Gods and Monsters: Batman #1

Should I have called this "Justice League: Gods and Monsters--Batman #1"? Who named this stupid fucking comic book?

I haven't been to the comic book store yet today because it only opened six minutes ago and I only woke up forty minutes ago, so I guess I'll read whatever this shit is. Does the gold DC Comics logo have any special significance? Does it signify an Elseworlds story while the blue logo means a book that's in continuity and a pink logo means full on lesbian vagina punching and heterosexual men failing to please heterosexual women and breast cancer awareness? DC Comics, you should use my idea if you aren't already using it. Especially the part about the pink label being for mature titles with loads of sex in them. You already have teen titles with loads of violence and I feel you need to bring some balance to your comic books. Just imagine how many issues you'd sell when you reveal Batman's penis for the first time!

I hope this comic book explains why Batman is a vampire trapped in a spider web. I also hope it explains why I'm reading it. Mostly I didn't mind buying it when I discovered it in my comic book subscription box because Bruce Timm stuck his name on it. So it has to be good, right? Even if that name is by J.M. DeMatteis's name? Even if this isn't a cartoon but a comic book? Am I wrong to hope for the best?

Shit. I'm definitely wrong.

Ha ha! I'm just kidding, Mister DeMatteis! Just a little harmful ribbing! Just a little joke where I completely insult you and then tell you I was just teasing so you're not allowed to be hurt or angry anymore and if you are it just shows that you have no sense of humor and not that I'm a complete and utter prick! Ha ha!

The issue begins with a husband beating his wife and about to rape her. Everybody knows that other than getting breast cancer, this is the worst thing that could ever happen to a woman. This husband is as vile and despicable a human being anybody is ever likely to meet. This is important because Batman is now a vampire and Batman is unsure if the city is corrupt or if he's just projecting his own vampiric corruption onto the city. But when Vampire Batman recognizes that this man is evil and chooses to punish him instead of choosing to watch or join in, it proves to the reader that Batman still has a working sense of justice. This allows the reader to think, "Whew! Batman is still a good guy! I was worried because vampires are always evil and they're never the hero of the story at all ever and this is still 1982, right?" I guess if you're a young, hip, modern reader, the main thing you're thinking when you find out Batman is a vampire is "I want to fuck that."

I should apologize to Anne Rice about that whole "vampires were not fuckable back in 1982" line because she was way ahead of everybody else and saw the sexy potential in homoerotic vampires and gay adoptions.

Vampire Batman can smell stupid and it makes him hungry, so very, very hungry! I guess stupidity is finally illegal in Gotham City! Yay!

Maybe they were just engaging in sexy role-play?

Vampire Batman is a murderer. But he's not really any more of a murderer than anybody who eats meat. Feeding is something animals need to do to survive and Vampire Batman probably wants to keep surviving so he needs to feed. You can't fault him for that! Although I guess people will fault him for that because when a Mountain Lion eats a jogger on a hiking trail like Mountain Lions should be allowed to do since they're simply hunting and feeding in their own terrain, jerks still feel the need to go out and kill a Mountain Lion to make everybody feel safer. Can't we all just leave the Mountain Lions alone and accept that the stupid jogger knew the risk and was also a stupid jogger who jogged? Isn't jogging the real crime here?

Vampire Batman heads up to a rooftop to feel guilty in exactly the same way I head into the bathroom to feel guilty after eating an entire tub of kettle corn. He knows he shouldn't splurge on stupid people but he just can't help himself because they're so tasty. How did Batman fall so far?! How did he allow himself to become this monster?!

Oh. That's how. He went to Kirk Langstrom for a cancer cure. Let me guess! In Gods and Monsters: Superman, Superman will have taken out a large loan from Lex Luthor, right? And in Gods and Monsters: Wonder Woman, Wonder Woman's therapist is Doctor Psycho!

