Batman Loves Superman #18

So romantic!

My second lesson for becoming the World's Greatest Detective is titled "Mystery at Wimpy's." I will present it here so you can try to solve it as well even though there's no way you're going to be the World's Greatest Detective since that's my destiny. You might be the World's Greatest Detective's Secret Lover if you're lucky though! Here is the mystery, copyright Trixie Belden!

Trixie and her brothers Mart and Brian go to Wimpy's with Honey Wheeler and Jim Frayne. What kind of a name is "Mart"? How about solving that mystery first? Did people in the Fifties not know that "Mart" rhymes with "fart" and would be a horrible name with which to saddle your child? Anyway, both of the girls and one of the boys, after kissing in the booth for half an hour and having the waitress threaten to kick them out several times if they didn't order, have hamburgers and the other two boys have cheeseburgers. Two of the three who have hamburgers have chocolate shakes, and the other three have vanilla shakes. Jim has the same kind of burger that Trixie has because after watching Honey bring her to orgasm, he said, "I'll have what she's having!" but he also wanted some of what Honey was giving so he had the same flavor shake as Honey. What does each of the five have to eat and drink?

Hmm. Where is the rest of the mystery? How can you solve a mystery when there isn't a dead body?! Did I miss one of the kids getting killed? If you want to know what everybody ate, just ask them because they are not dead and there is no mystery to be solved at all! And if you don't want the kids to know you're snooping about spying on their caloric intakes, you can just ask the waitress who ate what! Maybe by figuring out that Jim and Honey had hamburgers and chocolate shakes while Trixie had a hamburger and a vanilla shake and Fart and Brian had cheeseburgers and vanilla shakes, you'll have the proper evidence later when the dead body is discovered covered in cheese and vanilla shake! Then you can say, "Aha! This person was murdered by Mart because he called him Mart the Fart one too many times!" And then you will get a medal and a reward!

Now that I solved that case without even finding a body, let's see if Superman and Batman can solve the Mystery of Superman's Joker That Is Probably Shooting Ice Bullets Out of an Ice Gun So As Not To Leave Any Evidence Behind!

Maybe if you knew what he had for lunch!

Superman is consulting the Super-Computer in the Fortress of Solitude because everybody else he has asked has given him biased and bogus answers. Batman thinks Superman has a Joker. Lex thinks Superman has a Superman. Who is the Super-Computer's greatest enemy because that's obviously who it will suggest as the killer! I bet it's greatest enemy is the Bat-Computer.

But the Fortress of Solitude is still rebuilding itself so Supergirl has to sucker punch Superman in the kidneys to make him stop using it. She knows more about Kryptonian technology than Superman because she spent her teen years on Krypton playing Krepyx's Summer Games and Krinfocom's Zork on her Krapp-el IIe Crystal Computer. She's all, "You're going to overload it and destroy everything and then we'll never find the Lost Bottled City of Kandor!" Hey! They're one of my suspects because Superman's enemy knows all about him and the Bottled People of Kandor have heard all Superman's secrets because he probably talks in his sleep.

Supergirl is putting the clues together just like Trixie Belden! I guess knowing what people eat is important.

Batman calls up to let Superman know that he hired Zatanna to cast a spell of silence over their current conversation so Superman's Joker wouldn't be able to hear them speak. He should have had her cast the spell, "Ohw si s'namrepuS rekoJ?" Even though Batman doesn't know who Superman's Joker is or what Superman's Joker likes to eat, he still believes he knows exactly how Superman's Joker is going to act. He figures, "Hey! My Joker would hurt the people closest to me! So that's what Superman's Joker is going to do!" I guess that's logical if you start with like eight thousand assumptions and just assume the assumptions aren't assumptions at all but hard and fast truths!

Batman tells Superman he's figured out who Superman's Joker will go after next: the person Superman most confides in, who understands him best, who he'd miss most if she were gone: Lois Lane!

Oh, I get it! Batman didn't pay Zatanna anything at all! He's just a big fibber!

Hopefully Superman's Joker didn't see the season finale of the second season of Arrow or else he already sees through Batman's plan. Make sure Superman's Joker thinks they can't be heard and then spout a bunch of nonsense that Superman's Joker will act on. Superman almost blows the plan by saying, "This is crazy. I don't get it! I don't..OH! RIGHT! Yes, The Batman, you are correct! I very much love Lois Lane the reporter with all of my heart! Oh I sure do hope that my Joker does not hurt her! Wink, wink."

Superman's Joker fires off a magic bullet headed toward Lois Lane. But when Superman tries to catch it, it ducks and weaves and changes direction, finally hitting the person who truly has Superman's heart and soul: The Batman!

This makes no sense. Does this make any sense at all? I mean, unless you just got done watching the worst move ever made, Passenger 57. Shit, I should really do a critical essay on that movie sometime. It's so bad.

Actually, I made a mistake in that last caption. The worst movie ever made (that I've actually seen. There could be some worse ones out there!) is Boondock Saints. Even The Room and Trolls 2 are better than it!

Before Batman can die, Superman digs the bullet out of his chest.

Okay, that's pretty awesome.

I knew those Kandorians were sick to death of seeing Superman scratch his balls and pick dingleberries out of his ass and sniff them right in front of the Bottled City every night. That must be their motivation, right? It can't have anything to do with feeling betrayed by him or being mind controlled by Non or some other Phantom Zoner, right? I do like how the magic bullet was just a microscopic Kryptonian flying around blasting through crap. Good thing Batman is paranoid and fills his armor with Kryptonite dust! Good job, Bruce!

Using the clues Batman found by using Lois as bait, Doctor Ray Palmer is able to trace the Kandorian's flight path back to a hole in Iceland in which rests the Bottled City of Kandor full of angry little Kandorians sick to death of smelling Superman's morning farts. I guess Superman and Batman are going to have to use The Atom's Shrink R.A.Y. so they can infiltrate Kandor and stop them from telling all the great jokes they've been telling lately.

Batman Loves Superman #18 Rating: +2 Ranking. I said I wanted the reveal of Superman's Joker to be spectacular and I wasn't disappointed (for once!). Sure, I guessed the Kandorians were behind it last issue (which makes me a pretty amazing comic book reader if you ignore the fact that I also guessed Krypto) but the fact that Kandorians were using themselves as the bullets? That was pretty fucking awesome. Kudos on that one, Greg Pak. Unless it's been done before and then shame on you!