Batman Incorporated #5

Issue Details

Synopsis

ASYLUM Talia al Ghul has demanded that Damian leave his father and go with her, and Batman seems to agree. Hurt and stung, Damian asks why. So Batman decides to tell the story of his near-death vision...   The night in Gotham was suitably apocalyptic. The Joker Virus has engulfed the city, turning millions of citizens into grinning psychopaths. But Damian Wayne, Batman, is on the case, racing a baby with an apparent immunity through a nightmarish landscape to the one building in Gotham with enough security to keep a mad world at bay - Arkham Asylum.   At the gate, Commissioner Barbara Gordon in a combat reinforced wheelchair shoots into the crowd, giving Batman the space he needs to get to safety. Later, in the infirmary, she and the detective discuss the situation, and Gordon apparently makes peace with him.   Batman considers his life. How, upon the death of his father Bruce Wayne, he sold his soul to the immortal Simon Hurt, who claimed to be the Devil, to keep Gotham safe. But if he fails tonight, the American government will order a nuclear strike on Gotham to contain the virus. He goes to the cells and asks one of his enemies, the super-gorilla Jackanapes, to help him come up with a retrovirus based on the immunity. Jackanapes gloats, claiming it is the end of days, but when Batman becomes angry the villain tells the truth: the baby does not have an immunity.   The baby is exhibiting no symptoms but is still carrying the virus inside the asylum.   Batman runs, to find that the maddened Barbara Gordon has already killed the child. Batman and Jackanapes are the only people left in Gotham untouched by the virus. The crowd comes on, a million or more, and the last thing Batman sees is the explosion of the atomic bomb launched by a guilt-ridden American president - at the behest of his advisor, Simon Hurt.   That was what Batman saw. All his efforts with Batman Inc were to save the world, but to save his son also.