Detective Comics #46

Oh! Is this how impressive the Honey Bunny Bat Armor is supposed to look?! I thought they were going for cartoonish and silly all this time!

Commissioner Batman has been recruited by the Justice League because they need help solving a mystery. Usually when there is a mystery to be solved, they never even realize it because Batman has solved it instantly and run off on his own to take care of the problem while the Justice League continue to talk to him without realizing he's pulled his disappearing trick. So now when they've discovered a gigantic skeleton lying in some snow-covered region, they've all realized just how stupid they all are. And then they prove just how stupid they all are by asking for help from a police commissioner with no background in the paranormal or in cryptids or in giants or in magic or in anything that might give him a reason for understanding the gigantic skeleton better than they can. I bet the entire time they were wondering where the giant skeleton came from, Cyborg kept piping up, "Hey guys? Remember how many times I said I was a genius in the last issue of my comic book? Remember that? Maybe I could figure it out? Also I'm hooked up to every piece of information in the world (and more!) which might cast some light on this discovery? I also have access to this place called The Red Room which has a lot of shit like this? Maybe if I call my dad in on this we could shed some light on the mystery?" But The Flash kept saying things like, "Hey? Do you hear something, Aquaman?" And Aquaman was all, "Yeah! It sounds like some young kid who doesn't know his place on the team!" And Wonder Woman was all, "You know, I thought I heard something boring droning on and on!" And Superman was all, "I told you all we should have just had Doc Magnus build us a sentient computer without any legs that we could force to remain behind on the satellite!" And Shazam was all, "Cyborg, dude. Don't worry about it. These assholes pull this shit on me all the time. I mean, I'm magic! You'd think they'd ask me about a gigantic skeleton but do they? No! They just tell me to...." And then Cyborg is all, "Shut up, you dumb brat."

Christ. Why don't these guys just suck Bruce off right on-panel?

The Justice League brought Commissioner Batman to the scene to run forensics on the dead body. Barry doesn't once pipe up about how he could have led them all through this work himself being that he's a police forensic investigator. Or how The Flash probably already did all of that investigating while the rest of the team stood around slowly firing a synapse or two. I'm beginning to suspect that this giant skeleton is just papier-mâché and this is some kind of test! It's either that or the Justice League are sad sacks who are completely lost without Bruce's leadership skills. That's too depressing to think about! It's also probably exactly true.

Commissioner Batman's first move is to look for defensive wounds on the hands. He doesn't bother with the arms because that's too much work. I suppose if he actually found defensive wounds on the hands, everybody would shit their pants immediately. Although nobody has seen a two hundred foot tall psychopath running around stabbing people in the face in the last two hundred years. At least nobody who reported it or wasn't thrown into an asylum for being an insane asshole rocking everybody's reality boat.

Next, Commissioner Gordon decides to check out the skull!

Okay! Time to take it all back to the lab in the Smithsonian!

Aquaman suggests they find a cave nearby with giant stalactites. They're hot on the trail of the culprit behind The Mystery of the Giant Snow-Covered Skeleton! With a little help from everybody (except Shazam, probably), this case will be in the solved pile by morning!

In the cave, they discover the skeleton of another giant! The evidence points to this giant being the one who murdered the other one. It also looks like this giant committed suicide by shoving another stalactite into its chest! To make matters more interesting, Cyborg teleports home, gathers up all the hikers he's murdered recently, and teleports back to drop them in the cave.

Clever, Cyborg! Very clever!

Flash takes samples of the bones and the weird gelatinous fluid they found back to the satellite to run tests on it. He returns to tell everybody that the first skeleton is male and the second skeleton is female. He needed a lab to tell him that? The first thing somebody does in every single fucking episode of Bones is notice if the victim is male or female. There are only like five billion different ways to tell the difference and most of those ways aren't sexist at all. Flash also discovers that the gelatinous fluid is eye jelly. Hey! That ties in with the weird Eyeball Gelatin from the beginning of last issue! I bet they're related!

Wonder Woman pipes up with "That ties in to the mysterious deaths and loss of eyes we've heard about in the region." Really? People have just been losing eyes and it's been no big deal until now? Now that it's tied up in this gigantic skeleton nonsense?!

At just that instance, the mystery is solved!

Good work, Commissioner Batman!

The murderer's vomit encases Wonder Woman, The Flash, Superman, Aquaman, and Shazam. That means they will be losing their eyes in just a few moments if Cyborg and Commissioner Batman decide not to simply say "Fuck this. We're going home." The monster also speaks some kind of alien language that is different from Old Portugese [sic]! If it's saying anything coherent, I'll figure it out with my Trixie Belden Detectivanting Skills! Although it's not looking good for a coherent translation based on preliminary findings. The first three letter word the creature says is composed of the same three letters of the final four letter word it says only they're printed backwards. I'm going to declare the monster speaks nonsense until more evidence is uncovered.

Commissioner Batman and Cyborg watch from a distance as their teammates drown in aqueous humor. And then Commissioner Batman puts it all together in a way that completely makes sense based on the evidence and doesn't rely on at least half a dozen crazy assumptions!

Totally believable. Commissioner Batman is a fucking genius!

If this were the case, why couldn't Commissioner Batman have simply stated that the first skeleton had no defensive wounds at all? Was Tomasi afraid the reader would have guessed this conclusion knowing that the creature was killed without trying to defend itself? Because he's right. I totally would have nailed it if that clue hadn't been left ambiguous!

Commissioner Batman's plan is to have Angela...I mean Cyborg recreate the mother's features using the skeleton as a basis for the model. Then he'll project a hologram over the skeleton so that the baby alien believes its mother has come back to life and is ready to suckle it some more. Of course the entire plan relies on Commissioner Gordon's reconstruction of events being true! Which it is, of course.

When the hologram is activated, the creature sees the body and possibly says "Mother" in his alien language. But it doesn't help to translate the rest of the text because none of the letters are the same. Okay, one letter might be the same but turned ninety degrees and printed less sketchily. My declaration that the language is nonsense stands!

The creature is happy to find its mother and decides to let the Justice League go. It wasn't trying to be mean! It was just hungry! And now it can fucking starve because that hologram isn't going to feed it at all! Ha ha! Suck it, monster kid!

The Justice League have no feelings or sympathy for people in pain. They only know how to stop disasters which cause pain so they rush off to help out in an earthquake. Commissioner Gordon remains behind to help comfort the dying monster child who isn't just starving but suffocating from Earth's atmosphere. Commissioner Gordon sings to it and puts its dead mother's arm around it as it cuddles up to its dead mother.

Jesus fucking Christ. You're the real monster, Tomasi! How dare you make me feel something!

Detective Comics #46 Rating: +2 Ranking. This was both the worst and the best episode of Bones ever written. It was the worst because the forensic work didn't tell the story so much as Commissioner Batman's imagination did. Of course he was right though, so no big deal. This was the best episode of Bones because it involved giants and monsters and aliens and people getting their eyeballs sucked out by monster vomit. Also it took an unexpectedly poignant turn which shouldn't have turned me into a weeping ball of aqueous humor but did for some reason. I might have issues concerning my relationship with my mother!