Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book One #1 (October 1992)

If you love this comic book, I ask you to turn away now. I'm going to hate fuck it so hard!

Now, I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to hate fuck this comic book so, for the moment, I'm going to put my anger dick away. I don't particularly remember any details about this comic book. But I do remember that I couldn't fucking stand the Cousin Oliver little shit who becomes Azrael. I probably never gave this character a chance because I hated him so fucking much. Maybe not as much as I hated Danny Chase but it was probably pretty close. If that twat is already Azrael in this comic (which it appears he is), maybe my rage will remain caged? Who knows? The adventure of life is discovering things that fill us full of various emotions, that wrench us outside of the status quo comfort of our daily lives. Perhaps in the heat of my hate, I will rediscover the passion I once had for life! Maybe that's why so many people actively fill their lives with drama? Because it makes life so rich and full! And also awkward and uncomfortable and a real pain in the ass. I don't get loving drama but then, I guess, some people only subconsciously love drama and they don't realize that they constantly sabotage shit to feel alive. Is that a kind of Munchausen Syndrome? "My life is sick and also I didn't make my life sick it just happened to get sick why are you looking at me like that i'm telling you the truth! i think it's dying and you're asking me why i have so much antifreeze in my kitchen?!"

Small Bit of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Trivia: This is the first comic book I've reviewed written by Dennis O'Neil. Also the first comic book drawn by Joe Quesada!

Much More Extremely Smaller Bit of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Trivia: Also the first book inked by Kevin Nowlan.

I can't tell you if it's the first comic lettered by Ken Bruzenak because I don't keep track of the letterers. Some people make a point of praising letterers but I'm going to stick to my guns and not give a shit about them, no matter how important they are to the finished work. One cannot be made to care about everything! If you're such a champion of letterers, go write your own blog where you praise the shit out of them. Just don't contact me when you realize you've run out of ways to describe their work! "Oh, it's so competent! Incredibly legible! Fantastic? More like fontastic!" But if you do contact me, I'll just respond like so: "Ah ha ha ha ha! Mortal fool!"

What the fuck did I do?!

Oh wait! Az is pointing accusingly at another comic book character and not directly at me. Heh. I actually knew this comic book character wasn't talking to me because I am not a liar. I mean, maybe that's not true but I'm certainly not a betrayer. Or, at the very least, you can't definitely say I've ever defiled anything. At least not on camera. Oh, um, also he's a second dimensional character while I'm a third dimensional sentient being which means while I can observe him and talk to him all I want, he cannot see me, talk to me, or even hear me. That's probably the better argument because then I don't have to poorly defend his accusations to prove he wasn't speaking to me because he almost certainly wasn't. Right?

Quesada's art and layouts on this thing are so fucking crowded that they remind me of Chris Bachalo's work on Steampunk. I should probably come up with a comparison that more people know so they could exclaim "Oh yeah! I see that!" instead of "What the fuck is Steampunk?" The main difference is that a Steampunk page, while crowded, looked like a complete work of art, as if all the swirls and flourishes added to the sense of it all. Quesada's pages just look like somebody dropped a bunch of really violent postcards to different vacations sites on the ground.

I'm not complaining! I'm just describing! Remember, my anger dick is still tucked away in my pants.

Now that I've scanned just that page without the facing page adding to the chaos, it doesn't strike me as quite as crowded as seeing them together. The logic of that statement is just off the charts but I'm leaving it in! "So this comic book I'm reading, if you look at two pages at once, there's a lot more going on than if you look at just one page! Ever noticed that?!"

That guy holding his bleeding eye socket where Azrael's burning sword just was? I don't know who he is. But Azrael dropped in to kill him for being a liar, a betrayer, and a defiler, so I'm going to assume he's the bad guy. Mama didn't raise no fool nor a man who is equipped to be on a jury. But while Azrael dropped by with a flaming sword, this man had a gun with bullets that could pierce Azrael's body armor. So Azrael takes three bullets to the chest. When he's shot by the guys with Uzis, I'm going to assume they didn't have the power to penetrate his body armor so he probably still has a chance to live if he can throw himself out of the window and fall forty feet to the ground in time. And, um, softly?

Luckily there's a parade going on in the street outside so four or five baton twirlers break his fall.

Does T.O. Morrow run the local Gotham news network?

