Detective Comics #934

Did Bats choose the purple to match Selina or The Joker?

The Review or Whatever!
Writing a comic book is much easier than writing a totally new book because you don't have to sit in the coffee shop looking thoughtfully at the ceiling while tapping a pencil across your face thinking, "How white and male should the main character be?" With comic books, you just get your assignment and go, "Oh hey! My main character is so white and male! Easy peasy!" Even if you don't get handed a piece of cake assignment and your character winds up being some other skin tone or gender, don't worry! You can probably get away with writing the character exactly how you were going to write it already since the gender and skin tone are mostly the work of the artists! But now you should try to include one or two panels every issue where the main character shakes their fist and goes, "Eww! White males!" And even though that sounds pretty easy already, it's actually easier than that! Because the character probably has so much history behind it already that you'll have a team of editors telling you all of the things you can't make the character do. You'll probably screw up so many times, the editor will just snatch your pen out of your hands and scream, "Give me that! I'll just do it myself!" After that, you'll have plenty of time to come up with a totally new character for the new book you're going to have to write because you've just been fired.

James Tynion IV knows what I'm talking about! Not only did he not have to come up with Batman all on his own, he didn't even need to fill out an application or send in a resume to write him! He just had to be the most successful teacher's pet ever! Now I wish I hadn't rolled my eyes so much in college. Although my creative literature teacher was blind so it didn't hurt when I did it in her class. Unless she had a teacher's pet who always snitched on me and then that teacher's pet went on to write all of the comics that my creative literature teacher didn't feel like writing but still wanted some cash for so she made sure to point out what a great opportunity she'd given the teacher's pet as the only writing she engaged in was adding her name to the writing credits as co-writer.

This issue begins with Azrael being electrocuted in a church by a shadowy person that has stolen Batman's aesthetic. I am disappointed when it is revealed that it was a Batman Look-a-like because I do not like Azrael much at all. It would be a shame if Batman didn't get to kill him. It would be a real black eye to Batman's reputation. I know I am already behind the new impostor Batman due to his Azrael initiative.

Have you noticed the word "impostor" has been used a lot in recent issues of DC Comics? And that editorial has not demanded any kind of consistency in the spelling! Sometimes it's impostor and sometimes it's imposter! So unprofessional!

Is this Doctor Ozymandias again? Or is everybody suddenly into watching walls full of monitors? Maybe this is the second Joker!

Batwoman makes her first appearance since World War II. I mean the World War II comic book that she's in where she's more sports-minded. I was going to say literal-minded but a bat is also a bat which is a bat, so how is Batwoman any more literal than Batwoman? You see? Previous to her World War II fascination with baseball, the great American total borefest, she was a hunter of urban legends. Now that's a sport I can get behind! It's why my favorite hockey team is the New Jersey Devils. How many professional sports organizations have an urban legend as a mascot?! I'm also lying about the Devils being my favorite hockey team. The hockey season is too long for me to give a shit about. But I am enjoying the Stanley Cup this year because the Sharks are as close as I'll ever get to having an actual favorite hockey team. I think it's fair to only like sports during the play-offs or finals. Some people might enjoy calling other people names like fair-weather fan or bandwagon jumper or Mister Fatty Fatty Buy Two Seats. But I just ignore them! I mean, a seven game final series is just about half the normal football season alone! So somebody who watches the playoffs of any sports that uses a seven game series to determine the winner is already investing more time than a football fan. Man, those football fans are lazy assholes, amirite?!

I once went to an All-Star game! That's like seeing the entire season in one game! I also saw Rush at the Shark Tank one year but they didn't skate.

For some reason, Batwoman takes phone calls while she's out on patrol. Her father is trying to get her to rejoin the military (or at least his civilian contracted outfit The Crows or whatever they were called) because he thinks she works better in a team. I don't think she really did but Tynion has to set it up as if that's the way of things so it won't be weird when Batwoman accepts the invitation from the Bat-Gang instead of crumpling it up and throwing it in the corner while screaming, "Oh! Are you finally going to fucking acknowledge I exist, you assholes?! What's the angle?!"

Kate Kane discovers Batman hiding in the shadows of her house because he has no concept of privacy or sense of decorum. I guess that's essential to being a vigilante. How are you going to catch criminals outside of the law if you can't sneak into a few friends' places or crash through every single skylight in the city with no care at all about the dangers of leaving all of that broken glass everywhere?

Batman has decided to be friends with Batwoman because he has a mystery to solve and he needs Kate Kane to get ready for her act. Partially because the Mystery Drones were watching her as well as watching Batman and partially because this mystery might involve an urban legend about a conspiracy that threatens Gotham. It might also involve the Watchmen, what with all the discussion of people being watched and all.

Why does Kate keep her bananas with her potatoes?

Batman wants Batwoman to help train the dozens of Bat-Orphans who keep showing up on his doorstep. To get her to trust him, he reveals to her that he's her cousin, Bruce Wayne! He's then surprised that Kate already knew who he was. He's all, "How?!" And she's all, "You don't play doctor with somebody hundreds of times and not learn a little something about their body language! Oh, also, there was that whole thing where those people from another universe revealed to the world that Dick Grayson was Nightwing. Doesn't take a genius to connect those dots! I mean, some idiots who write and edit comic books might think it would take a genius but then they're not exactly geniuses themselves, are they?" I might not be quoting her exactly.

Next Batman has to introduce Batwoman to all of the Batchildren she never knew she had. Batman is all, "Meet Spoiler! Daughter of certifiable geniuses and a genius. Here also is Red Robin. Tactical genius of the genus genius-e-genius. Then there's Cassandra. Quiet but--and this may surprise you--a genius! And of course, Bluebird who is a rough and tumble street genius! And last and certainly least because he's definitely no genius...Clayface! Although on stage, total genius!"

Oh, I guess Bluebird is off learning to be a more refined genius so she didn't get the invite to Bat School. That doesn't mean she isn't any less of a genius than all of the other members! I'd feel a bit awkward if I were Clayface. He's the Rodney Dangerfield of this outfit. I hope the other kids include him in their beer poppers and their keg smashers and their finger bangers. Those are all terms for cool things cool kids do, right? I mean, of course they are! If you don't recognize them as such then you must not have been cool. Loser!

I wonder if just Adrian and Jon are behind The New 52. Could the "Batman" at the beginning have been Nite Owl? Will all the Watchmen who decided not to be blasted into non-existence like Rorschach have agreed that the Machiavellian methods were needed to save the universe? Probably not since the last page shows an army of Batmen who are behind Azrael's beating and the coming war on Gotham. Although the person leading that army is yet to be revealed. It's probably Doctor Ozymanhattandias.