Batman and Robin Eternal #11

Cover by Brendan McCarthy if he were doing a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

I know the cover isn't by Brendan McCarthy. It's only a pale reminiscence of a memory of a shade of something McCarthy could put together. That doesn't mean I don't like it, Guillem. Don't start fucking getting quiet on me because you think I'm insulting your work. Buck up, Hasbro. That's my new nickname for everybody: Hasbro. I've just decided on it.

Harper and Dick have just met a woman named The Sculptor in David Cain's house. She apparently wanted to be found but if I were a supervillain and a hero walked into my home, I'd also be all, "Oh! Hey! You finally figured out where I live! Took you long enough! I left so many clues! Gosh, you must be a dum-dum!" Then I'd call the police and have them arrested for trespassing. But The Sculptor seems to really have wanted to be found. She works for Mother but she seems to think it's time Mother is stopped. I guess Mother isn't increasing salaries to cover inflation. If only every worker would turn against their employers when conditions weren't as satisfactory as we all know they should be! Stupid workers who have to work because they're in debt, have a mortgage, and need to take care of their kids! Who falls for those obvious traps set up by a capitalist system?! Idiots, that's who!

The Sculptor does a "mindshare" with Bluebird to pass on the information they need to find Mother so they can keep Mother from destroying her inventory because it can all lead back to her. By the way, her inventory is made up of children.

In the Mindshare, Harper learns Cassandra Cain's origin story. She was raised without speech. She was not spoken to and thus never learned to speak herself. Look, this is a fucking comic book, okay?! Nobody's trying to convince us that science and experience rule here! Obviously even without somebody speaking to her, she'd have made noises! David probably taught her not to make noises by punishing her for every noise she made. Which brings us to the next inconceivable part of her upbringing! The theory was that by not speaking to her, Cassandra would learn to communicate through body language. Presumably that is what happened. But since the only body she was reading in the whole time she was growing up was her father's, the only language she actually learned was that of her father's body language. When I took a speech class in college, the question came up at the end of the course if we felt more comfortable with public speaking. My answer was that I wasn't more comfortable speaking in public at all; I was just more comfortable speaking in front of that particular group of people who I'd come to know over the semester! Cassandra's method of reading people wouldn't work at all once she met a second person who wasn't a complete fucking sociopath.

Now that I got the rant over, I'm just going to go with it and buy into the story. Cassie Cain is remarkable at reading body language and can always guess what a person is about to do well before they do it.

So now she knows two body language phrases: "I'm a gigantic asshole" and "Please don't kill me I don't want to die!" Technically that's three phrases.

Cassandra becomes the best fighter in the world even though she didn't spend years traveling around the world learning from all of the masters of every style ever invented. What I'm trying to say is that she hasn't gone up against Batman yet! That might be in this origin story though because Batman had to encounter her in the past at some point to give her that pack of Batgum that started this whole story.

David Cain presents Cassandra to Mother to show her that he can sculpt children better than The Sculptor. Mother isn't so keen on his method.

Oh, so I guess she understands some language! Unless she heard his body language from behind her.

After The Orphan is chastised by Mother, Harper is taken to a memory of Cassandra in Gotham where Cassandra slits a woman's throat. But Cassandra cries after so that makes up for it. I mean, it doesn't but it allows the reader to feel sympathy for Cassandra because she obviously doesn't want to kill but she was raised to kill and now she's just as much a victim as the woman whose throat she cut. Sort of. I mean, she's not dead or anything so she's not really "as much a victim" as the dead woman. But all the right things were said about her past to make people feel sorry for her and want to hug her and forgive her for murdering the woman who they know nothing about but who was probably a corporate CEO cheating her employees so fuck her.

Harper's last image in the Mindshare is of Batman confirming his purchase of a new Robin. Dick yanks her out of the Mindshare before she can see the new Robin so now Dick has to risk doing the Mindshare himself. He just can't let it go, can he? So Batman wanted a better Robin?! So what! He obviously couldn't find a better one because look at what he wound up with after Dick left? Jason and Tim! The only way to get a better Robin was to ejaculate into a condom and not throw it away somewhere where Talia al Ghul wouldn't have access to it!

The issue ends with Dick and The Sculptor tumbling into a Mindshare fucked up by Dick's Spyral technology. It just teases us with the identity of Batman's purchased Robin! It just pulls its underwear most of the way down its completely shaved pubis so that the top of its turgid member pokes out of its underwear and expects us to just sit there and not shove anything down our throats! Now I just have to spend all week bluebrained with this unrevealed knowledge?! Jerks!

Batman and Robin Eternal #11 Rating: No change. This was The New 52 Origin Story of Cassandra Cain and not much else. She was abused but it made her the greatest fighter in the world so it was probably worth it. I mean, of course it wasn't worth it and I'm crying my eyes out here and not rolling them at all! I suppose if I had some sort of Nanny Complex or weird Munchhausen By Fictional Proxy Syndrome, I'd be all into Cassie as my new favorite character. Also I used MBFPS incorrectly simply because I wanted to use it. I'm writing these words and I'll manipulate them in any way I want! Also if you thought it sounded right, forget what I just said because I was lying and it totally works in context.

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