Ah, but who killed which? From 1996,
the Batman Chronicles #3, featuring "Riddle of the Jinxed Sphinx" Written by Doug Moench, art by Brian Stelfreeze and Bill Sienkiewicz, "
The First Cut is the Deepest: the Secret Origin of Mr. Zsasz" Written by Alan Grant, pencils by Jennifer Graves, inks by Wayne Faucher; and "
Workin' My Way Back to You" Written by Chuck Dixon, pencils by Gabriel Gecko, inks by Robert Campanella. Cover by the great Brian Bolland.
"Riddle" features, duh, the Riddler--actually, I guess you might've guessed King Tut; but he was a decade or so away from appearing in the comics--in one of his occasional attempts at crimes without riddles. They're clever, well-executed, profitable, and just murdering Riddler inside. His henchgirls Quiz and Query prefer this low-risk work for a middling crimeboss; killing a legbreaker who tried to pocket his take and claim his shakedowns were deadbeats. They rat Riddler out when he reverts to type and sends a riddle to the cops and Batman, which is immediately solved as a crappy pun and possibly a more subtle commentary on the loss of Jim Gordon as commissioner, then replaced by his wife, Sarah Essen. Poor Riddler may be a drooling idiot by the end of this one, on his way to Arkham...
...where we find the secret origin of Mr. Zsasz, already in progress. Chatty today in his little cage, he has a story for his therapist: he seemed perfectly normal growing up, well-to-do, until developing a gambling problem. The Penguin makes a brief appearance, cleaning him out, and driving him to attempt suicide, since he felt he, and everyone else, was nothing more than a robot, a zombie; slave to desire. Before jumping off a bridge, he is interrupted by a bum attempting to mug him for whatever he had left. The future Zsasz overpowers the bum, looks into his eyes, and sees nothing. He makes his first kill, and his first cut-marker on himself. Zsasz then mumbles, and grabs his therapist when she comes closer to hear, killing her.
Finally, Killer Croc's story is mostly silent, as the scaly killer eludes a posse and hops a train back to Gotham: this would be his return after seemingly giving up his humanity to live in peace in the swamps in
Batman #522. That story seemed like it would be a perfect ending for Croc, but nope. Croc's trip would've been uneventful, if a prize steer wasn't put in the same boxcar; which is just as good as meal service for him.
1 comment:
Man I absolutely LOVED that Croc story, moreso for the Kelly Jones art than anything else, but I didn't know the ending until now.
Damn that story looked better than it had the right too. Hopefully it's collected in trade one day.
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