Batman: Gotham Nights #1 (March 1992)

Three disparate fonts in one comic book title might be a Guinness world record.

The Cover
The sidebar on this cover gives Batman second billing to the people of Gotham. But the comic book isn't called The People of Gotham: Gotham Nights for some reason. That season probably has something to do with DC wanting to sell as many issues of this comic book as possible. The art, by Eduardo Barreto, isn't a style that makes my morning wood become "midday wood standing in the middle of a comic book store looking at the new releases rack." It's definitely not bad art! It's that kind of raw and gritty and realistic art that I can appreciate as being well done but remains too far from the cartoony, animated, whimsical, loads of boobies style that I can really get behind. I love that Batman, who gets second billing no matter what the top of the comic book is trying to sell readers, lurks in the background behind the citizen of Gotham. It's a perfect encapsulation for what I think Ostrander's going for in this series (having not read it since 1992 basically means I've never read it, memory (especially my own) being what it is). "This is not a Batman story," the cover states. Sort of. I mean, we've all seen Batman covers like this. But I think those generally try to make Batman at least somewhat a focus of the cover. The focus of this cover is obviously the gun. Then you glance at the guy. And if you're not bored by then because you're thinking, "Why the fuck do I want to read a comic book about ordinary people who just happen to live in Gotham? Dumb!", you might notice Batman, his features hidden by being backlit by the moon. It's a really good fucking cover and I'd like to say I purchased this comic book because the cover was as intriguing as it was even though it claims to be about Gotham citizens. But I know for a fact that I only bought it because John Ostrander was writing it. Sorry, Eduardo! You did so much work and yet I'm that comic book reading asshole who really only cares about three things: 1. Who wrote this? 2. Is Lobo in this? 3. Is Ambush Bug in this?

The Story
This is a story about not Batman. I know it says "BATMAN" right there at the top of the comic book (a fact I've already pointed out about eight times in about seventeen sentences (that's almost half of them!)) but it's not. Did you not read the sidebar? Okay, it's sort of about Batman. But if you purchased it because you wanted to read a story where Batman commits violent acts of extreme justice, you're going to be super sad (I mean angry. If you bought it for those reasons, you're probably one of those people who think "emotions" means "anger").

One of the exciting things about publishing comic books when they cost about a dollar is that you could take chances on weird shit like this (especially if you slap "BATMAN" at the top). Publishing comic books this cheaply meant DC could experiment and people would purchase those experiments because why not? It's just a dollar! And don't think a dollar in 1992 was equal to five dollars today. It absolutely was not which is why I bought this in 1992 but I haven't purchased any new comic books in five years. And comic book shops would buy whatever the two main publishers put out because they were paying, at most, fifty to sixty cents per issue. And if nobody bought the copy new, they could still throw them in the quarter or fifty cent bins and either recoup their initial investment or minimize their loss.

Also, did I mention John Ostrander wrote this? That probably held a lot of weight on if somebody would buy it. I'm not familiar with Mary Mitchell so fingers crossed that she loved drawing women getting out of showers in towels and that a lot of scenes take place in locker rooms, saunas, and showers!

I'm not familiar enough yet with Mary Mitchell's style to know if this character is gay or if she just draws everybody running like that.

One page into Mary Mitchell's art and I'm, tentatively, a believer. Has Batman's chest logo ever been more adorable? It's got little feet! And Batman's cowl has tear ducts! So he can cry at the injustice of it all, I suppose. And the Gotham citizen running from Batman looks like he's just as afraid of the gun in his hands as he is of Batman.

I guess the main takeaway from page one though is that maybe this is a story about Batman. Maybe I shouldn't have judged the cover by the cover. Maybe the "BATMAN" at the top should have been more believable than the shit in the sidebar that really seemed to be added because editorial read the script and was all, "Batman isn't really the focus of this, is he, John?" And John Ostrander was all, "No, of course not. How interesting is that? Who can write a Batman story in this day and age with any new and interesting facets?! It can't be done!" And editorial was all, "Well, it had better be done because people aren't going to buy a Batman book without Batman." And John Ostrander was all, "I mean, look. This is obviously a Batman story! I'm just going to focus on how he interacts with the people he's obsessed with keeping out of harm's way! And their confusing relationship with the city, knowing that one desperate move by any of them could wind up in two broken arms, a broken leg, and a fractured spine. This guy's like Javert on a constant overdose of amphetamines!" Then editorial was all, "Whatever. Just make sure it's got enough Batman that nobody complains. We want zero letters from angry dorks over this, understand?!"

Batman chases Pack onto the subway tracks where a speeding train nearly kills them both and allows for Pack to escape (probably!). That's the prologue. That's the stuff that's supposed to get the reader excited. Now, I suppose, we'll discover what child fucking Batman is talking about and why Pack's involved. You know he's not involved in the way Batman thinks he is. You can tell by how scared he is of that fucking gun.

The real story begins with several pages describing Gotham City, it's architecture, and how it has affected and shaped the people living there.

The story of the stories of the people of Gotham begins with Rosemary Hayes. You might wonder, "Is she going to be important? Is this just a brief glimpse at one of the small lives in the big city? Will her story entangle itself in the stories of the other people? Will there be a hidden story about Batman saving the day off-stage but, if with a close reading, you can put all of the pieces together to see what actually happened? Have I read too much Infinite Jest?" A person picking up this comic book for the first time might think that. But a person who currently has all four issues in a stack and has looked at the cover of Issue #4 which shows Rosemary aiming down the barrel of a shotgun at somebody or something off-screen knows she'll tie in a bit more later.

People can argue about the spelling of doughnut all day long and the only thing they'll ever agree on is that it isn't spelled like Rosemary's place of work spells it.

Mary is either optimistically hopeful or seriously delusional. Perhaps those are just two expressions of the same attribute. But also I saw the cover to Issue #4 so probably delusional. She believes a man that orders from her every day is secretly in love with her. In her internal fantasy of his eventual declaration of love for her, she looks nothing like she actually looks. So, again, delusional. Although I'd still argue, quite emphatically, actually, that being optimistically hopeful is just a kind way of calling somebody seriously delusional.

Other characters who make the cover of Issues #2 and #3 begin their stories after Rosemary's. I guess this series isn't going to be as complicated as Infinite Jest. Probably less suicide too. Although maybe the same amount of obsession and addiction. Definitely zero tennis though. Who wants to read a comic book about tennis? I picked this up to read about Gotham nobodies!

The next two "main" characters: Joel and Woman.

After Joel and Woman, we're introduced to Jennifer and Jimmy. They're so much fun! Jennifer is all, "I love fucking guys but they're always terrible guys!" And Jimmy is all, "I'll buy you breakfast if you promise not to drop it when you think I've got AIDS!" And Jennifer is all, "Whoops!"

That pearl necklace she's wearing doesn't bode well for her avoiding being shot in an alley.

Jennifer assumes Jimmy's gay because he hasn't tried to fuck her even though every story she tells him begins and ends with her saying, "I just love dick!" He assures her that she isn't gay but I think what he's really doing is assuring the Comics Code Authority that he isn't gay while the readers are all, "Oh yeah. He's gay. Cool. Sad he can't embrace it though. He should also be telling stories where he begins and ends with 'I just love dick!'"

Jimmy assures Jennifer that they're friends because he wants to be her friend and not friends because he wants to fuck her. Jennifer is all, "Are you speaking English?" They agree to meet up at the end of the work day to take the same train back home like they do every day. While they're discussing this, an ominous looking man walks past them. He's ominous because he's got a dour look on his face and not because he looks like a Native American. Also because the "camera" focuses on him as he walks past.

It's at this point that Batman and Pack come running into the station. I guess this is the same chase from the night before? Batman finally catches pack by punching him in the face. Pack's jaw shatters in four places and causes him to drop the gun which lands at the feet of the ominous man. Pack acts like he knows this man.

Is that an attempted murder charge? Telling somebody else to murder somebody with the gun you just dropped? If it is, I wouldn't convict on it on the basis of "Jokes, man!"

Batman threatens Dio simply because the man he's been chasing all night knew him by name. When people say ACAB includes Batman, that ain't no joke. It doesn't help that Batman recognizes the guy as somebody he once put in prison. Batman says, "You were working for The Riddler." But the guy is all, "Naw, the Penguin." I bet Batman got that wrong on purpose to test the man's honesty. He claims he's on parole and going to see his parole officer and only knows Pack from the hood. But Batman is all, "I'm looking for a kidnapped child and this guy knows something and he knows you so I'm going to assume you know something. So look out, scuzzball." And Dio walks off thinking, "What the fuck? Am I in a Judge Dredd comic book?"

