Batman #17

Come on, come on! All I want to know is what was on the platter!

Let the party begin! I need a glass of sake for this! I'd get a cupcake as well but I'm currently out of cupcakes. Cupcakes don't last very long in my house. Not because the air in my house causes things to spoil and decompose rapidly! Because I eat them! Sheesh. How could I keep the corpse of my mother fresh and lively if the air quickly degraded organic items? Duh!

So I'll have to do without snacks. But not without sake! Mmm! Okay Joker! Finish your fucking joke, mother fucker!

It's Valentine's Day and that's the second time I've mentioned Mother. I guess I'll be moving up the psychiatric appointment this week.

I hope Joker gives us the name of his two-faced cat. And I hope it's not Little Two-face.

First things first: everybody has a platter. That's something that I didn't realize until the final Teen Titans Death of the Family crossover. And unless Alfred had six penises, I have a feeling my guess as to what was on the serving tray was wrong. Second, they're in a cave. It doesn't look like the Batcave because I don't see a dinosaur or a giant penny anywhere. But there are pipes or flooring of some kind on the ceiling above them. Batman did say that if The Joker got into the system of tunnels that led to the Batcave that the tunnels led to caves under many other Gotham houses. Perhaps The Joker found his way to under one of those and believed that person was Batman? Perhaps the things under the covered serving trays are the identities of people that would fit if Batman were the person The Joker thinks he is? Could it be that easy of a misunderstanding? Or, since I don't see Alfred, could it be as gruesome as many people expect?

The Joker has booby trapped the table and Batman's chair so that if he moves, flint will spark and ignite his gasoline covered Batfamily. So now he just has to sit and watch as The Joker reveals what's under the serving tray. I'm so fucking nervous! Joker mentions that Alfred is around and then moves as if he's going to uncover the platter! Oh no!

I knew he wasn't dead! Really! I totes knew it! Now let's see if DC has the balls to let Batman kill The Joker! Or will Batman simply stop the others from killing him, thus garnering hate and resent from the Batfamily and killing their relationships? Thus, Death of the Family!

Alfred removes the hoods from everyone and exposes the Batfamily with bloody bandages around their faces. And then Alfred serves everyone their dinner.

But first! What exactly does all this mean? The Joker removes his face only to come back but wearing his own face as if it's actually a mask now instead of who he is. And now he's unmasking the other heroes. But these heroes don't need to remove their faces to be unmasked, so my guess is he simply bandaged up their real faces as if removing their costume masks were a wound akin to his. Joker removing his face is all about identity. Is he a different person underneath his now removed face? Is Batman still Batman when the mask is removed? Or is Batman nobody The Joker cares about? It's all about the mask and they all know it. It's a game they play and every single one of them at this table is the mask they wear. Not one of them is a real person when the mask is put away. They're shadows of who they really are. And why would The Joker care about the shadows?

So what's under the covered platters? Their masks, bloody and torn? Or cupcakes (which is my real guess and has been for awhile now!)?

Or you know. Real faces with their masks on them.

Now I'm not yet ready to believe these are their real faces! I'm just too cynical for that. I'm sure The Joker had other victims and used their faces. But the faces are on ice, so maybe they are! Once The Joker is defeated and Alfred is unJokerfied, Alfred can mix up a really strong batch of tea and get back to sewing faces on Batfamily members.

The Joker doesn't have the best reason for why he cut off his face and the faces of the rest of the Bats. It's a bit of a Catch-22 moment where The Joker is playing the part of Snowden and his guts falling out to Yossarian's horror at the realization of how fragile we are. But the point The Joker gets to after the why of the cutting off of the faces . . . now that begins to cut at the meat of it.

Please let Batman kill The Joker. Please! That would be the greatest reason for the Reboot! And it might be the greatest evidence for The New 52 Haters that the old universe will eventually come back. Because how can a DC Universe exist without The Joker? Amirite?

The Joker continues to taunt Batman, explaining how Batman must love him since he kept so many secrets between them. And then he produces the little book he's been carrying around during this whole crossover. The thing that caused me to say this in my Batgirl #14 commentary when I was pretending to be The Joker writing in Bab's Diary (although I changed it midway to James writing in the Diary without missing a beat): "Did you know The Bat keeps a diary? Well, of sorts. Kind of a testament sort of thing. What would happen if that ever fell into the wrong hands, hmm? My oh my. Wouldn’t that cause a mighty ruckus?" And it looks like that was just the sort of thing The Joker found.

