Fourth painting in a series depicting Batman jizzing in his pants.
The Cover
In previous reviews of this series, I mentioned how this fourth cover would be another picture of Batman ruining his bat-underwear with the bitterest of sex's many juices (unless Santorum can be considered a sex juice and then, well, um, I'm barfing now). But after really taking a close look at Batman's face in this picture, if he's being depicted in mid-orgasm by Brian Stelfreeze here then Batman has the most infected prostate in the fucking world. I don't believe I've ever made this painful a face in my life, certainly not while spooking a young lady by coming in her face too quickly while she thought she was just giving me a little oral to get me nice and hard for the actual sex. Also, if this face simply depicts a man doing a really strenuous activity like breaking some chains or digging a small hole, I'd have to admit I've never had occasion to make that face either. Hard work? Get the fuck out of here! I'm my momma's special baby boy! But enough arguing against my initial reaction to this cover since I've got the evidence that Batman actually has just unloaded a major bat-load in his jockeys: the cover is cut off just above where the growing bat-stain would be seeping into his outside underwear. Surely that's why the painting was bordered the way it is.
The Story So Far
Batman has been busy doing a reverse-Knightfall in this series except instead of Bane masterminding it, Zsasz has. Who is Zsasz? readers of 1992 asked and Christopher Nolan probably asked zero times because if he cared, he wouldn't have simply made him a henchman for some mob jerko. Well, he's a serial killer who also seems to be Jeremiah Arkham's life coach, therapist, and new bosom buddy. Or he's just a really manipulative mastermind and Arkham is really sweet and naïve and lonely. At the end of the last issue, Batman was about to battle every single one of his insane villains at one time. Being that most of his insane villains aren't martial artists or championship Mexican wrestlers (Bane doesn't exist yet), that battle should last all of four pages (and I'm only guessing four because there were so many of them. It'll take some time to show each one losing half of their teeth to Batman's fists).
The other story so far that most people won't even be wondering about is why it's taken me so long to review another comic book. I don't know! I'm old! I've got responsibilities! I'm trying to lose some weight and get back in shape during the worst possible fucking time: America's eat until you shit yourself and then eat some more holiday season! And other projects that I've been ignoring forever, like my Against the Day blog and Eee! Text Adventure Reviews Daily blog and doing other stupid bureaucratic chores that need to be done! Get off my fucking aching, old man back! Oh, also I have a needy cat whom I love. That takes up a lot of time!
The Story
In previous reviews of this series, I mentioned how this fourth cover would be another picture of Batman ruining his bat-underwear with the bitterest of sex's many juices (unless Santorum can be considered a sex juice and then, well, um, I'm barfing now). But after really taking a close look at Batman's face in this picture, if he's being depicted in mid-orgasm by Brian Stelfreeze here then Batman has the most infected prostate in the fucking world. I don't believe I've ever made this painful a face in my life, certainly not while spooking a young lady by coming in her face too quickly while she thought she was just giving me a little oral to get me nice and hard for the actual sex. Also, if this face simply depicts a man doing a really strenuous activity like breaking some chains or digging a small hole, I'd have to admit I've never had occasion to make that face either. Hard work? Get the fuck out of here! I'm my momma's special baby boy! But enough arguing against my initial reaction to this cover since I've got the evidence that Batman actually has just unloaded a major bat-load in his jockeys: the cover is cut off just above where the growing bat-stain would be seeping into his outside underwear. Surely that's why the painting was bordered the way it is.
The Story So Far
Batman has been busy doing a reverse-Knightfall in this series except instead of Bane masterminding it, Zsasz has. Who is Zsasz? readers of 1992 asked and Christopher Nolan probably asked zero times because if he cared, he wouldn't have simply made him a henchman for some mob jerko. Well, he's a serial killer who also seems to be Jeremiah Arkham's life coach, therapist, and new bosom buddy. Or he's just a really manipulative mastermind and Arkham is really sweet and naïve and lonely. At the end of the last issue, Batman was about to battle every single one of his insane villains at one time. Being that most of his insane villains aren't martial artists or championship Mexican wrestlers (Bane doesn't exist yet), that battle should last all of four pages (and I'm only guessing four because there were so many of them. It'll take some time to show each one losing half of their teeth to Batman's fists).
