The Batman's Grave #1

Does Batman have to crash through skylights looking like the Batman logo to protect his trademark?

The first thing I thought when I read the title of this comic book was "No shit. He's a serious motherfucker. We need a new comic book to tell us that? Sure, it's by Warren Ellis so it'll probably tell us in an entertaining way. But it's like DC 101! Batman is grave! He's super...oh! Does this mean like a cemetery plot? Never mind." My first thoughts are always rambling and protracted.

I know I should be reading this story a year hence when it's collected so that I don't forget every twelfth part before reading the succeeding twelfth part. But here I am being a dum-dum because I can't pass up a Warren Ellis comic book. I mean, I guess I can. I haven't been reading Trees. I'll do that one correctly and wait for it to be collected!

The story begins with Alfred wasting his last remaining years tending to the graves of Martha and Thomas and Bruce Wayne. Record scratch. Guy confusedly saying, "WHHHAAAAAAA?!" That's right! Bruce Wayne's grave, jerks! He's dead! Ha ha ha! I guess this series is going to be twelve issues of beautiful poetry about the life growing up around Bruce's grave, the exact opposite of the life that didn't grow around Gotham during Bruce's life. It's a morality tale in twelve parts! Or maybe Alfred just pisses on it every day. It's his symbolic statement about how Bruce Wayne pissed his life away beating up street thugs when he could have truly helped Gotham with his enormous inheritance.

Oh darn. He's not dead yet. I guess I have to wait another eleven issues before I can laugh like a nihilistic misanthrope.

I know I've been harsh on Bryan Hitch in the past but mostly that was due to his writing, I think. Luckily, he's doing art for a Warren Ellis story and as the most unbiased comic book reviewer on the Internet, I would never dare say a bad word about Warren Ellis or the artist working on his story.

Bryan Hitch nails Batman in the Batmobile. Superb!

A couple are attacked in an alley with their child and Batman rushes down to save them because it's the most important thing he can do. If he doesn't save every family mugged in an alley, what did his parents die for? After he severely beats the shit out of the muggers, he puts the responsibility on whether they die or not on the victims of the attack.

See? Batman doesn't kill people. The victims who refuse to call an ambulance after Batman mortally wounds them kill people.

Batman heads off to investigate a suspicious death because sometimes he remembers he's a detective and not just a vengeful demon of the night. The dead guy was either a huge Batman fan or a stalker. Either way, somebody killed him and left no evidence. Not even a riddle. Batman pawns the investigation off to Gordon and goes back home for some tea and a calm British scolding.

Ha ha. I was right about the scolding but I was wrong about the tea. It's all scotch tonight. Also, I absolutely nailed the reason Alfred pisses on Bruce's grave.

Bruce's defense for beating the shit out of people on a nightly basis is that the people he beats the shit out of made the choice to be human pieces of shit. "Not everybody broken by the system and trapped in an endless cycle of poverty decides to work for The Penguin, Alfred!" he whines while kicking at shadows. So Batman's argument is that if he used his resources to help lift people out of poverty, he wouldn't get to enjoy kicking the shit out of people who made terrible decisions out of desperation. Why does Alfred hate Batman so much that he'd try to make him give up his only hobby?

Batman gets tired of Alfred scolding him and goes off to think about the murder. He talks it through and somehow realizes the killer must still be hiding under the floorboards under the bed. I don't know how he came to that conclusion. Probably because he's the World's Greatest Detective and I'm just a dumb asshole who still reads comic books at 48. Having realized he must be correct in his assumption, Batman rushes back to the apartment to discover the weirdo murderer hiding under the floorboards. "I was lonely," he says. And Batman nods and goes, "I get that. Now do you want your teeth knocked out or your liver bruised?"

Batman's Grave #1 Final Thoughts: Just like we believe that Doctor House cannot figure out the medical mystery from all the evidence and only ever comes up with the answer through a flash of insight brought on by a butterfly flapping its wings in China, so we believe Batman can figure out the answer to a mystery without any actual evidence pointing to the solution. We all know gut instinct is more powerful than scientific evidence! And that's why Batman is the best! Because it's way easier to write a story where the person states the facts of the story and then suddenly looks up, snaps his fingers, and shouts, "A-ha!" Then he runs off to solve the mystery while the reader thinks, "Did I miss something?!" I feel like I'm getting awfully close to criticizing Warren Ellis! Maybe I should just shut up and trust that things will be explained next issue!