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

Over halfway through the book and now only two chapters left in part 2 of 3. Last time we saw how ungrateful Jean Paul is, leaving Bruce on his own to stop Benedict Asp. He really is a jerk.

“Jean Paul or Benedict?”

Technically both. I’m curious if part 3 will allow me to come up with more to talk about. I think I’ve said everything about my opinion of the people involved, so let me show you this. Many of you have seen this moment before.

It may be a different continuity but this is a side of Batman that Jean Paul doesn’t have, even though he too lost out on a childhood. He’s compassionate. He isn’t doing this out of revenge or to make someone suffer and pay for their sins. He does it to keep another child from being him, even for a short while. It’s his heart, not his “pain”, that drives him to be Batman no matter what any of the writers will tell you. Now let’s see what Bruce is going to do with nobody to help him, an injured back, and captured by a madman. Or for Bruce…Thursday.

We start with a really good moment with Robin (still Tim Drake) and Commissioner Gordon. In the 60s TV show Gordon couldn’t catch a purse snatcher without picking up the red phone under glass to call Batman. Here we see that despite being mostly a desk jockey he still retains the skills that got him the commissioner’s job. He knows Jean Paul isn’t the real Batman (of course he doesn’t know it’s Jean Paul, just that he doesn’t talk or act like Batman) and believed witnesses that Batman has a bad back thanks to Bane. He’s also decided his unofficial deal with Batman extends to Robin in not trying to find out who he is. Gordon was contacted by real Batman about the tracking device, which we know Asp’s people found, but the signal loss is being blamed on a storm in the area. I guess this is to ensure this is Bruce’s victory alone, that none of the Batcrew could help him…even the ones that actually want to. This is what makes Gordon so cool.

I’m also noticing that, after recently re-listening to the Legends Of Robin audio adaptation for Saturday Night Showcase earlier this year that this has become the Tim Drake Robin in my head as I read these lines. Do I need to pay Jim Soriero money now? Things have become confusing recently in the voice acting world. Also I keep writing “Tales” instead of “Legends”.

Now don’t get me wrong. Stopping the crazed killer isn’t a bad thing, though Valley is still more into vengeance than protection. Still, when he puts clues together and figures out the killer is Abattoir, a villain we reading the novel saw all the way back in chapter 8 of part one of this novel, it’s not a bad thing trying to stop him. It’s just how little he cared about leaving Bruce to his fate because “I’m the Batman now”. Abattoir believes that by killing his own family he can absorb their souls for power. Yeah, not as unlikely as you’d think but there’s a reason he’s Batman’s enemy and not Zatanna’s or the Phantom Stranger’s. He doesn’t have dark magic powers, he’s just crazy, and that’s Batman territory. Valley does try to warn the guy he thinks is the next victim but then decides he has to go find Abattoir first. He’s almost Batman but he’ll still never be Batman. Not even in the 1990s.

Of note here is that while he does put the clues together in his own way, Jean Paul is ignorant of certain concepts, concepts forbidden or shunned by the Order Of St. Dumas and thus wouldn’t be part of his upbringing or his lost childhood, a theme in today’s chapter. Concepts like “passion”, the romantic/sexual kind as when that theory is dropped in the news as to the mass killing in the room, go right over his head. Love and sex are two things he probably doesn’t know about. Can’t wait to see someone call him an “incel”. By the way, I finally looked up that word. Know what it means? “Involuntarily celibate”. So it really is a hit below the belt…so to speak. They’re still laughing at someone who can’t get any action or may even be a virgin. At least they aren’t laughing at the people doing so by choice. They just try to insist that doesn’t and should exist. They kiss my fuzzy fanny sideways.

Meanwhile, Bruce finally comes to and tries to escape his room. He had hidden compartments in his wheelchair because of course he does and he’s able to escape and find Shondra, who is fighting regression into her childhood. A childhood that included messing with Benny’s mind so he’d play with her and of course killing their father. She’s regretful of all of that, but Bruce tries to point out that she also did good. She used her powers, consciously or not, to heal others, including himself and Jack Drake. This is the Batman who held the hand of a frightened superpowered girl as she died rather than kill her before her death throws destroyed the world, and was right. He’s the one who took in a young boy, angry at his parents’ murder high above the circus ring and channeled his pain into becoming a crusader for good, in essence building his own conscience. He’s the only who tried to teach a young thief to be a better person, but only failed because he didn’t realize or didn’t want to believe the kid was too far gone. He’s the one who tried to reform assassins, including his own offspring. There is more to Batman than being “vengeance” or “the night”, which would make him the property of Darkwing Duck anyway.

What’s interesting is that Bruce can no longer remember the Sir Hemingford Gray identity. Shondra killed him but because it wasn’t really him, just a character he created–a different state of mind but with the same goals and values–it was “Hemingford” who died, leaving “Bruce” behind, while Bruce is still wondering if despite his skills whether or not “Batman” is still there. I’m betting that’s the story of part three. Unfortunately, Shondra/Sandra mentions Bruce’s full name. Asp and his assistant know who he is, even if he doesn’t know he’s Batman. Sure, he could just kill him right now, but you know he won’t. Benedict Asp is kind of messed up in his own way. Only now he knows his enemy…and Bruce is in trouble.

One chapter left. How will Bruce get out of this and will Jean Paul stop Abattoir? Find out next time as we end part 2 of Batman: Knightfall. I’m guessing somebody’s about to die.