Batwing #23

Why is there a Trademark tag on Lady Vic? I absolutely guarantee that nobody is stealing the name Lady Vic. Except now I want too!

Here are some super hero names that I'm trademarking right now:

Lord Vic
Lady Victim
Lady Victrola
Lady Vice
Mister Blister
Genital Warthog
Carmen San Pietro
Training Wheels
The Fragrant Foul
Batsing
Genetic Shake-up
General Ennui
The Purple People Leader
Kittenpult
The Clog
Fantasy Pants
Say Again?

Now I want to continue writing The Galactic Hero Corps! That is too a thing! It was even a thing in which Dan Santat did art for it! Fuck, that was a long time ago. I should probably forget the past and move on with my life. But it's so hard! Forward movement is the worst movement ever!

Currently in Batwing: Termite Men are sucking the thought juice out of Wayne Enterprises CEO, Lucius Fox, while Batman and Batwing battle the Mother of all Termites in an action-packed, gloves-off, brawl to end it all in Gotham City. Or something like that. Have I mentioned recently that I find this comic book boring? I wish Aquaman would guest star. I have some really good fish jokes!

Semi-interesting fact: I called it "thought juice" before seeing this panel. Ewwww.

I've really got to find something interesting about Batwing. The main problem is I don't know much about Luke Fox. So why should I care about him? He's a boxer who took a job of which his father would not approve. He's Lucius Fox's son but I don't even know that much about Lucius Fox. I know more about him from the Batman movies than from the comic books. At least I'd had twenty issues to get to know something about David Zavimbe. Also I hate the name Batwing. That's the fucking name of Batman's plane!

The Mother of All Termites at the end of last issue was supposed to be a tension filled cliffhanger. But it doesn't go anywhere in this comic book because Batman battles it off panel. The majority of the first few pages are filled with Luke's Narration Boxes hoping that his dad isn't dead. So seven pages later without anything really happening, Lucius Fox is safe and the Termite People have been arrested.

That may be the least I've ever said about the first half of any comic book since I began this blog! Something crazy needs to happen in this comic book soon or I'm just going to have to start making shit up.

I wish Batman was the star of this comic book!

Batwing is learning to be a super hero the hard way. Couldn't Batman have pulled him aside and said, "Listen. Unless your family was slaughtered by a random mugger or manipulated into dying in a car crash by a fifth dimensional being or were all turned into snakes by the jealous wife of the King of Gods or were killed in a freak trapeze accident involving a sniper, you're going to have problems trying to maintain balance between your family life and your super hero life." It's just so much easier when your family is dead! Although dating is still difficult. I once thought Nightwing wasn't quite as good at the dating scene as Batman but after seeing Batman's recent relationship with Natalya, Dick Grayson is actually doing pretty well on that front. Although his ex-lover Raya did try to kill him and got herself Jokerized. I guess they all suck at it. Even Clark now has a Lana Lang Mind Zombie running around his brain because he can't figure out relationships.

Meanwhile in India, Lady Vic is shooting a Bollywood director through the head. She's also on a business call with someone in Rome (probably that jerk Atticus Fontaine) who has another job for her.

Batman is only worth twice as much as any other bat? Ridiculous!

Here we go again! First Talia targets Wayne Enterprises and now Atticus Fontaine and his assassin Lady Vic! At least this isn't really Batman's fault. This is Bruce Wayne's fault for getting into the dirty diamond business. But how long is Gotham going to stand having Bruce Wayne's business in town if it keeps turning the entire city into a war zone? And it's not like The Joker has any attachment to Gotham, so The Batman leaving town would probably lower the death rate as well. I think Batman needs an accountant to keep track of the number of people he saves versus the number of people who die in Gotham that are directly related to villains attacking Wayne Enterprises or retaliating against Batman. I have a feeling that book wouldn't balance very well.

Lady Vic calls the man on the phone "Charlie" so maybe it isn't Atticus Fontaine. It could be somebody else that was mentioned in the story at some point but I slept through it. Besides Atticus, who else was there? Some "client not in Rome" that the Marabunta mention to Lion's Mane whom Lion's Mane refers to as Caligula.

Lady Vic's business call is interrupted so that she can show us how shitty she and "Charlie" are with their Alice in Wonderland knowledge.

That isn't good at all, Charlie! Now if she'd asked, "Speak when you're spoken to?", you would have gotten it right. For you see, The Red Queen was the chess piece in Through the Looking Glass. The Queen of Hearts was the one obsessed with chopping off heads.

A few days later in Gotham while Luke is breaking up with Zena for good so he has no ties to anybody but Batman, Lady Vic blows out the front of Wayne Tower. That poor building. Also, I still don't know why her name is Lady Vic. But I do know that I like her!

I love it when the comic book writes the commentary for me.

Just like how The Prankster took out Nightwing, Lady Vic shuts down Batwing's suit and he becomes useless. He does consider putting in a firewall to prevent this from happening in the future but it wouldn't have worked in this case anyway since she used a low-level EMP burst. Perhaps all y'all Batlings should stop relying on suits with goggles that you can't see through if the technology fails. Maybe you should wear a suit that doesn't rely on the tech but uses tech to enhance your ability. Once the tech is shut down, you should be able to fight as if you were in business clothes as opposed to suddenly being blind and immobile! Who is designing these shitty suits? Oh yeah! Batwing's dad!

Lady Vic kicks Batwing off of a building and asks, "Can you fly?" That's how the issue ends. She's obviously not familiar with Gotham City because the Bats don't fly but they all own Bat-Grapples. I think he'll be okay.

Batwing #23 Rating: What am I rating? Did I just read something?