Source Material #426 - Bruce Wayne Fugitive - Part 2

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Good times round will here you slide and Philly take
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time down. We're here to dissect the store.
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He's a sub material ten pound.
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Time all right, So let's talk about the second part here.
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Like I said, this is five issues. The issues are Asrael,
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Agent of the bat number ninety one and ninety two,
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Detective Comics number seven seventy two, Gotham Knights number fifty.
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One, Stop No, get the give me the suit No.
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Agent, Gotham Knights number thirty one, and Batman number six
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oh five. So, after failing to stop the increasingly unstable
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Jean Paul Vallet, Batman pursues him as Asrael, driven by
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hallucinations of Saint Dumas, steals explosives and attempts to destroy
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a cliff side stronghold tied to his past, culminating in
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a violent clash that brings the castle crashing down around them.
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Though Batman briefly reaches Jean Paul by assuring him Bruce
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Wayne is innocent, the moment is lost as Jean Paul's
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fractured mind reasserts control. Both survive to collapse, but their
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paths split. Batman returns to Gotham, where Leslie Tompkins condemns
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the role he played in John Paul's downfall, while Jean
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Paul spires deeper into instability, seeking to reclaim the Order
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of Saint Dumas. Confronting its new leader to Lily, He
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forces his way into power through intimidation, even as his
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grip on reality slips, unaware that Lily is already planning
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against him, setting up a dangerous power struggle ahead. In
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Detective Comics number seven seventy two, Sasha Bordeaux begins serving
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her life sentence as for Vesper Fairchild's murder, fully aware
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she has taken the bullet to protect Bruce Wayne's secret.
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While struggling with isolation and doubts about Bruce's absence, she
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is approached by Amherst, who offers her freedom in exchange
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for falsely implicating Bruce. Though tempted, Sasha is reassured by
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Alfred that Bruce trusted her by choice, not manipulation, and
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she ultimately reaffirms her loyalty, rejecting our Amherst deal outright
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and choosing to stand by the truth no matter the
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personal cost. Meanwhile, Batman tracks down Amhurst and uncovers the
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full scope of the conspiracy. A twenty million dollar government
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backed character assassination designed to destroy Bruce Wayne, allegedly sanctioned
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by President Lex Luthor.
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Yeah, this is the problem I have going okay?
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In Batman Number six oh five, Bruce pieces everything together,
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revealing that while Luther set the plan in motion, David
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Kaine escalated it by murdering Vesper and framing Bruce to
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psychologically break him. David Kine, by the way, is an
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assassin who also is the father to Cassandra Cain Batgirl.
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When confronted, Cain admits his actions were a twisted test
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of Bruce's morality, but Batman refuses to kill Lee. The
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Kine's confession and Bruce's vindication, as Luther begins covering his
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tracks and Amherst is silenced, the truth finally emerges, marking
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the beginning of the endgame and Bruce's reclamation of both
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his identity and moral center.
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So just a quick thing. Breaking out of prison is
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a felony.
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But wait, he's Bruce Wayne.
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I'm not saying they couldn't have gotten it dropped. I'm
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not saying a deal wasn't gonna get made. But the
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legal scholars who wrote this fucking book things like, you
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absolutely overturned you can drop a case, you can overturn it. Yeah,
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he was convicted by this point, right, Oh yeah, yeah,
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Well I can't remember where they are in the legal process.
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I don't I don't think he went to trial.
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I know Sasha did, obviously, because she starts being held
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without bond.
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He must have maybe, I guess it had to. He's
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like the ultimate flight risk, right because he can jump
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on a jet and flight or whatever. Right. So that's
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the most believable thing about this. But let's assume for
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a moment that, Yeah, so if the real murderer confesses,
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they have to drop the charges against him and he
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is released. Yeah, he's just released. You're just freed. The
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problem is he's escaped from prison, which is a felony
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in and of itself. So it's like they may don't
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have a murder charge on him anymore, but they absolutely
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have to breaking out of prison charge right out of jail,
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whatever it was. And they don't address that at all,
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and they don't deal with the fact that they absolutely
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would have overturned Sasha Bordeau's conviction in light of new
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evidence that somebody else confessed and that none of the
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charges at that point are relevant. You didn't aid in
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a better murderer, right, which, by the way, you don't
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get life. You don't get life.
