BATMAN BELONGS TO WARNER BROS.; A CREATION BY BOB KANE
I can hear Crane whimpering from here. He got a good taste of his own toxin, apparently, and he couldn't hold it. It is so pathetic, seeing him reduced to a trembling mess curled up in a corner of his cell.
Sniff!—Yeah, I guess that distracts me from my own failure...
I thought I had Batman this time, not gonna lie. I really did. I worked so much, so hard, I thought this was really it. Effort always has its reward, that's what Father always said.
I hear Crane moan, and the whispers from the guards, and it occurs to me that those hounds have been talking about me too, in the same way I am thinking about Crane right now. They mutter to each other, when they think we are asleep, but sleeping is something that rarely happens here. Everyone has their own obsessions keeping them up at night. I, for instance, can't stop thinking, making up new plans, inventing new riddles.
The night they brought me back in here they said about me, they said..."It was funny at first, all the riddles, these grandiloquent lectures... Did you see his cell, all filled with doodles and these intricate diagrams? It was fun at first. Good old Eddie being smug about how he's going to beat Batman and burn this place down. But now...Look at him. Honestly? It stopped being funny long ago."
Wrong! It is still funny.
It is true that I am not in my best moment, I concede that. There are not many mirrors in Arkham because folks tend to use their pieces to solve unfinished business among each other or cut themselves, but I have come across some reflections of my face and it is true that I kind of let myself go. I have put little focus on my appearance lately: barely showered, or ate, even, didn't put any effort in my wardrobe...I was too busy building, stealing money to fund my project, thinking...Mostly thinking...It does not matter to me, but it has made me realize of how invested I have been in beating Batman. And how everyone around sees me. The guy who's not smart enough to stop thinking about the detective and take care of himself, just for a day, or five minutes only.
If they saw him the way I see him...
But they don't understand. They can't imagine. They just don't know...
I don't think Batman got out from this because of Miss Kitty Cat's help, or his gadgets, or out of luck. He's intelligent. He really is. And I admire that. There are not many people in this confounded city I can match my wits with and he is one of them. That is why I love playing with him, challenging him to show me his true potential.
That is why I thought we were something...
Silly Edward. We were younger back then, both of us. I still wore glasses, had a respectable job, had a civilian identity...Then he showed up. Came out of the shadows unexpectedly, to punish the evil. To bring fear to their hearts. That impressed me like nothing ever did. That showed me the way. All the things I had seen at work...All the corruption I had to be quiet about...I finally saw what I had to do...Gotham couldn't get rid of what was rotting it unless it started making questions. The answers would take it to the truth, unveil the putrefaction, and give them the mental disposition to understand what had to be done with it. I thought Batman and I were on the same side. I admired him, I really did. I was certain that he agreed with me and would help me. After all, we were on the same side, weren't we? Turns out he was more close-minded than I thought.
I was patient. I have never stayed in Arkham very long. One just has to say the appropriate words to the psychiatrists and they let you out. Or you just join the others and find the way out. Either way, you never let Batman or Gotham forget you. So I went back to Batman, again and again, with new riddles, new problems to solve, hoping he would finally show some intelligence and realize he is the one who should be locked in here for thinking this trash city can be saved.
He always sends me here with some part of my body burst and many bruises, tells me I'm nuts, a psychopath, a monster. I know he doesn't mean it.
We have worked together. Every time he has had to face a particularly juicy riddle, he has come to me. To me. Out of all people. Not Kitty Cat, not Robin, the inspector...He always comes back to me. And it turns out fine. We are a great team. There is nothing we can't do together. We are birds of a feather, we are the most privileged minds in this city.
He's not Bruce Wayne.
No. Of course he's not.
He's just doing that to deceive me.
Poor people have it. Rich people need it. It can make you or break you. What is it?
Adversity.
Batman cannot be that playboy. Batman is one with the darkness. He must have come from a very dark place. Wayne knows nothing about pain. Sure, he witnessed his parents' murder at young age, but life was very kind to him after that. I am sure Mommy and Daddy were always too busy with their business and social life to pay much attention to him anyway; he lived with no one to control him in that massive mansion, had all money in the world to spend on his whims; and he grew up to be the most desired billionaire in the country, owner of an empire...It is not that his father beat him up while his mother just watched, Social Services took him away trying to protect him and sent him to a living hell, to grow up being rejected by families who were looking for some pretty baby and refused to even see the grown-ups...Witnessing how the carelessness of some killed many, having to close your eyes and think of riddles all day so you can't see...And when you leave what was supposed to be the most special time of your life, when you get into adulthood and realize that the world is even darker and grosser than you thought it was when you were a child...
...
I should have kidnapped Wayne personally. I should have made sure he got that blast, with no butlers and servants around to take the shot for him. Rich people like those, always hiding behind someone inferior...
No, my Batman is not that way. The likes of Wayne would never get their hands dirty for others. They prefer to sit in their ivory towers safely to watch others do the job. Even the Mayor and the public opinion had to make him share the leftovers from his fortune with the people; he would have kept living the best life if it wasn't for them. No. No, no! Batman is very different. He knows money does only part of the job. One has to take action.
Batman—the smug Wayne, who flashed his stupid smile to us, poor orphans, as if he felt true sympathy or could even image what we were going through? Impossible.
Bruce Wayne—the brave and intelligent Batman, the only person who has ever been a challenge to me, the only one I could ever call my equal? Absurd.
No. A thousand times no. It must be a trick. And I applaud him for that. He got to fool the whole city. Everyone in here talks about it all the time. But I know the truth. He is only doing that to make me nervous. Some sort of psychological punishment, of course, just like when he said I would rot in here and no one would remember me. He's teasing me. All these times I played with his mind, now he's playing with me. It's fair. He claimed to be Bruce Wayne because he still remembers what I told him, he knows how much I hate his guts.
If he remembers our conversation, it's because he cares.
Yes, he didn't forget everything I told him, when we were younger and didn't have everything figured out yet.
...He still can change. It's not too late.
I can still make him see my point of view. I can still bring him to my understanding. He will stop making a fool of himself and finally join me. He will see my side is the correct side. I will create a riddle that will pose the right question. He will realize then that they only care about him in this town because he gives them the illusion that they are all victims and that they are safe. He will stop breaking his spine carrying the sins of this city and we will burn it down together.
What is always coming but never arrives?
Tomorrow...
THE END
