Title: Dark Knight, Dark Rider
Part: 4
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Georges Jeanty
Page 1-4: Opening scene took place at a ranch. Goons are messing up a family (Two of them are named later as Chuck and Lucky).They hang the father in a tree and left to die, fired a shot on a young lad, and killed the family dog. They got what they wanted: A casket marked by a bat (which tells us that this family is the Van Derms for they are the only family entrusted in keeping that casket). Upon leaving they took the daughter, Catherine "Katie" with them. Seeing what happened to her family the mother while weeping, prayed and asked God for an avenging angel.
Page 5: And her prayer was answered.
Note: This scene took place before the last pages of Issue #3
Page 6-9: Someone narrates this whole event and supposedly this someone is committing suicide on Gotham bridge. We’ll know who he is later.
Gotham City, late 1800’s.
After hiring Hex, Chuck and Lucky brought him to the boss’ place. The boss works out on a saloon which is also a gambling establishment. He is no other than Vandal Savage now known as Monsewer Sauvage.
The Indian we saw is not Miagani, but he seems like he knew something about them, maybe one of the last shamans to be able to read or speak the Miagani Language. He’s scared of the Bat-People, and as he relays Miagani legends about “end of the world”; Hex’s fee just went up.
Note 1: I don’t know if Savage remembers his encounter with Bruce in Issue #1, but right now he is much consumed with memories of a more recent encounter at the side of Napoleon a few decades earlier. Aside from Bonaparte, Savage’s line "They ALL betray me" may also refer to the blood mob that vanished him after he was defeated by Bruce, also in Issue #1.
Note 2: Savage's “Cut yourself shaving?” seems like taken from the Jonah Hex movie.
Page 10-12: Bruce followed Chuck and Lucky from the Van Derm ranch to Gotham. And we see Cowboy Dark Knight in action!
Note: Bruce doesn't say a word…in this entire issue.
Page 13-14: All this talk about the Miagani has got our superstitious Indian, “Midnight Horse” rattled. Savage’s motives for opening the casket seem pretty simple. He’s an immortal, he's been alive for so long, and he’s bored. The end of the world will be a relief for his boredom.
Page 15: An introduction of another villain, who shares Savage's gift of extended life, The Thomas Wayne earlier referred to as a devil-worshiper in Batman and Robin #10. We also found out that this Thomas Wayne, like Bruce’s father, is a doctor. And he tremendously imposes Catherine Van Derm to open the box when suddenly, Catherine heard bells ringing.
Page 16-17: There is nothing to tell us whether or not this Thomas Wayne is Doctor Hurt aside from these clues:
1. He’s a doctor.
2. He confirmed that he’s one of the devil worshipers from the story "Dark Knight, Dark City" that happened a decade ago from this timeline.
3. He's a "gambler" associating gambling with Doctor Hurt, who's whole Black Glove is a gambling society that gambles on good vs. evil.
4. Hurt, as El Penitente, followed Vandal Savage's suggestion to build an empire in Mexico as a base from which to attack America.
5. And like Hurt, he likes using dynamites.
Page 18-21: After defeating every goon inside the saloon including Chuck and Lucky. Bruce went after Savage and Thomas, who still held Catherine as captive.
Note: We can say that this is the second time Chuck and Lucky meets Cowboy Batman, the first is before they hired Hex in Issue #3 when they are followed someplace else near Gotham City after they slaughtered the Van Derms at the beginning of this issue. Unfortunately, Cowboy Bats can’t rescue Catherine in both of these meetings because she was already taken somewhere.
Page 22: Thomas continues to force Catherine to open the casket while they are being chase by Cowboy Batman.
This time we’re sure that Savage remembers his first encounter with Bruce in Issue #1.
Hex enters the scene and fired a couple of shots at Bruce. Cowboy Dark Knight answered by throwing a batarang at Hex.
Page 23: The batarang flew and went straight to Hex’s arm and the bounty hunter fell from his horse.
Round 1 goes to Cowboy Batman. (Applause!)
The battle continues at the wagon’s rooftop between Bruce and Thomas as the wagon approaches Gotham bridge.
Now we can see our narrator who is about to commit suicide by jumping off the bridge. He is Alan Wayne. Judge Solomon’s son, and Bruce’s great great-grandfather.
Note: The architect that Alan was referring in the note is Cyrus Pinkney. Solomon Wayne commissioned Pinkney to design and to build the first "Gotham Style" structures in what became the center of the city's financial district (Batman: The Destroyer, Part 2).
Page 24-25: Just as Alan is ready to jump off the bridge the wagon fell down behind him. At the moment he saw Catherine he was love-struck.
Note: Joshua Wayne (Judge Solomon’s brother) was mentioned in the last pages of Issue #3. According to Gotham’s history Joshua’s “rumored” death occurred on 1860 (Batman: Secret Files and Origins, 1997). Here, Alan looks like in his 20’s, so basically this event took place around 1880 or 1890.
For reasons that are not stated, it seems like Alan is escaping his family legacy that he considers ‘haunted’. Maybe it has something to do with his father and Pinkney’s “Future Gotham” project because during that time many criticized that Pinkney’s edifices (which are under Solomon Wayne’s patronage) only further tarnished the image of Gotham (Batman: Secret Files and Origins, 1997).
