Batman: Resurrection

After The Joker’s death, Batman and Gotham City face a mysterious new threat in this direct sequel to Tim Burton’s iconic The Joker is dead, but not forgotten. Gotham City is saved, but it is still not safe. By night, its new symbol of hope, Batman, continues his fight to protect the innocent and the powerless. By day, his alter ego, Bruce Wayne, wonders whether there may someday be a future beyond skulking the city’s rooftops or the cavernous halls of his stately manor alongside the ever-dutiful Alfred Pennyworth. But even after death, the Clown Prince of Crime’s imprint can be seen in more than just the pavement. Remnants from The Joker’s gang are leading wannabes fascinated by his bizarre mystique on a campaign of arson that threatens the city--even as it serves greedy opportunists, including millionaire Max Shreck. And survivors of exposure to The Joker’s chemical weapon Smylex continue to crowd Gotham City’s main hospital. To quell the chaos, Batman needs more than his cape and his well-stocked Utility Belt. Bruce Wayne is forced into action, prompting a partnership with a charismatic scientist to help solve the health crisis. But as he works in both the shadows and the light, Bruce finds himself drawn deeper into Gotham City’s turmoil than ever before, fueling his obsession to save the city--an obsession that has already driven a wedge between him and Vicki Vale. The loyal Alfred, who had hoped Bruce’s efforts as Batman could help him find closure, finds the opposite happening. Nightmares begin to prompt Bruce to ask new questions about the climactic events in the cathedral, and investigations by Commissioner Gordon and reporter Alexander Knox into the arsons only amplify his concerns. Having told the people of Gotham City that they’d earned a rest from crime, Batman finds the forces of evil growing ever more organized--and orchestrated--by a sinister hand behind the scenes. The World’s Greatest Detective must solve the greatest mystery of all: Could The Joker have somehow survived? And could he still have the last laugh against the people of Gotham City?...

Autorentext

John Jackson Miller

Leseprobe
Chapter 1

You gotta love the dead, Alexander Knox had said many times. They don’t eat much, and they never bug their neighbors.

No one lasted long on the police beat if they went squirrelly when seeing a dead body. You couldn’t cover crime without encountering a victim—or twelve, as once happened to Knox during one of Carl Grissom’s infamous wars. The mobster’s lieutenant, Jack Napier, had likely done some of the killing that night; both of them were corpses themselves now. Grissom went the usual way for his kind, while Napier had gone crackers and plunged off the tallest cathedral in creation.

Knox had missed his chance to see Napier’s corpse that night, now nearly six months ago. Injured in the rampage, he had instead seen it in the hospital on the front page of his own Gotham Globe: The Joker, cracked like an egg, smiling up from the imprint he’d made in the pavement. The publication of the grisly image had provoked surprisingly little controversy. The people of Gotham City needed to see that the one who’d brought them such terror was gone for good.

But for Knox, it’d been all bad. Vicki Vale hadn’t taken that picture—she was definitely preoccupied at the time—and someone else had gotten the byline on the story of the century. His story, of Gotham City’s greed, of The Joker’s diabolical plan, of Batman’s incredible response. Back on his feet and on the beat, Knox had watched as someone else got nominated for his prize, all his legwork for naught. It wasn’t long before he was dealing with dead bodies again.

Only tonight, the corpse was a building.

The Capra was dead, having closed months earlier as another casualty of the Smylex panic. Ambulance lights had heralded The Tempest’s opening night, driving away the last remaining customers the ailing theatre had. The last play Shakespeare wrote without a partner turned out to be the final act for the Capra. The members of its company had gone their separate ways, but the corpse remained: a rundown building nobody could determine the ownership of. People had been fighting over the body ever since.

The Stantons, the Wallaces, and the Shrecks had sought the site for development, which brought out the usual people protesting that a piece of Gotham City’s history was at risk. Knox doubted that any of the daytime picketers had ever set foot in the firetrap when it was open.

But while the Capra was dead, it wasn’t deserted—not tonight.

Tipped off that people had gone inside, Knox had found the back door jimmied open. He entered the theatre, moving cautiously through halls that had been without power for weeks. But someone had some juice, if the hard-pounding music he was hearing was any indication. He followed the sound to where light flickered through a stage access door. Is the show back on?

He tested the stairs leading behind the stage. They looked creaky, but with the music blaring he figured no one would notice. Ascending, he saw that wooden scenery from the ill-fated final performance still stood on set, with prospero’s island stenciled on the back. He found a small seam in the facade and crept up to peek through it.

Somebody’s having a clambake. A beach party was raging on the island set. A bonfire burned in a large metal garbage can; next to it was a huge boombox. Wild partiers danced around them while clutching glass bottles. Some they smashed against the stage floor; others, they hurled over the seats in the once-great hall. The great size of the auditorium had so far kept it from filling with smoke; if the Capra ever had fire alarms, they weren’t going off.

Knox gently put his hands against the scenery to steady himself as he looked more closely through the opening. There were close to a dozen adults, he figured, several wearing party masks. No—clown masks. There had been a run on those at novelty shops since The Joker’s demise, and they’d become the disguise of choice for the city’s more impressionable lowlifes. But these characters’ mischief seemed limited to vandalism, fire code violations, and bad taste in music.

On top of everything else, he noticed a strange gassy smell. Wherever it was coming from, this seemed like a good place not to be. Knox was about to sneak away when a loud voice bellowed through the hall, audible over the music. “Knock it off!”

The dancers looked off to stage left. A hulking brute stomped into view, carrying a canvas bag. He tromped up to the boombox and switched it off. That’s when Knox saw what was on the bald newcomer’s face: black sunglasses, worn in a dark building in the middle of the night—and a giant black mustache that looked like it belonged on a cousin of Yosemite Sam.

Knox silently mouthed his name: Lawrence!

As The Joker, Napier had co-opted members of Grissom’s gang—as well as varied remnants of the other outfits he’d taken over. He’d also hired out, bringing in a cadre of assassins trained in special weapons and martial arts. Lawrence was just good old-fashioned muscle—and someone who had improbably survived the night of The Joker’s parade of terror in spite of his own foolishness. The Lucky Lunkhead, Knox had called him.

Based on the damage in the belfry of Gotham Cathedral and where Lawrence had been found, the police had surmised that the bruiser had attempted to jump Batman only to smash through the floor. He was fortunate there was another floor underneath to land on. Gothic architecture hadn’t been as kind to one of his cohorts. The r…