So Vampire Batman must feed on other people's blood so that his cancer won't come back. Can't he just get a transfusion? This doesn't seem like a kind of life that Batman would choose to continue living. I guess Batman is, in the end, just as weak as every person reading this. You can't all be as strong as the person writing it. But that's okay, my weaklings. I'll be loving and kind as I feed off of your pathetic hopes and dreams.

Actually, Vampire Batman is Kirk Langstrom. So it makes sense that he's a weak piece of shit that can't just simply give up and die like Bruce Wayne would choose to do. Even Kirk's parents are disappointed in him. I suppose celebrating the cure for cancer isn't on anybody's minds when the cure just creates a race of monsters that now terrorize all of the healthy people. At that point, I suppose we all stop worrying about raising breast cancer awareness and begin raising garlic.

The abusive husband was the first time Vampire Batman killed a person. Until then, he's been stealing from blood banks and sucking off hobos. But now that he's felt the thrill of murder food, he's worried he's going to kill again.

Kirk Langstrom throws his ex-girlfriend's husband through a window which gives him the idea to become Batman!

Vampire Batman begins feeding on the criminals of Gotham City because he decides that eating is better than crying about the families of the criminals he's murdering. Why worry about whether or not the person he just ate was an evil scumbag or just somebody who got mixed up in a bad scene due to generations of poverty and abuse? Vampire Batman rejects the idea of a gray world and chooses instead to believe in a black and white world and a full belly!

Oh Kirk! Keep listening to the Louis inside of you! Don't let all of that wishy-washy Lestat garbage intrude on your thoughts! Be the vampire! Embrace the vampire! Feed! FEED!

Vampire Batman kills a big time criminal overlord and in the process creates a vampire nemesis in Joe Chill. I think. It's hard to tell by the art but I think it's supposed to suggest that Joe Chill's hand spasms after supposedly being dead but somebody forgot to draw motion lines! Or a Narration Box that said, "If only I knew at the time that I could pass this disease onto others!"

After Kirk murders the crime lord Lew Moxon, he stalks Lew's family and begins to realize that just because he's hungry, it doesn't make the world less gray. He realizes good, honest people close to Lew Moxon have been terribly hurt by the death of the man. I suppose Kirk will have to learn not to kill if he's going to be allowed to join the Justice League. Unless of course he's willing to kill Lex Luthor so that Superman can get out from under those outrageous interest rates.

Whelp, I guess it's back to the hobos.

Kirk befriends Jeremy Moxon, Lew's son. I hope he's befriending him in a homoerotic way because that's the way of vampires! They were bisexual before being bisexual was cool! Unless Kirk is just gay and Francine was only his ex-beard. Kirk becomes so close to Jeremy that he tells Jeremy his secret vampire life. He doesn't tell Jeremy that he ate his father though because that would be awkward. Jeremy decides to use his knowledge of biochemistry to help cure Langstrom's vampirism. Well, he can't be any worse at science than Kirk Langstrom, right?

Jeremy's mother is killed by the mob because they believe Jeremy has something they want. Doesn't the mob always believe stuff like that? And aren't they always killing people to send messages? Maybe they should invest in a courier service because killing people seems like a lousy way to send a message. But Jeremy's mother's death at least gives Kirk an idea for dinner.

While hunting up some grub, Vampire Batman meets Vampire Joe Chill! He has a nemesis! Although he hacks his nemesis up into a bunch of pieces so that doesn't last long. Or at least it just puts a second confrontation well on the back burner until Joe Chill can get his pieces back together again. At least it gives Kirk time to almost kiss Jeremy!

Or to figure out Jeremy was actually a scumbag crime lord as well and a pretty decent apéritif.

There you have it! Gods and Monsters' Batman is actually Man-bat which totally makes him awful! I hate Man-bat! Making him into a vampire doesn't make him any better! Although this is probably the best story Kirk Langstrom has ever been in. It may not have been subtle but who expects subtle from a comic book?! I only expect two things from a comic book: sex and violence! No wait! Three things: sex, violence, and injuries to the eye! No wait! Four things: sex, violence, injuries to the eye, and not very many words! I like looking at pictures.