"CAPED CRUSADER" MAY HAVE COMPANY
By Thomas Drury
Staff Reporter
Although the masked vigilante "The Bat-Man" is still officially considered an urban legend by both the police and the publisher of this newspaper, there is mounting evidence that someone is once again waging a personal war on crime in and around Gotham City--and it now appears he is no longer working alone.
In the first 10 days of December, police have discovered 26 alleged criminals bound and waiting for arrest in locations throughout the city and its suburbs, each bearing a small yellow sheet of paper emblazoned with the image of a bat.
"These aren't just sightings or rumors," police investigator Sandra Meyerson observed. "There is hard evidence this time. Under interrogation, some of the captured suspects--most of them clearly terrified--describe being overtaken by a large, powerful man wearing a disguise."
Tellingly, the individual descriptions do not match in every detail. Some of the abducted speak of a man who sounds a great deal like previous accounts of the Bat-Man, but several do not. There are reports of figures of various ages and builds wearing capes, capeless outfits, costumes that are green, black, or multi-colored, and so on; the only common thread appears to be that the mysterious character is male and wears a mask.
As a result, speculation within the GCPD suggests that rather than a lone "Bat-Man," there may be an organized coalition behnd the current wave of activity. "That would explain how the same person could be popping up in so many different parts of the region on a single day," Officer Meyerson noted. "There's almost no way a single individual, no matter how effective or resourceful, could be responsible for this many citizen arrests in this short a period of time."
Whether there is one face or many behind the mask, not everyone in the police department is happy with the extra help. "This [expletive] has got to stop," said one GCPD official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "This guy, or this group, or whatever, is making us look like we don't know how to do our job."