The other story so far that most people won't even be wondering about is why it's taken me so long to review another comic book. I don't know! I'm old! I've got responsibilities! I'm trying to lose some weight and get back in shape during the worst possible fucking time: America's eat until you shit yourself and then eat some more holiday season! And other projects that I've been ignoring forever, like my Against the Day blog and Eee! Text Adventure Reviews Daily blog and doing other stupid bureaucratic chores that need to be done! Get off my fucking aching, old man back! Oh, also I have a needy cat whom I love. That takes up a lot of time!
The Story
In 1992, you were still allowed to allude to prison rape so I think the whole "humiliate him" and "pucker up" and possibly "bitten off" are all attempts at communicating the impending rape of The Batman.
I don't recognize the two characters who taunt Batman on that page. Do creators get royalties on characters if they just appear or do the characters have to speak? Is that the reason that some unrecognizable nobodies get the dialogue threatening sexual assault? Or is it simply that the Alan Grant wasn't allowed to saddle Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum with a legacy of trying to rape The Batman? Or The Riddler. "Riddle me this, Batman! What doesn't take two to Tango?!"
After reading that first page, I decided to take a quick break, discovered the Supergirl trailer had dropped, and subsequently came in my pants while making that same face as Batman on the cover. Five times. Because of this:
After reading that first page, I decided to take a quick break, discovered the Supergirl trailer had dropped, and subsequently came in my pants while making that same face as Batman on the cover. Five times. Because of this:
Please, please, please tell me Lobo and Supergirl fuck. And we see both of their asses during the consensually brutal sex scene.
Batman spends the next two pages defeating a room full of villains. But we don't get to see him knock out Poison Ivy with a sexy choke hold because that wouldn't be chivalrous, no matter how huge my erection would be seeing it. So three pages instead of four although the top third of page four shows Batman standing over all the unconscious bodies so I was pretty close.
After Batman's Tased by the guards and locked up in "special punishment" (which doesn't occur on-panel so we have no idea what the fuck that means. Is he sat in the uncomfortable chair? Tickled with feathers? Forced to eat too many Cinnabons?), Arkham heads back to whine at Zsasz about how Zsasz's stupid plan didn't work at all. Zsasz casually replies, "Yeah, idiot. Batman's a top-notch fighter and an athlete! All those other inmates are just fucking insane!" After that, Arkham gets angry at Zsasz and sends him back to his cell. I guess the iron lung he's been keeping him in was just to protect Jeremiah while he talks with him. I thought it was to make sure he doesn't escape. But now that Arkham doesn't want to speak to him anymore, Zsasz is just tossed back in the cell where he, apparently, can just come and go at will. Oh! That's probably why he killed the architect of this new asylum! They probably built a secret exit in his cell. That was the loose end he was taking care of! Although I still don't know why Zsasz killed Everard Mallitt. Or who even that person is!
After Batman's Tased by the guards and locked up in "special punishment" (which doesn't occur on-panel so we have no idea what the fuck that means. Is he sat in the uncomfortable chair? Tickled with feathers? Forced to eat too many Cinnabons?), Arkham heads back to whine at Zsasz about how Zsasz's stupid plan didn't work at all. Zsasz casually replies, "Yeah, idiot. Batman's a top-notch fighter and an athlete! All those other inmates are just fucking insane!" After that, Arkham gets angry at Zsasz and sends him back to his cell. I guess the iron lung he's been keeping him in was just to protect Jeremiah while he talks with him. I thought it was to make sure he doesn't escape. But now that Arkham doesn't want to speak to him anymore, Zsasz is just tossed back in the cell where he, apparently, can just come and go at will. Oh! That's probably why he killed the architect of this new asylum! They probably built a secret exit in his cell. That was the loose end he was taking care of! Although I still don't know why Zsasz killed Everard Mallitt. Or who even that person is!
