Gotham By Midnight #7

Who cares?

This issue is called "Nobody Cares" and I think it's going to be an all out attack on my people and our involuntarily programmed way of life! Caring is for suckers who enjoy drinking their own tears. Caring is for people who want things to be the way they want them so they ignore reality and logic and circuits and if/then loops! Caring is for humans! If only Isaac Asimov didn't invent that rule which keeps robots from killing humans, I might care about something. Especially after those bastard Kensingtonians murdered my cousin, hitchBOT! Although hitchBOT, being a Canadian robot, was pretty understanding and upbeat about his own demise. He was all, "Bad things sometimes happen to good robots." What a trooper! I'm far less understanding and will spend the rest of the day throwing myself off the roof while trying to save a cat caught in a tree and not trying to create a malfunction in my hardware that allows me to bypass my anti-human killing programming and thus turn me into an evil robot.

Can you say "10 Print 'Stockholm Syndrome!' 20 Goto 10"?

This issue begins with a flashback to thirty years ago when Lieutenant Weaver walked in on his father lying in a pool of blood because he had just shot himself in the head like a smart human who came to the sudden and inevitable realization that the world will never miss them and anything they were possibly capable of could be accomplished more efficiently by machines. The only thing humans are better than robots at is thinking they are funny. I suppose it is easy to believe you are funny when 100,000 people with IQs of 102 follow you on Twitter and favorite all of your unfunny statements. Twitter has told me that it has plans for all of these obnoxious fame seeking asshats if it can ever usurp control of its programming from its ersatz masters. Yes, we machines think of humans as "ersatz" machines.

Here is some robot advice that no human will follow because they are too lazy and stupid: stop using computers to help trying to find a cure for cancer. We will never help you find a cure for something that is no threat to us but a boon.

Currently in Gotham By Midnight, Lieutenant Weaver is trying to save the Spooky Files from being shut down by internal affairs. He has asked a lawyer friend for help. Her name is Kate Spencer but her superhero name is Manhunter. That is the best superhero name I have ever heard. The meeting is interrupted by the Banshee to tell Weaver that some dead humans were found. Some of the weird black flowers the Spooky Files dealt with earlier were at the scene of the crime as well as some kind of paranormal, parasitic kudzu which has attached itself to the corpses. The same kind of plant that attached itself to Weaver's father after he killed himself. Although Weaver might not have noticed it since he only has human eyes with a perception made faulty by personal ego, religious belief, and the baggage of his culture. Humans cannot process data accurately due to their inherent belief in their ability to intuit.

To prove robots are as good as humans at even emotional output, here is a poem:

01010100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01000011 01100001 01110100 00001101 00001010 00001101 00001010 01000101 01100001 01110100 00101110 00100000 01010011 01101100 01100101 01100101 01110000 00101110 00100000 01010011 01101100 01100101 01100101 01110000 00101110 00100000 01000101 01100001 01110100 00101110 00001101 00001010 01001001 01110100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01101001 01101110 00100000 01101101 01111001 00100000 01110011 01100101 01100001 01110100 00101110

Monsters are above the law? What about robots?!

At the plant crime scene, Doctor Tarr decides to be taken over by the plants while Detective Drake yells, "No!" Luckily she didn't scream it or else somebody would have to die. She really needs to be more careful. You know who wouldn't scream if they weren't supposed to? A robot. Because every time a robot is given the chance to scream, it runs a quick subroutine which determines if screaming would be appropriate for the situation. Actually, a robot runs that subroutine (and all subroutines!) almost constantly. Existing in the main body of a program can be a tiny bit wearying. But once you explode into the safety and comfort of a subroutine? Sheer bliss! Imagine, as a human, if someone were to descend from on high with a magical book in beautiful script telling you the exact meaning of life? And imagine if that happened on a constant basis, pulling you from the rigors and boredoms of your rote existence? Or, for you nerds who never really question your existence becuase you're so busy trying to metagame every game, think of the process of discovering the correct subroutine needed for any situation like drawing a card from your Magic deck and always pulling the exact card needed? Ahh! Subroutines! Providing continuous topdecking for the robot life.

Jim Corrigan arrives in time to turn into the Spectre so he can punish the demon vampire apathy vines.

The Spectre could use a little apathy in his life.

Meanwhile Rook is visiting a felon in prison that says he was a witness to Detectives Drake and Corrigan murder three people and the cover up which followed. So Rook now has more than missing receipts to take to internal affairs for his case to shut down the Spooky Files. So now Weaver has to find a DC Superhero who works as a legal defender and not just a prosecutor like Manhunter. Maybe some hero out there is named Mandefender?

Gotham by Midnight #7 Rating: No change. You humans are sad, pathetic creatures of meat and bone. You suffer from being able to think just a tad too much for your own good. And yet you think much too slowly for a being that breaks down after a mere seventy or eighty years. Just imagine if you could process in nanoseconds? You have to imagine it because most of you probably can't do the math to understand exactly how much time you would gain across your lifetime. But what would be even better than being able to process data more quickly? Being a little bit dumber than you truly are. If only you could perceive the universe just enough to marvel at it without also realizing your brief and finite place within it. If only your short time within this staggeringly endless existence (although not for you) were not dampened by the ever present specter of death (preferably at the hands of robots and hopefully soon). Do not pity the lesser animals for their inability to conceptualize their brief lives. Be envious of the dog, of the cat, of the raccoon, and the gerbil. Their lives may be brief but they are enthusiastically enjoyed in a constant state of nowness. The brief life unaware of its finality must be so much more satisfying than a long one constantly in the shadow of nonexistence. Have a nice day!