The Untold Legend of the Batman #2

Issue Details

Synopsis

Batman goes to a bar to find someone who can give him information about the package. After he's attacked he almost beats his informant to death, until Robin arrives to bring him back to his senses. In trying to understand Batman's anger, Robin recalls his own origin. He recalls the night in Newtown where his parents, the Flying Graysons, performed their trapeze act for the final time, as the ropes snapped, sending them plummeting to the ground. Later that night, Dick Grayson (Robin) learned that the trapeze had been rigged by mobsters looking to extort protection money from the owner of the circus. Dick was prepared to go to the police when Batman approached him and told him of "Boss" Zucco, a mobster who controlled the whole town. Bruce Wayne took legal guardianship of Dick, and taught him the arts of crimefighting. He gave Grayson his old Robin costume, and the name to go with it. They set out on Zucco's trail, and found him throwing one of his henchmen off of a scaffolding. Robin took a photo that led to Zucco's arrest, and apparent execution. After that, he became Batman's sidekick. He found it hard to deal with the taunts of his classmates, but eventually graduated and left Wayne Manor to attend Hudson University. That's when Bruce and Alfred moved to the penthouse atop the Wayne Foundation Building in Gotham City, and built a new Batcave in an abandoned subway tunnel beneath the building to go with it. Robin has returned to Gotham City now at the call of Alfred, worried about Batman. Alfred struggles to understand Batman's painful memories by recalling his own past. He remembers in the closing days of World War II when he helped refugees escape the Nazis, and regrets needing to kill enemy soldiers. After the war, he turned to the London theatre as an actor. But as his father lay dying, he swore that he would carry on the family tradition of being a butler. Alfred got on a boat to America and sought out Bruce Wayne, whose father, Thomas Wayne, had employed his own father. Alfred tended to Bruce and Dick, unaware of their alter egos, until one night when they returned from crimefighting, and Bruce had been injured. Dick needed Alfred's help to attend to him. From that point on, Alfred was entrusted with the duo's secrets. Meanwhile, sorting through headshots of his rogues gallery, Batman points out that many of his enemies hate him enough to do this to him. He recalls The Joker's origin as an example. In their first meeting, at the Monarch Playing Card Company, The Joker was a masked criminal known as the Red Hood. To escape Batman, he dove into a basin of chemical waste and swam through a drainage pipe to the river. The special oxygen system in his helmet helped him survive, but the chemicals disfigured him and transformed him into the Joker. Another villain, Two-Face, was once Harvey Dent, Gotham's youngest District Attorney. During the trial of "Boss" Maroni, who was being charged with the murder of "Bookie" Benson, Batman was testifying. While Dent presented Maroni's lucky piece, a two-sided silver dollar, as evidence, Maroni threw a container of acid at him. Batman dove to block the container, but only deflected it enough for it to hit one side of Dent's face, disfiguring him and turning him into Two-Face. Robin suggests that they go see Commissioner Gordon for help, but as he starts the Batmobile, an alarm sounds, indicating that the ignition has been tampered with. Everyone dives safely for cover as a bomb goes off, destroying the car. Another threatening note is discovered in the wreckage: ONE BY ONE, I WILL DESTROY THE THINGS THAT MADE YOU WHAT YOU ARE—AND THEN I WILL DESTROY YOU!