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Four. Yeah, there was some real Like I thought that
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was pretty extreme.
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That the world that world these people inhabited is like
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for the purposes of making these stories. It's so upside
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down and stupid. It sometimes takes me out of the book,
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Like there are parts of this that I like, and
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then there are parts of them just like, this is
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so dumb. But they wanted to make her an agent,
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a fucking shield or whatever. It was so checkmate, so
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they have to leave her in prison and go through
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all that. I'll get to that when you get to it.
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But it's dumb. So here here's the problem. If I
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had known this was connected to No Man's Land, I
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probably would have. I don't think we need to go
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all the way back to Nightfall because Azrael doesn't play
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that bigger role in this. But I do think that
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we should have read No Man's Land first. To Lex Luthor,
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to Bruce Wayne would have been nice.
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Yeah, it's it's touched on a little bit, like how
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Luther apparently was upset because Wayne made either Wayne made
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some comments or something about Luthor.
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I can't remember blocked Luthor from like rebuilding Gotham And Okay,
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so this whole plan is hashed because Luthor was rebuffed
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and his ego was bruised. I would have liked to
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have seen Lex Luthor in the book. Then, well, if
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you're going to implicate Lex Luthor and being the mastermind
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behind this whole murder refugitive storyline, he should have been
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in the book. This should have been a confrontation. It's
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like pointed at from a thousand miles away. I never
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really dealt with. Yeah, now I want to read the
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books that deal with Batman confronting Lex Luthor. Yeah, and
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we're Superman and all this. I swear there's a book.
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Did we read a book where Batman like mess with
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Lex Luthor, like his robots or something. Maybe I'm thinking
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something different, like maybe it was WayneTech had developed some
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type of like security robots and Luther and sabotaged them
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or something like that. Anyway, Yes, yeah, this is something
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that happened. I'm pretty sure happens after this.
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But we did the Luther book, the one was it Luther?
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Maybe it was?
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You might be right, but anyway, Yeah, you're right, I
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want to see Bruce Wayne slash Batman deal out some comeup.
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AND's yeah, I would like to see. Well that's the thing, like,
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to me, a better story or and I don't even
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know if there's one out there that, like from a
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different book that's just not included in this story where
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like Bruce Wayne runs against Lex Luthor for president or
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like runs for senator or something, and he's just like
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out or he's like, oh gosh, what is the billionaire
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that funds all the stupid free Palace life protests or whatnot?
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But Bruce Wayne, is that like like funding like this
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massive anti Lex Luthor protest movement stuff like billboards and
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shit like that to me would have been more interesting.
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But I'm a hundred So if people listening to this
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podcast like, no, we just want to see Batman punched up,
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what's wrong with you?
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And the thing is this probably again goes back to
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what you were calling out earlier. They can string things
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out in this form of comic books. And that's why
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when I was like, how come he is not completely
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consumed with trying to get even or do something with
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Lex Luthor?
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But he doesn't really mention that's like Lex Luthor as
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president thing. I'm sure it was dealt with a lot
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in the Superman books, but like that should have been
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a bigger deal. And again, neither one of us knows.
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People reading comic books contemporaneously might be able to point
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to something where it's like no, no, no, it's dealt
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more with this book and that book. Who knows. But
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I can only speak to the story that we read,
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and I was missing. If you again, if he's the
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mastermind behind Bruce Wayne being framed for murder, he has
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to be part of the story and he's not, and
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that bothered me.
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Right, But they also had a mystery that they're trying
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to make it a successful mystery. And if you would
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have seen Lex Luthor in book four, then you probably
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would have been like, okay, I might you know, have
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to introduce.
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Him until now. Once David Kine admitted he was working
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for President Luthor.
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Okay, so you're fine with that, You're fine. What's keeping
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him out of Yeah?
