Batman has a lot of noteworthy accessories if you will. Not only does he have his gadgets but the Dark Knight also has a spectacular place to store them: the Batcave. While the nature of the Batcave has changed in the current Batman run with Bruce Wayne’s wealth no longer being what it was, its legendary status remains and this week, in Batman #109, Ghost-Maker reveals his own take on a vigilante’s secret lair — as well as all the ways he’s trying to top Batman with his own extravagant toys.
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Warning: Spoilers for Batman #109 below.
In Batman #109, while the titular hero is headed off to deal with Simon Saint, who he has figured out is the real threat right now in Gotham City, Ghost-Maker is with Harley Quinn in his own hideout. Ghost-Maker gives Harley the tour, showing off the various things he has and how they compare to Batman’s cave. And Ghost-Maker isn’t even subtle about it. When Harley asks him if his space is “some kind of Batcave” he tells her that his lair is called “The Haunt” and that he very deliberately designed it to top the original.
Ghost-Maker even has his own dinosaur, though to one-up Batman’s T-Rex, Ghost-Maker went for a “bigger” dinosaur, a spinosaurus, the largest of all known carnivorous animals. The only thing in The Haunt that isn’t bigger and better than what Batman has is the car. Ghost-Maker tells Harley that the Ghost-Racer is still outpaced by the Batmobile and for that reason, he’s going to burn it in the industrial furnace and try again. Harley sums the situation up perfectly when she notes that “you boys sure lead interesting lives.”
Ghost-Maker showing off his lair and trying to one-up everything that Batman does offers a bit of levity to the issue as well as further illustrates that while the pair are, at the moment, allies, the two men are very different, something that Ghost-Maker ends up putting a very fine point on as he continues to chat with Harley. He reveals that he was diagnosed as a psychopath as an eight-year-old child, but that instead of choosing to use what he calls his “natural deficiency” to seduce anyone he wanted or become a politician or a CEO, he chose to take on the task of fixing the world. It makes for an interesting counterpoint to Batman who is using his own mental health concern — in his case, the trauma of his childhood and lost parents — to also fix something that is broken.
Batman #109 is on sale now.
What do you think about Ghost-Maker’s “The Haunt”? Do you think he’s really topped the Batcave? Let us know in the comments.
