Friday, February 3, 2012

Detective Comics #5



Aww, The Penguin. It doesn't look like Daniel's Penguin is based on Burgess Meredith at all! I think the Burgess Meredith Penguin was the only version of the penguin that was ever skinny.

I never totally understood The Penguin's whole gimmick. Batman chose a bat because it's nocturnal and would strike fear in the hearts of the criminals of Gotham. Did The Penguin simply choose his name because of a speech impediment? Or a physical ailment that caused him to waddle?

I also never understood why he was competition to Batman. I think he's really just a glorified Mob boss. Who dresses snazzy! Or snappy!



Looks like The Penguin runs a casino in Gotham. And he's got Darcy Parker Girls working for him!


That was a Strangers in Paradise reference.

Batman is headed there looking for some silent killer dressed like The Joker. Shirtless tycoon Hugh is already there with his dates Sophia Lake and Charlotte Rivers. Maybe they're going to meet Billy Ocean! Ooof. I just hurt my pride typing that.

Charlotte Rivers is that journalist Bruce Wayne is boinking. And it looks like she's trying to go undercover as a french maid to get some sort of story at Penguin's Iceberg Casino. But as you can see from the previous picture, the Penguin is on to her! The big pervert has cameras installed in the rooms! Especially hers! Ooh la la!

That was a really short story because there are two stories in this issue! The next one is called Russian Roulette.

The game is about some kid named Eli Strange playing poker against Russian mobsters. Meanwhile, a robotic crow built by his estranged father, Hugo Strange, is keeping an eye on him. After the poker game erupts into chaos, Catwoman arrives to clean things up. Eli was working with her on some sort of little caper. Not much to the story. I guess a little prologue to some Hugo Strange thing in the future. But I did want to discuss the poker being played. They're playing five card draw.

This is the Russian's starting hand:



With this hand, he still decides to ask for two cards!



And when the betting is over, this is his hand:



Also, Jokers are wild and I think those are Jokers since there isn't a suit on them. But even if they're Jacks, it wouldn't matter. He has either 5 of a kind or a full house.

This is the kid's hand:



Which he wins with!



He even cheats to change his hand to that from this:



The New DC Universe has some wacky Poker rules! Or else Eli Strange has some strange mental powers. But that doesn't account for why he had to change his original full house to the straight. Or why the Russian asks for two cards and then never draws two new cards! Except that his mental powers might be so strange as to be incomprehensible!

Oh, and see that guy with the eye patch in the background? He took a throwing star to the eye in the earlier story. So this takes place after that one, if it matters.

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