All the characters we met so far go about their boring days after the excitement of their morning commute. Dio gets in a fight with another parolee in the police station. Jennifer meets a guy she wants to fuck and stands up Jimmy. Joel learns he only has, at best, six months to live. Just a bunch of normal, boring everyday shit. Oh, we also learn Dio's an abusive asshole with a wife and baby. Maybe Batman will teach him a lesson about not being an abusive asshole and his family will live happily ever after. And maybe Joel will try to rob a bank to set up his wife, Woman, with money after he's dead. And maybe Jennifer will get The AIDS from all the guys she loves to fuck. And maybe Jimmy will learn he loves Jenny and come up with boring shit to say to strangers about boxes of chocolate. Oh, and Rosemary will murder the guy she believes loves her. And all while Batman tries to find some missing child, so obsessed with this one case that he misses all of these other cases happening all around him!

The Ranking
Ostrander tells a compelling story with just enough Batman to pull readers into the mundane peoples' lives. Plus it's the perfect length for a series like this. Four issues is the sweet spot. It's too bad that six became standard so companies could collect them in a standard sized graphic novel. Six is often way too many issues. I bet comic book companies would be able to sell more experimental projects if they just cut them down in length. I'm also a big proponent of lowering the prices on certain comics that might not be huge sellers. Sell them for two bucks and let the popular titles subsidize their existence. Open up the kinds of stories that can be told in these superhero universes! Especially if Lobo's involved somehow. Need way more Lobo. I'll probably start buying some new comics again in March because a new Lobo series is coming out. Might give Deathstroke a chance as well. But probably not another Citizens of Gotham series if DC ever does one. Well, it depends on who's writing it, I guess!

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #9 (February 1993)

Catman gonna snatch him some Robin's eggs.

The Cover
I've held this cover in my hands multiple times now and only just now, as I picked it up once more, noticed Sasha, Catman's panther, made the cover. That's not a criticism since she's made of negative space with only her teeth and general absence of city in the shape of a panther to indicate she's there. What is a criticism is that Stelfreeze's signature cuts the negative space right down her neck. And his signature just looks like the Gotham buildings in the background, maybe showing though some shadow past Robin's cape. Was he trying to make it look like a collar and a lead? Or did he just realize that the only place on the entire three-cover spread where his signature would show up would be on Sasha's stark blackness?

Anybody else wondering what's in Catman's utility belt? I bet it's just different flavors of cat treats.

One last thought: I've been giving Alan Grant a lot of credit for things that came after this series, like Knightfall and Infinite Jest. Do I also have to give him credit for inventing the Court of Owls too?

That's a Talon looking on, right?!

The Story So Far
Bruce Wayne, the Mayor, and Commissioner Gordon have been kidnapped by The Misfits, a group of Gotham's least exciting costumed criminals. The plan was to force the city to pay a ransom of ten million dollars for their return. As is the case with most cities and governments and anybody who doesn't want more and more kidnappings to happen, Gotham has a policy to never pay out ransoms. Not that they have the money. Unluckily for this policy, Lucius Fox has access to Wayne Enterprise's coffers and agrees to pay the cash himself. I think the shareholders voted on the issue and they were all, "We're going to lose more than ten million dollars if Bruce Wayne dies! Who cares if more and more people get kidnapped because we've shown we're willing to pay the ransom? We just don't want to lose any money! We want to make money by legal extortion because everybody now thinks loans (which you pay off once and you're done) are for idiots. It's better to get investors and seduce shareholders to risk their money so that if you fail, you aren't saddled with a loan. Sure, sure. You're now under the thrall of a bunch of greedy pieces of shit but what can a business do? Get a fucking loan? What are we these days, Boomers?!"

Even though Fox has offered to pay the ransom, Killer Moth has decided to kill the three kidnapped men by sealing them in a crate and drowning them in the bay. Their only hope now is that Nimrod and Robin can hunt them down. Also maybe they still have some hope because one of them is Batman.

The Story
Last issue ended as Nimrod stated he knew where the kidnappers were being held. This issue begins with Nimrod saying they're probably at the docks because Killer Moth said they'll die precisely at nine and high tide is at nine. How the fuck does he know that? Was he jerking off to high tide tables in his shithole motel room earlier? This fucker's from Texas and he knows the high tide tables of Gotham better than Robin? Is that a thing hunters are constantly aware of?

Killer Moth has asked that Commissioner Gordon's wife (I think?), Sergeant Essen, deliver the ransom since he believes she won't risk Gordon's life by doing anything risky. She tells everybody she's going to go alone but Robin has other plans.

I once had a fuzzy kitten do a cute little angry spit at me that was more threatening than Tim Drake.

Robin's "outside help" are, unsurprisingly, Alfred and, surprisingly, Ace the Bat-hound. Too bad it wasn't Batcow so I could say Alan Grant should get partial credit for that too. I don't remember Ace the Bat-hound in this era but he looks like a flea-bitten mongrel. I was expecting a dog that loves to make criminals bleed. But instead, Fuzzy Dumpkins needing a bath. He doesn't even have a mask. So disappointing.

Fuzzy Dumpkins isn't me making a vague reference to some 1920s comic strip. It was just a stupid name I made up for a stupid dog.

Apparently, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle created a post-Crisis Ace that was an English Mastiff. I think maybe Tim Sale didn't know how to draw an English Mastiff so he went with "mutt that sort-of, maybe kind-of looks like a Bloodhound crossed with a Dachshund? Maybe Tim Sale decided Ace the Bat-hound should just be a mix of all "Hounds"?

The tide continues to come in as Bruce Wayne tries to rescue everybody. But not too hard or else they might suspect he's Batman.

Right now, he's probably wishing he didn't need to rely on a young boy on a school night.

I know it's a school night because The Misfits kidnapped Gordon and the Mayor on a Wednesday and then immediately demanded the ransom. Sometimes I pay attention to stupid, useless details. Hmm, maybe stupid, useless details are actually all I pay attention to. By this time next month, I'll have completely forgotten everything about this comic book except that Chancer's dice logo on his chest was obviously meant to read as a "7" but actually read as a "9" (at least the first time Tim Sale drew it. Later, the lower die became covered so much by the top die that it could have been a four, five, or a six).

Ace does his job by leading Robin to The Misfits' lair. But I don't know if he did it to help or to get Robin killed. If it's the latter, then good boy!

Who's a good doggy?! You get that snot torn apart!

Robin arrives in the nick of time but Alan and Tim leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Bruce needed him to save him. Does Bruce pull the hatch off the crate's hinges before they drown? Did Robin help when he arrived and dove in? Or did Robin dive in to find Bruce already helping Gordon and the Mayor out of the crate? We'll never know! I mean, we know. Bruce definitely didn't need Robin to save him. But we don't *really* now. If you know what I mean. Wink! Did that wink help?

Robin put a tracker on Nimrod so that Batman can track him down as Nimrod tracks The Misfits down. Bruce rushes out to have Alfred help dress him in an alley. He's able to leave the scene without being questions by Gordon or the Mayor because they're practically drowned. And he doesn't have to worry about the panther outside because Tim hogtied it the way you almost certainly can't hogtie a massive feline.

By almost getting his head blown off, Nimrod delays The Misfits long enough for Batman to arrive. As far as I can tell, Chancer's luck power hasn't fucking done a thing to help recently. Maybe the luck relies on the amount of qi he's currently channeling and the idiot jerked off earlier that morning.

Are you telling me Catman can't smell that Batman reeks of Gotham Bay right now? He should totally suspect the Mayor is Batman now!

While Batman battles the original three Misfits, Chancer sees his chance to escape with the cash. But he forgot about the invisible Nimrod and winds up tackled by him as he's getting away. Also, there's a new revelation about Chancer's costume!

How does this make any fucking sense at all?! That pip has never appeared there yet!

Okay, I understand that if that pip has never been there before then I was wrong about the die being the number four (or five or six). But I only said it's a four because of the placement of the two bottom pips that were obviously meant to represent a two, making the two dice total seven (which is lucky, right?!). But here, Tim Sale (or Adrienne Roy?! Did Roy betray Tim by just adding the dot that we all knew should have been there?!), puts the dot in as if to say, "Dudes. I knew what I was doing all along! The bottom die was always meant to be a four (or a five (or a six!))! I didn't fuck up the concept art of this character at all, you dumbies!" But, I mean, I still have evidence that Tim did fuck it up. Completely.

See?! There's plenty of room along that border to have placed the dot if one had existed! Also, plenty of room in this first shot to shot there's no middle pip.

Well, now I understand why I stopped collecting this series! No way could I reward such blatant disregard for dice aesthetics. I'm nothing if not a petty piece of shit.

Okay, I'm sure that's false and I just stopped buying this series because I lacked the funds to keep with it. But there's also another possibility regarding Chancer's dice. Perhaps they appear as something other than a seven when his luck goes bad! The one time his luck seems to fail him, his dice change from the usual 7 pips to 8 pips. Although how lucky is seven anyway when the majority of time, seven is the number you're trying to avoid while playing craps!

