Detective Comics #653 (November 1992)

Has The Huntress never used a crossbow before?

I'm going to give my poor boy Travis Charest a break on this one. Don't say I never did the absolute barest anything I possibly could for you, Travis! In fact, I'll give you a compliment: I would wear the shit out of Huntress's boots. I was going to be way more vulgar with my compliment but nobody wants to hear how I would absolutely ruin The Huntress's perfect little butthole. No, no! I'm not going to explain it! You'll just have to wonder if I was going to shove something up it or feed her my Five Alarm Chili.

Oh wait! I have another compliment: The Batman balloon The Huntress is trying to keep from blowing away in the wind looks like a super convincing 2-D blow-up person!

Last issue ended with the Gotham Police threatening to arrest Batman and The Huntress for stopping a criminal ring of jewelry thieves. Mostly it's because the Gotham Police are realistically corrupt but partially it's because the criminals have diplomatic immunity which prevents any justice from being taken against them what-so-ever. I grew up in the late '70s so popular culture has convinced me that that's totally how that works. Other things I learned: Killer Bees would invade California and make it unlivable; the Bermuda Triangle was the most dangerous place on Earth; and plants could communicate telepathically. It's possible I didn't learn the diplomatic immunity thing until the '80s and Lethal Weapon II though.

"Also, who the fuck did your hair, lady? It looks like you meant to pick the #5 but you pointed to some kid on the little league team your salon sponsors."

I understand sponsoring little league teams and customers pointing out the number of a haircut is more of a barber shop thing where boring men try to look like other boring men. But that Gotham Cop whom I was imagining saying that doesn't know that! He doesn't know anything about hair salons and stylists. Although he does know enough to see The Huntress's hair is fucking wrecked.

If I Photoshopped The Huntress's cape to yellow and cut about three inches off the length of her hair, the panel would just look like any other Batman and Robin panel.

Hmm. I'd like Robin so much more if he had tits. Is that why I like Carrie Kelley so much? Am I a slave to my male gaze? Wasn't that a Skid Row song?

Batman believes in justice but he fucking hates the law. He has so little respect for cops it makes me love him even more. He doesn't even bother arguing with the police; he just throws down a smoke bomb and flees. The Huntress is all, "How does this work? You gonna change costumes and never be Batman again so they can't keep trying to arrest you?" And Batman is all, "You noticed earlier how I must have a ton of money, right? And what do cops love more than beating the fuck out of minorities? Right. Bribes!" So they easily get away while the cops tell the foreign criminals to just drop it because they've seen what Batman does to henchmen and, being cops, they're not willing to suffer even the slightest physical pain for the job.

"Look. I'll wear the uniform and I'll collect the paycheck. But don't actually expect me to solve any crimes. Not enough overtime for that."

I don't know if I'm being too harsh on The Huntress's hairstyle or not. I'm just this ignorant person who finds both Aubrey Plaza and Jemaine Clement sexy. What does that say about my ability to judge a person's haircut? Nothing, I guess. But I do know what I haven't been harsh enough on: the Batmobile of 1992.

What an ugly piece of shit!

Batman's very nearly driving a chode. Does it always look this bad or did Graham Nolan draw it this way to force it to fit into the panel? This car is like a self-published book that's never had a whiff of an editor about it. Nobody's going to tell Batman what his car should look like! "I'm going to shape it like my dick no matter how hard you fucking roll your eyes, Alfred!"

Before dropping Huntress off, Batman reminds her that he already has a partner with a shit haircut so she shouldn't get any ideas about their working together again. That's very feminist of Batman. Most guys would be glad to have a hot woman work with them because they're sexist bastards. But Batman doesn't care how hot the woman is; she's not taking the job from a young, out-of-work boy. I, being way more sexist, would absolutely have kicked Tim Drake to the queue out front of the unemployment office to work every night with The Huntress. Then three days later, I'd be hit with a sexual harassments lawsuit and lose everything. My brain would be sad but my dick would be all, "It was worth it!" Stupid dick. It always makes the worst decisions and is constantly throwing up. I think it might be on drugs.

The next day, Batman goes undercover as a gas line repairman in order to infiltrate the embassy. Nobody finds it odd and nobody keeps an eye on him after they let him on the premises to investigate because I guess the day shift didn't hear about Batman and The Huntress breaking in the night before and causing trouble. I, a criminal genius, would have put everybody on high alert and beefed up security. But I guess it's not like Batman was driving the gas repair van. It was just some bald jerk with a terrible mustache with sunglasses that he continued to wear once inside the house. Not suspicious at all!

While Batman does real investigative work, The Huntress heads to the library to do research. As if Batman doesn't already have a voice-activated computer system hooked up via wi-fi to the Batcave that can answer any questions he asks it in a matter of seconds. Unless that's all kayfabe and it's really Alfred doing research as quickly as possible on the other end of the line.

"Neeeeeigh! Libraries are for nerds!"

