However, the judge let Hammer off without any jail time because of a lack of evidence and the fact that he had been kidnapped from his home to stand trial. Hammer may have gotten off this time, but eventually, Batman knew he would bring him in on something...if not just the murder of my and Tony Stark's parents.

Tony Stark reappeared alive on national television before the American public, explaining how he was rescued at the last minute from the CleanJet crash by Iron Man, telling about industrial espionage committed against his company, and officially dedicating a memorial to the citizens of Gotham killed in the crash.

And Gotham was back to normal...slowly decaying, crime-ridden normal...

An elderly couple walked slowly down Agnew Street near midnight.

"Graham, if you hadn't stayed there so long with Hubert watching that boxing match, we wouldn't have to be walking home so late at night!"

"Hush, Miriam...just keep walking." The old man noticed three young men spot them from a doorstep. They began following the old couple, just far away enough for the old man to feel their eyes upon him.

"Keep walking, Miriam, and don't look back."

"Why, dear? Is someone following us?"

"Yeah!" called out a rude voice. "Someone is following you!"

The three young men circled the elderly couple. One wore a blue ski hat, even though it was early summer and it was beginning to get quite warm at night. Another had his youthful blonde beard shaved into a pointy goatee. The third wore a light workout jacket with a large hood that he kept over his head. His harsh young eyes peeked out from under the hood.

"Whaddya doin' out here so late, old man?" he asked. "Lookin' for trouble?"

"Leave us alone!" Graham said. Miriam clutched her purse.

"Okay, we'll leave you alone, you scary old man!" joked the hooded boy. "I think you better hand over your wallet."

"Yeah, and you give up that purse, you old hag!" shouted the one in the ski hat gleefully.

"Oh, we'd better do as they say, Graham! Maybe they won't hurt us!"

"Maybe we won't...but maybe we will!" The boy in the ski hat pulled out a knife and lunged at Hubert. Before the knife could pierce the old man, the boy's hand was pierced by a sharp flying object.

"Aaaaa! My hand!"

The other two boys looked around for their comrade's assailant. Out of the sky dropped a masked figure who seemed to move in a blur. He grabbed the boy with the hood, pulled his arm behind him, and threw him at a dumpster that was in the alleyway. With a clang the boy slammed into the metal dumpster and was down for the count.

The third boy, the one with the goatee, now faced the costumed attacker. It was then that he realized who had attacked his friends. It was the Batman.

"B...B..B..Batman!"

"Go run home, boy. Tell the other kids in your gang what happened to your friends tonight. Maybe then they won't go after old people anymore."

"I will!" He ran away, not looking back once. The boy who had been hit with the Batarang drug his unconscious friend to his feet and trudged away.

"Oh, thank you, young man!" the old woman shouted.

"No thanks needed, ma'am. Just get home. It's too late at night for the elderly to be out walking in Gotham."

With that, Batman shot a grappling hook up to an adjoining roof, and used the line to sail up and away from the street.

As he got to the roof of his targeted building, he noticed a figure watching him from the adjoining rooftop. The figure looked strangely like Batman, except his costume was considerably darker.

"Who?" Batman asked.

The figure twirled his cape around and leapt off the rooptop on to an adjoining one, disappearing from view. Batman stood there for a moment in the red-black glare of Gotham's crime lights, then decided to go on with his patrol of Gotham.

A desperate-looking man with an overcoat that bulged at the chest had insinuated himself into the crowd. He was bald, with a long red mustache and beard, and was muttering to himself as he bought his subway token and milled on to the subway with the rest of the crowd.

A grim figure watched him from a closed level of the subway station. As the desperate man boarded the train, the grim figure sprung into action, moving across the overhead platforms toward the subway car.

"Hello!" He looked around the subway, and repeated himself until all eyes were upon him. "Hello, sinners! It's time for the cleansing! Time for the final cleansing!"

He opened up his raincoat to reveal ten sticks of dynamite hard-wired to a timer he had connected to his chest.

Everyone was so busy watching the maniac that they did not notice the car-connector door open and a dark figure slip into the subway car.

"Say your last goodbyes to each other, sinners, for today is the day I send you to..."

At that moment, the car passed through a dark tunnel. A rope flew out from the shadows, entangling the maniac and bringing him forcibly to where the Batman stood.

Batman grabbed the maniac and pinched him in just the right place to make the maniac's limbs turn to jelly. He took the dynamite from the maniac's chest and quickly disarmed the timer.

A couple of transit cops, both young and burly, entered through the opposite car-connector door. Batman handed the dynamite and the timer to a petite, frowsy-looking blonde teen.

"Give this to the nice policemen, dear. Tell them what this maniac was going to do with it."

