Batman Eternal #19

I said this in a conversation today: "I probably would have accidentally drowned her in the bathtub while cleaning my gun!"

Don't worry! It was facetious! I don't even have a license for a bathtub. Also, bathtubs don't kill people! People kill people! Wait, that doesn't actually defend me or my statement, does it? I meant to say, "The bathtub made my hypothetically do it!" Fucking bathtubs.

I almost asked a Portland cop last night what he thought about the events in Ferguson but I didn't want to get shot. So instead I just said, "Pardon me" and "Excuse me, fellas" as I negotiated my way past them, carefully and obsequiously. Then once I was out of earshot, I mumbled, very quietly lest they make note of my defiance, "Fucking fuckers fucking fucked, man." I guess even if they heard me say that, they probably wouldn't have had any idea what I was going on about.

Cops are arrogant motherfuckers and I don't just mean the ones that shoot unarmed black men or the ones that defend the ones that shoot unarmed black men. All of them. Even the "good" ones. I was once pulled over by the mousiest cop I've ever seen outside of film. He said, "Do you know why I pulled you over?" And I said, "Yeah, because I pulled across all the lanes after making the right hand turn." He just looked at me, dumbfounded, for a few seconds before saying, "Oh. I always ask that and nobody ever knows why I pulled them over." Just because I broke some driving rule doesn't mean I don't know it, sir. And, I might add, I broke it for a legitimate reason! Because following the law, in this case, becomes more dangerous than pulling the maneuver I just made. Any police officer would probably do what I had just done and think nothing of it because they're arrogant jerks that think they're the only people that can make informed decisions regarding disobeying the law. But since I was just a lowly citizen, I needed to be taught a fucking lesson. Especially, as the cop noted before deciding not to ticket me but to give me a website to go to so I could "bone up" on the law I just broke, the maneuver I just pulled was "his pet peeve." So that's how you give out tickets, you mousy fuck? When something "irritates" you? Hell, why am I surprised at that when cops have obviously decided it's okay to shoot black men and the mentally ill because they "irritate" them.

I've said it on this blog many, many, many times and usually when nothing anti-police is even happening in the news because cops just, generally, suck: Fuck the police.

Anyway, down in Little North America, Batwoman and Red Hood are having a little trouble with Little Red Riding Hood.

Should you really be joking about peacekeepers "trying their best" not to shoot people, DC Comics?

Oh, who am I kidding! Of course they can joke about that! Just because injustice exists and tragedy happens, it doesn't mean people can't continue to enjoy their good fortune at being born white in America! Although it's probably better to be born rich in America, no matter what you look like. Although nobody has it as tough as me, third generation Spanish-American! That means I've been Americanized long enough to not know Spanish, so I'm looked down on for not speaking my great grandparent's native language! Plus my great-grandparents and grandparents worked their asses off to provide a better life for their descendants, a life that I'm squandering and not working hard at at all! Just try living with that guilt! It's nearly distracting once or twice a year!

Back in Gotham, Batman is still working with Killer Croc.

Says the guy that didn't seem to mind killing Talons.

Killer Croc informs Batman that these corpses were zombies like the Talons, so it was okay to kill them. Although the Talons had quite a bit of mental acuity for zombies. Maybe Batman didn't kill any of them. Or he only killed the ones whose brainwave functions were basically flatlined. Batman's rule about not killing things gets a little hazy at times.

Batman doesn't want to hear about "reanimated corpses" risen from Hell and filled with evil because he's a man of science!

Says the guy that just recently got back from a visit to Heaven.

Meanwhile in Blackgate Prison, Scott Snyder and the other writers send a message to Ann Nocenti by killing one of hers: Fishnet Face. Things are about to get ser...wait. Did I say Snyder and Nocenti?! Whoops! My mistake. I meant Falcone sent a message to The Penguin! I'm so embarrassed. How could I have made such a stupid error?

Ahem. Anyway, a riot breaks out in Blackgate and Warden "My heart is hers" Zorbatos comes to take Gordon into her custody to keep him safe. But Gordon, being the consummated hero, heads right down the throat of the riot to save the guards. What a guy!

Back to Brazil, Batwoman catches up to the man that helped frame Jim Gordon for the subway derailment in Gotham: Dr. Falsario! I'm not sure why Doctor Forger (if I'm allowed to translate his name from nearly Spanish) is a doctor when he commits crimes and runs a knockoff toy factory! I guess he's an auto-plastic surgeon, doing his own work for each of his different crimes.

As I was looking through the old DC Who's Who that came out around Crisis on Infinite Earths, I noticed that all the entries for villains or heroes with "Doctor" in their super name also had "Doctor" added to their alias. At least this was true for all of the male "Doctors." Doctor Light, Kimiyo Hoshi, did not get the honorific. Secret sexism at work? Of course!

Oh, and then Batwoman lets "Doctor" Falsario escape so that Batgirl can chase him down on her own since this is about family duty or some crap. The best part of the entire scene is where we learn that Batgirl was responsible for Jason Todd's death at the hands of The Joker!

See? She put the doubt in his head! She forced him to prove himself too soon by going after The Joker alone!

As Gordon begins saving the guards of Blackgate, Batman discovers that the person responsible for Croc's missing friend, the child Jade, is the Ten-Eyed Man. Why is he called The Ten-Eyed Man? Because comic book writers across the years loved to come up with stupid gimmicks. So the Ten-Eyed Man went blind due to an explosion. No, wait! That's too mundane for a comic book. Stuck between his eyes, The Ten-Eyed Man had a piece of shrapnel from a grenade blowing up in his face in Vietnam. The explosion aggravated this old injury and he went blind. None of that really matters except to have a good story about why Philip Reardon (that's his name!) went blind. The reason he's now The Ten-Eyed Man is because Dr. Engstrom (The Alchemist! Not to be confused with Dr. Langstrom, the Man-Bat!), showing off to all the other scientists at S.T.A.R. Labs, reconnected Phil's optic nerves to the tips of his fingers. Seems like an awful lot of extra work but then again, I'm not a mad scientist. What do I know? I was going to suggest The New 52 Ten-Eyed Man had a different explanation for his powers but the pads on his fingers in one panel make it seem like he's the same old experimented on victim of Dr. Engstrom's showboating.

Batman Eternal #19 Rating: No change. One of the things I like about this book is that a lot of shit is going on all at the same time. It gives a feeling of how Gotham really operates on a day to day basis that you don't get in the normal Batman comics where Batman deals with one crisis at a time. Unless, of course, he's involved in some huge crossover event or one of those stories where everybody in Arkham breaks out at the same time. This is the way continuity should be handled! Just keep it all to one book! Whatever Batman is doing outside of this title, he's just doing during a break or something. Who cares where it fits in to the timeline of every story in The New 52. You'll go mad and burn up trying to create a timetable of all comic book events ever! Just ask Canonology who hasn't updated since March!