The story ends with Nimrod telling his sad tale but it's boring so forget about it. Batman rearrests him and tells him maybe when the truth comes out at Chancer's trial, Nimrod will get another chance. What a bunch of bat guano! Batman knows how the justice system works! Once it has a patsy for a crime, that shit rarely changes. Batman's sending Nimrod back to jail for life. But maybe Nimrod thinks he deserves it because of that boring story I'm still not going to mention.

The Ranking
I'm sad that I don't own more of this series because I was actually enjoying it. A Batman series where nine issues in the most prominent villain he's faced (at the time) was Calendar Man? Sure, sure. He knocked out The Joker during that Reverse-Knightfall bit early on but that didn't really count. The only villain you could count in that sequence as having been a real part of the story was Amygdala. And this was when Zsasz was created so he doesn't count either. My local comic book store often has big end of the year sales so maybe I'll see if I can hunt down some more issues of this series for super duper cheap at Excalibur in a week or so.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #8 (January 1993)

You never want Calendar Man to be the most recognizable character on a cover.

The Cover
This cover got me asking a number of questions but the one foremost in my mind was this: Does Calendar Man change the number on his left shoulder according to the current month? Some of the other questions: "Who is the guy in the suit and why is the back of his right hand so fucked up? Tattoo? Damaged ligaments?"; "Where's Firefly's flamethrower?"; "What? That's not Firefly? Is that Sauron? Is this a Marvel crossover?"; and, "Who the fuck is Killer Moth again?" The question I didn't ask (and, in fact, never ask) that was answered by next month's cover was "Where is Robin?" Although, and I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but having a cover where Robin faces off against Catman, while not laugh out loud funny, is quietly clever. The last question I had about the cover that doesn't have anything to do with the cover is "Where are all the tatas? The Misfits have a serious 'too many testicles' problem. Like my grandfather."

The Story So Far
Killer Moth, knowing he's an absolute loser among losers in Batman's catalogue of villains, decided to team up with some other all-time great losers. Too bad Alan Grant didn't have as huge a boner for Killer Moth as Tom King did for Kite Man or else Killer Moth could have had a popular resurgence in the early '90s. Hell, maybe he did! I barely read any Batman comics and I certainly didn't give a shit about Killer Moth. I know I should have. I could have been the coolest and most indie nerd at the nerd table in the lunch room (this metaphor doesn't work so well seeing that by 1992, I was in college) by declaring Killer Moth my absolute favorite Batman villain. "Did you guysh know that Killer Mosh figured out Batman'sh identity before even The Joker?" Then some other kid who was keen on being King Nerd would be all, "*snort* Like The Joker ever even really wanted to know Batman's secret identity actually." Then I would have had to scramble to get back the power and, amid scraps of chewed tater tots, spit out, "Killer Mosh wash alsho the reashon Babsh Gordon became Batgirl!" And just to make sure everybody knew how indie and cool I was, I would use my coup de grâce: "Wedge Antillesh ish my favorite character in the Shtar Warsh shaga!"

So, um, The Misfits have decided to kidnap the Mayor, Commissioner Gordon, and Bruce Wayne. Then they'll ransom them off for ten million dollars, split the loot, and never get their asses beat by Batman. I know it doesn't sound like a great plan. But they have luck on their side: a new guy named Chancer! Although getting lucky could mean any number of things. Like, "You guys were lucky Batman only put you in the hospital instead of the morgue!" So, you know, it only goes so far, really.

The Story
Alan Grant and Tim Sale decided that this issue would be so exciting that they'd fuck with readers by beginning it with the most boring splash page in the existence of comic books.

Does Gen Z even know what this is a picture of?

That wasn't me making fun of Gen Z! God forbid I should think any generation is better or worse than any other. As if I would recognize any obsolete piece of technology from before I was born! At least Gen Z has technology that still mimics the look of watches while doing about ten thousand more useful things than the one or two a watch could do (two is giving a watch credit for sometimes showing the date as well as the time). I haven't worn a watch or cared about time since I was twelve. Now I just free wheel carelessly through life. I haven't needed to know the exact time since Lost went off the air!

The first person The Misfits target is Bruce Wayne. Catman and Chancer set up some bombs last issue to cut power to Wayne Tech just when Bruce Wayne usually gets to work. The bomb goes off, the power cuts out, and the gates don't open just as Alfred tries to roll right through them. He smashes into them which would have taught him a lesson about assuming if he'd lived through the accident.

Don't worry. Alfred survives. As I mentioned earlier, Alan Grant just didn't have the juice of Tom King.

I have no idea what's currently going on in the main DC Continuity so I don't know if Alfred is still dead. I think I stopped reading DC Comics around the time Dick Grayson was sniped in the face. I never found out how that ended either because it seemed to never be mentioned again (at least for as long as I continued to read the comics). What boggles my mind is that DC allowed Tom King to kill Alfred but years earlier they refused to let Scott Snyder do it in "Death of the Family". I don't know if Snyder wanted to but everything in that story felt like it was leading up to The Joker killing Alfred and then serving bits of Alfred to the rest of the Bat-Family. And since that story ultimately had no repercussions or reason for existing (other than to create tensions between the kids and Batman which, ultimately, didn't even change much), Snyder must have been planning on having The Joker kill Alfred. It's the only thing that makes sense!

On a side note, why the fuck wasn't Alfred wearing his seat belt? I suppose a man irresponsible enough to raise a child who needs therapy by not giving him therapy and instead allowing him to travel the world to learn the deadliest martial arts only to return home, don a Furry Costume, and get his kicks beating the shit out of criminals probably isn't the kind of person to wear a seat belt.

Killer Moth and Chancer, using Chancer's luck and some gimmicks from Calendar Man, manage to successfully kidnap Bruce Wayne and make their escape. Killer Moth makes sure to mention how important Calendar Man's help was so that the reader might accidentally start associating him with other competent villains. Meanwhile, the other Misfits are about to kidnap the Mayor and Police Commissioner.

Classy. Kidnapping them at an AIDS Charity event. I bet even The Joker's tugging his shirt collar over that one.

Somehow, Catman and Calendar Man make kidnapping the Commissioner and the Mayor look easy. I suspect it's because nobody figured any criminal would have the gall to interrupt an AIDS Charity event. Even The Penguin would have just shown up to donate. These Misfits really are the worst criminals in Gotham! That "worst" is meant to be ambiguous!

Now that The Misfits have kidnapped three of the most important people of Gotham (one of them the most important but they don't even know it yet because Killer Moth's missing the part of his brain that remembers that fact), it's time to profit! I don't know who is going to pay the ransom for them. I guess Bruce Wayne's ward, Tim Dickstodd?

Meanwhile, Nimrod the Hunter makes crank calls while cranking his, um, crank.

If I'm misconstrued what's happening here, I don't want to be corrected.

I don't know why Nimrod has a photo of an egg above his bed. Maybe that's a picture of the woman Janine he's trying to get justice for by hunting down Chancer. I'd say more about what Nimrod's up to but Al and Tim haven't really laid it all out yet. Best to get to know Nimrod and what he's up to in fits and starts, like showing him using his camouflage suit or masturbating in a run down room.

Gordon, the Mayor, and Bruce Wayne are all dumped in the warehouse doubling as The Misfits headquarters. Killer Moth takes a moment to reflect on his past history with Bruce Wayne that he can't quite remember because a bullet made an omelet of his brain.

Look at me memeing instead of being clever! It's so easy and fun!

Back at Wayne Manor, Tim Drake has arrived to teach Alfred about seat belts. Also, he might be able to figure out where The Misfits took Bruce. He is a super genius, after all. The superest! I don't think you're allowed to have a dumb or even normal intelligence sidekick in the DC Universe. Except maybe The Flash. Wally West certainly wasn't winning any MacArthur grants. I'm not being insulting to Wally. I've never won one of those either. I'm just saying DC has a bit of a problem with making their teen characters geniuses. Even Jason Todd was like a "street smarts genius"! I think. I forget. He died and I never had to think of him ever again. At least, that's what I thought. But then Judd Winick had to come around with the one joke he ever wrote ("Again!?") and "again" Jason Todd back into continuity. Jerk!

Batman doesn't clear the cookies on his computer so Tim discovers the last thing he was working on was trying to discover the identity of Nimrod and his connection to Chancer. Nimrod himself wants to find Chancer to clear his name since it was Chancer who killed the person Nimrod was sent to prison for life for killing. When the Bat Signal goes up, Nimrod and Tim both head over, Nimrod because he wants work with Batman and Tim because he knows Batman is in the clutches of the Misfits. Because Nimrod thinks he knows how to find Chancer, Tim and the cops agree to work with him. Lucius Fox has decided to pay the ransom but Tim and Nimrod are going to try to track the money to the gang to stop them and save the kidnapped. They'll need saving because even if The Misfits get the money, Killer Moth intends to let the rising tide of Gotham Bay drown them as The Misfits get away.