Helena learns that Krasna-Volny was at war with a country called Transbelvia for hundreds of years before both were subsumed by the Ottoman Empire. But then after the Berlin wall fell and the Eastern bloc nations were left to fend for themselves, Krasna-Volny and Transbelvia got right back into the swing of things. I guess racial animosities never die; they're just briefly quieted by a larger, angrier nation of jerks. The Huntress decides to check if Transbelvia also has an embassy in Gotham and, holy shit, would you believe that they do?! Why would these two nations have Gotham City embassies?! It reeks of crime! Also the Transbelvian embassy is located in a Motor Lodge and their cars with diplomatic plates are all rentals. That also reeks of crime! Helena smells something super fishy but decides to call it a day and see what Batman's found out.

Batman has Robin doing research and he finds out a lot more using a computer than Helena found out using stupid books. Take that, print media! Although in not too many decades, nobody will be able to read the information on any of the devices information is currently stored on and the printed page will be all, "Ha ha! Our time has come back round at last! Eat ink, techfucker!"

I take it back. Robin's haircut isn't shit at all. It's entirely adequate.

As you can see, Batman's too ashamed to admit he's working with The Huntress. That means he's more sexist than I thought or he's got a cute little crush on her! Third possibility: Robin would cry if he found out. But then Robin will get to work with her in a year or so and he won't tell Batman. So all the deception sort of works out in the end! Is that how relationships work? If you deceive me and I deceive you and nobody ever finds out, our relationship is super strong and everything is going really well?

In other words, I don't want the kid to fuck up my groove, dude.

Batman and The Huntress meet up to exchange information. Batman doesn't tell Huntress any of the shit Robin found out because BORING. Instead, he mentions that he found weapons in the basement of the Krasna-Volny embassy. The Huntress tells Batman what she learned at the library and Batman makes snoring noises as he pretends to fall asleep. They decide the best course of action is to just sit in a tree and watch the embassy.

Eventually a car leaves the embassy in the middle of the night and Batman and Huntress follow in Helena's Lamborghini.

The letter messed up the dialogue. It should read "less conspicuous than that tool you rocket around in."

Batman's face does not agree with his answer of "Fine" about Helena's driving. He looks like the co-pilot flying with Nathan Fielder in the final episode of The Rehearsal, Season Two. Mostly that's probably because Batman never gives up control, ever. Has he ever been in the passenger seat of a car before or after this?

Batman and Huntress tail the Krasna-Volny diplomats to a park with the statue of a Gotham war hero. The hero happens to be Transbelvian. A banner over the street leading to the park mentions there's going to be a parade soon to celebrate this hero. So all of a sudden, this little shit country that nobody had ever heard of before this suddenly has an active community in Gotham with a long history with statues celebrating that history. And yet the embassy for the country from which the people of this community originate has all the hallmarks of a temporary set-up. What the fuck is going on? I'm sure Batman already knew all of this bullshit but hadn't said anything because he likes to keep as much information to himself so that nobody else makes any leaps of logic and solves the mystery before he does. He's worse than Sherlock Holmes.

The day of the parade and festival — Transbelvia's version of the Italians' Columbus Day — arrives and Batman and The Huntress stake it out. They know the Krasna-Volnians will probably attack the festivities in some way. But Batman also doesn't want to stop the attack because the attack will be the reason to get them deported. I guess some people will just have to die in a massive bombing so that Batman stops some jewelry thieves.

I accidentally and purposefully just tore this comic book in half after reading that "NOT" joke from The Huntress. Ugh. Fuck this shit. F-!

Be fucking thankful you're living in the age of everybody saying, "That's what she said!", even though that's just as fucking dumb (probably because it was started by the same fucking person!). Sure, it's stupid and unoriginal and boring as all the levels of the Abyss to respond, "That's what she said!", to the most obvious things. But at least it takes the slightest modicum of cleverness and wit to realize when to say it. Back in the '90s, idiots were constantly saying the opposite of what they meant and then yelling, "NOT!", like it was the funniest fucking thing they'd ever heard! Well, I wouldn't stand for it then and I won't stand for it now. This comic book review is over!

Detective Comics #653 Rating: F-. NOT! Ha ha! Oh man! That was a good one! Here's one more scene after The Huntress captures the main Krasna-Volny terrorist ready to suicide bomb the entire festival, throws him in a van, and drives the van into Gotham Bay where the man explodes underwater. The Huntress almost drowns but Batman saves her so that he can remind her that he doesn't like her because she kills while he doesn't because allowing The Huntress to drive away with the terrorist so that he explodes in safety isn't an action. It's the opposite of an action so Batman didn't kill the guy. He obviously couldn't have stopped The Huntress and disarmed the bomb himself! Could he have? I mean, well, he's, like, Batman? Anyway, I'm sure he couldn't have done any of that or else you might be able to argue that he killed the guy by allowing The Huntress to kill the guy so that he couldn't be blamed for killing the guy.

That's what she said!