Released August 2000

Batman: Gotham Knights #6

Synopsis

PERSONAL EFFECTS Bruce Wayne is at the Gotham Gentlemen's Club where Councilman Waldemar is boasting that during the last plague (Contagion) he made a lot of money by stealing an antidote on its way to a hospital and then selling it to the highest bidder. The Councilman placed the only evidence of the planned antidote shipment in a safety deposit box. But the bank building got destroyed during the earthquake. Batman's interest is piqued and with the help of Oracle he is able to find the bank vault, but it has been completely looted. Oracle gets nervous and Batman is aware that this is because she had a deposit box in that vault as well. A first lead brings Batman to the Penguin. But according to him, none other than Stuart Bentley (who also was present at the Gentlemen's Club when Councliman Waldemar told his story) might have gotten his hands on the papers stored in the bank vault. Now Batman has to rush out quickly because Cobblepot already sent out killers to take care of Bentley. In the end, Batman is able to stop the assassins and recover the papers he looked for. That also included Oracle's documents and Batman returned them to her without taking a look at them. Oracle is thankful for that, but she still tells Batman what this is about. The document actually is a letter from Barbara's mother explaining that James Gordon could indeed be Barbara's birth father. Barbara just took the letter from her mother before it ever got to James. Batman is surprised that she never told James about that. Oracle feels pushed and argues about how Batman is not acknowledging Nightwing as family although he raised him, but Batman does not react. He believes that James should know the truth about that ... THE RIDDLE The eccentric Sir Richard Pettifogger dies, and according to local legend, he possessed Lewis Carroll's answer to a famous unsolved riddle. The Riddler breaks into Pettifogger's house and reads what seems to be the answer. But he then discovers that Batman has gotten there before him, and replaced the (presumed) correct answer with a different answer which Batman himself composed.