Batman and Robin Eternal #4

The goddamned shadows in Gotham and Metropolis keep giving away secret identities.

Bruce Wayne has recently lost all of his memories which help to keep him safe. He no longer knows how to do a roundhouse punch or how to bruise a kidney in just the right way to make a villain piss herself without actually causing her to wind up dealing with daily dialysis. Although if that did happen, it wouldn't be Batman's fault. She shouldn't have been doing crime in the first place! So now that Bruce Wayne can't protect himself, he has no money, and he's conveniently forgotten all of the horrible things he's done to his sidekicks over the years, he needs protection. Especially since somebody named Mother is trying to show everybody in the DC Youniverse that they should have Mommy Issues instead of Daddy Issues. That's going to take a lot of work, of course. Which is why this is a weekly comic book!

Dick Grayson has decided that Bruce Wayne should be saved no matter how big an asshole he's been. Maybe it's even easier to save amnesiac Bruce Wayne because he's less responsible for all the dick moves he's pulled over the years.

This is proof that Bruce really has lost his memories. Usually when somebody says that mother says hello to Bruce, he winds up on the floor in a fetal position weeping inconsolably.

Oh! I know who Mother is! She's the CEO of Murder Hatchets, Inc! Just like Bruce Wayne makes his fortune by breaking windows all over Gotham so that Wayne Window and Wall Repair makes big bucks fixing them, Mother brainwashes people into wanting to commit murder with her axes!

Dick Grayson arrives to lock Bruce in a closet before he can become hors d'oeuvres. I mean kindling! They have axes so I should have said kindling! Stupid! Especially since I always have to look up how to spell "hors d'oeuvres"! Why do I even bother using French words when they make spelling and pronunciation so complicated?! The only way I can pronounce French is if I gargle milk before the attempt.

Did anybody watch The Amazing Race last Friday? Holy moley! Americans suck at trying to pronounce French!

Luckily the caterers for the Welcome Back Yet Another Time Bruce Wayne (Jesus. How Many Times Are We Going To Do This?!) Gala are serving hard cheeses because Dick uses them to knock out some of the Axe-Wielding Maniacs (Tradmark Places and Predators RPG).

A Talon probably changed Dick's diapers.

While Dick is cracking wise about his circus life, We Are Robins (Dun duh dun dun dun dun dun!) stream into the kitchen to join the fight and/or cause a lot of confusion. Dick has been away too long and hasn't heard about how Alfred has gone off the rails from loneliness and begun hiring as many kids to be Robin as he could find. Maybe he was doing it to counter Mother and her minions. So he's kind of an anti-mother figure! Whatever that would be. I'm sure they're some catchier way to say it.

Batgirl arrives on the scene to increase the likelihood of a Batfamily Incest incident. I hope.

The Robins are alerted by the nest that Batgirl is going to use some kind of light attack. Luckily they've trained for that kind of situation and have a maneuver named after some blind swordsman or something. Dick is still confused.

I will see Batgirl #45! I hope she gets laid at Alysia's wedding.

Dick gives Duke a half-hearted lecture that's more "I'll give you some pointers and advice later" and less "stop being an idiot." It hasn't been that long since he began running into new costumed vigilantes and he's already met about two dozen new ones. If We Are Robins all get grappling guns then there will definitely be a mid-air collision between swinging vigilantes about once per week.

Meanwhile Bluebird and Cassandra continue to wander around the Batcave and not kiss. Spoiler angrily kicks things over because she's also not kissing stuff. Jason Todd and Tim Drake are only a few feet away and nobody is putting their tongues on anybody else's tongue-hungry body parts. I'm really disappointed with the libido on these Batkids.

Dick and Tim put their information together and realize that the attackers at the Gala were also on Mother's list that Cassandra gave to Dick. So they're all Mother's victims while the Batkids, including Harper and Stephanie now, were somehow saved from being brainwashed lunatics! But how were they saved?! Who could have saved them? What do they all have in common?! Not Batman! He's a dick! But Alfred Pennyworth? He's the Gotham version of Schindler. Probably! At the very least, he was the voice in Batman's ear telling Batman to collect as many kids as possible because Alfred is a freak.

The issue ends with Dick once again going out on his own to investigate a house with a mailbox out front with the name of "Drake" on it. I don't know what that has to do with anything because isn't Tim's name made up and his real parents in some kind of witness protection program? While he checks out that lead, Jason pretends he wasn't doing anything worth note while everybody else was either protecting Bruce or walking out of the Batcave. And then Tim gets a phone call from his mother. Or Mother. I guess it's ambiguous to racket up the tension.

Batman and Robin Eternal #4 Rating: No change. This is a weekly comic book which means a high percentage of these issues aren't going to matter. This is one of those. Dick went off on his own at the end of last issue although he still had backup from Tim in the Batcave. This one ends where he goes off on his own again. Bruce was in danger at the end of the last issue but now he's safe and we know the We Are Robin kids are keeping an eye on him. So that's a tiny bit of new news that you would have missed if you'd skipped this issue but hardly relevant. During the last issue, Cassandra and Harper slipped out of the Batcave and in this one they just keep going. Nothing new there either. The only thing interesting that happened this issue was that Jason Todd masturbated. But that took place off-panel and possibly only in my own head.