Oh, also, I guess that's Bruce Wayne on the cover? I was refusing to allow for that possibility since Batman's on the previous cover and they fit together like a poster. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it's the mayor?

The Ranking
Once Robin made an appearance, I found myself bored which is why I simply summarized the final five to six pages of the comic book. Why am I like this? Why can't I simply see Robin as another valid super hero trying to do what's right? Am I jealous of his genius status and his efforts to make the world a better place? Does he reflect back at me all the possibilities in life that I squandered? Am I the mirrored antagonist to Tim Drake?! It's becoming a stronger and stronger possibility that I simply stopped reading this series because it concentrated too much on Tim Drake for one single issue! I suppose I could ask what's wrong with me but if I really wanted an answer to that question, I'd get therapy. Instead, I write much too personal posts on the Internet about my life. A therapist would probably say, "Why did you post this on the Internet instead of sending it to your father?" And then I'd have to throw down a smoke pellet and climb out a window instead of answering.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #7 (December 1992)

Dice Guy and Pink Eye looking a little overconfident going up against Batman.

The Cover
If you picked this up off the rack on October 13th, 1992, you could be forgiven for thinking DC fucked up the cover by clipping it poorly. What happened to the little box surrounded by a solid color design?! But then on November 17th when you picked up Issue #8, you'd begin to understand that Brian Stelfreeze has painted a mini-poster for this three part series. It's more probable that by the time you picked up Issue #8, you'd have forgotten about the off-center image on Issue #7 and simply assumed they'd done away with the box design entirely since Issue #8's image extends to both the right and left borders, leaving it looking like a regular comic book cover (if you easily ignore the band on the bottom). But by Issue #9, with it looking the reverse of Issue #7, some astute readers would have dug out the last two issues and lined them up on their mother's kitchen table to marvel at DC and Brian Stelfreeze's work of ingenuity!

Since DC apparently couldn't publish a cover without the UPC box, they could have at least centered it on the middle issue. Sure, it'd have been weird. But who the fuck cares?

We live in a world ruled by precedent and tradition for no reason other than the illusion of maintaining some kind of order and continuity. But we don't have to! If women could suddenly wear pants one day (and, sure, it was shocking (at least that's what I'm told?)) then men can wear skirts (and not just kilts because that's "acceptable". Skirts! Short skirts! Long skirts! Ruffled skirts! Colorful skirts!). And that's just one example of the infinite choices we could be making every day but we limit ourselves to fucking tradition and precedent. It's the bane of my existence because, yes, in some ways, I also limit myself due to tradition and precedence. Like in that skirt example that I didn't pick just out of nowhere. I want to wear fucking skirts. They're so fucking comfortable and — let's face the genu-wyne facts of the matter — absolutely adorable. But you know why I don't wear them? Because I don't like people noticing me. It makes me anxious and uncomfortable. So if I go out in a skirt, people, basing their existence on tradition and precedence, might assume I'm trying to disrupt things or make a statement or stand out in the crowd. But all it would mean to me is that I was cute and comfortable! But no! Instead DC Comics has to ruin the symmetry of their three cover mini-poster by off-setting the middle cover's UPC box! Look, they stuck the third cover's box to the right! Why can't they just stick the fucking thing in the middle?! Cowards! Yes, yes. I'm a coward too or else my wardrobe would be full of the cutest fucking skirts you'd ever laid your eyes on. So I'm a hypocrite?! So what! Maybe I'll got to Torrid tomorrow and pick up another skirt to at least wear around the house and while doing yard work! Let my neighbors drool with jealousy!

Yeah, I said "another" skirt. Go fuck yourselves.

Oh! This reminded me of a note from Richard F. Burton's footnotes in his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night! "In the East, where Common Sense, not Fashion, rules dress, men, who have a protuberance to be concealed, wear petticoats and women wear trousers." I'm glad I was reminded of one of his non-offensive notes! I could have been reminded of this one: "And, as will be seen, Persians have bequeathed to the outer world worse things than bad language, e.g. heresy and sodomy." Dude. DUDE.

Double oh! This double reminded me that recently I needed a new pair of pajama bottoms because my old pair with Superman's symbol all over it had a huge, sexy hole in the crotch. So I went to Hot Topic because who else is going to have tons and tons of various unisex pajama bottoms? Probably nobody was my immediate assumption. They were conducting a 60% off sale on their Wednesday products which happened to have pajama bottoms. Now I've never seen the show but everybody knows and loves The Addams Family (except maybe those weirdo The Munsters freaks) so I got a pair. When I put them on at home, I noticed they were definitely not unisex. They fit just differently enough to what I'm used to to realize they were women's pajama bottoms (I only noticed later the buttons on the fly were decorative as their wasn't actually a fly). But you know what? They felt fucking sexy! I love them so much! I don't know who this fucking Enid is that's also on them but she's cute too!

The Story
The story begins with "Dice Guy" from the cover robbing an armored car and describing how he's always been super lucky and everybody around him is super unlucky. So of course he went into crime instead of, I don't know, scratch-offs?

I don't get it. If his whole thing is luck, why do the dice on his chest indicate he's rolled a 9? What's so lucky about a 9?!

The guy with the dice calls himself Chancer and he's about to find out just how lucky he can get when Batman swings down from a rooftop (or zeppelin? Sometimes, it seems his bat grapple is just attached to nothing but stardust, man) to attempt to apprehend him. Chancer gets lucky and knocks Batman down. Instead of running, he doubles down on his luck to taunt Batman. This seems like a mistake because Batman gets back up and grabs Chancer. He's about to break a few of Chancer's bones for fun and/or justice when "Pinkeye" joins in the fray.

No kid reading this in 1992 understood the Biblical meaning of the name Nimrod here. They just all thought he was basically calling himself Idjit the Hunter!

Here's the pertinent Biblical passage that gave Bugs Bunny the idea to mock Elmer Fudd and call him Nimrod: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord." So you see, calling yourself Nimrod should be enough to signify that you're a great hunter. But being that the Looney Tunes fucked the meaning of the name Nimrod, turning it into the "Hey Einstein" for hunters, Nimrod here had to add "the hunter" to the end to clarify that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord (so much so that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord (fucking Bible is so repetitive!)). I get the feeling that Nimrod the Hunter might wind up having to explain all of this to his new mates when he joins The Misfits later. Or else he'll just get mocked mercilessly by the others until he kills one of them.

Also, um, Chancer? What a fucking stupid name.

Chancer uses Nimrod's distraction to get away by leaping off the edge of the multi-story building's ledge they were battling on. Batman presumes to his death.

How (or why?) Chancer got up there after robbing an armored car, I have no idea. Lucky nine, I guess?

Chancer's life is saved by Catman who catches him by the ankle with a wire trap. I know what you're thinking: "Must have ripped his leg clean off!" No, no. I don't think G-forces caused by deceleration exists in comic books (or acceleration according to Flash comics when he just grabs people at super speed to get them to safety). As long as a person is stopped instantly by something other than concrete, they're gonna be okay. Plus, Chancer has the luck of the number nine on his side! Which Catman passive-aggressively comments on.

Has Gail Simone ever written a story where Catman and Catwoman fuck and afterward she has a litter of nine human babies?

Catman suggests, with the help of a full grown panther, that Chancer help him out on a small job he's doing. Once that's successfully completed, Catman offers Chancer an opportunity to join his small crew with a "scam" they've got coming up. Chancer agrees because he doesn't realize one of the members of Catman's crew is Calendar Man. I'd be too embarrassed to team up with that guy. Who bases their personality on the shittiest of Christmas gifts? Oh, I know! A guy who thinks his chest logo represents the number seven when it actually represents the number nine!

The guy in the suit on the cover of Issue #8 is, I think, a cop Batman begins working with who's investigating the armored car robbery. They begin working together and sharing information as they learn more about Chancer and Nimrod the Hunter. This cop (I don't think he's been named? Maybe he was a regular in Batman or Detective Comics in 1992) points Batman to an escaped prisoner out of Dallas that just recently came in on a wanted sheet and since they know Chancer came from Dallas, he believes it might tie in to the Nimrod thing.

Hmm. I wonder if Dean Hunter has anything to do with Nimrod the Hunter? Probably going to find out Chancer's name is Chance Phillips and Catman's name is Silly Billy Fuzzybottom.

Meanwhile Calendar Man sets up some bombs or Polaroids or traps or something around the building where a charity event with the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon will be taking place on Wednesday. Obviously this is the scam mentioned by Catman since Officer Nobody mentioned the event in passing to Batman. Calendar Man obsessively quotes an old nursery rhyme about telling the fortunes of a child based on the day of the week they're born. I guess Alan Grant had to come up with something thematically interesting that he could be obsessed with other than just the names of the months or numbers no greater than 31. I wonder if he's also obsessed with pin-ups and cute kitten and puppy pictures?

