Why was Batman hanging around inside a building on his motorcycle? Fucking dick.
Hopefully David Finch convinced Tom King to write some scenes with women in them this month. It's like Tom King doesn't understand the importance of the male gaze in comic books drawn by David Finch! It's exclusively why people enjoy David Finch's art! Nobody thrills to David Finch's depiction of fish-mouthed men somehow skulking in the shadows of a fully lit room! Finch fans want half-naked women with belly buttons showing through their dresses! They want to see Finch infantilize women by drawing them to look like fourteen year old girls! Simply put: David Finch fans want The White Rabbit! Bring her back, Tom King, and forget trying to be hip and groovy by bringing in Kite-man! Unless of course, being Rebirth, you can bring in Kite-woman? Maybe she never plans enough time to get ready for the big heist and has to rush out in a towel! I bet David Finch is already whipping out his paint brush¹ for that story!
I know I usually lather up Tom King's erect phallus with enough of my own spit for a hundred DNA tests but I suddenly find my mouth as dry as a Republican wife's pussy as she listens to her husband, once again, misunderstand the tax code as I read the first few pages of this issue. How many times do I have to read an alternate version of the alley scene where Tommy and Mary were killed? How many hours per week does Batman spend in Crime Alley waiting to stop future competition from being created? I would understand the need for this scene if the family were composed of three women in towels and the mugger was another woman in a towel and maybe one of the towels was ripped off like Martha's pearls! That would be artful! But this? This is just rehashed hash! I've seen it before and I'll see it again because Batman can't fucking get over it. Why must I suffer because Batman won't go to therapy?!
It's also possible I should simply trust that Tom King is going somewhere spectacular with his alternate Crime Alley scene because he rarely disappoints! But that's intelligent person talk! I'm an internet reactionary who hops on Twitter at the first hint of a coherent thought to dismiss anything and everything! I don't have the strength of character to read something by a well-regarded artist and admit that the fault might not be in the writing but in my own understanding of it. Obviously my five minutes of reading something that took many more hours to construct is the correct opinion of the thing! How could it be any different?!
Batman calls for an ambulance to check out the family that was mugged and then gives them some Bat-advice.
I would also add "Don't let this mugger take away your love of walking down poorly lighted streets at night in a crime-ridden area of Gotham!"
The story about wanting to be part of the piss and smoke which opens this comic book is being told by the father of the family Batman saves. He just happens to have a son and a daughter who look an awful lot like Gotham and Gotham Girl. That probably isn't it though because what are the odds that Gotham was created in the same alley that Batman was created in? Oh, you know what? They're pretty good since this is a fabricated and contrived² story!
The person Gotham and Gotham Girl's parents are telling their story to is Matches Malone. They think he's with the FBI and not a gangster like he usually pretends to be! So they tell him all of their childrens' secrets, especially the one about how they were overseas and needed a shitload of money for some mysterious purpose that probably involved Dr. Jace. When they returned, Gotham and Gotham Girl suddenly appeared! And remember, Batman doesn't believe in coincidences³! At least not in certain situations. So I guess he sort of believes in them sometimes.
Before Matches Malone leaves Gotham and Gotham Girl's parents, he breaks down crying, falls on his knees, and hugs their mother, burying his face in her matronly bosom. Except he does it in the Batman way by saying, "You are nice people. You remind me of nice people I once knew. It is nice. And emotional. I must go now!"
Meanwhile, The Monster Men are Coming!
Leaving the Gotham Kids Estate, Batman is told by Alfred that a suicide bomber has blown up the middle of a bridge during rush hour. So Batman must be quickly off to the scene of the catastrophe!
Why is this even a thing that is needed? Who thought this was clever? Why are dumb things constantly turning up in my comic books? Oh wait. Haven't they always? Have I...outgrown comic books?!
Over at the explosion, Gotham tries to keep the bridge from collapsing by holding it underneath while Gotham Girl watches holding one small child. I guess her job is watching for signs of Batman. Although I don't know how he's going to help keep the bridge from collapsing. Throw a Batarang and shoot a Bat-grapple? Maybe inside of his Bat-cycle is a Bat-plane that sprays Bat-glue?
Turns out my speculation wasn't far from the truth. Except the Bat-plane arrives on its own and Batman shoots a number of Bat-grapples to secure the bridge to the Bat-plane. No Batarangs or Bat-glue⁴!
While Batman saves the bridge, Hugo Strange tells another story that's the antithesis of the story told by the parents of the Gotham Kids. The Gotham Parents' story was all about how the piss and smoke tastes good and enables a person to be better somehow. It isn't explained well in their story because being beaten down by the city you live in, pissed on and covered in the retching smell of smoke, doesn't make for an easy explanation as to how it helps improve a person. I guess it makes a person want to improve the city because maybe the piss and smoke isn't as good as it seems? But Hugo Strange's story about living in a city that's constantly falling and breaking down makes the populace feel like they're constantly falling and breaking down makes a lot more sense! Hugo says that to survive that kind of world, the residents of Gotham simply live in denial, or to embrace the horror of their city and join it. So what Hugo is saying is that Gotham City is existentialism? And he wants to bring--what?--faith to Gotham? Basically, his Monster Men are supposed to make people declare, "I am not Gotham!" That's because that fits in with the theme of people being Gotham, see?! Like Batman, Hugo Strange wants the people of Gotham to face their fear, be brave, and stand strong. He wants them to stop accepting the piss and smoke of Gotham and realize that they don't have to identify with the shithole. They can look at Gotham and say, "Fuck this shit. This shit should be better!"
I think I might be with Hugo Strange! Except I'm sure his plan involves killing thousands of people with his Monster Men while Amanda Waller signs his checks. Although how is Hugo's plan going to work when there's also an Army of Batmen at work in Gotham? Won't the Batmen Army just cancel out the Monster Men invasion while the Bat-family sits back and watches?
So what? Batman is just going to leave the Bat-plane like that until it runs out of fuel and everything collapses?
The Review!
My mouth is a little bit wetter than it was at the beginning of this commentary, so I might be able to spit on King's dick a few times to get it lubed up for my butthole. I've never been too interested in Hugo Strange but this story seems to be the kind of thing he was made for. He's psychoanalyzing the city of Gotham for Amanda Waller in an effort to discover the proper therapy to cure it of its mania, depression, violent tendencies, and god complex. If that seems a bit too abstract, Hugo also gets to do the same thing to a hero named Gotham. That should make the allegory more palatable, I think. And while Hugo Strange might have the ability of manipulating people through therapy, he doesn't quite have the chops to simply mind-control some super kids. So getting him to manipulate Psycho Pirate to manipulate the Gotham Kids is a nice touch. Although isn't that how Psycho Pirate is always used? He's such a spineless coward without any emotions of his own! The Medusa Mask made him its slave and now he's just a quivering blank slate to be chalked upon by villains smarter and stronger willed than he is. So, you know, I'm still enjoying Batman! Ptui! _______________________________________________
¹Yes, that is indeed code for his penis.
²I don't mean contrived in a derogatory sense!
³According to Justice League Rebirth #1!
⁴At least not this time!
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