“And thus my resolution: our line, the line of Wayne, would forever be a house unfinished…Better a house unfinished than one forever haunted.” Alan said in the note.
Bruce gave Catherine an ancient necklace that belongs to Anthro’s wife, White Fawn. Then Catherine uttered “My Momma wouldn’t ever have parted with this. Not ‘less she sent you. This is from the Olden Days.”
Note: Back in Issue #1 Anthro’s son, “Man”, said that the necklace would never leave their family and would be passed down their family line, forever and ever (Now, imagine that told in cave man language). This suggests that the Van Derms are the descendants of Anthro.
Catherine whistles and the casket opens. Bruce’s eyes go wide as he looked inside the casket.
Note: Whistle-activated traps were a trick used by the Miagani back in the cave in Issue #3. Thus, the Van Derms indeed must be descended from the Miagani.
Page 26: Savage hit Thomas' head with a pistol while the Doctor proclaims what’s inside the box belongs to him. Savage seems to see Bruce Wayne as a giant bat (Barbatos) due to hallucination (caused by opium overdosed. Basically he’s high.) But what's weird is he sees Alan and Catherine as nothing but mortal bones.
Thomas told Bruce “Are you one too? I’ll get you all in the end!” before yelling for Hex’s help. He might be referring to Bruce as being “one of the Waynes and he swear to destroy them all in the end”. Another clue for him being Hurt. This also suggests that he’s not a real Wayne but a pretender. Whether a biological Wayne or not, This Thomas truly is a black sheep in the Wayne family just like what Alfred told Damian in Batman and Robin #10.
Page 27-28: Round 2, Jonah Hex vs. Cowboy Batman. Hex asked Bruce to draw.
Unfortunately for Cowboy Bats, Hex’s gun is drawn already. Hex fired a shot throwing Bruce unto Gotham river, at that moment Bruce already disappeared, jumped into another timeline.
Round 2 goes to the greatest bounty hunter of all time. (Boo!)
Sometime, after that incident Alan and Catherine were wed. They had a son, named Kenneth (Bruce’s great grandfather). Unfortunately, Catherine died while giving birth to him.
Note 1: Alan refers to Kenneth as a "dark son" Is this only because his birth killed his mother? Is Kenneth another bad Wayne like this Thomas? That we do not know. All we know is that Kenneth started Wayne Chemicals and apparently died early leaving the Wayne legacy to his widow, Laura and his son, Patrick(Batman: Secret Files and Origins 1997).
Note 2: As Alan’s life hangs in the balance that night. Fate in the form of Bruce Wayne intervenes who doesn't just saved his great great-grandfather’s life; he also introduced him to his great great-grandmother. Awhile ago, we learned that the Van Derms descended from the Miagani. This Van Derm/Wayne union means that Bruce is part Miagani. It’s in his blood.
Page 29: Back in the Old West, Alan wrote about how Hex is probably the lucky one in the whole affair for he took Bonaparte’s gold with him. But Hex only keeps Bruce’s batarang and rides off into the sunset, leaving Bonaparte’s gold behind.
Page 30: Alan Wayne doesn't exactly confirmed that he knows Thomas Wayne was a ‘Wayne’. But we learned that Thomas has been alive for 150 years. If this event took place around 1880, He then was born around 1730 and approximately 35 years old when Barbatos ritual occurred in 1765(Batman:Dark Knight, Dark City).
Note: Alan said that Thomas sought the secret of life eternal, which is something that someone who lived over a century with a youthful appearance might seem already have. Maybe he has only extended his life through evil means, giving him a really long life, but not eternal.
Thomas flees Gotham for England, with passage on the S.S. Orion (the name of the constellation as well as the new god who died at the beginning of Final Crisis) for Liverpool.
Note: Alan hints that Thomas uses blood to achieve his goal. Given the timing, there are speculations that Thomas became Jack the Ripper in England, but that was too far fetched.
As Thomas departed from Gotham, Alan and Catherine seem to continue finishing the Wayne Manor. Before her death, Catherine instructed him to keep the casket safe and mark it with a bat. “He must return” says Catherine. Alan proceed to design the bat shaped “Garden of Death”, with his own crypt in the middle of it.
Note: It is more likely that Alan constructed the secret room at Wayne Manor. He also seem to have been quite well informed about the Wayne/Van Derm family secrets: The Satanic Church on the estate grounds, the Underground Railroad, and the Hidden Room connecting to the old Miagani cave which is meant to hide the Bruce's casket that Dick found in Batman and Robin #11 but got stolen by the 99 fiends.
Page 31: Now we see Bruce time jumped to what seems like 1980’s Gotham City (notice the X-rated theaters all over the place). Basically, He is a child in this time period where the adult him has arrived.
We don't see what Bruce saw inside the casket, but he removes his book from the 1640’s (Issue #2) and took it with him. The items of the casket are thus separated for now. Injured, he tried to cross the street but got hit by a truck.
Page 32: Bruce is bathing in his own blood with the book in his hand. Other pages of the book flew out. A tabloid apparently swept by the wind shows the headline “Broken Gotham: Crime, Corruption, and Chaos…What’s next for fallen city?” suggesting that the next issue will show us the events leading up to the Wayne murders, and more likely about Hurt.
But right now, if not given immediate medical attention, Bruce might die. He already lost too much blood from his gun wound.
He surely needs the help…of the City Doctor.
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