Turns out even Catman's not quite sure about the whole Calendar Man deal.

Is Calendar Man's real name Janus Julius Augustus?

The final member of The Misfits is Killer Moth. A terrible name. Unless there are killer moths? I mean, probably, right? In a recent Shadow of the Bat review, I was trying to remember all of the characters who were created as mirrors to Batman. Well, here's another one! Killer Moth came up with his persona to be the Batman for criminals. He even issued a bunch of "Moth Signals" to his clients so they could shine them into the sky to get his attention. I mean, come on. That's pretty good, right? I guess he's also the reason that Barbara Gordon became Batgirl? Somehow? Oh! And he also once kidnapped Bruce Wayne to steal his identity only to discover Bruce Wayne was Batman. But then later he was shot in the head and had the part of his brain removed that housed the knowledge of Batman's secret identity so that all worked out, I guess!

I'm not sure why this panel is in the comic but I fucking love it.

Killer Moth explains the job to Chancer: they're going to kidnap three prominent Gotham figures: the Mayor, Commissioner Gordon, and Bruce Wayne!

The Ranking
According to DC's Who's Who, this plan to kidnap Bruce Wayne will be, at least, the third time Killer Moth has attempted this. Apparently not only was the part of his brain removed that let him know Bruce Wayne was Batman, some other wiring got fucked so that he'd continuously relive the moment that led to him getting shot in the head. Maybe the rest of his brain was trying to regain that which it lost? Some kind of brain-damage forced quest to return to him something lost. Sort of like a shittier Memento. Maybe Killer Moth should think about tattooing "Bruce Wayne is Batman" on his chest just over his heart.

Oh, um, as for how I liked this issue? It's continues the streak of really good fucking stories in this series. Okay, maybe "The Ugly American" was a slight miss. But that can be forgiven, right? If this story continues to be as enjoyable as this issue, I'm going to be hard pressed to understand why I stopped reading this series after Issue #9.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #6 (November 1992)

Imagine using the article "the" for this cover. As if there's only one.

The Cover
The early '90s (let's include the second half of 1989 here to make my statement valid, if you don't mind admitting facts that are completely wrong into your view of reality) were a fantastic time for Batman comic book covers. Between this series and Legends of the Dark Knight, Batman covers were slaying kids' eyes from the racks of other boring ass typical comic cover fare. Who was hired at DC in 1989 that had a flair for cover design? This shit is so sleek and cool. It demands you pick it up and buy it. And who was I to deny that demand? I'm nothing if not a yellow-bellied simp. Brian Stelfreeze's painted covers within the blue ombré border (or whatever color that month (sometimes just a solid color which seemed lazy, really)) really pop. And wait until you get a load of the gimmick for the next three issues! Hmm, I think I just oversold a gimmick that's been used a lot. Anyway, this cover design, right now, looks so fucking cool that I'll forgive the sort of Choose Your Own Adventure look of Brian's painting. It's a little bit low rent compared to the first four issues (but not compared to last issue which looked like a Which Way book cover).

As for Stelfreeze's depiction of an ugly American, well, you know, there is a fucking type. And he nails it!

The Story
The story begins with that guy on the cover behind the wheel of a massive truck choosing to drive four teenagers off of a bridge because they were driving a foreign car. A Toyola, to be precise. Not precise to reality but precise to DC's in-universe car manufacturers.

The car smashed through a steel girder without any noticeable damage? Fuck, now *I* want a Toyola!

I think Dan Jurgens drew that page after reading a bunch of old Phantom Stranger books. Why is Batman's cape suddenly some kind of oracular artifact? Maybe that's just to indicate how great a detective he is. This is like an episode of Columbo. We get to see how the crime was committed just like Columbo seems to see it in his mind's eye. Maybe Batman has always had a Bat-Sense, like Spider-man's Spidey Sense, but to remark on it would cause people to question his detective abilities and his intelligence. How smart are you really if you're solving crimes because you can "see" them with some kind of paranormal bat radar of justice? I think Bruce never told the whole truth about the bat that crashed through his window. It obviously was glowing from gamma radiation and bit his ass. Just like Columbo?

I have to assume that this guy didn't drive these kids off the bridge simply because they're driving a foreign car. I bet there's something more going on in his life! That's the kind of sharp analysis you'll find in nearly 1/3 of my comic book reviews! In the other 2/3, you'll get rampant speculation and insane ramblings because I was once bitten by a radiated schizophrenic.

Anyway, now is when I speculate on why this guy's so fucking angry. The easy answers are that his penis is tiny and/or he can't satisfy his nagging wife. But I trust Alan Grant not to go for the easy answers! He's probably got something heavy to say about the rotting effects of patriotism on the human mind (especially the less curious minds). This guy's obviously compensating for something with the big truck and the big muscles. I think with guys like this, it's most often their lack of curiosity. It's the inability to find things fun, joyful, or interesting. They're so wrapped up in what they consider makes them manly that they refuse to feel any emotion that they consider feminine. They'd rather feel no joy at all than to have somebody, for one instant, think they're gay. To them, humor is punching a weaker person in the face and making them cry, bleed, or die. They've never heard of the phrase "self-deprecating humor". God forbid anybody, ever, laughs at them. This is the kind of person who thinks pronouns and gender ideology are fake bullshit but will kick your fucking ass if you dare call them a little girl. He's a sad, pathetic creature trying to portray an image of manliness that nobody but other sad pathetic creatures give any fucks about at all.

Another theory: he's suffering from CTE caused by six years of high school football.

I feel sorry for The Ugly American simply because he's being dressed by Dan Jurgens. Can the waist of his pants be any higher? Is eating roadkill a stereotypical American pastime to be proud of? Did he swallow a brick just before entering the bar?

The bartender serves The Ugly American a Mexican beer but, luckily, isn't murdered immediately. Instead, The Ugly American lets him live because The Ugly American is hunting a woman by the name of Tina. Usually I'd say "looking for" but, come on. Look at this beefy piece of dumb. He's definitely hunting her.

While barging in on Gordon and the police investigating the accident, Batman learns that two CIA agents are snooping around Gotham for classified reasons. There's nothing Batman can do for the four drowned teenagers so he decides to follow and stake out the Agents to see what they're up to. This is probably a case of his Batty Sense tingling because they're in town to recapture The Ugly American. I guess he's DC's version of Captain America? Got a dose of the shitty alpha version of the super soldier serum and it turned him into every other white male on Facebook?

By "alpha version", I mean the first version and not the anti-beta-cuck version which I'm only explaining to every other white male on Facebook who absolutely misunderstood me.

Now, I'd like you all to prepare yourselves because I'm going to scan an image that could trigger some of you. It's Dan Jurgens version of the late '80s/early '90s Batmobile.

I'm so sorry for this!

I just made a few calls to try to book an appointment with a therapist and after being greeted with responses like "Who is Dan Jurgens?" and "What do you mean by choad Batmobile?", I was told to stop wasting everybody's time and "just fucking man up, you simp piece of shit." Christ. I didn't know therapists went so hard.

Meanwhile, The Ugly American tracks down Tina who happens to be his daughter. She's currently married to a Korean man and pregnant with his child. Working through the previous bits of plot that I read, I come to the conclusion that her eventual meeting with her father isn't going to go so well. After he kills a lady's poodle on the way into Tina and her husband's store because it's "foreign" (because it's a poodle? Because it's name is Rodrigo?), I begin to suspect it might go worse than not so well even.

See? My momma didn't raise no fool no matter how many times she called me one!

Wait. Her husband's name is Kim? That's a girl's name! Or did she mistakenly think his surname was his first name when they initially met and he just never bothered to correct her because she was so hot?

While Kim Cheung gets his ass beat for being not white (and maybe a little bit for having a girl's name), Batman follows the CIA Agents until he finds an opportunity to steal their file on The Ugly American. He learns that The Ugly American was some guy named Jon Kennedy Payne who killed a Vietnam protester for burning an American flag in the '60s. He was sentenced to life in prison while his daughter was just two years old. Eventually the CIA heard about a guy who killed somebody for "patriotic" reasons and thought, "A-ha! The perfect specimen for our shitty super-soldier project! A guy who has never shown any aptitude for anything except being an angry asshole! He's perfect for the military!" When the government took him from prison, the official story was that he died by slipping in the shower and falling directly onto his shank. I totally didn't make that up and would scan proof from the comic book but I, um, lost power while trying. Darn! You'll just have to trust me.

Once he was officially declared dead, Payne was entered into a program of propaganda, LSD, and high-level murder techniques. Once they were threw, he was the perfect patriot: a complete and utter racist piece of shit.

