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. 

 

Attention: Fans of comic books (and irony)

Hi. I'll keep my introduction swift. You can call me Nairb McDuck. Max Rebos real-life brother. Once upon a time, I would fill a santa hat with miscellaneous sweets and hand them out to all the delinquents at school. These days, not much has changed. Instead of delicious candy, I offer my words, and instead of a santa hat, I have this here blog. Gather 'round so I can tell y'all a story that is sure to chill your bones and instill you with a deeper appreciation for the lack of comedy (for lack of a better word) in your universe as opposed to mine. Hold on tight. It's gonna be a bumpy ride.

*Ahem*

Okay, so my life is hilarious and ironic. Unreasonable and ridiculous events occur on an aggravating basis and I've come to expect it; the lack of karmic balance in my corner of the universe has remained constant since I was old enough to pick up on such things and as much as it pisses me off I try my best to go with the flow. I'm sure that this is no different from many of you so you should know what I'm talking about.

However, last night was a little different. "Why was last night so special?" one might ask. Allow me to explain. In one of my many adventures across this fair land I've managed to accidentally stumble across a modest pile of comic books. The when and where are insignificant. They sat in my backpack for a few days until I finally unpacked them and placed them amongst all of the other old stuff I've been collecting in the corner of my room (i.e. vinyl, old books, etc.). Last night I decided to do a bit of research online and I found out quite a bit of information on these comics. Most of them are from the late seventies, specifically 1977 and 1978. They were in pretty darn good shape so I suspected that at least a few of them might be worth some cash and it looks like I was right. I calculated a rough estimate by looking at a couple different resources and the number I came up with decent. It wasn't extraordinary but it was something.

But there was one comic that eluded my attention. I didn't notice it at first, which is ironic in itself because I'm a self-proclaimed Star Wars geek of sorts and this was an original Marvel brand Star-Wars comic. In fact, there were four of them. One through four. So, I looked them up. In comparison, these comics are all nearly identical except for one striking detail: the fourth issue features a square around the price tag (which is thirty-five cents) rather than a diamond, which is featured on the other three. Because of this minor aesthetic difference, this particular comic book is worth over one thousand dollars.

Part of my brain was ecstatic. Thoughts and fantasies of bills being paid, Christmas gifts being bought, and chocolate soy-milk being gulped flashed past my focus like high beams on the thru-way at night. But I knew better than this. I walk in these shoes every day and I adhere to the most influential fundamental law that governs events in my life: irony. So after inspecting the comic up and down I found what I was looking for. To be short, the comic is in beautiful condition given its age; there are no creases in the paper, all the pages are intact and the color is far from fading away, but what makes all of this so common place and predictable is that there are no staples in the binding and the actual comic is not attached to the cover, so (unless I'm wrong) it's pretty much worthless.

ZOMG.

All of the other comics in the pile have their staples. Some of them are in questionable condition but if you look at the edge you will find those goddamn staples right where they're supposed to be, doing what they're supposed to do.

I'm pretty sure there is nothing left to be said. My life is hilarious and ironic. Unreasonable and ridiculous events occur on an aggravating basis and I've come to expect it; the lack of karmic balance in my corner of the universe has remained constant since I was old enough to pick up on such things and as much as it pisses me off I try my best to go with the flow. I'm sure that this is no different from many of you so you should know what I'm talking about.

*Sigh*