That's a joke about these reporters looking like robots. If I knew who was the most famous person in Gotham for making sex dolls, I would have used that person's name instead of the guy famous for robots. Oh wait! Dammit! Professor Pyg!

Some readers might be thinking, "If you suddenly came up with the sex doll maker's name, why don't you just re-edit this and use the joke you say you wanted to use in the first place?" To them I say, "You might be too stupid to read really stupid Internet comic book reviews." Now that I've said that, it's up to you to come up with why I kept the bit in that I wanted to keep in and not the bit I said I wanted to think up in the first place. It's an easy assignment because I'm telling you that I wrote exactly what I wanted to write. Oh, and don't send me your homework. Just work it out in your head (probably in the shower since that's the only place anybody seems to be able to think anymore because their minds are always scrolling their phones). I don't need to hear your conclusions.

Speaking of phones, you know how people hate AI for what it's doing to people's ability to think for themselves and come up with their own arguments and it ultimately is going to make everybody dumber? That's the way I've felt about cell phones for, like, ever. It's just people feel they can hate AI because there's enough pushback against it. But mostly everybody just accepted phones and how dumb they're making everybody and so if you say what I'm saying here, people will hate you forever. "Oh no! He criticized a thing that I've been using most of my life and it's just part of my life and he says I'm dumber! What a fucking prick!" Yeah, maybe I am. But you're still dumber for attaching yourself to that tech.

Azrael swings onto a parade horse and races away, trampling the sexbots in the process.

They must be really high end sexbots. Look at all the blood and gore they produce when trampled!

It's not that I don't think cell phones don't have their uses! Airport pick ups now that you can't meet your friends and family at the gate? Cell phones are invaluable! But you don't need to constantly be connected to everybody and you don't need a device that keeps you from feeling the need to ever really know anything because, hey, you can look it up on your phone! Also, great for taking pictures and videos of your cats and posting them on the Internet. 10/10 application. Probably why I'm like, "Okay, fine, I won't complain too much! Look at the kitties!"

I also just realized I probably say this a lot too: "Okay, fine, I won't complain too much! Look at the titties!"

It's a good thing this comic book is about Azrael and not about those news reporters or else it would be over already! I wonder if anybody cares that two plastic talking heads were just killed while doing a puff piece in Gotham? Probably not. Maybe a few Facebook tributes with myriad comments from people's creepy uncles saying things like, "Man, those titties! What a loss!"

Azrael stumbles through a back alley on his way to whoever the fuck patches him up after debacles like this.

Didn't I recently read this comic book?!

I recently read The Crusades if anybody was wondering what I meant by that caption. It had a lot of scenes just like this one! Too bad it was written ten years later so I can't accuse O'Neil and Quesada of plagiarism. My anger dick twitched but I was all, "Calm down, buddy! These guys couldn't have copied The Crusades and if The Crusades copied them, it's too fucking late to rage about it!" Also, just because two things are similar isn't a reason to automatically assume somebody copied somebody else! That's almost always an accusation by the unimaginative who think it makes them sound smart to say, "Look at this! I noticed similarities between two different things in life! I am so observant and smart!"

Azrael manages to drag himself to the door of his son. His son answers and my dick pops out of my fucking pants and screams, "It's showtime!"

MOTHER FUCKING COUSIN OLIVER PIECE OF SHIT!

Cousin Oliver's father dies in front of him after giving him a few instructions on how to keep the identity of Azrael secret and how to become the new Azrael and probably directions to the Brady house where he'll be living from now on.

Meanwhile at Wayne Manor, creepy uncle Bruce Wayne is all, "I really liked that reporter's tits so I'm going to investigate her death, Alfred."

I wasn't aware Batman deals with a lot of vanishing angel cases?

I wouldn't jump right to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne is psychologically unhealthy but maybe setting his secret door clock to the exact time his parents were murdered doesn't help not lead me to that conclusion.

Police found some body armor close to the scene that was completely riddled with bullet holes so Batman figures the angel was shot by the arms seller who lives in the apartment above where the angel fell. An even more important thing we learn as Batman discusses the case with Alfred: Batman puts his shirt on before his underwear.

Hell, according to these panels, my guess is he's standing with his dick out while just wearing his top, cape, and gloves. Poor Alfred.

Meanwhile, Cousin Oliver opens the mystery package his father left for him some time ago that the idiot was to incurious to open. It contained instructions on where to go if his father ever died along with forty thousand dollars. So this kid, having witnessed his father die in some truly insane way, decides, "What the hell? I'm only currently busy getting a computer science degree! Heading to Switzerland with forty grand in my pocket sounds way better!"

