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 |  | | | Comics - Story Arcs - Batman - Knightsend
Part 1
Batman #509
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Part 2
SotB #29
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Part 3
Detective #676
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Part 4
LotDK #62
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Part 5
Robin #8
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Part 6
Catwoman #12
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Part 7
Batman #510
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Part 8
SotB #30
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Part 9
Detective #677
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Part 10
LotDK #63
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Part 11
Robin #9
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Part 12
Catwoman #13
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Part 13
Showcase '94 #10
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SUMMARY:
Jean-Paul Valley sees visions of his dead father, who had programmed
him at birth to be a deadly weapon. These visions tell Jean-Paul to
avenge his father's death, and Jean-Paul searches Gotham for his
father's killer. Though the killer, Carlton Lehah, had already been
encountered and defeated in Sword of Azrael, Jean Paul's conditioning
had warped his mind to the extent that he no longer remembered the
incident. He eventually comes to believe that Selkirk, a Gotham mobster
who has taken over the remnants of Lehah's organization, is his father's
murderer.
Returning to Gotham, Bruce meets Robin. He is impressed enough with
Jean-Paul to let him remain as Batman but when Robin tells him of
Abattoir's death, Bruce sneaks into the Batcave and demands that
Jean-Paul step down. Jean-Paul refuses and threatens to kill Bruce if he
ever returns. In response, Bruce asks the deadly assassin Lady Shiva to
retrain him. Since Bruce had once been the only person capable of
surviving a fight with her, he figures that nobody could better prepare
him to fight Jean-Paul. Shiva pits Bruce against several expert martial
artists after killing their master in what would become Bruce's
disguise, the Mask of Tengu (a bat spirit).
Shiva continued to send assassins after Wayne, with the caveat that
these attacks will continue indefinitely until Wayne breaks his solemn
vow to never take a life. Finally, in the midst of another attack, Wayne
uses the deadly Leopard Blow Shiva had taught him, leaving his would-be
assailant dead and Shiva finally declaring him worthy of fighting her
(at some point in the future). Unbeknownst to Bruce, Robin and Nightwing
had tailed Wayne and had seen the whole thing. As Shiva departed and
Wayne was left to hear Nightwing chastise him over how everything Batman
had ever taught was a lie, the man struck by the Leopard Blow came back
around, as Bruce had merely struck him hard enough that Shiva would
believe for the time being that Wayne had killed the man. Bruce had
figured out that Shiva put a radio transmitter in his mask, and decided
that he was back to peak physical condition and thus did not need any
more of Shiva's game.
Bruce returns to the Batcave and dons the original Batman costume. He
vows to take Gotham back. Along with Robin and Nightwing, he tracks
Valley down to Selkirk's penthouse, as the other heroes had been
watching Jean-Paul for a while and knew he sought his father's killer.
Coincidentally, Catwoman is chasing the same man because he owns a
neural enabler that might allow a paraplegic to walk again. Selkirk
already wanted to kill Jean-Paul for destroying a valuable weapons cache
in Gotham Harbor.
When they eventually all meet, Bruce, Jean-Paul, and Selkirk fight. The
battle ends in the mobster's helicopter as Jean-Paul's grapnel gun locks
one of the rotors and Catwoman knocks away a gun intended to kill Bruce
and Jean-Paul. The helicopter crashes into the Gotham Narrows Bridge;
coupled with fuel from the chopper mixing with Jean-Paul's
flame-thrower, he falls into the Gotham River. Bruce and Catwoman save
Selkirk and his aides just before the helicopter explodes from the
leaking gasoline. When Bruce tries to find Jean-Paul using the Batmobile,
it explodes. Having realized that Jean-Paul would have booby-trapped the
car Bruce escaped just in time. After the explosion, Nightwing fears
Bruce dead and takes his vengeance out on Jean-Paul on a party boat. The
police arrive in time to prevent Nightwing's murder, but Jean-Paul
escapes. However, to his shock, Jean-Paul finds Bruce waiting at Wayne
Manor.
The final battle of the Knightfall saga takes place in the caverns
surrounding the Batcave between Jean-Paul and Bruce Wayne: rather than
beating Jean-Paul at hand-to-hand combat, Bruce escapes into a passage
too narrow for Jean-Paul to go through in his armor, forcing him to
remove most of it. Bruce then opens a hatch to the outside, which
covered the very hole he fell into as a child, allowing sunlight to stab
at the night lenses in Jean-Paul's helmet. After being momentarily
blinded, Jean-Paul sees Bruce staring down at him in the original Batman
costume and concedes defeat, saying "You are Batman... and I am
nothing." Bruce comforts Jean-Paul, who leaves Gotham to travel the
world and find his purpose as had Bruce. Bruce decides not to take
Jean-Paul to the police because it was his decision to make Jean-Paul
the Batman. Also, Bruce does not want to risk the possibility that
people start thinking that he is the real Batman.
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COLLECTED IN:
Batman: Knightfall, Part Three: Knightsend
(BUY Trade Paper Back from the BYTB Supercenter!)
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