Batman's Gnarliest Cases

Batman's Gnarliest Cases

April 1, 2011

Hi, guys.

So, Cosmopolis, Batboy and Rubin find themselves up against the Fugle Gang and Rubin panics. Batboy says they should run, but then realizes he has a vial of secret gas in his utility belt. He makes quick work of the villains and then the heroes depart in their Battlemobile. Rubin is confident that they've eliminated the person or persons responsible for the recent killing spree. However, he discovers a pair of gloves in the glove compartment... with a corpse inside. Batboy switches to the Battlecycle and they try to swing down on the ones responsible. They go through a wall and find themselves facing the Dead-End Kids, the Fleagle Gang. Batboy and Rubin run until Batboy realizes he has tiny hairbrushes hidden in his utility belt, and administers a series of spankings.

A page later, Batboy and Rubin swing across Cosmopolis and discover another victim fastened to their rope. They get to the Battle-Wagon and go after the Flurgle Gang, the only ones left who could be responsible. They swing through the wall to the hideout of the Flurgle Gang, a bevy of beautiful women. They try to wrestle with them but are quickly knocked down, and revert to nuclear weaponry. In the aftermath, Batboy and Rubin are confident there will be no more murders. They go back to their headquarters, only to discover another body. Rubin realizes that the villain can only be... Batboy, who knocks him down from behind. He removes Rubin's boots and explains that he made two punctures in each victim’s big toes, and sucked out the blood, because he is... Vampire Batboy! He proceeds to feed on Rubin...

Bat-Mite interrupts the adventure to explain that as an all-powerful fifth-dimensional being, he can view the adventures of an infinite number of different Batmans. He begins to tell the stories of Batman's Strangest Cases. He fast-forwards through the opening credits and then tells the tale of Bat-Manga.

In their last adventure, Batman and Robin triumphed over their archenemy, Lord Death Man. The heroes watch as Lord Death Man is buried, confident that there's no way that he could escape from the grave a second time. Everything goes dark and Batman finds himself facing Lord Death Man, who grows to giant size and releases his head to attack... and Bruce wakes up from his nightmare. He and Dick Grayson are attending Mr. Starr's party, and Mr. Starr introduces a swami who can be buried for an hour and survive without air. Sixty minutes later, Mr. Starr digs him up and reveals that the swami has survived. The swami explains that he uses a secret yoga method, and Batman realizes that Lord Death Man used the same method. They go to the graveyard and dig up Lord Death Man's coffin, and find it empty except for a note offering the coffin as a gift. Lord Death Man emerges and orders his men to emerge from the graves and open fire. Batman goes down in a hail of gunfire.

Batman falls into a grave and Lord Death Man orders his men to bury him. However, Batman swings out of the grave, knocks down the henchmen, and swings into the Batmobile. Robin disarms Lord Death Man and gets into the vehicle, and they lay down a cloud of smoke. Robin takes the wheel and swings the Batmobile around, allowing Batman to take out the henchmen. Lord Death Man takes off in a helicopter and drops bombs on them, and Robin activates the smokescreen. Lord Death Man flies into power lines and his helicopter explodes. Batman and Robin are confident that the villain parachuted away to safety despite his apparent death, and laugh in triumph.

Bat-Mite moves onto the third strange adventure, featuring Batman's team up with the greatest detective of all time: Scooby-Doo.

The Mystery Gang visits the theater where their favorite songster, Weird Al Yankovic, is scheduled to perform. The ticket girl is surprised that anyone would want to be there, says it's their funeral, and closes up. Inside, Weird Al is performing to an audience of two. The elderly stage manager explains to the gang that everyone else has been scared away by the Footlight Phantom. The ghostly villain appears on the stage and makes Weird Al disappear in a cloud of smoke. Fred snags the villain and they unmask him, and are surprised to discover that it's the Joker. The villain introduces his partner, the Penguin, and they prepare to dispose of the meddling kids.

