Batman #499

KNIGHTFALL PART 17 - THE VENOM CONNECTION

While Robin worries about how violent and merciless Jean-Paul Valley is being as the new Batman, Jean-Paul cuts a deal with 'Tough' Tony Bressi which will lead him to Bane, and get Bressi's kids back.  In the Batcave, a wheelchair-bound Bruce Wayne investigates the kidnapping of Jack Drake and Doctor Shondra Kinsolving. He preforms a DNA test on one of the kidnappers' masks and discovers that there is an intermingling of protozoans within the blood sample he took. He assumes that the protozoans are related to having contracted malaria, but soon realizes that the kidnapper was in fact vaccinated against it.  Bird comes to Bane with concerns that the Batman is back, and disrupting his plans to gain control over Gotham City's crime syndicates. Bane angrily responds that this 'Batman' is a pretender, and knows that whoever this is, they don't pose a threat. When Bressi calls, agreeing to Bane's terms, he sends Bird and his other men to oversee the return of his children, just in case the pretender appears.  Bruce discovers the strain of malaria that the vaccine covers, and has Oracle, who helps him trace it to Santa Prisca. Jean-Paul returns to find Bruce in the cave, and Bruce gives up the cave to him with the impression that his replacement is doing a good job. Bruce and Alfred make preparations for travel to Latin America.  With the cave his own, Jean-Paul suddenly finds himself overcome by a spell of automatic writing, which turn out to be designs for a pair of razor-sharp gloves. Finding that Harold is missing from the cave, he decides to make the gloves himself.  With his plan for Bressi in action, Jean-Paul plans to go to the drop site and take on Bane himself. Robin attempts to convince him to stay away from Bane, but Jean-Paul is convinced that he can take out the man who broke Batman. Meanwhile, Selina Kyle has her own plans to get to Santa Prisca, but finding no available flights there, she is forced to stowaway on Bruce Wayne's private Jet.  At the drop site, Zombie prepares to return Bressi's children, but suddenly, Batman leaps down from the roof demanding to see Bane. Zombie, Trogg and Bird open fire on him, while Robin shouts that Jean-Paul should have waited until the kids were safe. Jean-Paul's new gauntlets give him a nasty edge against the villains, and he takes them all down, but Robin is growing ever more concerned about his methods.  Robin resolves to tell Bruce that Jean-Paul can't be trusted, but arrives in the cave to find only Jean-Paul himself, and that Bruce and Alfred are gone. When he returns home to Drake Manor, he finds a note from Alfred, saying that they are looking for his father.

Continued in DETECTIVE COMICS #666