gotham by gaslight, SPIC part 3

gotham by gaslight by brian augustyn/mike mignola

we all know dr. thomas and martha were gunned down before their little boy bruce and he grows up living a life of wealth and privledge. then he puts on a fancy suit and becomes batman so that tragedy never happens to anyone else again. what if that happened in the late 1800s? bruce returns to gotham after a grand tour (obviously, training in combat, studing deduction, etc) and cannot wait to do some real good in the gotham's streets, as the dark knight. he does great work, twarting dynamite wielding safe crackers, muggers, the whole criminal element and the newpapers make note of the giant bat haunting the city. the one thing batman misses is jack the ripper returning to public life in 1889 gotham. the police are under tremendous public pressure to find the ripper and put him away. they find some evidence on their prime suspect, bruce wayne. while searching wayne manor they find a bloody knife, how they missed if you set the grandfather clock in the study to exactly midnight/noon the door to the batcave opens up. bruce is put to trial with the shakiest of evidence like a gin-soaked, crazy cat lady and coinsidence as evidence from D.A. harvey dent. despite console from bruce's beloved "uncle" jake bruce is convicted of being jack the ripper. the only people who belive he is innocent is his butler, alfread pennyworth, and inspector james gordon. from his cell bruce gathers what evidence and clues he can be fed from his friend gordon, newspaper clippings, "ripper" letters, photographs, whatever. all that bruce can conclude is the gotham murders are being committed by the same individual in the whitechapel murders, one year ago. in passing looking at a picture of his father's cival war medical detatchment he notices the flag for the unit has the same symbol on the murder weapon. now bruce has his own short list of suspects. he has alfread easily break him out fo jail (way to go G.C.P.D. letting your biggest convict practically walk out...). batman is on the streets and just in time to stop the ripper from murdering another "unfortunate" woman. a chase through the pooered areas of gotham ensues. watching batman chase him down, swining on ropes while avoiding hansome cabs is a real treat. nothing is more "batman" than him flying out of the mike mignola darkness. the chase ends with batman calling out jack the ripper at the cementary. the big reveal is how "uncle" jake is really the ripper. turns out he was always in love with martha, bruce's mother. when he confesses his love to her, she laughs and mocks him. the heartache breaks his mind. he grows paranoid. pychotically so. to him, thomas, his friend from the war, who helped him in getting into high society and a career. even their little brat of a son, bruce was in on the joke. so he had a theif assasinate the family. or as much of the family he could. martha's laughing never stopped. batman takes off his cowl and tells him he is not laughing. at this point, crackerjack gotham PD shows up to save the day, ie take batman and the ripper to jail. jake does not go quietly and takes out a knife and swipes at batman, hoping to take him down in a blaze of glory. gordon is there and shoots him in mid-swing, giving bruce only a flesh wound. jake dies and gordon lets batman run off to fight crime another day.

this only gets 3 brass cogs. batman DOES have his utility belt. that is worth 3 cogs, right?

bonus points for a cameo from this world's joker. 

 

master of the future by brian augustyn/eduardo barreto

now this story is full of steamy goodness. take the opening shot of the batcave, the batsuit rests on an elaborate brass stand, i bet if you pull a lever it suit dresses bruce. like in ironman. we see bruce with a buddy at boxing match. on a lark, bruce, the dapper dandy of gotham gets in the ring and advices his friend to bet heavily on him. i do not care how big the other guy, but he is just doomed to get smashed by batman in a boxing ring. gordon waxes poetly about how much he needs the batman. thanks to him catching jack the ripper, he is now comissioner and the mayor is planning an american discovery exposition, celebrating science, technology, progess, and the dawn of the twentieth century. the next the day the town council is entertaining ideas for the expo. they interview buffalo bill cody about bringing his circus but they think he is too savage for such a cosmopolitan city like gotham. as the concil bickers about what would be best for the expo and the city, from the window repels down a man in a milatary uniform, cape, and a sword on his hip. he derides the concil's view on the future and demands he be given control of the city. he is the master of the future. the man of tomorrow. he is alexandre lerol. if his demands are not met he will burn gotham to ashes. SWEET! an old-timey super villian. dirk dastardly would be proud of his moustache! he jumps out the window he came in from and dispears, leaving the city concil to ponder what to do. bruce starts his investigation. during a night time, secrect meeting lerol meets with some gothamite to confirm his plans for destroying the city using his "solar lens". he leaves the meeting, once again leaping out a window, this time we see him reach a ladder suspending by something in the clouds.
the next day the expo starts, there are hot air balloons to ride, sky buckets, zeplins, tesla coils, pavillions for balls, and everything else one would find at a fair. while the city council make their rounds of the preparations a self powered gatling gun on wheels opens fire on the workers and mayor. he dives for cover as bruce throws a shovel at the machine destroying it. he feigns being clumsyness in the throw and the mayor finds a letter in the rubble of the machine. "you ignored me. the city burns. you die. the master"
in the morning the mayor gets dressed for opening day and lerol kicks the window glass in, shoots the mayor's butler and kidnaps him to his airship. GANGSTER! lerol gives the mayor a tour of the ship. the salon here, the command bridge there. and introduces him to the pilot. a clockwork robot named  signor antonio diavolo. he has a moustace painted on his face and wears brass goggles. how cute!!!!! once the airships flies over the fair, lerol engages the solor lens. looks like a giant telescope and works the same way. except he points one end at the sun and the other end at the expo. works kind of like burning ants with a magnifing glass. but large scale. works real well actually. lerol pulls a max zorin and drops the mayor out of hsi airship, right ontop of the glass ceiling of the main fair pavilion. bruce makes his way to a mock-up davinci flying machine as alfread finds him tosses him a suitcase with the batsuit inside. everyone is too buisy with the ragign fire to notice duck out and suit up. and fly, up, up and away. even he is impressed it works. now to catch up to the giant airship firing sunlight at the city. batman boards the airship, pirate-style (ARR!). he duels lerol, and antonio accidental gets broken. lerol actualyl cries that hsi friend is "dead" awwww :( the pilotless ship starts to list and they break a gaslamp in the process. their duels travels all over the ship but there is no pilot to monitor the boiler temperature that is slowly rising. the airship explodes, batman escapes whiel lerol's fate is unclear. batman deducts the frontrunner to be mayor was lerol's accomplice in what turned out to be a simple insurance scam. he gets arrested and the day is saved.

eff it, 10 brass cogs. airships, telescope guns, gatling gun robots, robot pilots, flying machines, goggles, uniforms, what more could you want?