It seemed to me at the time that the only thing Batman could possibly write that would expose who the other Batfamily members were was Bruce Wayne's will. Thus the "testament sort of thing" comment. I don't know that this is what that is yet.

At this point, The Joker threatens to ignite everyone at the table. But first he gives Batman a chance to do it himself. Which Batman does by throwing his chair to the ground and breaking free as everyone at the table bursts into flames. But Batman knows the caves too well. He blows a hole in the ceiling allowing river water to begin flooding the chamber and put out the flames. He rushes to Damian and rips off the bandages to see if he's okay.

"I'm not crying! It's just river water dripping from the ceiling!"

The Joker runs and Batman refuses to go after him. He'd rather stay to protect his Family. But Nightwing insists that they'll be okay, so Batman does what he really wanted to do anyway and chases after The Joker. In the meantime, The Joker's cat blows up and the entire Batfamily sucks down a healthy dose of Joker Toxin. I guess now the party has really started!

Batman chases after The Joker and The Joker keeps trying to retain the upper hand. But he's lost it now. Batman won't let him get away while Bats goes back to save the others because Batman trusts the others. Batman refuses to "dance" with The Joker. Batman refuses to "quarrel" with The Joker. Batman finally refuses to do any of this on The Joker's terms. So The Joker tries once more to get away.

Now Batman is either going to actually kill him or sit him down and give him a rational, coldly logical, unarguable reason as to why he refuses to kill him. I'm a pacifist but I'm still hoping for the former! Kill him! Kill him dead! Make the Reboot mean something!

Or maybe Batman just decides he knows a better joke?

The best moment of last week's comics was when Frankenstein became Green Lantern in Animal Man #17. This is the best moment so far in this week's comics (even if this is the first of this week's comics I've read!). I think I should do a weekly feature highlighting my favorite panel each week. That's the kind of listy, best-of type thing internet ravens really go for!

The Joker cannot stand to hear who he really is. That isn't him anyway. And knowing Batman knows would ruin the game for The Joker. It really is all about masks. Who they actually are? It doesn't matter. And so he couldn't bear knowing Batman knows him in any other form than The Joker. So he shocks Batman in the face and falls into the chasm. He loses his face as he falls, so I don't know what he'll look like when he returns.

Batman heads back to find that The Joker's little book has nothing in it at all. He never knew anybody's secret identities. Therefore Scott Lobdell's stories made no fucking sense. Although Snyder could have told the other writers that it doesn't matter whether The Joker knows their identities or not because The Joker really doesn't fucking care about that shit. So perhaps the other writers were free to be as ambiguous as they wanted to be. Although you could tell Lobdell was trying to be ambiguous like when Jason Todd suddenly realized The Joker was calling him "son" and "boy". But it was too late at that point. The ambiguity was long since killed because The Joker found Jason Todd as Jason Todd in a way that could only have made it Jason Todd The Joker was after. Anyway, that's all sorted and done with. Now the Batman simply heads back to find the Batfamily still stoned on Joker Juice but fighting through the crazy, cuddled up and laughing and holding each other lovingly.

And days pass as everyone recovers.

More awesome stuff with Alfred Pennyworth. Does he steal every scene he's in or what?

Bruce tries to call a meeting but everyone blows him off with notes and texts. Dick is the only one to speak to him directly.

I guess The Joker said some pretty nasty things!

Batman #17 Rating: No change. And so it ends much the way I thought. I'd hoped for Bats to kill The Joker but instead The Joker sort of kills himself. I mean, it looks like he does. It's totes obvs he'll be back. But he did manage to cause a rift in the Family so that everyone is off pouting in hurt and resentment and wanting nothing to do with Bruce. Yeah. We'll see how long that lasts! I don't remember which commentary I first surmised this would happen but I do remember mentioning Dick would be the only one mature enough to not fall for it. And he's a bit hurt and all but at least he can speak with Batman and accept his apology. Man, I really like who Dick Grayson has become.