When the policemen saw Batman, they began pushing through the crowd to get to his side of the car.

"It's that vigilante, Batman! Boy, would the Guardian be happy if we brought him in!"

"Yeah! Maybe they'd give me super-powers and put me on the Super-Unit Police!"

Batman rushed out the car-connector door and clambered on top of the next car down. Standing on the shaky roof of the next car was the doppleganger-like figure he had seen before.

"You again?" Batman asked. "What, are you following me everywhere tonight?"

The figure laughed a throaty laugh and fired his own grappling hook up into a shaft as the subway made a stop in the tunnel. The policemen on board the car were still trying to get at Batman, although the thankful ravers were passively blocking the cops' movement.

Once in the hole, Batman snaked through a small tunnel to an opening in what seemed to be a floor. Batman popped his head out and took a look around. He was in a room, an abandoned locker room. He quietly squeezed himself up through the hole in the floor and got to his feet.

Batman stepped forward carefully, moving toward a bright light that was coming from the next room. He marveled that this old place, which seemed like an abandoned gym, would still have working electricity.

When he got to the room from where the light was coming, there was someone waiting for him.

In the center of the ring stood a man in a bizarre costume that copied features of those of superheroes Batman had either heard of or worked with. Most importantly, the man had pointed ears on his costume, just like Batman's.

"What do you want with me, stranger?"

"Step into the ring and find out, Batman!"

Batman scanned the room for any goons that might work for the stranger that would try to jump him. Nobody was in the abandoned gym.

Batman climbed up into the boxing ring. "Who are you, and why have you been following me all over town?"

"The name is Taskmaster, and why I've been followin' you around ain't important, mister. Why don't we fight like a couple of men? Can we agree on no utility belts?"

"You ditch your belt first, mister, then I'll see about mine."

"Anything to oblige my visiting opponent." The figure doffed a utility belt that rivaled Batman's in seeming complexity.

Batman carefully took off his own belt and threw it to the floor of the ring.

"I'm feelin' so generous, I'm going to let you take the first shot at me, Batman?"

"I'm touched." Batman rushed at him, then swung around with a karate kick that Taskmaster stopped with a grabbing motion. Taskmaster used Batman's cumulative force to redirect Batman toward the floor of the ring.

"Try again, Bats. I've seen Captain America do that move before."

Taskmaster let Batman get up from the mat. The two opponents circled each other in the ring. Taskmaster faked Batman out with a false karate chop, and let loose with an open-fisted blow to Batman's head that left the hero's ears ringing.

"I guess I still got it."

Batman decided to change fighting styles. He got up, and got into a boxing stance, which Taskmaster copied exactly. As Batman threw a haymaker punch, Taskmaster blocked it and hit Batman in the stomach hard.

Batman coughed as he fell to the mat.

"I thought you were good, Batman. Guess I thought wrong."

Batman tried to keep his vision straight through the pain of the blows the villain had landed on him. To beat Taskmaster, he would have to fight in a way that he had never used against a villain before. Quickly his mind shot through the numerous kinds of martial arts that he knew, that he had been trained in since his youth, to something that Taskmaster would not be able to counter.

Batman gathered his strength and got up again. He ran suddenly to the far corner of the ring.

"What you gonna do, Batman, piledrive me?"

Batman began flipping all over the ring, his foot stamping a rhythm each time he landed. Around and around Taskmaster he went.

"That's a real pretty dance, Batman, but I thought we were here to..."

At that moment, the full weight of Batman's kick went into Taskmaster's jaw, shutting him up. He crumpled to the mat, clutching his mouth.

Batman switched to another form as he propelled his entire body into the air, his legs slamming his feet into Taskmaster's face. The villain went down.

Batman wiped a trickle of blood from his mouth.

"You were pretty good, mister, but no one's as good as me," he said. Batman picked up his utility belt and put it on as Taskmaster groaned in pain. Batman swiftly pulled a sharp Batarang from his belt.

He stepped over to where Taskmaster was lying on the ground. "I am the Batman, Taskmaster." He used the sharp edge of the Batarang to make two swift cuts on the top of Taskmaster's costume.

Taskmaster's faux Bat-ears lay forlornly on the mat.

"Only I wear the ears. I had better not see you with them again."

Batman climbed out of the ring, then turned around and called out to Taskmaster.

"Don't follow me around again, chump, or I'll make you regret it. Again." Batman left the gym to continue his night patrol.

All of a sudden, about twenty young men of all ethnic extractions, wearing t-shirts and sweats, gathered around the ring, coming out of the places in which they had been hiding.

"That, class, is how to fight Batman. Remember, even when you think you got him dead to rights, he's always got another trick up his sleeve."