Batman: The Dark Knight #26

Batman Incorporated #14?

So in-between reading The Flash and picking up The Dark Knight, I cooked my cornbread muffins. I thought about putting an exclamation point at the end of that sentence but I'm not sure cooking muffins ever really needs an exclamation point. Perhaps if the subject of the sentence were different, an exclamation point would be called for. "My dead grandmother clawed her way through the gates of hell to cook me some cornbread muffins!" See? Much better. Oh, I should probably include the food shot since it's something I created and it desperately needs to be posted for posterity. The people of the future are going to want to experience all of the things their long dead God created.

My muffin tin that makes muffins shaped like asses is entirely appropriate.

Hopefully, the Clayface story arc is finally over now that he's been shoved into Arkham Asylum's version of a Betty Crocker Easy Bake and Highly Pressurized Oven. The cover doesn't really tell me anything except that it can't be true because Batman will never be chained! It's probably some kind of metaphor about taxes and how they're keeping Bruce Wayne from providing living wages to most of Wayne Enterprises employees. Thanks a lot, Comic Book Version of Obama!

The issue begins with a Mexican woman getting fired from her job of putting heads on angels. She also gets to the pharmacy too late to pick up the medicine which her baby needs. Also, I don't think she has enough money to buy it because she doesn't have a job. And then the baby dies and everyone is sad. And because of Sesame Street and the pharmacy being closed, all that keeps running through my head now is the word "ceh-rah-do!" "Ceeeeerrrrrraaaaaaadddddoooo!" "Cerrado!" "Abierto!" "Cerrado!"

This is only issue one of two so it looks like we're not going to get any dialogue for two full issues? This will be a quick read! Or maybe once the woman heads to the United States (probably Gotham!), we'll get some dialogue but she won't be able to understand it and she won't be able to respond. That way she's still voiceless but I'll feel like I didn't waste all that time learning to read just so I can look at stupid pictures! I want to show off my skills!

The woman's other child gets sick which is when she makes the desperate decision to leave her homeland and try her chance at America. But things go south while going north because the coyote or whatever they call the guy that takes the groups across the border double crosses them all and sells them out to The Masked Skull Gang! They separate the women from the children and the elderly because The Masked Skull Gang is probably into sex trafficking and/or age discrimination.

I could be wrong about this entire story though because without Narration Boxes, I'm thoroughly confused!

It could be I have the entire story wrong! The woman could have been working at a warehouse that creates actual angels. Then she inadvertently killed one which meant her child would be possessed by a demon. So the warehouse manager insists that she take the day off to deal with her demon child. But she arrives too late at the pharmacy to pick up the poison to kill the horrible monster. She comes back home to tell her family and weep in fear as the child curses them from the crib. Later they attend the funeral of her baby's first victim and while there, a man approaches her and says she should flee to Gotham. But she gets angry because there is nowhere to run from her demon child. Eventually her oldest child also begins succumbing to demonic possession because the woman must have gone back to work and killed another angel. She heads to the trash pile outside of town where God lives and asks him for forgiveness. God, of course, is a bald, tattooed man in a wife-beater. I'd normally call it a tank top but I think if the guy wearing it lives in a trash heap, you have to call it a wife-beater.

So God tells the woman there is nothing she can do. She must try to get her child as far away as possible before the child becomes completely possessed. So she loads up in a truck and heads to America. But on the way there, the truck is pulled over by America's Border Guard. Also it is Halloween which is why they have masks. They separate the adult women from the children and the elderly because they're all being taken to check out the Border Patrol's haunted house and it's too scary for small children and people with heart conditions. As the trucks are pulling away, the mother screams at them to kill her child because it has succumbed to the demon's will! But the guard thinks she's playing a Halloween prank so he smashes her in the face with the butt of his rifle because he hates Halloween pranks. The cars head off into the night.

While mother enjoys the haunted house, the children and elderly must prepare the Christmas decorations to be put up on the haunted house a few days after Halloween.

Grandmother is still trying to warn them about the devil child.

The mother is too frightened to visit the haunted house so she tries to get away. But she's forced back by gunpoint because she's going to enjoy the frightful festivities, dammit!

Meanwhile grandmother checks on the devil child and is perturbed that she still lives.

Grandmother is going to end this right the fuck now, by God!

While Grandmother tries to head out the window so she can find a weapon to kill the spawn of Satan, one of the border patrol tries to catch up to her to give her a knife. He believes her story unlike the rest of his coworkers! But he trips on some jingle bells on the ground and accidentally stabs her and knocks her out the window. Confused and disoriented from the fall, Grandmother wanders away into the night. The worker reports back to The Penguin who must be running the haunted house. He tries to explain how they have a devil child amongst them but The Penguin has a sudden panic attack from his Bat-related Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and flips the fuck out on the guy.

Whoops!

Later, Batman finds the Grandmother dead on the street. In her hand, he finds a flyer for The Penguin's upcoming Santa's Workshop Themed House (not haunted!) and Batman gets really fucking pissed off because Damian would have loved to visit this but he can't because he's dead! And if Damian can't enjoy it, then fuck everyone! It's time to close this beloved yearly event down for good!

Batman pulls the fire alarm on the workshop preparing the decorations for the event and all the workers rush outside. When Batman runs inside to destroy everything, he finds the little devil girl praying for Jesus's head to explode.

Halo of light? More like Halo of Brains!

Batman realizes immediately how dangerous this little girl is so he takes her to a veterinarian to have her put to sleep. He watches from the window to make sure that she's been put on the drip that will ease her safely into oblivion without her realizing she's dying. If she knew what was happening, she'd destroy Gotham in hellfire!

By the time Batman has taken care of that problem, the Christmas Decoration Factory has recovered from the pulled fire alarm and they're back in business. This time, Batman decides to forgo the subtle approach and smashes through a skylight, raining explosives down on the warehouse to destroy all of the beautiful and heart-warming decorations that Damian would have loved so much! You know, as soon as Batman taught Damian to love Christmas which I'm sure he had almost done before Damian was killed. Who doesn't love Christmas?! Even I love Christmas and I'm a Goddamned atheist!

Batman destroys everything and beats up the staff while telling the children they'd better get the fuck out and find a new job if they know what's good for them! The kids run screaming into the night as more of Penguin's employees pull up for their shift to find Batman out front shitting all over their shit.

"HOW DO YOU LIKE MY YULE LOG, BITCHES!?"

The employees newly arrived on the scene have their tinsel guns handy (they're not actual weapons! They're just used for firing strings of tinsel over the house and large trees) and fire them at Batman, tangling him up in a web of glittery festivity. He's carted off, shoved in a cage, and kept away from The Penguin's Holiday House Extravaganza. Christmas is saved!

God bless us! Every one!

Batman: The Dark Knight #26 Rating: No change. I think I've gotten the gist of this thing! It could be I'm supposed to be learning some kind of lesson from it but I'm hard pressed to see what devil children and Penguin's Christmas Party have got to do with being voiceless!