The issue starts off with Bruce talking to the mental projection of Alfred. They are talking about Verity Pennyworth, Alfred’s great-niece, who showed up at Wayne Manor at the end of the last issue.
Alfred had planned all of this out. He left paperwork on Bruce’s desk explaining who Verity is and why she’s there. Bruce hasn’t read it because it means accepting that Alfred is really gone, and someone else is stepping into his shoes. It feels like saying goodbye all over again.
Bruce isn’t thrilled about the idea of “replacing” Alfred. Nobody could really do that, right? But… Damian, who’s usually pretty guarded around new people, is already laughing and getting along great with Verity.
Turns out there’s more to this than just Alfred wanting Bruce to have a butler. Verity isn’t just family, she’s part of something called the Society of the Midnight Key, a secret organization that’s been quietly helping vigilantes like Batman from the shadows. Alfred was part of it too, and Verity is the next agent it’s sending to look after Bruce. She’s trained, exactly, for this.
Alfred explains he’d never risk their mission by leaving Bruce without someone qualified to take his place. Makes sense when you think about it: Batman’s whole operation depends on having someone he trusts running things at home.
Six Killers Walk Into Gotham
While all that’s happening at the manor, the story jumps around to introduce six different assassins, all arriving in Gotham within about 72 hours of each other. Each one gets their own little scene, so let’s run through them:
Der Giftmorder, real name Prof. Anton Anker, is an older assassin who kills a man named Mr. Jeffries at a chess table using a poison laced chess piece. As Jeffries is dying, Anker calmly tells him a woman named Deine Frau paid extra for one specific thing: to make sure Jeffries heard the line “Nobody runs forever, darling” before he died.
Lord Fantome, whose real name is Thomas Doinel, is perched outside a hotel room in the Presidential Suite, blade in hand, about to kill a mobster who’s in witness protection.
Sr. Sueño, real name Cesario de Diaz Hermanos, shows up during a scene with a wrestler called King Panther, who’s bragging to reporter Vicky Vale about how he already exposed and beat Sueño as a killer. Except it goes the other way. Sueño kills King Panther right there. The whole “no one is safe” moment ends up being pretty ironic, since the guy warning everyone becomes the next victim.
Vector, real name Dr. Amelia Danton, poisons a predatory film director by sneaking scorpions into his popcorn at a movie theater. About as brutal and specific as it sounds.
Spyder Black, real name Ludlow Durand, kills someone aboard a blimp, high up in the sky. Blow the blimp up. Boom!
And then there’s Dojo, the sixth assassin, who Gotham already knows. She’s made it clear she’s specifically hunting Bruce Wayne, and Batman.
Why Bruce, Not Batman?
Once the story jumps back to Bruce, now suited up as Batman, he and the team are going over profiles of all six killers. And here’s the key detail: every single one of them is after Bruce Wayne, not Batman.
Damian, weirdly, seems totally fine with his dad being hunted by six professional killers. He just smiles and heads off to school like it’s a normal Tuesday.
The Fight in the Glass Elevator
Later, Thomas Doinel catches Prof. Anker in an elevator. He tries to kill him right there. Batman shows up, and all three end up fighting inside a glass elevator. Batman manages to take down both assassins, though not without getting cut up by Doinel’s blade a couple of times.
Verity Proves Herself
Back at Bruce’s place, he brought Doniel and Anker to the bat cave. Bruce medically incapacitated, blindfolded, and secured them to a wall. He can’t hand them over to the police, since he doesn’t have their trust or cooperation anymore.
This gives Bruce a chance to explain his whole philosophy to Verity: “The spirit of the law is not its letter. Quasi-legal is not, in fact, legal.” He knows he is working against the law and there will be consequences for it.
Verity, meanwhile, is already proving she’s the real deal. She tends to Bruce’s wounds and repairs his suit like she’s done it a hundred times. When Bruce and Damian try to figure out why the two assassins crossed paths in the first place, she explains she caused it. She realized none of the assassins knew they were in a competitive situation, so she used that against them.
She even points out that the odds were unfair to begin with, five assassins against one Bruce Wayne (Dojo is the 6th).
By the end of the scene, both Damian and Bruce agree: she can stay.
Loose Plots for Later
First: the Minotaur, a crime boss, captures a Yakuza member who was about to talk to the police. He asks his Yakuza boss for permission to kill the guy. Instead, he gets a warning: “we drive the same car, I would be careful until you get the car properly serviced.” In other words, the Minotaur himself is in danger, mostly because Penguin has been stirring things up and messing with the balance of power between Gotham’s gangs. Right after that warning, the Minotaur’s car explodes. This plot is clearly building toward something bigger down the line.
Second: over at Arkham, someone visits the Joker while Annika isn’t there. We don’t find out who the visitor is. All we know is the visitor says they’re not going away, and Joker mentions he’ll “have” to tell Annika about the visit. Not much to go on yet, but it’s the kind of moment that usually reveals itself a few issues later.
My Thoughts
While I totally understand the idea of Verity replacing Alfred, for some reason, I still don’t trust her. There are a lot of story plot options open for her and Bruce/Batman. I want to trust her. I do… really.
Let’s keep it real. How did Batman know Doinel and Anker would be there? Did she arrange for all three of them to be in the same place at the same time? Secretly hoping Batman would fail? No one would know she did it. Since it worked out, she could take credit for it – impressing Bruce more.
Alfred is a mental projection. What if Bruce read the papers and saw Alfred didn’t set this up? What if the mental projection of Alfred popped up so Bruce could find out the truth?
And… Dojo is hunting Bruce and Batman which makes her “different”.
Verity showed up within the 72 hours time frame. DC marketed this “SIX ASSASSINS. ONE CITY”. Dojo isn’t in this issue. This issue went to a lot of trouble to make one point very clear: no one is safe.
Even to the point that Joker got a visitor just like Verity got to Bruce’s house with all the protections set up.
I’m not letting my guard down! 😂
