A lunatic goes into a butcher shop and says: "A bag of carrots, please." "This is a butcher's! Get lost!" Next day, same lunatic, same shop. "A bag of carrots, please." "I told you- this is a butcher shop! Now beat it! Next time I'll nail your feet to the ground!" Third day, same lunatic, same shop. "A bag of nails, please." "This is a butcher shop. We don't have any nails!" "In that case, I'll have a bag of carrots!" 
- — Joker
Batman: Shadow of the Bat #81 is an issue of the series Batman: Shadow of the Bat (Volume 1) with a cover date of January, 1999.
Synopsis for "Road to No Man's Land: Waxman and the Clown, Part 2"
Joker talks to Jeremiah Arkham and convinces him about having a gladiatorial combat between Killer Croc and Pinhead in Arkham Asylum as a way to keep the inmates busy and entertained. Jeremiah agreed and Joker left the man's office taking Arkham's diary with him.
The next day, just eight staff members showed up to work and Jeramiah had no option but to place two guards in charge of the medication delivery while he and David went to check the asylum's gym to prepare it for the fight. The guards didn't knew what to do and they just gave the inmates the medication that the computer indicated and so they give Killer Croc stimulants and other wrong medications as a result of Joker's hacking into the main computer.
Jeremiah and David opened the gym and found a dead guard inside. They knew that the situation could turn bad easily but they continued with the plan. Jeremiah let the inmates into the gym but he noticed an unusual behavior in Killer Croc. He tried to prevent the fight but Croc pushed him aside and started to fight Pinhead. For a while the fight was tied but later, Pinhead took the upper hand and smashed Croc against a table, breaking it. The other inmates were distracted and entertained, just as Joker predicted. When Pinhead tried to deliver the final blow, Croc recovered and used a dumbbell to strike Pinhead's face with it and when his enemy was down, Croc punched him repeatedly with the same dumbbell until he finally killed Pinhead. Croc then tossed the body to the guards and the inmates picked their weapons and seized the chance to attack the guards and orderlies. However, when they were about to torture Jeremiah Arkham, Joker used a firehose to stun them and let the guards recover their weapons along with the control of the situation. Joker then turned his attention to Wax Man and placed the hose into the man's mouth as a payback for what he did to him with the bowl of food; that way Joker killed Wax Man and when Jeremiah told him to stop, Joker obeyed.
When Jeremiah and the Arkham staff realized that they were outnumbered, they decided to step out of the gym and lock the inmates inside it, but before the doors closed, Joker threw Jeremiah's diary to him. Jeremiah read the diary and learned that everything that happened was planned by the Joker. All the security guards remaining decided to leave the asylum leaving Jeremiah and David alone. The two of them walked through the empty corridors and found Solly Bean in his cell eating one of the orderly's body. They locked the madman inside and then decided to lock themselves in Jeremiah's office until they can devise a plan to deal with the inmates. They watched the TV news and learned about Bruce Wayne's hearing at Washington, D.C.. Jeremiah knew that the government would shut down Gotham and after thinking it, he was exhausted and leaned over his desk to catch some sleep as David advised him.
Later, a shadowy figure walked into Arkham Asylum's gym and found it empty. It was "Batman", looking for the asylum inmates. He walked to Solly Bean's cell and told him to give a message to the rest of the inmates but when he told Solly the message, someone spoke to him from behind. All the inmates were behind him and ready to receive the message personally.
Appearing in "Road to No Man's Land: Waxman and the Clown, Part 2"
Featured Characters:
Supporting Characters:
- David Thurman
Villains:
- The Joker
- Template:Apn
- Killer Croc
- Scarecrow
- Ventriloquist
- Riddler
- Two-Face
- Wax Man (Dies)
- Pinhead (Dies)
- Samantha Voz
- Vox
- Cornelius Stirk
- Tweedledum and Tweedledee (Cameo)
Other Characters:
- Mad Hatter (Cover only)
- Poison Ivy (Cover only)
- John Prescott (Appears only as a corpse)
- Greg Roark (a.k.a. Jigsaw Man)
- Solly Bean
- Nicholas Scratch (On a TV or computer screen)
- Bruce Wayne (On a TV or computer screen)
Locations:
- Washington, D.C. (On a TV or computer screen)
- Capitol Building (On a TV or computer screen)
Items:
Vehicles:
Notes
- The story continues in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #82.
- This issue is reprinted in Batman: Road to No Man's Land Vol. 2 (Collected).
Trivia
- Batman appears in the last panels of the issue. However, Bruce Wayne was in Washington, D.C. at the time; and it was revealed in the next issue that it wasn't Batman in Arkham Asylum.
See Also
- Cover gallery for the Batman: Shadow of the Bat series
- Images from Batman: Shadow of the Bat Vol 1 81
