Killer Moth

Of all the villains in Gotham City, there was one that nobody quite knew what to do with.

His name was Drury Walker. But he called himself — and oh, he was very proud of this name — Killer Moth.

Killer Moth wore a costume that was bright green and bright purple, with two enormous fluttery wings sprouting from his back and two long bobbing antennae on his head. He looked, to be perfectly honest, a little bit silly. The other villains rolled their eyes when he walked into a room. Even the Joker had been heard to giggle.

But Drury Walker did not want to be silly. He wanted to be the OPPOSITE of Batman. The anti-Batman. While Batman protected the innocent, Killer Moth offered his services to bad guys, promising to keep THEM safe from the heroes. He was desperate, and that desperation made him unpredictable, and unpredictable people, even silly ones, can sometimes be dangerous.

Which is why Barbara Gordon never laughed when she heard his name.

One quiet night, the alarm at the Gotham Museum of Natural History went off — a sharp, twinkling sound that traveled across the rooftops. Batgirl was there in minutes, her purple cape swirling behind her as she dropped silently through a skylight.

And there he was. Killer Moth. Hovering in the great marble hall, his wings buzzing like a giant beetle, trying to steal a collection of rare prehistoric butterflies preserved behind glass.

"Stop right there, Drury," Batgirl called out.

Killer Moth spun around. "Aha! Batgirl! Prepare to meet your match!"

He fired his Silk Cannon — a strange device that shot ropes of sticky white goo that hardened the moment they touched anything. WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH — sticky ropes splattered across pillars and dinosaur bones. Barbara dodged them like a dancer, her cape twirling, her boots silent on the marble floor.

"You really do need a new hobby," Barbara said, and she flung a special Batarang — one she had designed herself, you see, in her spare evenings — straight at his jetpack. CLANG. The Batarang clipped one of his wings.

Killer Moth wobbled wildly through the air, screeching like a startled bird, and in his panic he hurled out a fistful of pheromone bombs. POOF, POOF, POOF — the air filled with sweet, dizzying pink mist.

Most heroes would have stumbled. Barbara tapped her cowl, and tiny filters whirred into place over her nose and mouth. She squinted through the haze, her cowl's heat vision flickering on, and she saw Killer Moth's bright orange shape darting between the bones of the enormous blue whale skeleton that hung from the ceiling.

He thought he was hiding. He thought he was clever.

Barbara knew his secret. Drury Walker's biggest weakness was not his silly wings or his sticky cannon. It was his ENORMOUS ego. He always wanted to be SEEN. He always wanted to be DRAMATIC. So he always made the dramatic mistake.

She crept along the catwalk above him. She waited. She lured him into a narrow stone corridor where his big wings could not flap properly. And then —

ZZZZAP.

She triggered a tiny EMP — a small electric burst that fried his flight pack. His wings sputtered. His jetpack coughed. And Killer Moth tumbled to the museum floor in a flutter of bent fabric and twitching antennae.

Barbara was on him in a heartbeat. CLICK, CLICK. Her zip-ties snapped around his wrists.

Killer Moth looked up at her, his mask crooked, his antennae bent. He tried very hard to look fierce. "You think you've won? This is just a minor setback for the Moth!"

His voice wobbled.

Barbara did not laugh. She did not lecture. She just looked at him for a long moment, and a flicker of something gentle passed through her — almost like pity. Drury Walker was a man who had wanted so badly to be important that he had chosen a costume that made the whole world giggle at him. That was its own kind of sadness.

But Barbara knew something else too. Even silly villains could hurt people. Even small threats could grow if no one stopped them. And so she stopped him. Quietly. Carefully. Completely.

She left him there for the police, the stolen butterflies safe in their cases, and she swung up through the broken skylight and out into the cool Gotham night.

WHOOSH went her purple cape.

From cosmic gods to men in moth suits, Barbara thought as she swung toward Burnside, Batgirl was ready for them all.