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And I don't need to see him until now, Okay, gotcha,
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everything that happened up to this point, I'm fine with
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him not you know, I don't need to see you
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know what is it the that was Vince McMahon. Stupid
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thing with Steve Austin, you know, the higher power, Like
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I didn't need to see the higher power until now,
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but if the higher power, it's like it was me,
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bat Man, it was me all along. It's like, oh god,
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it's like Cluther. There should have been a confrontation between
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Bruce Wayne and Lex Luthor and we have let's see
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I maybe do like a thing like in The Wire
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where he's just sitting outside the fucking White House, which's
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like you'll see you just in five minutes. An hour
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goes by. This is like it's just five more minutes,
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like three hours. He's just fucking sitting there, like, damn it,
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he's the president. What do you want from us? Yeah? Yeah,
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you know what season of The Wire.
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That was, Oh yeah, we have seven more issues in
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this third part. And just like you said, there isn't
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much drive to go and get Lex Luthor. It's more like, okay,
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well I've got to bring the most immediate.
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They feel more with the Sasha Pordo stuff.
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And Cassandra Caine and David Kane and gotta get him
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taken care of that.
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That fucking annoyed me too. It was just like, oh,
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you got me. There's a joke amongst some of my
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older friends where they would go, oh you got me
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cus On. That's kind of what he does. He's like, oh,
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I've been found out and beat up. Well, I have
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no more will to fight you, so I will just confess.
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The fucking of week tea is this? Yep? Yep? Like that?
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The resolution I think isolation. I'm fine with the way
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the characters handle it. I think sucks. I feel well.
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I feel like Cassie had a bit of a hand
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in it, like his his daughter who is definitely his
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estrange daughter. She's Batgirl. He's David Kane, the assassin talks
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him into it, and it's like, you need to make
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this right, you need to make this right, and he's
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like okay, and then he goes and confesses. So there's
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a little bit of resistance but not much, and he
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finally caves. He's like, okay, fine, Because there is a
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big part of this story about David Kine, who just
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gets kind of introduced here at the end, trying to
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make right by his daughter who he has neglected trained
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her as an assassin, and I think we're going to
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find out later that he had killed her mom maybe, yeah,
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but anyway, it's we'll see, we'll see how things go. Yeah,
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my notes here, So I got asbats is crazy at
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John Paul going to go and he's told by Saint
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Dumas to go confront Lily, who is the head of
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some order and it might be the Order of Saint
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Dumas or whatever. But he goes in there and she
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like resists, and he's like, oh you resist, huh, And
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he like starts tearing her apartment apart, like peeling the
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wallpaper off, destroying statues, tipping furniture, and then he's like
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standing in this destroyed room and he goes, make me dinner.
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That's the greatest thing. And she's like what, And she
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goes and makes some dinner. Of course he's gonna poison
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his ass, but either way, I love the fact that
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he just like straight up was just absolutely bonkers. We
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have the introduction of Amherst here, who is kind of
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a sort of a bit player. He's definitely involved in
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the whole soccer Bordeaux thing. But yeah, he's the one
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where we assume he's tied Luthor in some way. Yeah,
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he's the guy that was put in, like he got
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payment to Kane to do the deed pretty much and
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then he was But I love the issue that he
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is in, like he doesn't believe Batman's real, Like he's
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like he's a myth. He's like some other agent that's
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on his tail or something. He can't come to grips
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with the fact that Batman makes fucking sense if this guy,
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I assume by two thousand and two, Amanda Waller was
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a thing and Suicide Squad was the thing, and they
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absolutely do who fucking Batman is because half the people
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in Blackgate or the Raft or whatever the.
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Fuck in prison they were shoving people like Harley Quinn
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into That made the suicide Squad came from fucking Batman.
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The other note I had here was Sasha's doubt, like
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she's still on the fence thinking that Bruce Wayne slash
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Batman had turned his back on her because he's out
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of prison. She's heard this on the TV and Amherst
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go on to her and saying, here, just sign this confession,
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and she really struggles with that and the issue that
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she's in, and then finally she makes the right decision
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and she signs go to hell on every single piece
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of paper, which is great. And yeah, this actually the
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end of this issue, or she could be the end
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of these parts which end on Batman number six O five.
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That's the end of the fugitive storyline.
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Yeah, like there is no Bruce Wayne fugitive after this
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Part eighteen, I think is it. That's it, We're done.
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I'm ready to get into part three. Thanks for joining us.
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All of this would not be possible without W two
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m net dot com, so make sure to seek them
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out for more podcasts. If you enjoyed what you heard today,
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please feel free to share, and we look forward to
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entertaining you again soon