Batman Incorporated #11

Yay! Batumano! And Sailor Robin!

So I was walking through Tokyo this one time and I happened to very extremely innocently wander into a red light district. As I'm walking past one particular club, the doorman in an expensive suit looks at me and calls out, "Hey American! American! You speak Japanese?" I do not and I told him so. He responds, "Too bad for you!" and finishes his statement with a mad cackle. I've always just assumed the place was a hostess bar or something similar but now I'm wondering if he wasn't just a Batman of Japan super villain! I bet he was recruiting for The Legion of We're Very Sorry for the Inconvenience.

Grant Morrison Chris Burnham begins the issue just trying to remind everybody that they're supposed to be sad.

Grant Morrison Chris Burnham, you're a dick. This actually made me really sad.

Now that everyone with any kind of feelings at all is thoroughly depressed and only the dicks with no hearts are wondering why the fuck  a forlorn cat in the rain at the grave of his friend should make anybody sad, the action moves to Tokyo where some super hot women are riding motorcycles and judging people for drinking coffee and bickering amongst their super sexy selves! They're all wearing helmets so I hope they don't eventually take the helmets off and show that they have fish faces because then I'm going to feel sick from having masturbated to this first page!

Of course I covered up the panel with Alfred the Cat! What do you think I am? A sick bastard?

The police arrive but they can't handle these women so they send out the Bat Alarm!

The Batman of Japan, Jiro, is having dinner with Canary inside an aquarium. I think this has something to do with all of those shrink ray jokes from earlier issues!

So that's why he wanted a shrink ray! So he could bang Canary!

Apparently Batman didn't lie about not having a shrink ray because Jiro and Canary are merely having dinner in a virtual reality space. But Batman does now know somebody with a Shrink Belt! Although if he works it so Jiro can borrow it, that kind of makes Batman Canary's pimp. Also, it might be a little weird helping Batman of Japan fuck his sidekick.

They don't have a Shrink Ray but they have a device that puts their costumes on for them.

I wish Grant Morrison had drawn this issue!

Actually, I'm probably pretty glad that Morrison didn't draw this issue since I like the look of it so far. I don't think I've seen anything drawn by Jorge Lucas so far. Also, does every Batman Incorporated Cave come with a dinosaur? I don't think Batwing got one. Maybe that's because he was Batwing and not another Batman. I see Jiro also has a bunch of tubes with different costumes in them just like Rotten Robbie of Lazytown has! I wonder if Rotten Robbie is the Batman of Lazytown?

I read Teen Titans #20 a few hours ago just before I drowned myself in the bathtub (I'm cursed to always rise again) and I may have mentioned how awful Scott Lobdell's writing was. He writes snarky, bullshit, unfunny, unbelievable young people and it's ruining The New 52's version of The Teen Titans. But I think I just found Scott Lobdell's replacement: Chris Burnham! This next page is better than every line of snark Lobdell has put to paper in the last year and a half.

Except that crack about the forty year old boyfriend. That hurt my feelings!

Jiro and Canary kind of get their asses handed to them by the Mighty Muffin Power Bikers. But Canary does manage to blow up one of their bikes with her tiny sonic scream which pisses them all off. But it also scares them because none of the others want to lose a motorcycle. They retreat and Jiro and Canary head back to the Batbase.

Jiro does some fancy Batman hokey pokey and discovers the location of the secret base of the Mighty Muffin Power Bikers. Except they might actually be more like Voltron.

Except they don't have a fat one.

They also don't have one named Jason, I don't think. And they don't have a young one or an unintelligible one or the one that's interchangeable with the leader but isn't the leader so he has to act like he doesn't really want to be the leader. This team just has five princesses. But they're far more entertaining than the princess from G-force! Not the guinea pig G-force! The Battle of the Planets G-force!

I think the green one might be my girlfriend!

Oh no! What do they mean they're sorry about what they are under the helmets?! Oh man, I knew it! They have fish heads, don't they!?

The next page begins with Jiro yelling "Bat-fluff!" and hurling his diamond tipped darts with nanotech destroying computer viruses embedded in them. And there's yet another moment I like so I guess I'll shove the comic book back into the scanner yet again! At least it's easier than writing!

Putting "bitches" at the end of any statement just makes that statement sound better. I append it to every single thing I say. Not everything I type, though! That would be annoying.

These darts cause the helmets to melt and reveal the faces of the women beneath. Umm. Oh. Ugh. I'll be right back.

Well, they didn't have fish faces but they did have melty gross disgusting cybernetics-gone-wrong faces! And because Leviathan did this to them and then abandoned them when they lost their looks, the Mighty Muffin Power Bikers decide to join forces with Batman of Japan and Canary to take down Queen Lady Tiger Fist! Lady Tiger Fist doesn't sound so threatening. I'd much rather get smacked by a tiger that was making a fist than one that was striking with an open paw full of claws.

Oh wait. Her fists are tiger heads. I think I'll pass on getting punched in the face by a tiger's bite.

Jiro and Canary trick Lady Tiger Fist into their virtual reality prison and cart her off to real prison. Then they get back into their own virutal reality world as quickly as possible so Canary can virtually "hold an apple" if you get my meaning. Except my meaning is the same as the actual meaning of the words because Canary really does decide to hold an apple. I think I used that phrase wrong. And then the comic book returns to Batman screaming his head off and flying off to meet Talia as Armored Batmanmanbatbatbatmanmanbat in Armor.

