Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight 9-A

"Gothic, Part 4 of 5: The Hangman's Tale"

*Batman confronts Morgenstern as the true murderer of Ottavio. Morgenstern admits it, and explains why Whisper is here. 20 years ago, Whisper was murdering kids all over Gotham. Morgenstern, Ottavio and others were being targeted by the police as the culprits, so they went after Whisper and tried to kill him. It took several attempts of beating and shooting. Eventually they drowned him in the river - but now he is back. Batman reminisces on how his father rescued him from Mr Winchester's boarding school. The next night they went out to celebrate - by watching the Mask of Zorro. Winchester is obviously Mr Whisper. Having found plans of Gotham Cathedral in Austria, Batman goes to the cathedral and finds stacks of bodies - and Whisper. Whisper explains how, after the monastery at Lake Dess was flooded, he took the plague-ridden bodies of the dead monks with him to Gotham in 1760. There, he distilled and concentrated the plague pathogen and stored it in the cathedral, which he had built as a soul trap. Whisper's immortality is coming to an end, but if he releases the super plague from the cathedral and wipes out Gotham, all the souls will be caught in the cathedral and offered to the devil who will allow Whisper to remain living. Whisper was killing kids in Gotham 20 years ago to prepare Gotham for this ritual. His revenge attacks on his would-be murderers was to pass the time. Whisper leaves Batman - whom he knows is his old pupil Bruce - in a deathtrap. *Source: DCUGuide.com