The villains place the gang on one dish of a giant set of scales, positioned above a shark tank. Scooby-Doo is tied up next to the other side, which is filled with Scooby Snacks. Scooby-Doo can't resist eating them, and the Joker and Penguin leave to hunt down treasure. However, Batman and Robin arrive to stop Scooby-Doo before he can doom his comrades. After a brief safety announcement about sharks, the Dynamic Duo free the Mystery Gang and explain that the Joker and Penguin learned that the theater once belonged to Benny "Bulldog" Benson, a notorious criminal who hid a fortune in the theater before he died. The theater is due to be torn down so they're looking for the money. Fred has a plan, but Shaggy and Scooby-Doo head for the Batmobile. Batman assures them that they'll be safe... as long as they follow the plan.

The Joker and Penguin have no luck finding the hidden money. The lights go out and the ghost of Bulldog appears, thanks to a smoke machine, lights, mirrors, and Scooby and Shaggy in a trench coat. They call upon the villains to surrender, but accidentally drop their coat. Batman and Robin swing in and the villains run away in terror, Bat-Mite gets bored with the chase and notes that in the 60s, the heroes weren't allowed to punch people. With a little fifth-dimensional magic, heroes and villains are soon engaged in a fistfight. When it looks like the heroes will be defeated, Bat-Mite gives Scooby and Shaggy fighting abilities as well, and the villains are quickly overwhelmed. Batman entangles the Penguin in his Batrope, while the Joker is hit in the head with an accordion by... Weird Al, who explains that the Joker dropped him down a trapdoor into an old elevator, and Bulldog's bags of cash broke his fall. Batman promises that millionaire Bruce Wayne will match the money to help Al build a Polka and Novelty Song Hall of Fame, and the Mystery Gang polka to celebrate while Batman and Robin quietly slip away. Bat-Mite finishes his story and explains that his bat-trophy room goes on forever. He invites the audience to join him again, and then tunes into "Legends of the Dark Mite!"

But we don't stop here, because White Knight sends Rex and Bobo to La Selva to investigate attacks on a local Providence base by a group of radicals known as the Green Fist. White Knight fears that the Green Fist are kidnapping EVOs from the base and selling them on the black market to Van Kleiss. He sends Rex and Bobo into the jungle to apprehend the radicals. White also tells Rex to exercise caution, since the locals view Providence's presence as bad news.

Upon getting there, Rex can immediately tell that the locals do not like them very much. He meets the head of the local chapter of Providence named Oso Maretelo. Oso shows Rex around the base and introduces him to the EVOs kept in the Kennel. Oso states that the smaller EVOs are harmless and actually quite friendly, and he would let them go if it were not bad for diplomacy. The larger ones, on the other hand, taking one that resembles a saber tooth cat as an example, are incredibly dangerous and are shipped to the Petting Zoo to be contained indefinitely.

After Rex saves Oso from the EVO he had just described, Oso offers to buy Rex and Bobo a drink at the local bar. There Rex observes that as a result of Providence's strenuous relationship with the locals, they are getting weird looks. Rex's attempts to improve relations with the locals results in him getting challenged to a drinking contest of horchata anejo by a woman named Valentina. When Rex discovers the nasty truth about the milk, he spits it out on the woman, triggering a bar fight and resulting in Rex, Bobo, and Maretelo getting thrown out.

That night Rex sets up a trap for the Green Fist. Using Bobo as bait, they plan to lure the Green Fist into the Kennel and capture them. They succeed but the E.V.O.s are turned loose in the process. Rex discovers that Valentina is the leader of the Green Fist; worse yet, the EVO Rex saved Oso from earlier is loose and infects two members of the Green Fist and Rex with a powerful venom.

Rex talks to Dr. Holiday and learns that his nanites are slowing the effect of the toxin, but it will eventually kill him and the other infected people. Dr. Holiday can synthesize an antidote if Rex can collect a sample of the EVO's DNA. When Valentina is interrogated by Oso and Bobo, she states that she is neither capturing nor kidnapping EVOs but in fact is releasing them into the wild where she believes they belong.

