Tuesday, February 14, 2017

Batman #16


Catwoman piddles skulls.

• I just had to call the owner of a pet store whose floor I clean and it gave me a stomach ache. I own my own stupid business and I still can't feel like an equal when talking to another adult business owner over the phone! Luckily the majority of my business is sneaking into stores when they're closed at night, cleaning the floor like a fairy tale elf, and then disappearing before I'm seen. Maybe I should hire a personal assistant who can make all of the business phone calls. But then I'd have to interact with the personal assistant and probably pay them. Forget it.

• This is the first part of "I am Bane." I guess all of Tom King's stories are going to be similarly named. "I am Gotham." "I am Suicide." "I am Rooftops." And now "I am Bane." I am bored!

• The issue begins with somebody sneaking into Arkham Asylum.


Unless they're sneaking out! This is one of those pictures that can go either way. Look, he's sneaking in! Now refocus. Oh! He's sneaking out!

• The person breaking into Arkham is Bronze Tiger. He wants a piece of Psycho Pirate because he's going through Venom withdrawals and he needs a mystically induced psychotic laugh attack. Instead he finds a guard compromised by Bane who shoots Jeremiah Arkham in the face.

• Don't worry! I just wanted you to think Jeremiah died for half a second because I thought he died for about that amount of time too. But then I was all, "Maybe that's not Jeremiah! It's probably just a doctor who was shot in the face." But it was Jeremiah Arkham! Which is why I was relieved when Batman said, "Don't worry! The bullet only grazed his face."


See? In comic books, you can easily rewind to the previous moment after finding out what really happened. Total graze! I guess? Good work, Finch! I can't believe I was fooled. It's so obvious when you take a really close look at the image and remember that Batman said it was a graze.

• Later, armed with the knowledge that Bane is about to kill him, Bruce Wayne gets lunch at a place called Batburger. They're totally infringing on his trademark. But what can he do?! He'd have to reveal his identity to sue! So instead, he has to live with the humiliation until he can accidentally beat up Firefly near the restaurant after Bruce Wayne's lawyers manage to cancel the restaurant's fire insurance.

• Bruce is having lunch with the Batkids: Damian, Dick, Duke, and the dumb one.


This is why Damian is the best Robin. Other characters that shine in this scene: Dick, Duke, Bruce, the employee in the background.

• There sure are a lot of penises at this Bat-lunch.

• David Finch is terrible at art. None of these characters look like themselves. They look like Finch just grabbed a J.Crew catalog for reference.

• Bruce explains that Bane is coming for Psycho Pirate but he needs Psycho Pirate for five days to make Gotham Girl sane again. Hey! That really works well for a five part serialized tale!

• None of the Batkids are worried because Bane hasn't done anything scary since Knightfall. Nobody even knows why he's still a threat. But Bruce is concerned because he can hardly remember the name of the Batkid who has yet to come back from the dead. You know. The boring one? Old what's his nerdy name? Bruce doesn't want to forget another one of his sidekicks.

• Bruce is all, "All of you kids: get out of my city! Bane is dangerous which is why I don't want help stopping him. I mean, it will be difficult for me to protect Gotham Girl and defeat Bane at the same time. But it's better if I do it alone. So Red Hood, go be poorly written somewhere else. And Damian, go teach people about how racism is bad in San Francisco with your new writer. And Dick, go fuck a redhead. And Duke, um, whatever. Have you even come up with a superhero name yet?"

• Batman knows that telling Robins to stay out of a fight means they won't stay out of the fight. He has no control over those kids at all. Except for Duke. Duke still hasn't tested the length of the leash. When he does, he'll discover the leash doesn't really exist. It's like going through customs after flying into Singapore. You think you're going to get a full blown cavity search after all their bluster about the death penalty for bringing drugs into the nation. And then when you get off the plane, you just stroll right past the guy in customs loudly snoring with his feet up on the desk and a newspaper over his face. They figure people will be so scared that nobody even bothers to try to smuggle in drugs. What I'm saying is, if you're into drug smuggling, you should try doing it in Singapore! Super easy!

• After writing that, I will never again visit Singapore because I am certain I'll get a cavity search next time.

• Duke doesn't know it until the final page of this issue but he's smart to listen to Batman. Because this issue ends with a cliff-HANGER!

Ah ha ha ha ha!

The Ranking!
No change! Guess what? The Robins probably aren't even really dead! That's my guess and I'm a Grandmaster Comic Book Reader! I know some of you are worried that they've all been killed again. But you shouldn't worry! This is probably just a terrible joke thought up by Red Hood. He was all, "You know what would be funny?" And Damian was all, "Me killing you?" And Red Hood was all, "You little bastard!" And Dick was all, "Hey! HEY! Calm down! This is no time to argue! We should try to figure out how to get free of these nooses Bane put us in before we asphyxiate!" Then they all asphyxiate and die. Now Bruce and Alfred will have to choose which two to resuscitate! I mean, Dick and Damian, obviously. I double mean, they aren't actually dead! Come on!

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