Read Batman 2 - Batman Returns for Free Online

regularity.
    Drip. Drip. Drip.
    An umbrella?
    Drip. Drip. Drip.
    The penguin with the umbrella waddled forward, beyond the falling water. And not only was this bird big, but Max could swear it was wearing a union suit.
    A union suit?
    Yes, it was tattered and filthy, but it was a union suit. And the bird wore a pair of scuffed and well-worn shoes. Maybe, Max thought, he had simply lost his mind. It would be the simplest explanation.
    It got worse. The bird closed the umbrella.
    It wasn’t a penguin.
    It was The Penguin.
    A small, rotund creature with beady eyes and a beaklike nose stared back at Max. He looked like nothing so much as one of the fowls from which he got his name. The Penguin. The star of the tabloids. The legendary bird-beast from beneath the streets.
    The Penguin grinned.
    “Hi,” he remarked.
    Max opened his mouth to scream again, but it was beyond him. No sound came out at all.
    “I believe the word you’re looking for is”—The Penguin paused to take a breath—“AAAAUUUGGGHHH!”
    Max still didn’t get anything out. He wasn’t sure he’d be able to get anything out ever again.
    “Actually,” The Penguin reassured him most jovially, “this is all just a bad dream. You’re home in bed. Heavily sedated. Resting comfortably. And dying from the carcinogens you’ve personally spewed in a lifetime of profiteering. Tragic irony or poetic justice? You tell me.”
    Max remembered to breathe. That helped.
    “My God,” he managed. “It’s true. The Penguin. Man of the sewers. Please don’t hurt—”
    “Quiet, Max!” The Penguin snapped. “What do you think, this is a conversation?”
    Max quieted. The Penguin twirled his umbrella, pressing something down on the handle. The top of the umbrella spit a great gout of fire. The Penguin nodded happily, quite pleased with the display. He glanced again at Shreck.
    “Odd as it may seem, Max, we have something in common. We’re both perceived as monsters. But somehow, you’re a well-respected monster. And I am”—he looked humbly down at his dirty suit—“to date— not. ”
    With that, The Penguin bent down. Max noticed he had a whole pile of umbrellas at his feet. Shreck wondered if all the others were weapons, too. The Penguin picked up a new umbrella. It was the first time the businessman had taken a good look at the birdman’s hands. Except that they only sort of looked like hands. They also sort of looked like flippers. The Penguin smiled at Max’s attention, and pointed the umbrella as if this one might shoot something else.
    Max almost flinched. That wasn’t a pile of umbrellas at The Penguin’s feet. It was a whole arsenal!
    But Max hadn’t gotten where he was today by falling apart in front of his adversaries. If he was going to get out of this, he had to talk to The Penguin as an equal, even if it was monster to monster.
    “Frankly,” he said firmly, “I think that reputation is a bum rap. I’m a businessman. Tough, yes. Shrewd, okay. But that doesn’t make me a monster—”
    “Don’t embarrass yourself, Max,” The Penguin interrupted. “I know all about you. What you hide, I discover. What you put in your toilet, I put on my mantel.” He smiled and patted his rotund belly. “Get the picture?”
    He had what Max put in his toilet? Max supposed that was one advantage of living in the sewers. But just how literally was he supposed to take this guy?
    The Penguin picked up another umbrella and opened it, showing a bright spiral design. It looked sort of like those “hypno-disks” Max used to see in comics and magazines when he was a boy.
    And he was worried about some freak who used this kind of gimmick? Max couldn’t help but be a little condescending. “What,” he asked, “is that supposed to hypnotize me?”
    “No,” The Penguin replied jovially, “just give you a splitting headache.”
    “Well,” Max replied with gathering confidence, “it’s not working.”
    The Penguin grinned as he pointed the head of