Where issue 2 begins, Batman is very much getting the volts carried over from issue 1, but he has a savior in the name of Commissioner Jim Gordon.
After their little phone call, Gordon has apparently filled in the blanks as to where Batman was headed and rushed over to Black Gate himself to talk to the warden. When he gets there, he finds Batman in the chair at the end of the green mile and hurriedly stops the whole thing.
This starts an argument between Gordon and the warden Debesso over who has the authority to decide who gets the chair and who doesn’t Gordon reminds him that you can’t kill a man who hasn’t been convicted of any crime – yet, at least. During the heated discussion, one of the officers looks over to find the chair now empty, and Batman missing. They are stunned how a man could survive such a thing, when by all rights he should be dead.
Batman, although injured, manages to escape the prison, stealing Gordon’s car to get out of dodge. Also, more arguing ensues between Gordon and the warden, with the warden claiming Gordon is not fit to be the commissioner, and that he’s the reason Gotham is in shambles.
Having heard enough, Gordon tries to leave to, but of course his car is gone.
As for Batman, he drives back to Wayne Manor and spends the rest of the night and well into the following days nursing his burns.
In the meantime, we are finally introduced to Johnny The Whip in a cutaway, at an old rundown apartment. Someone named The Voice gives him orders over an old radio that there are two things that must be done in order to make Gotham his – kill the bat, and kill Gordon.
Days later, we pick up again at Wayne Manor where Bruce is still healing.
There’s a familiar face that comes back knocking on the door in the way of Julie Madison from issue 1. She was one of the actors who came to skin Bruce alive for the delay of her movie shoot, only this time she’s come to apologize. Bruce is in no condition for company, however, not to mention he’s canceled lunch with Gordon all week because trickily explained burns. He doesn’t want to see anyone, but after several ignored attempts, Julie lets herself inside the house.
She finds Bruce upstairs, eventually, attempting to put on some burn cream. He asks her to leave but not one to take no for an answer, seeing that he has no one to take care of him, she helps him out and applies the cream and fixes him tea.
Their conversation this time winds up being more pleasant than the last. To the point Bruce even asks her on a date. She declines immediately she says because of the nature of the relationship with her co-star who was with her before. They have an interesting agreement that requires him to ward off her potential suitors and managers looking to take advantage of her, while she provides him with a cover of being his girlfriend, possibly because the man is gay? It doesn’t say that explicitly but you get the idea.
In any case, she does end up accepting Bruce’s invitation, on the stipulation that it has to be secret. Bruce accepts and she leaves, encouraging him to avoid fixing anymore fuse boxes by himself.
That night, with his wounds tended to, the Bat goes back into action while the mayor publically puts Gordon on notice during a radio interview. But Gordon is too exhausted to deal with anymore crap and just wants to go home after days of barely any sleep. Thankfully, Batman has returned his car and he could if it weren’t for the attempted hit taking place on the mayor across town.
Johnny The Whip and his squad of “dead” men are waiting patiently as a plane blazes down and lights up the mayor’s car with bullets on the bridge. Ready to mop up the survivors, Johnny joins in to finish the job with his chopper until Batman shows up.
An all out firefight takes place on the bridge between Johnny and his men, some GCPD officers, and Batman. With Batman’s help the mayor is still able to escape, but things start to get to hot after, and he’s forced to dive off the bridge and take a swim to safety. Emerging on the shore in front of a shanty town, scaring some of the locals, he seems to be in the right place at the right time again when he notices a couple of hustlers trying to shake down the rabbi who saved him the other night. But Batman deals with him easily, and then he and the rabbi walk back to the synagogue for another little conversation.
Except this ends up being one of those rare moments in Batman comics where he reveals his true identity to someone. Bruce takes off his mask and confides to the rabbi that he might be in over his head with this whole Batman thing, considering all that’s happened to him in the few weeks he’s been at it.
The rabbi hints that maybe he should get a gun.
Once he’s bared his soul though, Batman goes back over to the brothel looking for Tillie, the working girl from issue 1. She doesn’t give him much more info than he already has other than the obvious that somebody is looking to take over the city, but in order to do that they have to get rid of the people already in charge. She does say that the guy she was talking about last issue who had a big mouth was actually Johnny The Whip himself, and not just one of his goons.
Maxi, the brothel owner doesn’t appreciate Batman talking to his girls behind his back and bursts in all macho only to get put in his place by the Bats.
Around this time, back across town, Comissioner Gordon is on his second attempt at trying to go home for the evening, but again when he reaches the parking lot he’s confronted this time by Johnny The Whip.
Good old Johnny claims he’s there with information for all of two seconds before he sics his goons on Gordon. There’s a struggle, but Gordon gets away far enough to be able to shoot one of them just as Batman intervenes.
A whole crew of these monster men leap out of the car at Johnny’s request, ending in another firefight between the GCPD, Batman, and Johnny The Whip. Batman nearly gets killed by Johnny when he tries to take on all the goods, but again, Gordon saves his life by shooting Johnny as well.
The issue ends with Gordon also suggesting Batman get a gun.
Stay tuned for our coverage of issue 3 of Batman: First Knight.