Detective Comics #44

Issue Details

Synopsis

GOODBYES Despite learning that his partner and girlfriend, Nancy Yip, is a dirty cop complicit in an assassination plot, Harvey Bullock desperately tries to get in touch with her to help her sort her way out of it. Unimpressed, his friend Renee Montoya can't believe he'd offer her that chance. Nancy receives his messages, but ignores them, assured that she has already gone too far. Her life as she knew it is over, since she made a deal with the Falcone Family. They practically own the GCPD as it is. As she receives her payoff from Stefano Falcone, she wonders if he intends to kill her. He responds that the Falcones reward those who work with them. It's the people who don't that she should worry over. After getting out of his car, Nancy decides that she should call Harvey back.   Jim Gordon, meanwhile, is currently under attack by a giant joker-themed robot, which is using the power core that La Morte stole from his robotic Batsuit. Rather than attempt to kill him, though, the person inside the Jokerbot admits that they're only there for the jailbreak of the two captured La Morte brothers, and runs off.   After picking up Yip, Harvey and Montoya speed to Jim's location, but Yip warns that they should ignore the Jokerbot and head for Le Cirque de Volant, where the hit is planned. Ignoring her, Montoya continues pursuit of the robot, who reacts by sending their SUV into a spin and flip. Fortunately, Jim catches them, but the occupants of the vehicle are not in great shape. Nancy is stuck and wounded in the back seat, and when Harvey regains consciousness, she warns him to go to the circus again. He responds that it's only a rehearsal tonight, with the police standing in for the presumed targets of the hit. She warns weakly that the cops are the targets, and names the Falcone family. Worriedly, Harvey leaves Nancy to her fate and pulls Montoya from the vehicle. Once a safe distance away, Harvey drops his lighter into the pool of fuel streaming from the vehicle, and lets it blow up with Nancy inside, to Montoya's horror.   Meanwhile, at the circus, the three remaining members of La Morte don their costumes and join the circus as members, intending to carry out their assassination under the guise of silk performers.   As Jim chases the Jokerbot down, Daryl Gutierrez explains that it may be on the run because the power core inside it isn't properly insulated, and has begun to overheat. Jim suggests that if they can find a way to breach the core, they can cause the power core to blow up, and hopefully, the Jokerbot's armor will contain the blast. Though it's risky, Daryl suggests that they can use microwaves shot through Jim's suit's boosters to trigger it, in the relative safety of a nearby construction site. As the microwaves trigger the core-breach, Joker's Daughter escapes the Jokerbot and lets it explode without her. Jim - having never met her, is disgusted to hear her claim her namesake, and warns that she's not the Joker or his legacy - and she's got a one-way ticket to Arkham Asylum.   At the circus, one of the assassins trains his sniper sight on Detectives Alvarez and Keyes, who have been fighting corruption at the GCPD for a while. Having dealt with Joker's Daughter, though, Jim is free to stop the assassination attempt, and emits an EMP blast over the circus, before warning all of those under the big top to get out. With Daryl and Julia Perry's help, Jim locates the assassins in the rafters, and takes them down just as Harvey and Montoya get to the scene.   Afterwards, Bullock meets with Jim in private and explains all that went down. Yip had provided a seating chart to the Falcones so that they could have cops who weren't on their payroll assassinated to send a clear message to those remaining of what happens to those who don't get their hands dirty. Jim fills Harvey in on Joker's Daughter's role, having hired La Morte to help steal the power core so that she could have a robot Joker to counter his robot Batman.   Yip, meanwhile, survived. He had arranged to fake her death - ensuring that Montoya would see it and corroborate it. Officially, she had died in the line of duty, but now she's in witness protection, having given up La Morte and Stefano Falcone. Of course, Jim had warned Montoya of Harvey's plan. Despite that, she and he are on good terms. She had left for Blüdhaven to fly solo for a while, but now she intends to stay in Gotham as Harvey's new partner.