Valentina offers her services in capturing the EVO she set free, since its poison is also killing her men. Rex, Bobo and Valentina go solo into the jungle to capture the EVO. After a long chase, Rex lures the EVO over a net trap and Valentina triggers it, thus capturing the EVO. After Rex gets a DNA sample he attempts to cure the EVO only to discover it is not an EVO at all.

Valentina suddenly realizes that it is the legendary Chupacabra. Realizing this, Rex cuts it loose since it has been a part of the natural order longer than man. Rex also decides to let Valentina go since he owes her for the antitoxin. Rex and Bobo leave the jungle having improved Providence's relationship with the locals by promising them goats to replace the ones slain recently by El Chupacabra.

But we're not done yet, because the battle droid reinforcements land on Felucia, unaware that they are already being watched by Jedi Masters Plo Koon and Anakin Skywalker, along with Ahsoka. They decide to attack before the droids can secure their position: Anakin is to lead a frontal attack, Koon comes in from the flank, and Ahsoka is to scale the base's back wall with a clone trooper detachment, an assignment which she accepts with the usual cocky exchange between herself and Anakin.

Alerted by the approach of the Republic AT-TEs and Juggernaut turbo tanks, the droids scramble from the base, only to run right into Anakin's ambush. Master Koon, Commander Wolffe, and their squad use jetpacks to penetrate the compound, while Ahsoka's team prepares to scale the wall. But while approaching the base, Ahsoka has sensed a strange presence in the area. Just before she is to climb up last, she is ambushed, hit by a stun net and shocked into unconsciousness, and kidnapped. She comes to locked in a cage inside a Trandoshan transporter, where she learns from a fellow prisoner that she and the others are to be used as a prospective hunting trophy for a group of villainous Trandoshans. To make matters worse, the leader of the capturing party decides to give Ahsoka to his son Dar to prove his mettle.

Ahsoka and her fellow prisoners are brought to the Trandoshan moon Wasskah and deposited on the briar-infested Island Four. Under the initial fire by the villains, some of the prisoners are gunned down immediately, but Ahsoka manages to hide in the nearby briar forest. She is found and joined by three Jedi younglings, Kalifa, O-Mer, and Jinx, who have been captured some time previously on a training mission and brought here to be hunted as well, but have been able to evade their would-be murderers so far, even though they have to keep moving every day to avoid drawing the hunters to their hideout. Ahsoka finds the three younglings, who have been forced to fend for themselves for too long, despondent and grim, fighting for their survival and no longer expecting any help to come.

The next morning, the Trandoshans open the hunt, and Ahsoka has to learn that their harsh experiences has hardened her comrades to the plight of others, as the hunters kill two of the prisoners who arrived with Ahsoka. Determined to change that, Ahsoka takes action and ambushes a lone Trandoshan, briefly grabbing his neck with the Force to slam him down, only for him to gain the upper hand and nearly shoot her, prompting Kalifa to nearly choke him to death. After Ahsoka stops Kalifa from killing out of hatred, the hunter calls for help, forcing them to retreat. Having survived the day, Kalifa unexpectedly professes hope that Ahsoka, as an advanced learner in the use of the Force, can help them recover what they have lost. Drawing on her military experience, Ahsoka begins to formulate a plan to strike at the Trandoshans' base.

The next morning, they find the base to be a ship hovering among the clouds, but then the hunting resumes, forcing them to split up. Kalifa, who accompanies Ahsoka, is shot off a briar branch and lands, winded and injured, on the ground, with Dar in hot pursuit. Before he can shoot her, Ahsoka intervenes and engages him in hand-to-hand combat, which ends with Dar falling on a large thorn on the ground, killing him. Enraged, Garnac, who was Dar's father, opens fire on the two young Jedi, fatally injuring Kalifa. Just before Kalifa dies, Ahsoka promises her to look after the others before being forced to retreat.

In the meantime, after noticing Ahsoka's absence, Anakin has the area around the droid base searched repeatedly without success. Though forced to call off the search, he is still driven to find Ahsoka until, back at the Jedi Temple, Plo Koon gives him counsel that he should trust Ahsoka's innate skills and strengths to see her through and find a way back to him.