This series makes me question past me's love of Snyder's New 52 Batman.
• I spent last issue staring at a bartender I had a crush on while Scott Snyder yammered on in my ear about bats and viruses and melting ice and Robert Frost. I hope he didn't realize I wasn't listening. I'm pretty sure I said all the right things at all the right places like "Yeah, yeah. Great poet to choose for a Mr. Freeze story. Frost. Genius!" and "Yeah, yeah. That makes sense since there were like three dozen X-Files episodes about that" and "When are you going to have another idea even half as good as the Court of Owls?" and "Scott? SCOTT! Where are you going?! Don't be mad, bro!"
• What do you think Cullen Bunn is up to right now? I bet he's scuffling around his kitchen in ratty old dandelion yellow slippers wearing an untied robe without anything on underneath. He's probably listening to a Podcast about frogs while pouring himself a bowl of Grapenuts cereal. He carefully measures out four tablespoons of milk to pour on top which is an absurdly small amount for such a tough, dry cereal. Then after sucking the last drops of the milk off the spoon, he glances down at his flaccid wiener and chuckles softly as an idea comes into his head. He takes the spoon out of his mouth and then tries to hang it off the tip of his penis the way people hang spoons on their noses. It stays for a couple of seconds and then clatters to the ground, filling the empty space of the house with the sound of metal on cracked and broken linoleum. From the bedroom, his wife groggily mumbles, "Cull, honey, stop hanging spoons off your dick." Cullen picks up the spoon, wipes it off on his robe, and puts it back in the drawer, picking out a clean one to use for his breakfast. He then walks into the other room to learn about frogs, although how much will he really learn with the podcast playing so low and eating such a crunchy cereal. He'll definitely have to replay it later in the day.
• Instead of beginning with another poem, this issue begins with a terribly written speech by Pamela Isley.
• What do you think Cullen Bunn is up to right now? I bet he's scuffling around his kitchen in ratty old dandelion yellow slippers wearing an untied robe without anything on underneath. He's probably listening to a Podcast about frogs while pouring himself a bowl of Grapenuts cereal. He carefully measures out four tablespoons of milk to pour on top which is an absurdly small amount for such a tough, dry cereal. Then after sucking the last drops of the milk off the spoon, he glances down at his flaccid wiener and chuckles softly as an idea comes into his head. He takes the spoon out of his mouth and then tries to hang it off the tip of his penis the way people hang spoons on their noses. It stays for a couple of seconds and then clatters to the ground, filling the empty space of the house with the sound of metal on cracked and broken linoleum. From the bedroom, his wife groggily mumbles, "Cull, honey, stop hanging spoons off your dick." Cullen picks up the spoon, wipes it off on his robe, and puts it back in the drawer, picking out a clean one to use for his breakfast. He then walks into the other room to learn about frogs, although how much will he really learn with the podcast playing so low and eating such a crunchy cereal. He'll definitely have to replay it later in the day.
• Instead of beginning with another poem, this issue begins with a terribly written speech by Pamela Isley.
Poison Ivy has the worst romantic anecdotes. "One time I was with my lover and I was all, 'Let's count backwards together!' We both came so hard."
• That speech that makes no sense was written to justify the way this story is being told. It's counting backwards to the beginning! All those other boring writers write stories that go from past to future. But not Scott Snyder! He's an innovative rebel smashing all the rules of linear time!
• 13: Poison Ivy tells some redneck wasteland trader that a word he uses which he never would have used in his life if this weren't a Scott Snyder story ("stigmatize") is "from stigma, a botanical term." I thought it was from "stigma, a Greek word." But who am I to think things? This is a Scott Snyder story! He thinks up the thing he wants to say and then writes the story around that. So he wanted to make a point about stigma because it's a word which was taken from the Greek and used in botany and Snyder thought up a way to make it thematically relevant. Which is why the guy who would never in his life use the word "stigmatize" uses that word.
• 12: Poison Ivy is hanging out in Death Valley because it has the word death in it and the world is dying because of Mr. Freeze's ice bat virus. Also it has the word valley in it which reminds me how much I hate Jean-Paul Valley. She's probably working on a cure for that ice bat virus that ended this imaginary Batman world. Unless this is the real DC Universe. I think after the first story arc of this comic book, editors at DC held a conference and decided to just give Scott Snyder his own little pocket DC Universe to play in so that he doesn't ruin the regular one with his nonsensical stories where Two-Face somehow knows the secrets of everybody in Gotham and everybody in Gotham has such terrible secrets that they decide to hunt down and kill Batman to stop those secrets from being exposed. Also he offered a lot of money to kill Batman, so that probably helped.
• 11: Batman stops by to ask for Poison Ivy's help. Maybe she's working on a cure for something else, possibly the Y chromosome. Maybe the world hasn't ended at all yet and Batman needs a cure before it does. It's hard to tell because that Mr. Freeze story was fucking weird. Batman's appearance is so hot that Snyder counts down extra fast for a bit.
