BATMAN: Return of the Phantasm

1.THE RETURN

I am vengeance! I am the night! I ...AM.....BATMAN!

Heavy explosions of thunder and lightening crack open the night sky! And in that instant and only that instant could I be seen perched over a roof's ledge at the dock yards. I looked down over the police who combed the docks to search for clues. Their focus was a large cruise ship. It had been missing for over a year. Floating a drift on the enormous sea til it was happen upon by fishermen. As I suspected, the ships crew and passengers were all deceased! Murdered! Gotham police towed in the ship and detective Bullock was assigned the case. It was major news! The media and the FBI were all over watching this one. Over 1000 people dead! Why? We needed answers.
Circulating rumor was that The Joker was involved because a jokers wild card was found stuffed in the ship captain's mouth! That's what sparked my attention at the case. What had happened between him and Andrea.
Last I seen them both she was unmasked as being the Phantasms and had him in her clutches! Had she not killed him? Did he managed to escape her wrath? Or did he kill her too? By God if he killed her I would rip him limb from limb!

Before I'd became Batman, Andrea was once the love of my life! We were so young and engaged to get married even. Unfortunately her father, a man I respected, got caught up with the mob and he fled town with their money. Forcing Andrea with him, they ran out of Gotham fearing for their lives! But the mob found him thanks to a sleazy young accountant of her fathers named Author Reeves who sold them out for campaign finance money to run for city counsel!
Ten long years later the top older gangsters of the mob family begin to turn up murdered. One... by... one. The police suspected me of the murders because of the.....well... Theatrical style of the killings and false witnesses! Under Author Reeves direction the police began hunting me down. Commissioner Gordon was my only ally at that moment. That in which I am very grateful of. Once I finally tracked down the actual killer I discovered it was Andrea Beaumont in a disguise calling herself the Phantasm! She had snuck back into Gotham to kill off those responsible for killing her father and ruining her life. In the end Andrea learned the the last person on her hit list was none other then.... The Joker! She tracked him down to his hide out at the old abandoned amusement park where she attempted to kill him too. Until I showed up! There was a battle between Joker and I. I took on serious injuries from a great fall and wasn't able to stop Andrea from capturing the weakened Joker and disappearing in a cloud of smoke just as the whole amusement park began exploding from tunnels filled with dynamite as Jokers fail safe to kill anyone who found his hide out. Only by luck did the ground beneath me collapse and I fell into the outage sewer tunnel that forced me away to a reservoir! I never seen or heard from Andrea again. But I had hopes that she was alive and well considering Alfred my butler and friend found a gold necklace of Andrea's in the bat cave. I could only pray that she was OK. She doesn't know the Joker like I do. And if by some miracle she actually killed Joker I'd be forced to bring her to justice!

"Sir?" Came Alfred's voice into my earpiece canceling out my train of thought.
"I'm here." I said softly.
"Right, the report just came in over FBI channels. 1,234 passengers and crew dead. Preliminary report appears to be asphyxiation on lethal doses of the Joker gas. In other words they laughed themselves to death. Horrible way to go if I may say so." Alfred reported in.
I gritted my teeth in absolute anger. Needless deaths at the hands of that.....lunatic! Why?
"Sir?" Alfred came back awaiting orders.
"Check the passenger manifest. Flag anything of interest and cross reference it with anything we've got on the Joker. He was after someone I knew it."
"Dare I wonder what this means happened to Miss Beaumont the last we seen her and the Joker?" Alfred exclaimed.
Fury raged up inside of me at the thought of Andrea no longer on this earth because of that clowned menace!
"I'll skin him alive Alfred."
"Indeed sir" Alfred came back, "sir might I inform you that at first glance at the manifest it reports 1,235 people were aboard that ship!"
"Someone's missing." I acknowledged. My eyes narrowing in deep thought as to who Joker was after.
"It should be some time before police identify all the deceased and learn which body is missing?" Alfred said.
"You're right." I said. "But I'm going in for a closer look once the police have cleared out."
"Yes sir. I'll remain on stand by." Then Alfred signed off.
I needed answers.

After a few hours the police and FBI had removed all the bodies and boxes of evidence. Particular evidence was four large purple gas canisters that the loaded up in the back of a CSI van. Those canisters looked promising! I'm figuring that to kill over a 1000 people on a cruise liner of this size with his toxic laughing gas, Joker would have to had use the ship's ventilation system the syphon his chemical compound throughout the ship! Possible clues on the canister might lead to an arrest! I need to examine those canisters!
As the CSI guys leave the canisters unattended in the back of their van as they return to collect more evidence I decide to leap off the side of the building paragliding just feet from the rear of the van! Once convinced the coast is still clear I open the back of the van and uncover the gas canisters. Using my hand held black light from my utility belt, I scan the canisters carefully for fingerprints and hair fibers. It didn't take long to find what the CSI guys found. A partial fingerprint at the bottom of a canister. I scanned the fingerprint and canister with my evidence laser scanner creating a digital copy of it then emailed it to Alfred back at the bat cave for analysis. Recovering the canisters the way I found them and closing the van doors softly I retreat into the darkness just as the CSI guys return none the wise. I dart into a nearby dark alley and reach under my cape and produce my grappling gun. With a soft squeeze of trigger a thin line fires out the compact gun and stabs into the wall of the roof top up above. Releasing the trigger, the guns special high powered torque reverser yanks me upwards at a quick pace til I reach the roof top. Once back on the roof I turn to oversee the dock and cruise ship were so many lost their lives to meaningless violence like my parents.
Had Andrea joined them. For the sake of speaking her name aloud if not for the last time I whispered to myself sad and grieving," Andrea."