Batman #44

That list of artists names is all wrong. And what's Azzarello doing here?! *gasp* Is this a filler issue?!

Judging by the missing names of Capullo and Miki and Plascencia, I have a feeling I don't need to recap last issue. Plus this issue is five dollars and I thought Snyder was going to stand up to DC's price gouging on Batman titles. We get it, DC. Batman sells way more comic books than any other comic book you sell, so you love making more money per issue from it. But fuck you! That's your own fault! You're the assholes who have painted Batman as the only capable hero in your universe! At least you can also count on people buying any book with Jason Todd in it as well, no matter who you get to write it.

This issue begins sometime in the past not long after Zero Year. It looks like The Penguin is going to get a story in Batman finally! I guess he deserves one after being allowed to appear in the comic for two pages last issue before being stabbed in the chest by Mister Bloom. The only problem is this story is probably going to have some kind of moral. I bet it gets all preachy on me. I hope I'm too stupid to get the point so that I can just imagine I read a cool Penguin story. I'm only guessing it will be cool because it involves Snyder and Azzarello and not because it involves The Penguin.

The Batman is investigating the murder of a fifteen year old boy shot three times and then pushed out of a flying vehicle. The Penguin must be behind it because Batman made a list with the names of all the super villains he could think of and then crossed most of them out. When he was done, The Penguin's name was the only one not crossed out. Mystery solved!

Waugh! Them's fightin' words, Penguin!

Snyder's Batman really hates being told how much he doesn't know about Gotham. That's nearly the worst insult you can throw at him, right after, "Gotham likes when I fuck it in the ass and say 'Batman sucks!'" But that insult relies on a sketchy metaphor that doesn't really make any sense since nobody can actually find a city's ass.

Batman leaves The Penguin so that The Penguin won't see his tears. He can't stop thinking about what The Penguin said and mumbling, "You don't know me. You don't know what I've been through! This is my city. I know this city. This city loves me. It loves me, Cobblepot! Not you. You stupid fat jerk."

Batman continues his investigation after he realizes Cobblepot didn't kill the kid. He goes off to hassle the Four Fives Gang. He tells them his new theory about how the boy died and he's wrong again. "Dammit!" he thinks. "I really need to work on my investigative technique!" Luckily the head of the Four Fives tells The Batman what he knows and doesn't lie at all. Just like Cobblepot didn't lie. I mean, probably. Who would lie to The Batman's face, right?!

Batman gets a call from Gordon with some information gathered by real detective work. You know, work that doesn't involve hanging The Penguin from the bottom of a blimp and threatening his life. Detective work that doesn't involve beating the crap out of gang members to get them to talk. Although to be fair, I really don't know what kind of shitty tactics Gordon used to find out where the bullets inside the kid came from. I'm guessing he beat up everybody in town who owns a gun until one of them confessed. That's real detective work, right?

The bullets came from the gun of a Gotham Police Officer because of course they did. But since the bullets didn't kill Peter and the fall did, Batman doesn't do anything about the lousy police officer. It's time to dig deeper! Who can he punch next?!

Oh no. I think I feel the moral coming on. Must...resist...!

Batman learns that to become a crimefighting vigilante, the kid went to Blossom Row where people go to drink the potion of Mister Bloom. Whew! Now that the story has tied itself back to the present Batman narrative in previous issues, I can forget all about any kind of message or moral to this story. It's just backstory about how Bruce Wayne once almost captured Mister Bloom and how he's going to have to remember how he once failed the city and this one kid. Which means he'll have to become Batman again, right? The only question is, who is currently narrating this story? Who has learned all of this information and how are they going to get it into the hands of Bruce Wayne? It could be Duke Thomas since he stole those files from the Rec Center last issue. Unless this is one of those super rare events where the narrator is an actual honest-to-goodness omniscient narrator! Hoo boy! It's been awhile since I've seen one of those!

This scan has nothing to do with my commentary. I just thought the way they spelled catastrophic was adorable.

In the end, Batman learns a lesson but I do my best to ignore it. Lessons are for pretentious douches.

Batman #44 Rating: No change. This was a stand alone story with only the vaguest of ties to the current Mister Bloom story taking place in recent issues of Batman. It feels like it should have been told in Detective Comics or Shadows of the Bat (which doesn't exist but maybe it should have for one issue). The reason it takes place in Batman and in the middle of a story arc where Bruce Wayne refuses to become the Batman is probably wrapped up in the moral of the story that I'm trying desperately not to think about. You know? It's that one page where the kid flies and Batman doesn't catch any criminals because nobody is completely at fault but then Batman realizes that the moral is in the wordplay and that the person he should have caught was the kid in trouble desperately trying to survive. The kid even went to all the right places (and some wrong places) in his need to honor a promise to his dad and to stay out of his neighborhood's troubles. But nobody would listen. And so everybody failed this kid. So Batman learned that he needs to save the kids before they force him to break their jaws and put them in Blackgate. And that's kind of what he's doing as Bruce Wayne now. He's reaching out to the kids. He's doing it differently. But he'll probably learn that Mister Bloom was the man who got away on this old case and it'll move him to put on the cowl again. His need for justice for this kid, this Peter Duggio, will be the catalyst to Batman's return and Commissioner Batman being out of a job.