Tag: The Joker

CHAPTER 42

August 1, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“Nothing happened, and nothing kept happening.”
Chuck Palahniuk • Haunted

Civil Twilight

“Commissioner, there have been eleven high-profile mob hits in the last three weeks. Three of these assassinations have happened since the reinstatement of the curfew, and the people of Gotham have heard nothing from the police – do you have anything to say?”

Johnny Gelio, commissioner of the Gotham City Police Department looked at the reporter, Vicki Vale, and did a poor job of disguising his scowl.

Where is the Gazette? Johnny wondered, but he moistened his lips with his tongue and gave her the soundbite she wanted:

“I have a lot to say, Miss Vale. But my department is understaffed to the tune of four hundred officers. Underfunding has left a brave but depleted workforce on the brink of not having enough police to fulfill the mission of public safety.

CHAPTER 39

April 23, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“…there came from the brazen lungs of the clock a sound which was clear and loud and deep and exceedingly musical, but of so peculiar a note and emphasis that, at each lapse of an hour, the musicians of the note orchestra were constrained to pause, momentarily, in their performance, to harken to the sound and thus the waltzers perforce ceased their evolutions; and there was a brief disconcert of the whole gay company; and, while the chimes of the clock yet rang, it was observed that the giddiest grew pale…“
Edgar allan poe • the masque of the red death

Masquerade

“Mister Saturn will be making ‘appearances’ in areas of the city that will be very visible this weekend,” said Alfred Pennyworth, pouring a cup of coffee and handing it to Bruce Wayne. “As for you, Mister Bruce, you’ll need to be making high profile appearances of your own. Establish and re-establish the alibi.”

The air in the cave was cooler than outside, but equally damp. April’s rain was relentless and unpredictable.

“Gelio’s not going to stop. If he hasn’t figured it out, Gordon has. And that doesn’t even account for Saturn setting the bar a lot higher than we can maintain,” Bruce said. The coffee was overextracted and bitter, and he took another sip.

CHAPTER 38

April 22, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“I paid Houdini three hundred dollars for that trick.“
Batman • Gotham by gaslight

Gotham By Gaslight

A ruptured spleen, a torn trapezius and a hairline fracture on his clavicle. If the man in the coffin mask had been a better shot either time, Johnny Gelio, commissioner of the Gotham City Police would’ve died. Not that the internal hemorrhaging didn’t give everyone pause.

Lex Luthor thought that the crime in Gotham City stood a very real risk of migrating across the bridge. Especially with Superman’s recent fracture. He folded the newspaper, bristling that one of his editors prematurely reported Gelio dead. Mercy had seen to it that the man was fired, but it was an annoyance to know that there were gaps in some of his most powerful tools of influence.

CHAPTER 37

April 20, 2023 / Dave Heilker

So, cast off the shackles of yesterday!
Shoulder to shoulder into the fray!
Our daughters’ daughters will adore us
And they’ll sing in grateful chorus
“Well done! Well done!
“Well done Sister Suffragette!“
Sister suffragette • mary poppins

Home Freakonomics

“Yiannis!” Lily nearly shouted at the Gotham City Police Commissioner, who was sitting across the table from her at their favorite table at The Emperor, a jazz club owned by Gotham’s most famous restaurateur, Oswald Cobblepot.

Johnny Gelio’s stupor faded in an instant, and his eyes focused on the beauty who looked as though she were annoyed and worried in equal measure.

CHAPTER 36

March 6, 2023 / Dave Heilker

“An attempt to create a new conceptual terrain for imagining alternatives to imprisonment involves the ideological work of questioning why “criminals” have been constituted as a class and, indeed, a class of human beings undeserving of the civil and human rights accorded to others. Radical criminologists have long pointed out that the category “lawbreakers” is far greater than the category of individuals who are deemed criminals since, many point out, almost all of us have broken the law at one time or another.”
Angela Y. Davis • Are Prisons Obsolete?

A Serious House on a Serious Earth

The Arkham Psychiatric Hospital was once a labyrinthine manse that would make all but the largest mansions in Silverwood Barrens look provincial by comparison. It was converted to a “State Lunatic Asylum” at the direction and expense of its heir, Amadeus Arkham as the first fires of the industrial revolution were kindled.

After Amadeus’ death, Arkham had languished as a barbaric house of catastrophically unethical experimentation until it was acquired by an pharmaceutical baron, Dr. Tanner Howinger, in whose white gloved hands it became feared as a fate more terrifying than any prison, housing more than 140 residents before arson granted reprieve to the patients and justice to Howinger in 1913.

CHAPTER 9

August 12, 2021 / Dave Heilker

“The power which has always started the greatest religious and political avalanches in history rolling has from time immemorial been the magic power of the spoken word, and that alone. The broad masses of the people can be moved only by the power of speech.”
William L. Shirer

Corrupt Simplicity With Delicate Ferocity

The Devil himself wore all black, stood seven feet tall, and looked every bit the menacing ruler of hell portrayed in William Blake’s The Number of The Beast is 666 (currently on display at the Gotham Fine Art Museum). The Beast’s coming was foretold by the sudden power outage, and it stood, in front of the elite of Gotham with its wings spread behind, lit only by starlight.

It beat its leathery wings, and with glowing eyes, it cast judgment upon the assembled through a sudden hole in the side of the home of the luxurious Silverwood Barrens estate of Carmine Falcone, also known as The Roman, and Gotham’s untouchable criminal kingpin.

His guests tonight had come together to pledge money to Mayor Basil Karlo’s re-election campaign.