WTF Wednesday: The Beard Hunter feels the burn!

Hey everyone! Put down that stubble-filled Hemingway and pick up your aftershave, it's time for the third installment of ...

WTF Wednesday Presents:
The Beard Hunter!

When we last saw our anti-hero, he was nursing his wounded pride (thanks, mom) with body-building magazines, hunting knives and body oil, but after receiving a cryptic letter from The Bearded Gentlemen's Club of Metropolis we find The Beard Hunter deep in enemy territory!

What could lure The Beard Hunter into the headquarters of an organization that would paint beards on their mirrors to "teach beardless visitors the error of their ways," and which once tried to dump beard tonic into the reservoirs to create a bearded city? Ernest Franklin keeps his lunch down long enough to learn that The Bearded Gentlemen have contacted him because they have a common foe; leader of the Doom Patrol, Niles Caulder!

Caulder should have known better than to defy the will of the BGCM! When he "lost the use of his beard," it made perfect sense that the group would want to buy his orphaned follicles — to refuse was a slap in the club's whiskery face!

Soon, The Beard Hunter is ... er, on the hunt, catching up to Caulder in a supermarket. It's on now!

Have I mentioned that Niles Caulder is confined to a wheelchair? It doesn't seem to matter much as the wily beardo manages to avoid The Beard Hunter's wildly spraying Uzi and lays a trap of sunflower oil that sends the vigilante on his ass and into a display of canned goods. And even worse, Caulder adds insult to injury by using The Beard Hunter's own weaponry against him!

But even as Caulder makes his escape, The Beard Hunter is confident he will catch his prey. In fact, he's so confident he stops to make preparations for the end-game with a ritual observed and venerated by vigilantes everywhere.

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Next week: Dénouement! Or — Is this the end for The Beard Hunter?!

Panels from Doom Patrol #45
Grant Morrison, writer; Vince Giarrano, penciller; Malcolm Jones III, inker