To think they "overdid it" and not that they got it perfectly right just proves how naïve they were.

There was definitely a period of time when I would have guessed that people in the military were less racist than the general population because everybody in the military trained, lived, and worked together as a cohesive group. They were like the Studio 54 of diversity but without the fun, music, cocaine, and sex. Well, maybe just without the fun and music. I don't know when that time might have been though. Maybe during Vietnam up until sometime in the '80s? This comic was written in 1992 when being patriotic seemed not to be an absolute red flag but was understood could easily slip into full blown racism and bigotry. Now though? In 2025 when the Coast Guard has decided that swastika and noose tattoos aren't hate symbols but merely divisive? Yeah, fuck patriots, man. They can suck my freedom loving ass. Also, they, in absolutely no way, can lay claim to the idea that they "keep me free". They're the least free people in the world, fighting for corporations, oil, and greedy old white men! Having to conform to a strict set of principles so that they're embraced by all the other assholes who signal that they're super patriots by sticking to exactly all the same sets of principles. Not one of them free to be their own person lest they show some "woke" quality that will get them ostracized from the tribe.

Luckily Payne's too stupid to make the connection that his daughter married a Korean and she's also pregnant. So the baby stays inside Tina for now instead of being ripped out and stomped into a bloody smudge on the pavement next to Rodrigo. I assume he understands what sex is and its consequences so it's lucky that Batman arrives just in time to stop a fun little comic book infanticide (she looks to be nearly nine months pregnant so I'm going to go ahead and assume that the baby can, with proper care, survive outside of her womb at this point. If she was only a few months in, I'd have said "a fun little comic book abortion" instead of "infanticide". Duh!).

Batman and Payne get into a physical confrontation and Batman decides to try to reason with him. He makes a half-hearted attempt to appeal to Payne's pain of what the government did to him. But then Payne throws a brick at Batman and Batman is all, "Fuck you, asshole! You're dead meat now!"

This is what happens when you throw a brick at the motherfucking Batman!

Actually, the CIA show up and shoot Payne in the face. Batman explains to them, while shouting, that the real Ugly Americans are the government officials who use, abuse, manipulate, and coerce common citizens into doing their imperialist bidding! Right on, Batman! But also, the other guy was a pretty ugly American, even before their manipulation of him.

Bruce Wayne ties up all the loose ends by hiring a lawyer for Tina to sue the government for what they did to her father. He says things "for all he lost" even though "all he lost" was life in prison for killing a protestor against the Vietnam War. Batman might be projecting a little too much humanity onto this Jon Kennedy Payne guy. And, yeah, sure, maybe I'm not allowing him to have as much as maybe he did. But fuck him. He killed a guy for burning the American flag. Who's the real monster?

The Ranking
This story wasn't as good as the previous two. But maybe that's just because I found Batman too sympathetic towards the guy manipulated by the government. Sure, sure. I'm against government manipulation of its citizens as well! But just because somebody's a victim of the government doesn't mean that person was any good to begin with! Come on, Batman! Maybe spend a little more time on reading comprehension and a little less time on fucking Catwoman. Don't get me wrong! I don't want to see that training in the pages of the comic book! I still only want to see when you fuck Catwoman. In 1992, I think you could call a story "The Ugly American" and everybody would totally understand what you were doing. Everybody knew one or two major assholes like this and they just sort of put up with or avoided them as best they could. But in 2025? It's a fucking race to the top of who can be the worst fucking American piece of shit in the country. Things people knew they shouldn't say in public just get spouted nonchalantly all over social media and the 24 hour news network airwaves on a constant basis. Shame has fled the country. Or, more apt, it's been murdered in the dead of the night and dumped in a backwater swamp to be eaten by scavengers.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #5 (October 1992)

Why is The Black Spider purple?

The Cover
Brian Stelfreeze's painted cover depicts the story of a man trying desperately to expose his secret identity. If you run around town as The Black Spider while wearing a purple outfit, the first question people are going to ask is, "What the fuck?" The first and a half question people are going to ask is, "Why would he call himself . . . oh! Of course." I guess in 1992, comic book writers were still using the trope of having Black heroes often use "Black" in their superhero name. Sometimes it's cool, I guess. I like Black Lightning sounds like some kind of dark fucking arts Satan shit might be taking place. And Black Panther's costume wasn't purple. And Black Luke Cage was probably what Iron Fist called him when discussing him with his white friends to distinguish him from their drug dealer during college, white Luke Cage. But this guy's entire body is covered in purple spandex and he still prepends "Black" to his name. Weird choice. Although we'll soon see that maybe it makes sense in context to this one issue story. We might be getting a 1992 story about race so buckle up, Babies of the 21st Century (not derogatory!).

The Story
Issue #5 opens on a tragic scene that causes Batman to experience emotion. See, 21st Century Babies, in 1992, Batman was still allowed to show actual emotions on his dumb rich face. Sure, this was after The Dark Knight Returns but before the concrete conception of Batman as a hard-ass mirror to the world fully broken by the violence of that world had completely hardened. Or maybe Norm Breyfogle should have been drawing way more Batman so people could have growing up without scoffing at the notion that even a Batman can cry.

Look at how sad and anxious he looks! My poor orphan baby!

Speaking of grown men crying, do you want to hear the last two times I fully broke down this week? Yeah? Okay! The first time was Sunday night at work while I was buffing the floor of one of the stores I clean. I've been listening to all of my albums in alphabetical order while at work and had come to Jesus Christ Superstar. When people are asked what movie they've seen the most, I often answer Heathers or Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure because I believe musicals fall into a whole other category. But if I didn't think that, it would easily be Jesus Christ Superstar. I named my first cat as an adult and my best friend forever and my one true pairing and my soul mate and my familiar Judas because of that movie. Now, sure, that could be an easy reason to think that I broke down and cried. Because I was thinking about my beloved boy gone ten years now. But it wasn't. It was this line that hit me so hard because it rings so true as I've ventured into my fifties: "At first, I was inspired. Now, I'm sad and tired." Just that. Broke my fucking heart and I was snot crying (not hard sobbing but slow and unyielding tears coming) on security cameras while also still belting out some great lyrics!

The second time I broke down this week was at the end of Good Boy which, I know, I probably should not have watched being that my history of nearly dying of emotions after watching movies about animal characters began at the tender age of nine when I went to see Fox and the Hound (before that, at five, my heart broke from The Rescuers but that was about my huge first crush on Penny (and a quite confusing second "crush" on Miss Bianca. Confusing because I didn't know what sex was and because Miss Bianca was a mouse). But that wasn't exclusively about manipulating the audience with feels about animals). The movie Pig absolutely destroyed me. I can barely even talk about it without breaking into tears. It's happening right now, dammit! But a movie about a dog confused by the illness of his owner? And the way it ends? And the things that are said? And the way it ends on top of the way it ends? Come on! I was telling the Non-Certified Spouse about it the next day and crying about it and she was crying just hearing me tell her about it! At least it was, mostly, happy and sweet and sentimental tears.

I should point out that Batman isn't exactly crying hear. But he's yet to read the murder/suicide note left by his recent new friend, The Black Spider.

Sorry! Suicide novella.

Batman doesn't bother checking the bodies of the woman on the couch or the boy on the floor for signs of life because he's an expert on life and death. It's how he can so easily not kill anybody and also he doesn't want to leave any DNA for the Gotham Cops who hate him to find. The note explains that by the time Batman reads it, the people who destroyed this man's family will be dead. I say it's a suicide note because the implication is that he'll probably be dead too. He's going up against some dangerous criminals to get some kind of justice for what they've done. But Batman doesn't care about justice! I mean, he does care about it but he only cares about it if it's done his way which means no killing by non-law enforcement officers.

The Black Spider's suicide/murder novella narrates the story happening while Batman reads it. Or just before if The Black Spider's timeline is correct. Hopefully he timed it out so the criminals would be dead before Batman got to the line about everybody being dead by the time Batman reads it. Because Batman would surely not finish the note before rushing off to stop him at that point. Right? Wait. Is Batman still reading the note as the comic continues?!

Interesting. I learned all life is sacred by living in a community of, you know, living people. Who fucking needs Sunday School to teach that?!

One day at Sunday School was the entirety of my religious experience and I hated every fucking minute of it. I was five years old, just recently totally confused about the things I wanted to do to a posh cartoon mouse, and in Kansas with the entirety of my mother's side of the family (not a huge family: her parents, her brother and his wife, all their kids) to visit my aunt's family. It was the first time I saw finished basements with pool tables and recliners and carpeting (being from California where we don't need to hide from twisters). It was also the first time I was sent to church because, I don't know, that's what they fucking did on Sunday? At first I didn't care because I would just be hanging out with my cousin Jason who was just three months younger than me. But then, because those three months had caused us to be split up in the school system, they split us up at this Sunday School. I don't know if it was the biggest and most Satanic tantrum those Sunday School teachers ever saw but I tried my fucking best. I don't recall a lot of what happened but I'm pretty sure they just stuck me on a stool at the back of the classroom where I did my own thing through snot and tears.

