Batman: Legacy is a Batman Bat Family Crossover released in 1996 by DC Comics. It is the sequel to Batman: Contagion.
Gotham City is slowly recovering from the outbreak of the Ebola Gulf A Virus, also known as "The Clench", that nearly destroyed the city when it was infected. However, when former mayor Armond Kohl is found dead with the same symptoms as before, Batman and his allies learn the truth — the virus wasn't cured, but made dormant and it's now mutated. Pointed out by Azrael to a location in Sudan, Batman and his allies begin a worldwide adventure to stop an old foe from unleashing an even deadlier version of the virus across the world and save those infected by the earlier virus.
The event had a number of prologue issues in Detective Comics #697-99, Robin #31, Catwoman #33-35, Shadow of the Bat #53, and Batman #533 before kicking off with Detective Comics #700 and running through Catwoman #36, Robin #32-33, Batman #534 and Detective Comics #701-702. A sequel one-shot, Batman: Bane, was released in 1997 as part of a series of one-shots celebrating Batman & Robin and in 1998, a prequel mini-series Batman: Bane of the Demon served to show how things started off.
Tropes Featured In This Storyline:
- Back for the Dead: Former mayor Armand Krol, whose actions during Contagion caused the governor to swear in Marion Grange early, comes back — as a corpse that clues the GCPD onto the fact that the Clench wasn't really cured, just rendered dormant, as he's killed by the disease in his body flaring up again.
- Big Bad: Ra's al Ghul returns to prominence here, being the mastermind behind everything.
- The Bus Came Back: Bane returns in this storyline as a major player since the events of Knightfall. This story also sees the return of Ra's al Ghul and his daughter Talia, though this one's a little murkier — read Continuity Snarl below.
- Canon Immigrant: The prologue introduces Lock-Up from Batman: The Animated Series into the DCU.
- Continuity Snarl: Whoo, boy. This story treats this book as the first time the Tim Drake Robin met Ra's al Ghul. However, Tim had already met and fought Ra's before in the one-shot Batman: Bride of the Demon. This is because, at the time of the story's writing, the Birth of the Demon Trilogy — Son, Bride and Birth — had been declared Canon Discontinuity by Batman Family editor Denny O'Neil as he and others didn't like the idea of Batman having a son out of wedlock.
- Flawed Prototype: The Clench is revealed to have been this — Ra's and his men developed the virus, but it wasn't finished when the Order of St. Dumas stole it and released it earlier.
- Godzilla Threshold: Batman is forced to recruit Huntress to watch over Gotham. Even Huntress is shocked at this, thinking he'd turned to other vigilantes like Pagan or Joe Public.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: Bane treats Talia this way as Ra's has decided to make him his heir instead of Batman, though Talia despises Bane.
- How We Got Here: Bane of the Demon reveals what happened to Bane between Vengeance of Bane II and this story.
- MacGuffin: The Wheel of Plagues, an ancient wheel that describes how to create various diseases. Ra's wants to use this to create a supervirus powerful enough to kill most of the planet and send what's left into anarchy. Ra's has Bane destroy the original after he digitally copies it.
- The Reveal: Ra's created the original virus that attacked Gotham earlier, but it was stolen and released earlier than planned. As well, Ra's has a major rivalry with the Order and the Vatican.
- Your Days Are Numbered: As it turns out, the Clench is still active but dormant, ready to mutate and kill its host much faster than before. Once Tim and the others realizes this, he decides to go out swinging.
