Batman #23

This was the Beta Version of the Bat-signal.

Last issue Bruce Wayne was killed in an explosion. Except I understand how comic books work and I know that you can't kill the main character. I mean, sometimes you can kill the main character. But I'm almost positive that you can't kill the main character in a story that takes place six years before other stories that the main character was in! It's that kind of thinking that put me at the top of the middle of my class in school!

This issue begins with Bruce using a special technique that utilizes a shield to block the main blast of the explosion. He learned it from a Monkey with Cyborg Legs many years ago when he was wandering the Earth in search of wisdom, skills, and fighting techniques.

The Red Hood must be one of those idiot arsonists from Earth 2 who like to burn down buildings from within.

Bruce Wayne is beaten and shot twice by The Red Hood and left to burn as an example of what happens to rich Gotham business people who decide not to team up with The Red Hood's criminal power structure.

But people don't go mad when they try to find meaning in life, do they? Well, some of them seem to go mad because the meaning they find doesn't agree with the meaning found by the majority of the people. But aren't the majority just as "mad" as the schizophrenic that finds meaning in the connections between every thought he thinks and every commercial on the television and every bird that flies by and every single thing that broaches her awareness? People often think that I can't be anything but sad and fearful because I believe that while everything in the universe must abide by universal rules, the happenings within the universe are completely random and meaningless. But I look at people who need to find meaning in life as the fearful ones in their need for life to mean something more than just a thing that happens. I often say that I'm living in a world full of madmen because the average person I interact with on a daily basis believes the craziest and most delusional things. People thank an invisible creator constantly. People are proud of being from a country they were randomly born into. People believe the world will suddenly and simply reach an end point due to ancient beliefs or prophetic texts. Meaning is madness. The lack of meaning is freedom.

But you know what the lack of meaning means to people who need meaning? Anarchy. Chaos. The streets running red with blood. But you know what? Those things exist and have existed in many places and they were perpetrated sometimes by people with meaningful beliefs and sometimes by people whose lives were devoid of meaning. Meaning, or lack thereof, doesn't make anybody more or less dangerous. You really just need more empathy for greater communal comfort and safety. The main problem is that empathy is often trumped by greed, or survival instinct, or jealousy, or passion out of control, or many other emotional configurations. Empathy tends to find itself at the bottom of the hierarchy while fear quite generally resides at the top.

But The Red Hood is right that people really do fear randomness more than anything else. When somebody is murdered in your home town, the local news desperately wants to be able to give a reason for the murder because it makes people feel safer. "Oh, well, of course that person got killed with all the drama they brought into their life! But I live simply. I don't need to worry." Whereas a random murder gets people fearing going out, getting extra security on the house, purchasing a weapon for defense. I figure every day is like boarding an airplane. The majority of the time, you're going to arrive at your destination. And that one time that you don't, you really can't do fuck all about it. Of course you don't have to spend every single day boarding the most rickety ass airplane you can find piloted by the drunkest motherfucker at the airfield either! You know! When you cross the street, don't expect cars to stop for you. Take control of your own life as best you can. But don't think you can protect yourself from that one random thing that's going to eventually happen that's going to put the lights out on your dinner party.

My good friend Soy Rakelson has always been one of those meaning junkies. In high school and college, he was always on a search for the ultimate truth. One day after our literary theory class, he came up to me confused because the professor had just taught us two conflicting theories. He said, "How can a teacher teach something that he doesn't believe?!" He really did just want to be told how it all fits together and why it all exists and how it's all going to end.

Getting back to Bruce, he eventually crawls back to Wayne Manor, beaten and shot and on the verge of dying. I bet the back-up story recounts a story about how Bruce learned a technique to stop his blood from flowing out of his body and how to mentally overcome huge amounts of pain! And I bet he learned it from a sentient Taoist fern!

Hopefully Alfred knows how to brew tea that can heal a lacerated liver and loss of blood.

So this explains why The Red Hood went after Bruce Wayne!

As you can see, Philip is not very happy about the hit on his nephew. He doesn't end up killing Edward Nygma; Edward simply quits and walks away.

I only read Batman for the interactions with Alfred. The crime fighting shit is just the set decoration.

March 1985, the first DC Who's Who was published. It sold for $1.35 (45p in the UK!) and Alfred Pennyworth was left out. Cold, DC. That's fucking cold. He did make it into the 1993 Binder Edition of Who's Who but who the fuck didn't? The Darkstars were in that thing!

Batman decides to wander around the Manor and dig through his Box of Memories. You know that box! That one that we all have where we keep things that prove that people were able to love us at one point in our lives before life turned us into unlovable monsters! Mine is just a crappy cardboard box with one side of the lid still taped to one side of the box. My box is filled with decoy shit so that when I die and somebody begins going through my shit, they'll open it up and think it's just a box full of unused postcards and deflated mylar balloons, never finding the tear-soaked letters and horrible poetry mixed within. Bruce's box has photos of his family and the sphere that his father created that could make a three dimensional map of a location. It's the one little Bruce used to map the cave within the hole he found in the yard. And as Bruce asks his father's bust the direction he should take in his pursuit of justice, the Sphere kicks on and turns the Manor Room into a cavern.

Oh! Oh! I know what's going to happen next! Alfred is going to knock a Badminton Birdie through the window and Bruce is going to become "The Birdie"! He'll wear a white lace outfit with white lace wings and a big red, rubber helmet!

Luckily the bats that fly into the window are just images recorded on the Map Ball or else Alfred would be fucking pissed with Bruce for letting a swarm into the Manor. It's not like Bruce has any idea how hard it is to get Bat Guano stains off of wallpaper. Because Bruce probably never did a chore in his entire life with Alfred dutifully watching over him and I really fucking doubt that he wandered the Earth learning Eastern Cleaning Secrets.

Okay. One of them was analog because DC didn't want to piss off its eighty year old fans with a completely digital reenactment of this moment!

The back-up story may just be the best Batman story I've ever read. That's because I'm using a complex mathematical formula that takes into account the amount of pages divided by the amount of tears brought to my eyes multiplied by the importance of the theme. It's just fucking terrific. And that's all I'm going to say about that because even I believe that some things should be experienced on their own instead of being filtered through my incredibly insightful commentaries.

Batman #23 Rating: +15 Rankings! Hmm, it's already at position Number One, so I guess Scott Snyder just wasted 15 Ranks! Too bad for you, dumb dumb! I hope Capullo and Miki draw a picture of Scott Snyder looking sad and forlorn because he wasted so many ranks but then their art will be sad and forlorn because they'll realize as they're drawing it that they also wasted fifteen ranks because they're a big part of this book. This thing is just good shit on every level. The levels are these: 1. Pictures. 2. Words. 3. Colors. 4. Bat Pectoral Muscles. 5. Bat Ass Crack. 6. Alfred Pennyworth Spouting Truths. There might be some other levels as well but I'm not getting paid to come up with stupid ways to read a stupid funny book!