Batman Confidential

Batman Confidential
Cover to Batman Confidential #1, art by Whilce Portacio and Richard Friend.
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
Schedule	Monthly
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date	2006 - Present
No. of issues	24 (as of December 2008)
Main character(s)	Batman, Alfred Pennyworth, Lucius Fox, Lex Luthor, The Joker
Creative team
Written by	Andy Diggle Michael Green Tony Bedard
Artist(s)	Whilce Portacio Richard Friend Denys Cowan Rags Morales

Batman Confidential is an American monthly comic book series from DC Comics which debuted on December 6, 2006. The series features the superhero Batman's early adventures, the first story arcs taking place just after his first weeks as a crimefighter.

Like Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman Confidential features stories by rotating creative teams and will continue to be set in the early years of Batman’s career. The similarities, however, stop there. Rather than feature early crime-fighting Batman tales, Batman Confidential will feature stories that illustrate key moments in the character’s past such as first meetings, critical decisions, alliances, confrontations and events that would shape him as the character he is today. The stories told may or may not be actual canon, as aspects (such as The Joker's origin story) differ greatly from previous versions.

Story arcs

Rules of Engagement (#1-6)

The first story arc by Andy Diggle and Whilce Portacio features Batman, roughly a year after he started fighting crime, in his first encounter with Superman’s nemesis Lex Luthor. A long-distance laser sniper rifle is used to kill a murderer Batman is questioning.

Batman begins investigating the type of weapon, and discovers the only thing that his company had created as far as energy weapons go could not be simply carried by one man. The next day, Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor are competing for a military contract concerning a stealth interceptor robot and the O.G.R.E. disaster rescue robot. The robot tries to kill Lex Luthor, who successfully escapes into the sewers. The machine flies away.

At Wayne Enterprises Captain Jim Gordon investigates the O.G.R.E. pilot chamber and the pilot, who had died of a heart attack. Bruce Wayne is under suspicion. It is learned the pilot died before the Luthor attack. Batman devises a new way to bring down the robot; after figuring out the dead pilot's mind had been lost inside it's machinery. Batman vows to restore the pilot back to life if ever possible.

Important events: Alliance with Lucius Fox, the current CEO of Wayne Enterprises; introduction of the Batwing and how Batman acquired it; and first encounter with Superman's arch enemy Lex Luthor.

Lovers & Madmen (#7-12)

During the events of Batman: Year One, Batman recalls all the things that work for being a great crime-fighter. After months of analyzing shipping data, Batman deduces the identity of the man at the top of the drug market in Gotham, a man named Berlanti. After breaking up a shipment and sending the police all the evidence they need to arrest and convict Berlanti, Batman feels on-top of the world (Alfred notes that he is smiling for the first time in costume). Commenting to himself that Gotham seems "quiet" and more peaceful, Batman is confident and happy that his efforts to apply reason and logic to fighting crime have been so successful. As a personal reward, he (as Bruce Wayne) manages to get an art exhibit held over for an extra day so he can visit it. There he meets an art expert working for the museum (assigned to be his private tour guide) by the name of Lorna Shore, and he takes to liking her. Later that night Batman looks into the death of three people and a robbery with no motive. Batman starts looking into the crime world of Gotham City for motive, but is frustrated by nothing but dead-ends. Later, a man named "Jack" sits depressed at a bar. He meets a blonde cocktail waitress/psychology student named "Leeny", and shares his frustrations with her, revealing his boredom with how perfectly he is able to do his "job". Leeny convinces him that if he has a gift for his job, he owes to himself and all those ordinary people without gifts not to walk away from it. After listening to her advice, he decides to seek direction in his life and use his talents. Bruce Wayne and Lorna Shore are seen on a date. Meanwhile, Jack pulls a bank job and still does not feel exhilarated by his "gift". Looking for fun he trips the security systems and the Gotham PD show up. As his hired "goons" and he fight the police, Jack STILL doesn't feel the rush he was hoping for and after killing all the other police officers ask the last one to please shoot him (commenting that suicide isn't approved of by God). However, Batman arrives and begins fighting Jack's companions in the other room. Jack takes back his gun from the police officer and is last seen in the issue observing the Batman in action, thinking that he looks "Ridiculous", possibly a sign to come of his future obsession with the Dark Knight.

