It is Victorian England, in 1897. Fog hangs over the city, shrouding the streets with a white gritty sediment, the legacy of coal fires in every house. In his stately manor on Baker Street, Sir Bruce Wayne KCOG VC, the 8th earl of Gothamshire, finished his letter to his old German friend Fredrich Nietzsche, consoling him about the man's enflamed condition from syphillus. He was entirely unware that the German philosoper had died the week before.
It was Wednesday night. This morning he had doined with his cousin Queen Victoria, Queen of England and Empress of India. And now he had little to do, an hour to kill before meeting after supper with two playwrights named George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde, who were seeking his financial assistance with a play. He knocked the groundings from his pipe, and brushed smooth his waxed moustache.
The balance of the week held much promise. The inventor and philanthropist Lord Stark was unveiling a new steam run armour mechanism on Thursday, a top secret assignment from the Ministry of Defence. Queen Victoria was reported to be delighted with Lord Stark's work.
And then, the Greek Princess Her Royal Highness Diana Themiscyra was due to arrive on her yacht on Friday, which meant a wild weekend on the water of absinthe and ropes. The debased Greek woman was notorious for her bondage fetishes, and fit well into the upper echelons of Victorian England. Earl Wayne smiled to himself, and slumped in his chair at the vision of his weekend. He suddenly stopped, and held his back ramrod straight, lest his butler and major-domo Alfred Pennyworth walk in and discover him so discomposed.
What was that? A sound? A tinkle of glass? Earl Wayne raised himself slowly to his feet. Alfred would never be so clumsy as to drop the Austraian crystal, but what else could it be?
A life of military involvement, fighting Zulus in the depths of Africa and Russians in the Crimea, had taught him an abundance of caution pays dividends. Earl Wayne reached out to a statue of the Bard on his writing desk, and tipped back its head. A pressed button, and a library bookshelf sprung open. With but a moment's hesitation, Wayne grasped his rapier, mounted on the wall. Earl Wayne then slid into the dark alcove, and walked up a flight of stairs. The library bookshelf swung back to its position, the entrance concealed.
The ceiling and walls of the manor were a labyrinth, dotted with tiny spy holes and one way mirrors, the remainder of days when Royalists hid from the men of the Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell. Earl Wayne put his eye to a concealed portal, and involuntarily drew in his breath.
The entrance of his home was open, the stained glass window of the door smashed in order to secure entry. Wayne saw a figure. It was a woman, but she looked like a cat. The woman wore a loin cloth around her bosom, and little else. Beneath her was Wayne's loyal butler, Alfred. His ribs were bloodied, but the cat woman mounted his hips and slid up and down his thighs. The cat woman was apparently feasting on the poor servant, and simultaneously copulating with him.
Wayne fought down cool anger, and stiffened his upper lip. Alfred had accompanied him on many campaigns, and to die in such lewd circustances was hardly befitting of a gentleman. Better to die with a sword in your hand and a curse on your lips, then be both strumpet and meal to a beast. Wayne prepared himself to leap out at the monstrous cat woman, through the alabaster plaster of the ceiling.
A deep, sardonic voice filled the room. "When you are completed with your fun, Tigra, we will continue to seek out Wayne." Wayne knew the voice too well, although he could not see its owner. It was Otto von Doom, the replacement of Bismarck and chief advisor to the Kaiser in Germany. Some rumoured that von Doom aspired to the throne himself: Wayne knew too well from documents secreted out of Berlin that von Doom virtually controlled Germany and was steering the nation to war, through an arms race with France.
The cat woman lifted her bloodied face to her unseen master. Wayne shuddered in horror. Von Doom seemed to be successfully engaged in some manner of human-animal experimental hybridisation, far beyond the capabilities of the British Empire. This cat hybrid was the gruesome, wanton result. "What if he has escaped already?" said the cat woman, her voice a purr.
"I have the Manbat circling over head lest Wayne attempt an escape, and Beta Ray Bill by now will have destroyed the stables, and killed Wayne's horses and carriage hands. Wayne is in the grounds somewhere." Wayne saw a hand, clad in greenish steel armour and shrouded in steam, point at the cat woman in a command. "Find him."
Tigra put her nose to the polished marble floor, and delicately sniffed. She suddenly raised a green, vicious eye directly towards Wayne's peephole.
Wayne scrambled backwards, deeper into his warren.
How could he possibly escape this pickle?
Setting aside the issue of his own life's preservation, he must tell the Queen of von Doom's scientific progress!
And von Doom seemed to be wearing armour which vastly resembled that of Lord Stark's steam-powered invention!
