Read Batman 5 - Batman Begins for Free Online

doorways and alleys. He approached an oil barrel with flames licking out of its top.
    A man huddled near the barrel, warming himself, said, “Maybe ya shoulda tipped better.”
    Bruce drew closer; the glow of the flames revealed a face with grime in deeply etched lines and a splotchy beard. Bruce stared thoughtfully into the flames as the man rubbed his hands over them.
    “You have a name?” Bruce asked the homeless man.
    “Name’s Joey. Last name’s none a’ your business.”
    Bruce removed his wallet and gave a wad of money to the homeless man.
    “For what?” Joey asked.
    “Your jacket.”
    Bruce dropped his wallet into the fire. Joey laughed. He shrugged out of his overcoat and bundled it into a ball.
    “Let me have it,” Joey shouted. “That’s a good coat.”
    They traded: a nine-hundred-dollar, fawn-colored, cashmere overcoat for a frayed and torn Navy pea coat that had cost some sailor a ten spot when it was new three decades ago.
    “Be careful who sees you with that,” Bruce said. “They’re going to come looking for me.”
    Joey was buttoning the overcoat. “Who?”
    “Everyone.”
    Bruce smiled, saluted Joey with two fingers, and walked onto the pier, threading his way among stacks of freight containers. A horn blared, deep and loud, and Bruce looked toward one of the ships, its hull trembling as its engines churned the water. Bruce ran toward it.
    FROM THE JOURNALS OF RĀ’S AL GHŪL
Early this morning, I walked as far as the nearest dune and back again, breathing in the clean desert air and rejoicing in it. Here, in the heat, and in the mountains, on the glacier, I can remember the planet as it once was before the stink of the greed of man made it a purgatory that is quickly becoming a hell.
    I begin to feel the rigors of age, as I have so often before. Soon I must descend again into the Pit to rejuvenate myself. The rejuvenation will be followed, as it always is, by a period of insane rage and violence. Once, I hoped to find a cure for this inevitable consequence of my chemical bath, but apparently there is none. Everything has a price.
    I have also decided to abandon my attempts to alter my genes in such a way as to allow me to sire a male child. The reason for my long inability to generate a boy apparently has to do with my Y chromosome that, once damaged, does not repair itself as does the heartier X chromosome. Not having a son is the greatest personal burden I bear. It is a consequence of my visits to the Pit that keep me alive. I have made a strange bargain with the universe.
    I am as always sustained by the righteousness of my mission and the realization that I am humanity’s savior. In another man these might seem like boastful words. I am not like other men. My long life has proven this, if nothing else.
    We will soon relocate our domicile to the building above the glacier. I think that is a strategically desirable location for the next phase of my efforts. I will augment my army and bring the League of Shadows to its greatest strength in three hundred years. I will continue to seek an adequate leader, someone to replace me in the event that I never create my own replacement.
    The experiment in Gotham City was at best a qualified success. I have given long consideration as to the means I shall use next in my crusade to save humanity and I may have come to a conclusion. I have decided against nuclear bombs. To use enough nuclear power to rid the earth of the eighty percent of its human inhabitants would be to render the planet inhospitable to most life forms and this has never been my wish. Neither can I use the environmental outrages humanity has already perpetrated for they, too, could leave the earth a barren cinder. Microbes and other biological means are also difficult choices for in the amounts I require they are almost impossible to control. I sense that the answer I seek is one I already possess. My problem is to recognize it.
    During my few moments of tranquility, I reflect