Jack leaves Batman a note attached to a pencil shoved into the officer's chest, thanking him for making his day. Over the next weeks he starts committing crimes with no discernible pattern (other than senseless mayhem and cruelty) in order to draw out Batman, and observes from a distance Batman's frustration with being unable to capture him. It is at this point, after leaning on an up and coming mobster called "Maletsta", that Batman is informed that much of whats left of the underworld is also gunning for the mysterious Jack (it seems his violent crime spree has interfered in more than a few rival criminals' business endeavors). With Alfred busy building a state-of-the-art super-computer, Bruce visits Lorna Shore, who after weeks of being sent flowers as apologies for constantly cancelling their dates, had sent HIM flowers hoping to get his attention after weeks of being ignored. Bruce ends up spending the night with her. He comments to himself that he has never felt as at peace as he does holding her, and it is the first time he's slept through the night since he was 8 years old. Making an excuse not to attend the museum ball with her the next night, he returns to the bat-cave where Alfred has completed the computer, dubbed "Dupin" by the butler. Bruce uses it to calculate the mysterious killer's next probable move. The issue ends with the most probable target revealed to be the very museum ball Lorna is attending.

Jack storms Lorna's museum ball with a bull mask on, hoping to attract the attention of Batman. Upon arrival, Jack quickly escapes, taking Lorna as a hostage, holding a gun to her. While Batman easily disarms Jack with a batarrang, Jack quickly draws a knife and slashes Lorna across her midsection. Batman rushes to Lorna, who is still alive, while Jack escapes. However, in a fit of rage, Batman flings another batarang at Jack just as he leaves, cutting him on both sides of his jaw, giving Jack a Glasgow smile. Batman then takes Lorna to the hospital, where she rests in critical condition. Upset that he cannot catch Jack, Batman visits Dr. Jonathan Crane (Pre-Scarecrow) who profiles Jack as a criminally insane schizophrenic. Dr. Crane is looking to renovate the old Arkham Mental Asylum to further his study on the criminally insane and with the terror inspired by Jack's recent crime spree donations are pouring in. Batman asks Crane how he can keep one step ahead of someone like Jack, to which Crane responds: "Oh you silly man in a suit. You can't!" Back at the Batcave, Bruce postulates that Jack will seek medical attention and begins to search for the doctors whom not only could repair his face, but who have a low moral barrier to do so. As he does so, he receives a call from the hospital, which Alfred answers. Lorna will most likely not make it. Enraged, Bruce begins destroying the Batcomputer. Once he calms down, Bruce decides that the old way to fight this evil is with evil. At wit's end, Bruce then makes a mysterious call to 'Maletesta' and informs him that he has found Jack and that Maletesta may do with him as he wishes.

While Batman is watching Lorna through her hospital window, Jack is being taken to an old abandoned chemical plant by Malestesta's men after he was given anesthetic by a doctor to repair the cuts around his mouth he received by Batman. They tie him up to a chair and begin to pummel him with brass knuckles, but Jack, who's been awake this whole time, begins to give them lessons on how to properly torture him. This provokes them to dump him in a chemical vat, but he manages to escape and begins to fight off the goons before falling into a vat with one of them. Batman realizes he's made a mistake thinking he's becoming what he's been fighting for his past year, so he races to stop Jack's murder. Back at the chemical plant, Jack is disappointed to still be alive after the fall, having landed on the goon in an empty vat. The goon tries to shoot Jack, but he dodges without thinking, and the bullet hits a massive container of anti-psychotics above them, which floods the vat just as Batman arrives. Jack thinks back on everything including the bar girl and Batman, wishing to see him again, as he prepares for death by drowning until he finds a way out, leading him outside the factory in the water. Batman sees the chemicals fill the vat, thinking to himself "What have I done?". Jack emerges from the water with green hair, bleached skin, red lips, and his brown suit has become purple. He begins to laugh at the joke the world is playing on him, and becomes hysterical as he notices a "bunny in the moon". And with this, the Joker is born.

