Batman Eternal #35

Do even mega-rich people need car insurance? Why would they?

The reason the mega-rich don't need car insurance is because if they ever get in an accident, the chauffeur takes the blame. Batman doesn't have car insurance because nobody will insure Batman. Also because nobody knows his real identity and if Batman ever crashes his car, he can just take off the costume before the police arrive and say, "Batman was driving!"

This issue begins two weeks after Hush was brought down by Batman. Hush is probably now cellmates with Jim Gordon.

Oh Lucius. You stole that story about the French man who despised the look of the Eiffel Tower so the only Paris cafe he could patronize was the one inside the tower.

It might be twenty years too late, but Bruce Wayne is finally getting to feel the pauper side of being an orphan. He's lost all of his shit and the only asset he probably still owns is the Batcave. And that's simply because nobody knows about it. He's lost all of his emergency caches to Hush, his business to the government, his closest associate to manslaughter charges, his house to Jeremiah Arkham, and his fuckfight buddy to the Gotham Underworld. And to top it all off, he's beginning to realize he might not be the World's Greatest Detective since he can't figure out who sent out all of the poorly formatted invitations to the Let's Bring Down Batman Bash. I'd guess the person behind the invitations was Talia al Ghul except they don't have that certain something that screams they were made by a woman that desperately wants to be thought of as creative but has no artistic ability at all. There wasn't even one stupid piece of clipart (complete with watermark still embedded across it) on the invite!

Last issue I was wondering what would happen to Hush. Would Batman lock him in a closet or ask Superman for a room in The Phantom Zone?

I guess he just shits against the wall furthest from his bed?

While Bruce assesses the damage Hush did to his finances, Vicki Vale finally finds her secret inner journalist and begins investigating Jason Bard. I'm surprised she knows how to track down leads after years of sourcing all of her stories from press releases and public relations agents.

Fuck you, media. You're the worst. When did news stories become equal time debates between people on both sides of an issue? Remember when the media would investigate the issue and then report on the issue with the facts they found instead of allowing the two sides to scream hyperbole at each other for ten minutes before the journalist cuts them off and says, "As you can see, it's a complicated issue." Fuck you all. Fuck you lazy bastards! Get a fucking spine, you cowards!

Jason Bard keeps telling everybody that it's almost over and nobody calls the department psychologist to make sure he's not going to shoot up the police station. What he's actually talking about is capturing Batman once and for all, of course. And then maybe strapping him to the Batsignal and taunting him?

Batman learned that card thing from The Joker! Batman even counted all of his cards and found he had fifty-two and thought, "Aha! I hold all the cards!" Then The Joker kicked his ass. I wonder if Batman's next big villain will be Rules For Various Card Games?

Vicki Vale learns that Detroit once had a Little Batman. Apparently the vigilante was the reason for Jason Bard's career choice to move to Gotham. She then makes a shocked face so she must be doing really good journalism!

Lucius, not wanting to become a pauper like Batman, has begun working for Jason Bard. But before working for Jason Bard, he told Bruce Wayne to tell Batman that he was working for Jason Bard. So now that Batman is driving the Batmobile into Jason Bard's trap, Batman has probably prepared for any way that Lucius could fuck with him. So when Jason Bard uses Lucius to take over the controls of the Batmobile, Batman probably already has a plan in place to counter it.

You know your plan is bad when Bullock is against it.

Jason Bard lost his sweetie, Jodie Hawkins, to the Detroit Batman, I suppose. And that's why he agreed to help end The Batman. The issue ends with Batman still in the Batmobile (maybe?) as it crashes through one of the top floors of Wayne Enterprises, drives across the building, and crashes out the other side. Although the cover shows him escaping, so what do I know? Stupid lying covers are always lying. At least it isn't made out of Lego.

Batman Eternal #35 Rating: No change. I'm concerned about the care and treatment of Hush in his Batcave cubicle. Does Batman use the Justice League teleporters to teleport food into the cell and teleport waste out? Any other method of delivering things to Hush is too dangerous! I bet the cell has no toilets or seams because it was meant to hold Clayface. Maybe Julia gasses Hush every time she needs to feed him or change his diaper. I really think Batman should look into doing a Phantom Zone time share with Clark. Maybe they could set up a portal in the Batcave. Superman doesn't have a problem abandoning criminals in that timeless void. Why should Batman? It would sure take care of his Joker problem.