• 10. 9. 8: Batman explains how this story relates to the last story which also relates to the Two-Face story. Well, I'm thankful some editor forced Snyder to put that in because I was pretty confused. Especially since this whole counting backwards thing isn't really changing the linearity of this story. It's just showing the story of the little girl who first caught Mr. Freeze's disease (which Batman will explain in the following scan) from her body being burned backwards to her contracting the disease.
• 13: Poison Ivy tells some redneck wasteland trader that a word he uses which he never would have used in his life if this weren't a Scott Snyder story ("stigmatize") is "from stigma, a botanical term." I thought it was from "stigma, a Greek word." But who am I to think things? This is a Scott Snyder story! He thinks up the thing he wants to say and then writes the story around that. So he wanted to make a point about stigma because it's a word which was taken from the Greek and used in botany and Snyder thought up a way to make it thematically relevant. Which is why the guy who would never in his life use the word "stigmatize" uses that word.
• 12: Poison Ivy is hanging out in Death Valley because it has the word death in it and the world is dying because of Mr. Freeze's ice bat virus. Also it has the word valley in it which reminds me how much I hate Jean-Paul Valley. She's probably working on a cure for that ice bat virus that ended this imaginary Batman world. Unless this is the real DC Universe. I think after the first story arc of this comic book, editors at DC held a conference and decided to just give Scott Snyder his own little pocket DC Universe to play in so that he doesn't ruin the regular one with his nonsensical stories where Two-Face somehow knows the secrets of everybody in Gotham and everybody in Gotham has such terrible secrets that they decide to hunt down and kill Batman to stop those secrets from being exposed. Also he offered a lot of money to kill Batman, so that probably helped.
• 11: Batman stops by to ask for Poison Ivy's help. Maybe she's working on a cure for something else, possibly the Y chromosome. Maybe the world hasn't ended at all yet and Batman needs a cure before it does. It's hard to tell because that Mr. Freeze story was fucking weird. Batman's appearance is so hot that Snyder counts down extra fast for a bit.
• 10. 9. 8: Batman explains how this story relates to the last story which also relates to the Two-Face story. Well, I'm thankful some editor forced Snyder to put that in because I was pretty confused. Especially since this whole counting backwards thing isn't really changing the linearity of this story. It's just showing the story of the little girl who first caught Mr. Freeze's disease (which Batman will explain in the following scan) from her body being burned backwards to her contracting the disease.
Lilly is into plants just like Poison Ivy. And probably frogs like Cullen Bunn.
• 7. 6: Poison Ivy tells a story about some trees of life which she heard from the mysterious "them." They said some stuff and since they said it, it's totally believable and probably true. I mean, it's definitely true because Poison Ivy has based most of her career around discovering the trees and their secrets. Now some bad men want her scary secrets and Batman wants her curative secrets. But first they have to fight the bad men because there's been way too much science talk and comic book fans are getting bored.
• 5. 4: Batman defends Poison Ivy not because she controls him but because he wants to help her and save a bunch of people. He didn't get controlled by her because he was wearing wax lips. How the hell did Poison Ivy not know she was kissing wax lips?! If the Non-Certified Spouse has even a hint of any kind of lip balm or lipstick on, I can tell. Scott Snyder was probably counting on comic book readers to not know anything about kissing.
• 3. 2. 1: Poison Ivy gives Batman the cure and he saves the world. Or maybe he doesn't save the world yet. Maybe he needs the Mad Hatter's help for the next part. Whatever happens, Batman will still have to figure out why people are still trying to kill him.
• 0: Apparently "The Cursed Wheel" backup story is still happening. The Riddler is wooing Duke by counting backwards while Duke tries to solve a riddle. But it's actually just Duke messing around in the Bat-Danger Room.
• -1: Since this story is about Duke and nobody has yet given me a reason to give a fuck about Duke, I don't give a fuck about this story. It's like math!
The Ranking!
-2! Ha ha! See what I did there?!
• 5. 4: Batman defends Poison Ivy not because she controls him but because he wants to help her and save a bunch of people. He didn't get controlled by her because he was wearing wax lips. How the hell did Poison Ivy not know she was kissing wax lips?! If the Non-Certified Spouse has even a hint of any kind of lip balm or lipstick on, I can tell. Scott Snyder was probably counting on comic book readers to not know anything about kissing.
• 3. 2. 1: Poison Ivy gives Batman the cure and he saves the world. Or maybe he doesn't save the world yet. Maybe he needs the Mad Hatter's help for the next part. Whatever happens, Batman will still have to figure out why people are still trying to kill him.
• 0: Apparently "The Cursed Wheel" backup story is still happening. The Riddler is wooing Duke by counting backwards while Duke tries to solve a riddle. But it's actually just Duke messing around in the Bat-Danger Room.
• -1: Since this story is about Duke and nobody has yet given me a reason to give a fuck about Duke, I don't give a fuck about this story. It's like math!
The Ranking!
-2! Ha ha! See what I did there?!
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