Do all of my stories involve me sobbing? Um, yeah, probably. I think I've always resented having been forced to exist by my horny ass parents.

It never gets old, does it? Having the antagonist mirror Batman to show just how difficult it must have been for Batman to keep his shit together. Or as together as you can call shit that winds up making you wear spandex, take the name of an animal, spend every night beating the shit out of criminals, and spending all of your cash on crime fighting technology.

By this point, it's looking like The Black Spider's partner and child weren't directly killed by his friendly neighborhood drug dealers. They were killed by his addiction to heroin and bringing that addiction into his home. I'm not sure exactly how his son died yet but he probably sprinkled heroin onto his corn flakes instead of sugar. Fucking hell. That sounds delicious!

After The Black Spider kills a bunch of drug dealers, he begins interrogating the leader by shoving his face into piles of heroin. He's looking for the supplier so he can destroy the entire heroin trade in Gotham! But Batman, realizing he probably shouldn't read the entire novella of a note before trying to stop The Black Spider, arrives to, um, stop The Black Spider. I should probably put more thought behind the structure of my sentences. My writing would be much better if my editor hadn't quit after I asked her if my dick in a hot dog bun would be considered a sandwich.

Was "The Black Spider" a street term for heroin? If it was, that would be fucking cool! I'm going to pretend it was because unlike Ann Nocenti or Scott Lobdell, Alan Grant's a good writer.

Yes, that Syd and Nancy marquee shows up a lot. I said Grant's good not subtle. Also maybe Norm's behind that?

Do I need to italicize Syd and Nancy since it's a parody name of the actual film Sid and Nancy? I'd ask my editor but, well, I just explained that. Also is it a sandwich?

The Batman and The Black Spider spar for a bit, physically and verbally. The Black Spider must have recently read Infinite Jest because he makes a pretty good point about everybody being addicted to something in an effort to not feel the actual pain of existence. Maybe he doesn't put it quite like that but having read Infinite Jest and having nearly sobbed while describing to the Non-Certified Spouse the only shot in the movie, Infinite Jest, in the book was composed of, I tend to read a little too into comic book conversations about suicide, addiction, family, and our overall inability to fully communicate with anybody else. In other words, all the shit Hamlet is about. Which might seem obvious being that Foster called the fucking book Infinite Jest.

In a previous Shadow of the Bat review, I asked if Alan Grant got a credit on Knightfall. Well, now I'm wondering if he got a credit on Infinite Jest (published four years after this) too?

The Black Spider gets away by grappling a passing train with his Spider Grapple which Batman fails to grapple with his Bat Grapple because he's a few seconds too late. So being that there's a break in the action, we should get back to The Black Spider's suicide novella! He still needs to explain what happened to his partner and their son.

The note explains how, fucked up on heroin, The Black Spider accidentally kills his father when his father tries to intervene when The Black Spider robs a local store. He's convicted of murder and winds up in prison, leaving his partner alone after giving her just two things: a son and a heroin addiction. Ironically, those two things will eventually cancel each other out!

So I was right about two things: the kid does put smack on his cereal and Alan Grant isn't subtle at all.

I know I shouldn't blame the victim but that kid deserved to die if he was adding extra sugar to a cereal called Sugar Smackers.

Well, well, well. Maybe Alan Grant does have a subtle bone or two. It turns out that the story of Batman chasing after The Black Spider happened the night before Batman found the note. What a clever little comic book writer you are, Mr. Grant. I learned this because after The Black Spider gets away from Batman, he heads back to the apartment where his partner, Linda, has just shot up with the heroin stashed in the cereal box. He yells at her and shakes her and their son comes out and is all, "Mom! Dad! Why are you fighting?! Is it my fault? Should I eat less Heroin Smackers?!" And The Black Spider is all, "Don't cry, son! I'm going to end drugs soon! Then we'll be the happy family we never really were because the only thing that me and your mother have in common is our sweet, sweet love of dope!"

While The Black Spider deals with his family issues, The Batman tries to make sense of the poisoned verbal barb delivered by The Black Spider earlier that night.

Arguing with a murderous vigilante who's also an ex-dope addict is the closest Batman has ever come to therapy.

I should clarify that Linda is The Black Spider's ex-partner. He only recently came back into her life after getting out of jail and seeing she had a Black son at just the right age he was last able to perform before the smack turned his boners into floppers. Now he just wants to help her get off the heroin so she and his son can have a better life. But she doesn't want him back in her life and she doesn't want the heroin out of her life. I think their son just wants to eat cereal and not die from eating cereal. Too bad we can't always get what we want but sometimes we get what we need but did he need to die from eating heroin flakes? I don't know I might be rambling now.

"'Now!' he says," mutters the reader of the blog.

The drug dealers, upset with The Black Spider and knowing his secret identity (probably because of the whole purple costume/Black Spider name thing (and also maybe a little bit Batman shouting the guy's name along with this vigilante name whenever he confronts him)), decide to give Linda some pure grade powder that will 100% kill her. As a treat. Goddamn it. Why is saying "as a treat" so addictive? It must be due to all the pain I'm feeling from existence! Nobody has ever suffered like me! Or The Black Spider! Or Batman!

How can he even ask Batman this question? The man dresses up like a Bat and fights crime for a living! He's obviously been through some shit.

Linda tells The Black Spider to get out so he heads off to round up more guns to kill everybody at the heroin supply warehouse. While he's gone, the dealers give Linda her free heroin. She doses up and dies. Then Mikey puts it on his cereal and dies. Then The Black Spider comes back to apologize and figuratively dies when he finds them all dead. He spends the next few hours writing a novella for Batman to explain why he's going to murder all the drug dealers down at the local drug dealer warehouse. Batman's spent the last day and a half trying to rustle up Linda's address so he can find out why The Black Spider's back on the streets killing drug dealers again. By the time he figures it out, well, that's when we saw him coming through the window back on the first page.

The Black Spider's suicide/murder novella ends by telling Batman where he's gone. But The Black Spider only reveals it in the hopes that, if he can't stop them, Batman can. The problem is that Batman's a much quicker reader than The Black Spider realizes so Batman winds up at the warehouse just before The Black Spider's plan of blowing it all to shit takes place. So The Black Spider has to knock Batman out of a window to save his life before he and the drug dealers die as one. Batman climbs in the Batmoblie and goes home with a few things to think about. And every now and then, he does. Probably. Maybe not. He's really not that fucking into therapy.

The Ranking
Just another fantastic Batman story. Were Batman stories where the antagonist is a dark reflection of Batman as common a trope in 1992 as it seems it is today? Probably! It's not like that's just a staple of Batman comic books. Loads of fiction is just about looking at what small things happen to different people to drive them in completely different directions. Or how, as often happens in a Batman story, nearly identical things happen to two different people (one of them Bruce, one of them Hush or The Black Spider or that one guy I can't remember in The New 52 or any of the many characters I've never read but definitely exist) to show how Batman never allowed himself to fall into criminality or despair when he easily could have. I think most of the responses to those observations were, "Well he was a fucking kid of a wealthy fucking family who had a military-trained manservant to raise him. Of course he did better!" And that's why Hush was created. Probably. What do I know? I'm just a dumb little Internet guy! Just a wee baby smol fry who weeps at everything! You probably shouldn't listen to me at all!

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #4 (September 1992)

Fourth painting in a series depicting Batman jizzing in his pants.

The Cover
In previous reviews of this series, I mentioned how this fourth cover would be another picture of Batman ruining his bat-underwear with the bitterest of sex's many juices (unless Santorum can be considered a sex juice and then, well, um, I'm barfing now). But after really taking a close look at Batman's face in this picture, if he's being depicted in mid-orgasm by Brian Stelfreeze here then Batman has the most infected prostate in the fucking world. I don't believe I've ever made this painful a face in my life, certainly not while spooking a young lady by coming in her face too quickly while she thought she was just giving me a little oral to get me nice and hard for the actual sex. Also, if this face simply depicts a man doing a really strenuous activity like breaking some chains or digging a small hole, I'd have to admit I've never had occasion to make that face either. Hard work? Get the fuck out of here! I'm my momma's special baby boy! But enough arguing against my initial reaction to this cover since I've got the evidence that Batman actually has just unloaded a major bat-load in his jockeys: the cover is cut off just above where the growing bat-stain would be seeping into his outside underwear. Surely that's why the painting was bordered the way it is.