Batman Incorporated #11 Rating: No change. Although I should figuratively give it a +1 because this comic was a lot of fun. But it didn't continue the Batman Inc story and, besides, actually raising it a rank would knock Batman from the top spot. And I'm not quite ready to do that yet, bitches!

Batman Incorporated #9

When is it going to be Batman's turn to be happy?

Last issue, Damian Wayne was killed by Talia al Ghu's Batthing. Since that issue, a bunch of other issues came out with most of the Bat Family in half-assed mourning. Batman and Robin #18 was the only other Batman title that I think needed to deal with Batman's grief. Batman #18 sort of dealt with it but in a way that highlighted that lovable street urchin Harper Row and her way gay little brother. The other Batman titles really should have just ignored the whole thing. I suppose I get to see Batman mourn all over again one more time here in the comic book that actually killed the little prick.

Okay. Second panel and I'm done!

How does Bruce actually cope with this? Damian was only ten or eleven years old! He was his son! Peter Tomasi wrote these two so well in the pages of Batman and Robin that The New 52, for the first time in my 25+ years of reading comic books, finally gave me a Robin that I liked. Hell, I loved the little prick! Their relationship was so fun to read at the hands of Tomasi. This might be the first time I've truly been sad about the death of a comic book character. If I'd been reading comic books at the time, I would have been very sad about Ted Kord's death as well. But I missed out on that one, so I don't count it. I thought I would be sad when Cerebus finally died but Sim was right about that one: that fucker died unloved and unmourned. Mostly due to Sim exasperating most of his readers with Cerebus's explication of Genesis.

So now I get to watch Batman bury his son. Yay! What a great morning!

Or maybe (hopefully!) the entire funeral will be taken up by Batman's flashback where he puts the Batthing in a coffin too. I'm pretty sure Batman is allowed to kill animals and since the Batthing came out of a whale's vagina, I think that makes him a whale. And while Aquaman might be a little bit pissed if Batman kills him, killing a whale doesn't go against any of Batman's ethical codes. But while Batman takes out his anger and grief on Batthing, Nightwing comes to and realizes he fucked up like a big fucking fucked up fuck up fucking up.

How do you feel about encouraging him now? I can't wait to see how how badly Alfred takes it since Alfred let him out of the house! I think Tim Drake had it right! Who's protecting these kids? You fucking enablers!

Nightwing immediately joins the fight against Batthing while Talia's thugs with the guns and arrows just stand by. They may have simply had orders to kill Damian because they could easily be doing the same thing to Nightwing and Batman that they just did to Robin. The Batthing fight's outcome is interrupted by Bruce saying some words at Damian's funeral. He says some things and then says Damian's death will be avenged. I think that means Damian's mother is going to have to die.

Meanwhile in London, Knight is given a hero's funeral. And then Squire takes on the mantle of Knight. That makes sense. You can't run around fighting criminals by yourself when your name is Squire. You'd be a laughingstock.

And while Batman and Alfred and Tim and Dick bury Damian without a thought as to how super heroes are constantly coming back to life, the Prime Minister of Britain, like a good comic book character, is keeping all options open in regards to Knight! Good for him!

"And don't forget, Prime Minister, the five hundred and sixty-two other ways to resurrect a person in our reality!"

And then things get really awful. Just. I mean. Come on, Bruce! Don't be a dick!

Not the vacation!

Stop blaming everybody else, Bruce. Hell, you can't even blame yourself for this one. Everybody did everything in their power to reign this kid in. Even Alfred couldn't have stopped him if he had actually tried. Damian's death is on two people: Damian and Talia. According to Ra's al Ghul, the kid may have been destined to house Ra's personality. But Talia only ever had one destiny in mind for this kid. He was simply a tool to be used to hurt Batman as much as he could be hurt.

Back to the fight with Batthing, Nightwing and Batman are both nearly beat when Red Robin uses the tank in the lobby of Wayne Enterprises to put a shell right up Batthing's ass. Batthing may be tough but he slinks off to heal after that one. Nightwing grabs up Robin's body and they retreat back to the Batcave.

With Gotham erupting into chaos and in the grip of Leviathan, the Mayor of Gotham (who, I think, is a total dick anyway), basically accepts surrender under some pretty shitty terms. Well, shitty for Batman and his friends.

People can barely stay alive with Batman allowed in the city! The residents of Gotham might as well just go lie down in their graves now.

Jason Todd has been captured by a bunch of women from the movie, The Horrors of Spider Island. And the rest of Batman, Incorporated is searching for him and for any clues as to what the Ouroboros Bomb is or how to stop it. And Batman finally breaks down after realizing what a true genius his son was when he examines Damian's greatest gift to the world.

Batcow would outsell most of The New 52 titles. Unless Scott Lobdell ended up writing it. Then it would be scenes of Batcow standing around chewing his cud while he Narration Boxes, "Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo."

Batman Incorporated #9 Rating: +1 Ranking. Anybody who doesn't like Batcow doesn't like freedom. Why isn't DC marketing the shit out of Batcow? I need a Batcow shirt right now! I wonder if Grant Morrison has retained all rights to Batcow. He's going to be sorry if he gave that one to DC for free!