The Special Punishment consists of being forced to speak with Jeremiah while his old man balls hang out of his bathrobe. And you can't avoid seeing them because you're chained to a wall in a straight jacket.
While Batman's forced to stare at Jeremiah's deflated sack, Zsasz escapes from his cell through a secret passage he paid the architect to build for him (the architect of the new asylum being a man plagued by a gambling addiction). Plus we learn that Everard Mallitt was the first inmate that the architect approached for a huge lump sum for easy outside access. He refused because he was too crazy to understand the architect was a real person and not a ghost. Zsasz had to kill him too because he wouldn't stop blathering about ghosts coming out of the walls, sobbing about their gambling debts, and asking for his PIN to his ATM.
Oops. I think we learn that later from the ongoing investigation. Zsasz just tries to escape again once Batman's in Special Punishment only to run into Nightwing in the sewers because Nightwing's scurrilous filth. Or a good detective, maybe?
Oops. I think we learn that later from the ongoing investigation. Zsasz just tries to escape again once Batman's in Special Punishment only to run into Nightwing in the sewers because Nightwing's scurrilous filth. Or a good detective, maybe?
I remember a time when I didn't know what the word "twink" meant.
Dick actually discovered the secret passages built into Arkham by the gambling addict architect whose name I refuse to look up even though it almost certainly contains less letters than "gambling addict architect" because Batman told Dick to research the two names out of hundreds they somehow decided to concentrate on in Jeremiah's office. By doing so, Nightwing discovers the secret plans with the secret escape tunnels for patients who could pay a hefty fee to use them. That's how he found Zsasz in the sewers.
Meanwhile, Batman escapes Special Punishment because he still has the lockpicks that he keeps in his belly and vomits up when needed. But he also realizes to escape Special Punishment, he has to make his way through a Microwave Hallway! "How can I possibly survive being microwaved for the amount of time it'll take me to crawl through this hallway without setting off any alarms?" Batman thinks before remembering all the fucking trash meals Tim Drake eats every day.
Meanwhile, Batman escapes Special Punishment because he still has the lockpicks that he keeps in his belly and vomits up when needed. But he also realizes to escape Special Punishment, he has to make his way through a Microwave Hallway! "How can I possibly survive being microwaved for the amount of time it'll take me to crawl through this hallway without setting off any alarms?" Batman thinks before remembering all the fucking trash meals Tim Drake eats every day.
Batman turns himself into a Hot Pocket to survive!
I know! That's not the most logical way to survive being microwaved. Hot Pockets makes those little cardboard pouches to help the meal get crisp. But Batman realizes that if you turn the little cardboard Hot Pocket coffin inside out, it will reflect more of the heat than retain! I think. Maybe he doesn't actually make the Hot Pocket analogy and he's actually using real science that I was too dumb to understand. I was just giggling and yelling at the cat, "Look at Batman! He's a fucking Hot Pocket! Ah ha ha ha ha! What an idiot!"
He actually looks more like Ekuar's friend, Bag of Bones, from Elfquest.
Instead of winding up crispy and mouth-burning delicious, Batman simply emerges with sweaty balls and buttcrack. He manages to find the secret passage in Everard Mallitt's old cell and follows Zsasz into the sewers where he's kicking Nightwing's ass.
He actually looks more like Ekuar's friend, Bag of Bones, from Elfquest.
Instead of winding up crispy and mouth-burning delicious, Batman simply emerges with sweaty balls and buttcrack. He manages to find the secret passage in Everard Mallitt's old cell and follows Zsasz into the sewers where he's kicking Nightwing's ass.
Batman and Nightwing barely survive a fight with this nobody with the cool name and cool gimmicks who doesn't make as big of a splash as I was assuming he would back in 1992.
Zsasz appeared in both Batman Begins and Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) as a fucking henchman for mob figures instead of as the great and terrible lone wolf monster he should have been. He's been wasted on the big screen and not really given his due, no matter how much you may have enjoyed Chris Messina portraying him. Of course, for me, Chris Messina's greatest work will always be the therapist in The Boogeyman. I know all of you Stephen King purists are screaming at me right now, "What are you talking about? The therapist was the Boogeyman!" And I just want to say, "Yeah but that was fucking stupid, wasn't it? That was the worst ending to a Stephen King story in the history of all of Stephen King's story endings which are all the worst. Somehow, the movie actually made the short story better! Not great, mind you. But I'll watch The Mindy Project's Danny Castellano in anything he wants to be in. Unfortunately, he has yet to do porn.