Batman, believing Jack to have died in the chemicals, thinks he's seeing a ghost when he catches sight of the Joker outside and chases after him, but loses him in the forest. Later on, he learns that Lorna is still alive but still not responsive. Meanwhile, the Joker then begins his reign of terror. Just as Leeny (the blonde bartender from earlier) discovers that some unknown benefactor has paid her entire medical school tuition, people on the street notice a giant blimp heading towards Gotham's twin towers. Police try to communicate with it, but the blimp (bearing a gigantic smiley face on the front) burst into flames and explodes with many shards of glass falling towards the citizens of Gotham, killing many. The Joker looks on proudly, in his demented eyes he sees them falling dead with big smiles on their faces. However, Joker is upset that Batman doesn't shown up. Bruce is in the hospital with Lorna saying he won't leave her, but Alfred appears and informs him of the carnage ensuing, leaving him his batsuit. Later at a circus, Joker poses as an ordinary clown and causes a riot when he kills a man in front of his own daughter by spraying a strange green chemical in his face (having offered the little girl the choice of whether she wanted to be sprayed by the clown or whether it should be "Daddy"). When Joker sees a report on how Batman hasn't shown up, he becomes upset that he hasn't appeared, even when he rounded up other criminals so he'd have only him to contend with. When one of the captive criminals tell Joker Batman wanted him dead, Joker becomes overjoyed saying he really does care. He then kills the criminal the same way he killed the man at the circus. After Alfred talks to Bruce about how he created this monster, he suits up as Batman and heads toward the Batsignal to meet Gordon, but it's the Joker who is waiting for him. Joker thanks Batman for doing this to him and then comes at him with a knife wanting to kill him.

They plummet to the ground, Joker stabbing Batman along the way. The Joker torments Batman with rigged hostages, forcing some to fall, taunting Batman to save them or defeat him. Batman realizes the knife contained psychoactive chemicals and fights past the influence, saving some, but not all of the hostages from death. The Joker is defeated and questions Batman's motivations regarding saving people. The Joker taunts Batman into saving him by leaping himself. After a moment's hestiation, Batman does save him.

In conclusion, Lorna is okay but Bruce Wayne thinks he himself is too much of a risk to stay with her and pushes for a break-up. A financial donation from Wayne industries has completed Arkham Asylum, where the Joker now stays.

Important events: The beginnings of the Joker; the creation of the Bat Computer; the first meeting between the future Joker and future Harley Quinn.

Wrath Child (#13-16)

Batman investigates a string of murders, where all the victims are policemen attending an annual law enforcement convention in Gotham. He suspects that a long-thought dead foe, The Wrath has returned after five years, and that he continues his vendetta against law enforcement and Commissioner Gordon. Batman goes to his lover, Grayle Hudson, in order to ask her about the villain's return. He and Nightwing later find out from her and from Gordon's secret police files that it was the Wrath's sidekick, Elliot Caldwell, who was donning his master's costume and was behind the killings.

Batman and Nightwing later rescue Hudson from Caldwell, and foil his assassination attempt on Gordon. The new Wrath is overwhelmed by the amount of teamwork and trust the heroes have, not having the same partership with his cruel master, and is defeated and sent to Blackgate Penitentiary.

Important events: Gordon's trasferral to Chicago for fifteen years is explained.

Do you understand these rights? (#22-26)

The Joker's first arrest and rampage while in custody is told in detail.

King Tut (#26-28)

Batman investigates a string of murders involving museum executives. Since mysterious riddles are being left behind as clues, suspicion naturally falls upon the Riddler. However, the perpetrator this time is not the Riddler but King Tut, a character created for the late 60s Batman TV series making his first appearance in comic-book continuity. Batman reluctantly teams up with the Riddler to try and stop Tut.

See also

• List of Batman comics
• Superman Confidential