Batman #22

Batman began his career as a candy maker?

Batman #22 begins with The Red Hood not revealing his identity. Come on! How long do I have to wait? I'm just going to assume it's Uncle Philip Kane. If comic books were anything like movies, the identity of The Red Hood would have to be somebody we saw in the first twenty minutes. He may have been just a guy in the background tightening a nut on some kind of doohickey with a loose nut, but he'd be revealed so that it seems like the audience had a chance to guess who he was! And then when his identity was revealed at the end of the movie, the protagonist would flash back to that moment when the weird nut tightening guy was introduced and your nerdy friend sitting next to you would lean over and say, "I knew it was that guy." So by movie logic, The Red Hood has to be Philip Kane or Alfred Pennyworth or Edward Nygma or Bruce Wayne. I think those were all the main characters in the first part of this story and none of them seem right for the position. I guess it'll just have to be The Joker then.

But The Red Hood doesn't get to know the identity of whoever is fucking up his shit, so I suppose that's fair! As he's stealing some Sonic Fleshmelter Guns from a blimp he's hijacked, he believes he's found his nemesis!

That's the exact kind of joke The Joker would tell! "We have an opening!" KILL! "See?"

The only problem with The Red Hood being the man that will become The Joker is it all smacks too much of the Preboot Universe. And that's what makes me suspect Scott Snyder will change things up. Although this entire Year Zero thing is really about Batman which means Snyder might not really care about surprising the audience with a different Red Hood. It's even possible that Batman will kill (probably accidentally but you never know) The Red Hood without ever finding out his identity. This will cause Batman to vow to never, even accidentally, take another life. Or The Red Hood will just disappear in an ambiguous way so that the readers can fill up forums discussing all the clues that point to The Red Hood being The Joker.

Oswald Cobblepot really is Bruce Wayne in a short, fat, pointed nose suit. The Red Hood tells another pretty decent joke about cleaning out Bruce Wayne's ears with the Sonic Fleshmelter but the punchline strikes one of his henchmen instead of Bruce. This guy is pretty funny though! But then disaster strikes! Bruce Wayne's mask is ripped off of his head! Now he has to fight like he's in the opening credits to an Austin Powers movie!

Seeing as how I'm pretty sure I know how The Red Hood's cockpit suggestion was going to end, Bruce should have said, "Seeing as I ALREADY have your DNA."

Batman uses his Magneto Boots to stick to the underside of the blimp. He puts a kerchief over his mouth and nose as he enters the bottom of the plane because I guess The Penguin has been farting up a storm while tied up inside? Oh! He probably also doesn't want the Penguin to learn his identity! Although really, who could forget those piercing blue eyes once you've looked deeply and angrily into them?

The Red Hood catches him and Bruce dives out with a parachute and the penguin strapped to his back. I think The Penguin's Year Zero story isn't going very well so far.

Then there's the scene where Bruce Wayne falls in the hole as a child and is scared by bats. But he's still stuck down there when the scene changes back to the future so I'm not sure why I mentioned it. I just bored myself!

Alfred, you're going about this all wrong. Here, let me try: "Bruce, how are you going to get all of that pussy as a poverty stricken nobody living in Crime Alley?"

Holy shit. Sorry I scanned that page in because the next two pages are fucking fantastic. But I don't have to tell you, readers who purchased copies of this comic book via legal means and have already read and thoroughly enjoyed it, amirite? Anyway, I've got an imaginary contract with DC to only scan so many images per month, so I'll have to give you my rendition of the beginning of the next scene. Don't worry. I'm nearly as talented as Capullo.

I hope Jim Shooter doesn't notice my fucked up panel border!

Alfred walks off the job to go back to living at the cushy Wayne Manor. I wonder if Alfred inherited a sizable chunk of his own money when Bruce Wayne was declared dead? I bet Alfred owns the entire place! Why would he want Bruce back? Perhaps it's just too much responsibility for a man whose only goal was to continue the generations and generations of family tradition of serving rich people. Anyway, I won't make you have to look at more of my artwork for this next piece since I don't think I'd have the chops to pull off the emotional investment of the scene that should leave every Alfred Pennyworth fan in tears.

Batman is a batjerk.

Bruce realizes he can't live without his morning waffles, so he gives in (after Alfred leaves in tears) and calls his Uncle Philip to talk about taking over the business. Oddly enough, Uncle Philip wants to meet with Bruce at the museum at midnight! That doesn't sound peculiar at all! What's even creepier is that he adds, "For old time's sake." So Uncle Philip used to take young Bruce to the museum after hours? What kind of "Uncle" was this guy?

On reading further, it turns out Bruce doesn't want to take over. He just continued to go about his Not-Yet-Bat Business to try to get his Uncle Philip to stop producing weapons since they're now falling into the hands of gang members. Philip still wants Bruce to join but when he says no just the right amount of times, Philip presses a button!

Which causes the lights to come on to reveal a crowd of people standing around to welcome Bruce back to life. And Bruce being alive was really the only reason Bruce wouldn't take the job! So now that his resurrection has been forced on him, and now that Alfred isn't making him waffles, Bruce has a couple of good reasons to return to Wayne Enterprises.

When Bruce tries to escape the attention, he runs into Edward Nygma who apparently loves to add "y"s to spoken words that usually have "i"s. Probably because of his stupid last name. It must be part of his super villain schtick that nobody every notices because, you know, he doesn't actually produce word balloons. That must be why he realizes he needs a new gimmick and he chooses riddles. Although maybe he already loves riddles which is why he's talking about the sphynx! I mean, the sphinx!

Does the etymology of the word "sphincter" have anything to do with the sphinx? Oh! It does! Because The Sphinx used to strangle it's victims if they couldn't guess its riddle. And sphincter is from the Latin meaning "to squeeze"! I suppose everybody is expecting a poop joke now, aren't they? Sheesh. Write your own. So childish.

Also, check out the header on the website I used for my etymological search:

I'm glad it wasn't the other word I searched for!

Nygma and Wayne have a nice little game of who can confuse the fuck out of whom first. I think Bruce might win since he caught all of Nygam's dropped clues. I think it ends in a draw since neither of them have costumes and nobody was punched in the face. Although Edward Nygma seems charmed by Bruce's ability to solve his riddles. He may actually have a little bit of a crush on the handsome genius.

Bruce takes a cab back to his home in Crime Alley. After dropping Bruce off, the cab driver puts on The Red Hood and blows up Bruce's apartment. Just like in Batman #0! Bruce sure is getting blown up a lot! Now he'll have to move back to the Manor, if Alfred hasn't changed the locks.

The Red Hood has so many people working for him, it's hard to know if The Red Hood learned that Bruce Wayne was back in town directly from Philip Kane's evite to the surprise party (because The Red Hood is somebody powerful!) or The Red Hood was told about the party from dozens of his members who received evites themselves.

In the back-up story, Bruce meets a monkey with robot legs named Maxwell. What was the name of his non-robot legs?! Ha ha ha!

The Monkey teaches Bruce everything he needs to know to escape from the explosion and the rubble that he was caught in at the end of this issue.

Batman #22 Rating: No change. Why doesn't Maxwell have his own comic book in The New 52? A cyborg monkey would be better than at least 20% of The New 52 titles! Was there anything I should speculate about the future storyline in Year Zero? Is it almost over?