Detective Comics #35

Why is the monster variant of Detective Comics just Batman eating a peach?

I feel like I'm missing an important piece of the story each month due to the variant covers. Perhaps I should start Googling them to see what the real covers look like. The real cover looks like Batman on a plane full of corpses. I wonder how much airlines charge dead people to fly? Are they considered carry-ons?

I have a little piece of dried flesh from a cat scratch on the pad of my index finger so that every time I pick my nose, it feels like I have a big crusty booger on the end of my finger. Then I'm disappointed when I try to eat it.

That was a joke! I don't eat my boogers! I never have! I was one of those kids that would wipe his boogers on the underside of his desk in elementary school until they were razor sharp and cut whoever else tried to sit there. I don't enjoy that pastime anymore. Now I only pick my nose when it's absolutely necessary. Like when it itches or something. More often, I just yank out huge, mutant hairs that have begun growing up there. Am I a mutant?

This month, Detective comics has a new creative team! I don't know who any of them are! Let's see...Ben Percy is a young thirty five year old guy that has written short stories about the Oregon desert. That sounds exciting! John Paul Leon drew for Milestone Comics. If his work in this looks familiar, it's because he drew the Red Thunder stuff in some New 52 Animal Man issues. And the other guy is like the colorist or something. Do I really need to know anything about the colorist?! Seriously, my old brain is overloaded with information. Even if I look it up, it won't last up there. It'll get bounced by the part of my brain that remembers the name of every Smurf. And, God forbid, what if it actually replaces that information?! How am I going to impress women at parties?!

Is Bruce taking a vacation to the Oregon desert?!

As Bruce waits to take off in his private jet (enjoying some coffee and walnuts the way billionaires love to do), he learns from a reluctant Alfred that a plane is landing that has lost contact with the air traffic controllers and is probably full of evil dead people. Alfred is all, "You really should let the cops get killed trying to do their job." And Batman is all, "I didn't want to go to Oregon anyway, jerk! Now get me my suit!"

I hope it isn't the Langoliers!

The plane lands and then crashes into Terminal 1. Bruce Wayne looks side eye at Alfred because of course Gotham Police would screw this up! They have never been good at their job ever! That's why Gotham, the television show, is going to be twelve seasons of Gordon convincing a bunch of cops to straighten up and stop collecting bribes and to stop beating witnesses and to stop being assholes but he still won't make them any good at their job. But he will keep convincing a growing Bruce Wayne that "The city can be saved. Seriously, kid, the city can be saved! You have to believe me that those fires will be put out and the city will be saved! Never mind how much crime is exploding all over the city; it will be saved! OH MY GOD WHY WON'T SOMEBODY SAVE THE CITY?!"

Batman is the first person aboard the plane after it comes to a stop because of course he is. You don't see the monster version of Ed Boar, Chief of Police at Gotham International Airport on the cover, do you?!

That's Ed Boar, by the way!

Batman recruits Ed Boar to help him detectivate all over the plane.

"We'll solve this mystery together," shouts The Batman!
"But I have never solved a mystery before, The Batman!" complains Ed Boar as he balds.
"Do not worry, Ed! It is easy! It is very easy for the World's Greatest Detective!" Batman winks. "That would be me if you have been living under a rock in a cave for many years, Ed!"
"Where do we begin, The Batman?" asks Ed amateurishly.
"Look for clues! The dead people might have some clues on them, so be sure to search the dead people very well. I will check the liquor cabinet and the snack tray!"

Look! Batman quickly pretends to see something so that Ed Boar believes that Batman is the best detective in the world.

Batman decides the entire airport needs to be quarantined because everybody on the plane is dead and some fool opened up the plane brashly. "Who was the fool that opened up this plane?" Batman asks. "Did anybody see the fool that did it? No? Nobody? Nobody witnessed it? Good! I mean, darn! That's one clue we don't have!"
"What will we do now?" asks the world's worst detective, Ed Boar.
"Now, we turn on the television because the news usually has some really decent clues to help clue us in on what the story is about."

Magnus Magnuson sounds like a familiar name. Maybe that's because it's the same name twice.

Detective Comics #35 Rating: No change. Batman has a mystery to discover! And he only has eight hours to discover it or else everybody will die! This comic book seems to be in poor taste what with everybody dying of ebola in a few months. I'm not amused!