Jeremiah Arkham learns that everything he thought he knew in the last few weeks was absolutely fucking wrong when the cops and Gordon show up at his asylum and began telling him what's what. He kind of throws a little temper tantrum even if, while tantruming, he does get one thing right: Batman's fucking crazy.
Jeremiah Arkham learns that everything he thought he knew in the last few weeks was absolutely fucking wrong when the cops and Gordon show up at his asylum and began telling him what's what. He kind of throws a little temper tantrum even if, while tantruming, he does get one thing right: Batman's fucking crazy.
Jeremiah Arkham loses his mind when Batman forces him stare deeply into Zsasz's eyes.
Earlier in the issue, Jeremiah Arkham explains to Batman that he "can see directly into the heart of madness!" What he means is that he can look at somebody and see exactly how crazy they are and what they need to help them get better, or to pull them out of their current mania, or, in most cases, simply break them using their psychosis as a cudgel. So when Batman forces Jeremiah to look into the eyes of a madman who cannot be broken, who knows nothing of repentance, who simply thrives on killing, Jeremiah's mind cracks. Batman knew what he was doing! He's a monster!
The story ends with Jeremiah, now insane, beginning a new journal of Arkham, probably even crazier than his Uncle Amadeus's journal which was full of time travel and sex stories between Amadeus and a raunchy cowboy with a mutilated face. But he'd burned that journal so people would have to wait until The New 52 to learn about those amazing stories!
The Ranking
A pretty fun and interesting Batman story that, for some reason, didn't guest star Lobo. But setting aside that flaw, this, in 1992, was what I wanted from a Batman title. I wanted Batman lore outside of the current, linear story arcs taking place in the other titles. I just wanted to read coherent stories of Batman with a clean plot and themes that had a definite beginning and nearly definite ending. Obviously I had an expectation of some kind of ambiguity at the end so that the story could have some kind of future impact on Batman's current stories. Here, Alan Grant creates a new piece of fiction in Gotham: a modern Arkham Asylum with a new owner, one just as mad as the occupants (with the added twist that Batman helped make him crazy). Thanks to this beginning, I continued to read this series until, um, Issue #9. That might not seem like a lot but if you've recently seen the cover of Shadow of the Bat #9, you might know why I stopped reading. Don't throw Tim Drake on the cover of my Batman comic book and expect me to thank you for it! Fuck that kid! Um, I mean, you know, not like that. Don't twist my words!
The story ends with Jeremiah, now insane, beginning a new journal of Arkham, probably even crazier than his Uncle Amadeus's journal which was full of time travel and sex stories between Amadeus and a raunchy cowboy with a mutilated face. But he'd burned that journal so people would have to wait until The New 52 to learn about those amazing stories!
The Ranking
A pretty fun and interesting Batman story that, for some reason, didn't guest star Lobo. But setting aside that flaw, this, in 1992, was what I wanted from a Batman title. I wanted Batman lore outside of the current, linear story arcs taking place in the other titles. I just wanted to read coherent stories of Batman with a clean plot and themes that had a definite beginning and nearly definite ending. Obviously I had an expectation of some kind of ambiguity at the end so that the story could have some kind of future impact on Batman's current stories. Here, Alan Grant creates a new piece of fiction in Gotham: a modern Arkham Asylum with a new owner, one just as mad as the occupants (with the added twist that Batman helped make him crazy). Thanks to this beginning, I continued to read this series until, um, Issue #9. That might not seem like a lot but if you've recently seen the cover of Shadow of the Bat #9, you might know why I stopped reading. Don't throw Tim Drake on the cover of my Batman comic book and expect me to thank you for it! Fuck that kid! Um, I mean, you know, not like that. Don't twist my words!
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