Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

PART 2: KNIGHTQUEST

Last time we learned just how evil Shondra’s brother is. Not much else, but it was enough to fill a chapter. We’re nearing the end of this storyline. As I read through chapter 14 it leads nicely into the very short chapter 15, so tonight we’re reading them both.

I’m kind of curious how long this whole sequence took in the comics. At a guess I think the point of this was to show what makes Bruce the superior Batman. While Jean Paul believes, as too many readers and writers believe, it’s all about punching the bad guys. However, there’s a reason Batman first appeared in Detective Comics. He’s a detective. He investigates and then he fights when he has to. The bat motif is to reduce the need I would think. Just being Batman should be enough to scare the criminal into giving up and on occasion we’ve seen a criminal that smart. It’s not a biproduct of his trauma that causes him to run around in that costume, it’s a part of his intelligence, to make the criminals afraid of him. The fearful fighter is easier to beat when you remain calm and collected. We’ve seen it in plenty of stories. Without the suit Bruce is still a detective and even injured as he is we saw him rescue Jack and now he’s trying to find his doctor, his best chance of becoming Batman again and fulfilling his purpose.

So let’s go see him work on that.

Back in Gotham, Bruce is going back into his Hemingford Grey guise, figuring it’s the best way to continue searching for Asp without getting Bruce’s name in the press for renting a hotel. Odd thing as well is that Bruce isn’t returning to the manor just yet to allow Jean Paul to get a feel for the role of Batman’s job. Alfred calls him on the use of “job” and Bruce’s response is “Vocation. Mission. Hobby. Whatever.” That’s an odd way for Bruce to think of being Batman. Is it the distance he’s had from the identity or his concern that he’ll never assume it again? “Mission” is how modern writers like to have Bruce think about Batman. It’s all about “the mission”, not understanding the mission isn’t beating up criminals but either saving lives or bringing those who took those lives to justice.

Calling Tim we learn that Jean Paul is still locked up in the Batcave so now I continue to wonder how the timeflow was working. I think there was four or five Bat-Related titles at the time and not all of them were focused on this story, right? Too many cooks, and all that. We also learn that, as hinted previously, Shondra’s real name isn’t Shondra Kinsolving, though I’ll refer to her as such just the same and I won’t be changing the tag at the end of the article. Her real name is Sandra Asplin, and you can guess where Benedict got the “Asp” part of his name. They don’t say if Benedict is his real first name, but he clearly doesn’t like his parents. It also doesn’t say if Benny’s the natural son of the Asplins though we do know that Shondra is adopted…and we learn the reason why.

Hemingford, after foiling a gunman’s attempt on his life, goes to see the surviving Mrs. Asplin and gets the rest of the story. Mr. Asplin was a total racist and the Mrs suspects he just wanted someone to abuse as the reason for adopting a black girl. Then her healing power developed trying to help Benedict. He suggest that he was beaten by his father as well, though that doesn’t come in Mrs. Asplin’s telling. When her powers developed father of the never considered it the devil’s work. I guess the idea of metahumans was still relatively new or he was just that much of a horse’s rear. With some fine tuning he might fit into the Order Of St. Dumas. While we aren’t given the details we can guess that Shondra instinctively (or with Benedict’s encouragement) overhealed her “father” and killed him. Not soon enough but the point is Benedict convinces the drugged out Shodra to do the same to “mother” for not trying to stop him, which she tells Sir Hemingford just wasn’t done in those days, the wife standing up to her husband.

In truth, Benedict is just covering his tracks, though it’s too late as Hemingford/Bruce has the info on Shondra and that the brother exists. Even with Mrs. Asplin now gone they have enough to continue the investigation even if they don’t know all the details yet. Shondra did refuse to use her powers after that day and went to medical school, possibly still using her powers instinctively on harder cases like Jack’s and Bruce’s so hopefully she’s no longer believed doing this by her own free will, or at least there’s a bit more doubt for Bruce.

Chapter 15 opens with Benedict celebrating his mother’s death. The he tries to manipulate and drug Shondra into sharing his hate for his parents and pleasure over their death. Meanwhile, Tim learns that Benjamin Asplin, aka “Benedict Asp” (and like with Shondra I’ll be using the new name) was also adopted but apparently not beaten. So what was his beef with his adopted parents then? From there he also went to medical school but stole organs and was kicked out. From there he did who knows what kinds of experiments with the KGB in the field of parapsychology and drugs before vanishing. So was he always planning to turn his adopted sister into a weapon or did this just come up recently? Perhaps we’ll find out. What we do learn when he tries to turn her against Sir Hemingford for rescuing Jack but “not trying” to rescue her is that she’s sure he’s Bruce and despite being upset at the secrets (I don’t think she suspects he’s Batman) shares his feelings for her and is able to fight Benedict’s control off. Now he plans to kill some world leaders. I wonder what his end goal is?

Perhaps we’ll find out next time. This was a lot of exposition but exposition told very well between Tim’s research, Mrs. Asplin’s story, and what Benedict is doing to manipulate Shondra. It’s the presentation that keeps this from feeling like a huge exposition dump, so good on O’Neil for that. We’ll see what happens next chapter.