The Story So Far
Batman has been busy doing a reverse-Knightfall in this series except instead of Bane masterminding it, Zsasz has. Who is Zsasz? readers of 1992 asked and Christopher Nolan probably asked zero times because if he cared, he wouldn't have simply made him a henchman for some mob jerko. Well, he's a serial killer who also seems to be Jeremiah Arkham's life coach, therapist, and new bosom buddy. Or he's just a really manipulative mastermind and Arkham is really sweet and naïve and lonely. At the end of the last issue, Batman was about to battle every single one of his insane villains at one time. Being that most of his insane villains aren't martial artists or championship Mexican wrestlers (Bane doesn't exist yet), that battle should last all of four pages (and I'm only guessing four because there were so many of them. It'll take some time to show each one losing half of their teeth to Batman's fists).

The other story so far that most people won't even be wondering about is why it's taken me so long to review another comic book. I don't know! I'm old! I've got responsibilities! I'm trying to lose some weight and get back in shape during the worst possible fucking time: America's eat until you shit yourself and then eat some more holiday season! And other projects that I've been ignoring forever, like my Against the Day blog and Eee! Text Adventure Reviews Daily blog and doing other stupid bureaucratic chores that need to be done! Get off my fucking aching, old man back! Oh, also I have a needy cat whom I love. That takes up a lot of time!

The Story

In 1992, you were still allowed to allude to prison rape so I think the whole "humiliate him" and "pucker up" and possibly "bitten off" are all attempts at communicating the impending rape of The Batman.

I don't recognize the two characters who taunt Batman on that page. Do creators get royalties on characters if they just appear or do the characters have to speak? Is that the reason that some unrecognizable nobodies get the dialogue threatening sexual assault? Or is it simply that the Alan Grant wasn't allowed to saddle Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with a legacy of trying to rape The Batman? Or The Riddler. "Riddle me this, Batman! What doesn't take two to Tango?!"

After reading that first page, I decided to take a quick break, discovered the Supergirl trailer had dropped, and subsequently came in my pants while making that same face as Batman on the cover. Five times. Because of this:

Please, please, please tell me Lobo and Supergirl fuck. And we see both of their asses during the consensually brutal sex scene.

Batman spends the next two pages defeating a room full of villains. But we don't get to see him knock out Poison Ivy with a sexy choke hold because that wouldn't be chivalrous, no matter how huge my erection would be seeing it. So three pages instead of four although the top third of page four shows Batman standing over all the unconscious bodies so I was pretty close.

After Batman's Tased by the guards and locked up in "special punishment" (which doesn't occur on-panel so we have no idea what the fuck that means. Is he sat in the uncomfortable chair? Tickled with feathers? Forced to eat too many Cinnabons?), Arkham heads back to whine at Zsasz about how Zsasz's stupid plan didn't work at all. Zsasz casually replies, "Yeah, idiot. Batman's a top-notch fighter and an athlete! All those other inmates are just fucking insane!" After that, Arkham gets angry at Zsasz and sends him back to his cell. I guess the iron lung he's been keeping him in was just to protect Jeremiah while he talks with him. I thought it was to make sure he doesn't escape. But now that Arkham doesn't want to speak to him anymore, Zsasz is just tossed back in the cell where he, apparently, can just come and go at will. Oh! That's probably why he killed the architect of this new asylum! They probably built a secret exit in his cell. That was the loose end he was taking care of! Although I still don't know why Zsasz killed Everard Mallitt. Or who even that person is!

The Special Punishment consists of being forced to speak with Jeremiah while his old man balls hang out of his bathrobe. And you can't avoid seeing them because you're chained to a wall in a straight jacket.

While Batman's forced to stare at Jeremiah's deflated sack, Zsasz escapes from his cell through a secret passage he paid the architect to build for him (the architect of the new asylum being a man plagued by a gambling addiction). Plus we learn that Everard Mallitt was the first inmate that the architect approached for a huge lump sum for easy outside access. He refused because he was too crazy to understand the architect was a real person and not a ghost. Zsasz had to kill him too because he wouldn't stop blathering about ghosts coming out of the walls, sobbing about their gambling debts, and asking for his PIN to his ATM.

Oops. I think we learn that later from the ongoing investigation. Zsasz just tries to escape again once Batman's in Special Punishment only to run into Nightwing in the sewers because Nightwing's scurrilous filth. Or a good detective, maybe?

I remember a time when I didn't know what the word "twink" meant.

Dick actually discovered the secret passages built into Arkham by the gambling addict architect whose name I refuse to look up even though it almost certainly contains less letters than "gambling addict architect" because Batman told Dick to research the two names out of hundreds they somehow decided to concentrate on in Jeremiah's office. By doing so, Nightwing discovers the secret plans with the secret escape tunnels for patients who could pay a hefty fee to use them. That's how he found Zsasz in the sewers.

Meanwhile, Batman escapes Special Punishment because he still has the lockpicks that he keeps in his belly and vomits up when needed. But he also realizes to escape Special Punishment, he has to make his way through a Microwave Hallway! "How can I possibly survive being microwaved for the amount of time it'll take me to crawl through this hallway without setting off any alarms?" Batman thinks before remembering all the fucking trash meals Tim Drake eats every day.

Batman turns himself into a Hot Pocket to survive!

I know! That's not the most logical way to survive being microwaved. Hot Pockets makes those little cardboard pouches to help the meal get crisp. But Batman realizes that if you turn the little cardboard Hot Pocket coffin inside out, it will reflect more of the heat than retain! I think. Maybe he doesn't actually make the Hot Pocket analogy and he's actually using real science that I was too dumb to understand. I was just giggling and yelling at the cat, "Look at Batman! He's a fucking Hot Pocket! Ah ha ha ha ha! What an idiot!"

He actually looks more like Ekuar's friend, Bag of Bones, from Elfquest.

Instead of winding up crispy and mouth-burning delicious, Batman simply emerges with sweaty balls and buttcrack. He manages to find the secret passage in Everard Mallitt's old cell and follows Zsasz into the sewers where he's kicking Nightwing's ass.

Batman and Nightwing barely survive a fight with this nobody with the cool name and cool gimmicks who doesn't make as big of a splash as I was assuming he would back in 1992.

Zsasz appeared in both Batman Begins and Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) as a fucking henchman for mob figures instead of as the great and terrible lone wolf monster he should have been. He's been wasted on the big screen and not really given his due, no matter how much you may have enjoyed Chris Messina portraying him. Of course, for me, Chris Messina's greatest work will always be the therapist in The Boogeyman. I know all of you Stephen King purists are screaming at me right now, "What are you talking about? The therapist was the Boogeyman!" And I just want to say, "Yeah but that was fucking stupid, wasn't it? That was the worst ending to a Stephen King story in the history of all of Stephen King's story endings which are all the worst. Somehow, the movie actually made the short story better! Not great, mind you. But I'll watch The Mindy Project's Danny Castellano in anything he wants to be in. Unfortunately, he has yet to do porn.

Jeremiah Arkham learns that everything he thought he knew in the last few weeks was absolutely fucking wrong when the cops and Gordon show up at his asylum and began telling him what's what. He kind of throws a little temper tantrum even if, while tantruming, he does get one thing right: Batman's fucking crazy.

Jeremiah Arkham loses his mind when Batman forces him stare deeply into Zsasz's eyes.

Earlier in the issue, Jeremiah Arkham explains to Batman that he "can see directly into the heart of madness!" What he means is that he can look at somebody and see exactly how crazy they are and what they need to help them get better, or to pull them out of their current mania, or, in most cases, simply break them using their psychosis as a cudgel. So when Batman forces Jeremiah to look into the eyes of a madman who cannot be broken, who knows nothing of repentance, who simply thrives on killing, Jeremiah's mind cracks. Batman knew what he was doing! He's a monster!

The story ends with Jeremiah, now insane, beginning a new journal of Arkham, probably even crazier than his Uncle Amadeus's journal which was full of time travel and sex stories between Amadeus and a raunchy cowboy with a mutilated face. But he'd burned that journal so people would have to wait until The New 52 to learn about those amazing stories!

The Ranking
A pretty fun and interesting Batman story that, for some reason, didn't guest star Lobo. But setting aside that flaw, this, in 1992, was what I wanted from a Batman title. I wanted Batman lore outside of the current, linear story arcs taking place in the other titles. I just wanted to read coherent stories of Batman with a clean plot and themes that had a definite beginning and nearly definite ending. Obviously I had an expectation of some kind of ambiguity at the end so that the story could have some kind of future impact on Batman's current stories. Here, Alan Grant creates a new piece of fiction in Gotham: a modern Arkham Asylum with a new owner, one just as mad as the occupants (with the added twist that Batman helped make him crazy). Thanks to this beginning, I continued to read this series until, um, Issue #9. That might not seem like a lot but if you've recently seen the cover of Shadow of the Bat #9, you might know why I stopped reading. Don't throw Tim Drake on the cover of my Batman comic book and expect me to thank you for it! Fuck that kid! Um, I mean, you know, not like that. Don't twist my words!