio. He says his 'better self' left him as the warden of the prison. He says this a man he knows quite well, the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh was one he helped create. Daniel asks Bruce if he's confused, and he offers to shed some light on this.
Doctor's Orders- The Joker recalls his encounter with Batman while under the control of his Zur-En-Arrh personality. He nearly killed him but didn't. The Joker finally saw Batman as a force of nature like himself. Joker talks to a therapist and says Batman's existence changes things and the city spirals around him. Batman looks dark and dangerous but inside he's a child's idea of how the world should work, while Joker looks like a child's idea but it complex on the inside. The therapist says continuing to compare himself to Batman isn't the path to get better and asks for Joker's real name. The Joker lunges at the therapist and kills him.
We later see Joker visit Daniel Captio who tells him he saw Batman again, but this time he felt more primal. He says it felt like he created a new personality for himself. Captio says he trained Batman just like he trained the Joker. Batman however, resisted the idea of 'partitioning of the mind'. He told him that for his mission to work, Batman needed to create a pure Batman persona to protect him against doubts and outside forces.
Batman failed to finish the process. He needed to see the dangers as Batman before he could fully commit. He tells the Joker that Batman is about control and order, and he will only use his second personality in cases of emergencies. The Joker will have to create those emergencies. The back up personality is pure Batman, and he will soon see his main personality as deficient. If the Joker keeps bringing out Zur-En-Arrh, eventually that will become Batman's main personality.
The Joker he almost feels back keeping Captio captive, but he feels he wants to be there and get a front row seat of what he unleashed. Captio agrees that he is curious on seeing how the world would handle a truly unstoppable Batman. All he had to do is wait and watch as the Joker continued to evolve and gain access to Bruce's life. We end the issue with the a past image of the Joker, with his cut-off face stapled back on, standing outside of Wayne Manor, about to kick off the events of Death of The Family.
My thoughts-
This is quite a story. After doing some research, it seems that Bruce always had this 'pure Batman' personality called Zur-En-Arrh. It was under this personality that Batman created Failsafe, who laid dormant in the Batcave in case Batman would someday snap and start killing people. Failsafe activated when Batman was framed for killing the Penguin. In cases of Batman being framed, Alfred was supposed to know the way to prevent Failsafe from activating, but it turns out this happened after he was killed by Bane. Now Zur-En-Arrh has downloaded his consciousness into Failsafe and locked Bruce and the Joker up in Blackgate.
So a lot of stuff is going on. Failsafe is terrorizing the city as Batman, while trying to convince the Bat-Family that he's Bruce. Bruce and Joker are locked up together and Joker knows Batman's identity. It also looks like Captio, one of Bruce's mentors has turned against him. Where will all this lead, especially after the smoke clears and Joker still somehow knows about Bruce.
I am still curious how Batman's secret personality took control of Failsafe. Does this mean that Bruce himself is now free of this personality and no longer has the risk of turning back to him? The back up comic shows the concept that if Joker continued to pull that hidden persona out of Bruce enough times, eventually it will completely take over. But if that persona is now somehow running around as an android, completely separate from Bruce, that means Bruce no longer risks losing himself to his own mind. I know Captio was curious to see what an 'unstoppable Batman' but I doubt he meant a robot running around thinking he's Batman.
I also liked seeing the current day Bat-Family, some of whom having new looks. Cass and Steph are back as Batgirls and Barbara, blonde for some reason, is back to being Oracle. Luckily she can still walk around. Dick and Jason are still Nightwing and Red Hood, but I'm wondering if both Tim and Damian are calling themselves Robin? Also the Signal is still around, so it was cool to see him make a cameo. If Failsafe was able to convince Damian to side with him, things might have gotten a lot worse for the crew.
Batman has now re-joined my pull list over at Third Eye Comics, so I'll be keeping up on what will be happening next.
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