Somewhere in Switzerland, after being taken from the airport to a hidden chalet six hours into the Alps, the kid meets a strange little creature named Nomoz. His job is to inculcate him into the Order of St. Dumas, a secret organization from the 1300s, and train him to be the next Azrael. I suspect that an important feature of Azrael is that each one comes from a single bloodline or else why wouldn't they just put a bullet in the back of this kid's head as soon as they saw him and searched for a more appropriate Azrael?

Oh, okay. Wouldn't want all that post-hypnotic suggestion to go to waste by killing the dumb kid.

Obviously the post-hypnotic suggestion thing is just O'Neil giving a sly wink to the readers saying, "We know you'd never believe this fucking nerd college kid could become a cold-blooded holy assassin so will this idea of hypnotic suggestions implanted over the course of his life be enough to get you fuckers off our backs?" No, Mister Denny, sir. It is not. I am going to hate this fucker for the entire four issue run!

Batman learns, from Commissioner Gordon, that witnesses saw the angel with a flaming sword at one end of an alley and then witnesses at the other end of the alley described him as not having any kind of sword, flaming or otherwise. Gordon is all, "Man, I wonder what happened to that sword?" And Batman is all, "I guess I'll go check out the alley and find the one obvious place where it could have been sequestered since your fucking cops are too lazy."

Without even mentioning the Gotham Cops, Batman thoroughly savages them.

Gordon mentioned how the cops would love to have the sword to check for fingerprints and other evidence. But Batman definitely isn't going to give it to the Gotham Police because they couldn't even be bothered to look in the only place the sword could have been hidden if a person believed the witnesses which the cops probably didn't. They probably had a gut instinct that the witnesses were lying and also another gut instinct that one of the witnesses was the angel. They're probably still investigating all of the witnesses and asking the District Attorney which one could most easily go down on trumped up charges.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, Cousin Oliver's subconscious hypnotic training is brought to the surface. He finds he's able to defend himself against attack instinctively now.

Ha ha ha! Oh, no. No no no no no. You're still a floppy-haired loser.

With the help of Oracle, Batman learns all about the Order of St. Dumas. They were an off-shoot of the templars and were involved in the Crusades. She says their order disappeared in the 1400s. So they didn't hang around for long, historically, before disappearing into the shadows. Now I guess they're less of an order and more of some dwarf in the mountains with a few bodyguards and the family that gets to cosplay an angel every generation?

With Babs' help discovering that the Order settled down in Switzerland, and Batman's investigation of the weapons merchant Azrael tried to kill, Batman finds himself over the Alps in a helicopter hovering above the chalet where the Order of St. Dumas resides. Also looking down on the chalet? The weapons merchant with a rocket launcher full of experimental explosives. Apparently he knew all about the assassin who attempted to take his life and he's looking for revenge.

And I guess he gets it?

Bruce Wayne and Alfred are in that helicopter in the last shot. Cousin Oliver and the creature Nomoz were in the middle of the explosion. I guess the final three issues of this series will be Batman searching the rubble for clues, going back home, and shrugging that it all must have worked out somehow?

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book One #1 Rating: B+. The art is fucking fantastic. Great job. The writing is top notch. Excellent portrayal of Batman doing detective work. Nice mythology set up that feels redundant having recently read The Crusades (was that comic pitched as an Azrael Vertigo book and then just changed to exclude any ties to mainstream DC?). A lot of good shit that should have probably made this an A-rated comic book. But then it also starred fucking Cousin Oliver who sucks so badly that he doesn't even get a fucking name. He's just "son" and "computer science major" and "stupid haircut nerd with glasses". Is there some kind of collective unconscious symbol within our human brains that leads us to hate the floppy bowl-cut haired, tow-headed, glasses wearing kid? Or is it just me? Am I projecting my dislike of Cousin Oliver, Danny Chase, and Azrael onto everybody else? Did some kid who looks like these jerks beat the shit out of me in second grade, pin me to the ground, and spit in my mouth and I've just blocked those memories but unconsciously hate anybody who resembles the perpetrator? This hatred of this character type doesn't suggest the need for therapy, does it? Sure, sure. Other things suggest it, like the way I blame my anger on my cock. But not this, right?