“Where, may I ask, is Liam Fox?”

The question from Alexander Knox that led to nervous unrest on the backbenches. After suggesting that Colonel Ghaddafi could be the direct target of an allied attack, Britain’s Defence Secretary has disappeared from public view. In a Newham recording studio, Boris Johnson admitted that “nobody has a ruddy clue where Liam is” whilst appearing on Question Time. The well-informed and knowledgeable Mayor of London went on to say that nobody “had heard from or seen the twit since those barmy comments over a week ago,” sparking a wave of rumours and tabloid headlines concerning the absent minister’s whereabouts.

Since stating that archnemesis The Colonel could be directly taken out, the MP for North Somerset has retreated from the political limelight, perhaps hiding in Fox Manor (a mansion declared as his “second home” in 2010), arousing suspicion from commentators and comic book enthusiasts alike. “He said to me last week, “If the forces of evil should rise to cast a shadow on the heart of the Middle East, call me.” I’ve tried a number of times, but it’s going straight to answerphone,” bemoaned close friend and political commentator Richard Grayson.

When taking into consideration Liam’s family connections and recent incidents in Libya, the notion of Fox moonlighting as a dangerous winged vigilante is not necessarily implausible. The MP has access to the latest technological weaponry and armour, largely thanks to the close ties that exist between third-party weapons developers and the government, forged in previous years by his father Lucius. Incidentally, pro-Colonel forces have reported a lone shrouded figure taking out entire tanks and APVs. Eye-witnesses described him as “a little on the tubby side for a vigilante”, “poor in terms of dress sense”, and “wearing a mask, which is no doubt hiding some sort of comb-over”.

The rubber-faced and loudly dressed Colonel dismissed the threat publicly on Libyan television, claiming that the vigilante had no support from the West. However, the arrival of US fighter jets over Tripoli, attracted to the capital by a large projection of the Conservative Party logo of the 1980s, suggests that the Dark Knight may have found at least one ally in Chief of Staff James Gordon of the United States Air Force.