Batman Confidential #14 - DC

Tony Bedard has done it again. He's weaving a tale here that's got lots of action, some intrigue, and a bit of mystery. A professional assassin that's bothered Batman in the past has come back, Wrath. The problem is . . this is a different one. The first one knew that he was Bruce Wayne. But it doesn't appear, so far, that the current one has that knowledge. Now the bad news . . this one is much better than the first. He's more athletic, better trained, and cooler under pressure. He really seems like the antithesis of Batman's role. He likes guns, and he likes to kill people. He also likes to play with his prey. . . which currently seems to be Commissioner Gordon. Jim's having a Policeman convention in town, but with Wrath showing up . . and his obvious pleasure in killing cops . . he's decided to send everyone packing. Batman poses as one of the international officers, and Wrath makes his move. During the following struggle, Nitewing shows up on the scene and inadvertantly helps the guy to escape Batman's pursuit. We don't really know who this guy is yet, but he is connected to the first one. I don't know if he's a son, or brother, or just best friend, but it seems like his goal is to make Jim pay for something he did to the first one. Also, when he uses Nitewing as a diversion, he's thinking . . "Thank you, boy wonder! Hell, if it weren't for you, I wouldn't even exist . . ." Whatever that means. However, he did give Batman one clue. Whatever Jim did, it had to do with the night of June 26th . . 25 years ago . . . the night that Bruce's parents were murdered. At the end of the book, Wrath is talking to Grayle, the daughter of a local Mafioso who hired the original Wrath to take out some crooked cops. In the process, she fell in love with him. But he became obsessed with the Batman. "Even for a man who kills for a living, he's gone off the deep end . . . he was obsessed. If Batman had it, he wanted it . . the trick belt . . the car . . everything . ." To which Wrath replies, "Yes. Everything. And that's where my story began . . ." I'm thinking this was his sidekick. His boy wonder. Now we just have to find out where he came from, and how he came into being. This book has some fantastic artwork by Rags Morales and Mark Farmer. Rags does a great job with the action sequences, and he's draws some pretty amazing facial expressions. Anyways it seems like the stories rolling out pretty well. This is part 2 of 5. It definitely has my interest.