Bat-mite #6

Five issues ago, I thought I liked Bat-mite. Now I fucking hate this little fucker.

About thirteen years ago, I was hit by a car turning left in an intersection where I was crossing with the light. Here is an explanation from an assumed medical professional about what happens when somebody gets hit by a car:

When hit by a car, the vast majority of people are not run over; they are run under. The lower legs break, sending them into the air. They usually strike the hood of the car, often with the back of the head impacting the windshield, "starring" the windshield, possibly leaving a few hairs in the glass. They then go over the top of the car. They are still alive, although with broken legs, and maybe with head pain from the nonfatal windshield impact. They die when they hit the ground. They die from head injury.

I can physically attest to this statement being true even though those things did not happen to me. In my case, at the second or two before impact, I looked over my shoulder to see the car about to hit me. I have no memory about why I glanced over my shoulder. Maybe I heard the car. Maybe I saw the look of fear in a nearby squirrel's eyes. Perhaps God knew I still had comic books to make fun of. Whatever the case, I saw the car just before it struck me. I don't know the make of the car but it was one with the hood long low hood close to the ground. I jumped up just before impact which almost assuredly saved me from breaking my legs. The car hit my right calf, turning my body horizontal as I landed on the hood. I slid up the hood and impacted the windshield with my right shoulder. It wasn't my head because I made sure, even in that short space of time, that I hit with my shoulder. I was then launched into the air and to the side rather than over the top of the car. I helicoptered a few rotations and landed hard on my left hip. I instantly hopped up from the ground and ran in front of the car to make sure the person who hit me didn't make a break for it. A woman who had been stopped at the light near where I was hit told me she saw the whole thing and would be a witness if I needed one. I told her I was okay and would be fine but thanked her. The woman who hit me offered to take me to the hospital but I knew I was okay (okay, so a lot of people say they think they're okay when they're not after accidents like this and wind up dying from internal injuries. But I knew every place on my body that took impact (calf, shoulder, hip) and nothing felt any worse than after having played some tackle football (still, I suppose it would have been better to go to the hospital!)) and she offered to take me home instead. She gave me her card and made me promise to call her if I wound up needing any medical attention. I noticed my pants were torn at the calf where the bumper hit me and she gave me fifty dollars to buy some new pants. And that was it.

I have since learned to not trust signals and I constantly watch out for people turning left behind me now. So I'll probably get hit from some other direction next time. I hope the driver who hit me learned to not try to speed through a turn to beat other cars coming in the other direction so that she never has time to adjust for somebody suddenly appearing in her blind spot. I guess I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt that she wasn't being extremely careless or high on crack. I truly hope the lady who hit me did not go through months or years of worry, wondering when she might get a call from my lawyer or next-of-kin!

That had nothing to do with Bat-mite but I figure I won't have much to say about this issue because it's the final issue. It's not like I'll need to remember what was happening next month!

I don't think the order of the heads has any real significance. It would make more sense if the old jerk said, "And he made himself Washington!" But then I don't know that the sidekick response would be appropriate since Jefferson wasn't, technically, Washington's sidekick.

Bat-mite also turned the Washington Monument into an Aquaman themed water slide, the Statue of Liberty into Wonder Woman, and building a Green Lantern roller coaster in the Grand Canyon. I can't say I disagree with any of that. But--big surprise!--the old government guy doesn't like any of it. He also seems to think the Statue of Liberty is an American woman! He really is a spot-on caricature of government officials! Ha ha! He's an idiot!

Bat-mite also decided to give make-overs to some of the candidates running for president.

Pretty fuckin' sure Bernie already has the youth vote, Bat-mite. And Corin Howell didn't quite catch the awful What-The-Fuck going on with Trump's hair.

I'm sorry! Bernie has the youth vote for youths who actually think and act like youths instead of being little cloned young Republicans. Come on! Those kids aren't natural! They're just desperate for their parents' approval! Although I suppose they could also be a severe type of rebellion from hippie parents like Alex P. Keaton on Family Ties. Whatever the case, they're monstrosities! There will be many years to be grim, wear suits, and natter on and on about taxes! Go have fun! Get in trouble!

Although, let's face it. It's not like they're any less annoying than the Free Speech is a Tool of the Privileged and Causes Literal Harm cenobites who want to watch the world burn one Twitter account at a time!

Bat-mite's next project is President Obama. Although he only has seventeen pages to convince Obama that no matter how many additional people now have health care due to Obamacare, it's still a law that forces people to patronize evil corporations. At least with laws that demand car insurance, I can choose not to own a car and thus avoid patronizing car insurance companies. But I can't stop living! I mean, I can! But I don't want to! It's unethical to tell me I have to give money to corporations whose business is entirely shady and who have fucked up the entire healthcare system through their greed. I am not against universal healthcare! I'm all for universal healthcare! But it should be provided by the government through taxes. We all know you have the money, Mister President! It's just you've decided to use that money for killing and subjugating brown people. I guess that's fair.

While in DC, Bat-mite discovers that a senator named Hardgrave is actually Gridlock! So I guess they're going to be fighting again.

Or watching Galaxy Trek together.

Bat-mite sends Gridlock into the television show where he's happy because nothing ever changes! The end! Except for the other end where Bat-mite is forced to return to his own dimension. Instead of clapping and jumping for joy and jerking themselves off from pure bliss when they hear Bat-mite is leaving, Reagan and Weed weep like babies. Probably like girl babies. Unless girl babies are tougher than boy babies. I have to wonder. Has any scientist ever run an experiment where they had babies of various genders battle it out to find out which ones were the toughest?

Anyway, Bat-mite rejoins the Justice Mites of the Whatever Dimension so they can battle Canceltron. I hope he tears them apart, stupid cherubic-faced Mites.

Bat-mite #6 Rating: No change. Yay! I'm glad this series is over! Not because it was terrible (it wasn't. Not really. It had some interesting ideas and I liked it's defense of change in comic books). And not because I apparently can't stand Bat-mite (at least Bat-mite written by Dan Jurgens). But because it's one less comic book to read! And one less comic book to read is one less comic book to read!

Bat-mite #5

Are they going to battle Generic Spider Person?

Can I pretend that I'm not reading a comic book where Bat-mite makes over the Inferior Five and instead goes on a blind date with Infectious Lass? I suppose it's more important that the Inferior Five get a make over because one of their characters is a dumb blonde woman named Dumb Bunny. That's totally hilarious if you've gotten into a time machine and went back in time to like three years ago and said, "Dumb Bunny is a blonde woman!" Then everybody laughs and laughs because they get the joke about how women are dumb. But since then, through liberal applications of science, faith, and television sitcoms, we've learned that occasionally men can be as dumb as women! So why isn't Dumb Bunny a man, hunh?!

I have a friend named Doom Bunny whom I call Dumb Bunny all of the time! He's not blonde or a woman or a bunny but it's still funny to call him Dumb Bunny. He sputters and acts indignant! As if he could even spell indignant! Then he pouts and goes back to reading The Cave of Time by Edward Packard. He swears he's going to get a good ending some day so he can move on to Journey Under the Sea by R.A. Montgomery.

Um, anyway! Back to the Dumb Bunny being a woman controversy that I'm making up right now. I'm happy the internet came around to explain to everybody how women and men are equal. It's hard to believe I spent my entire life thinking otherwise. Thank you, young people on the internet, for Youthsplaining things to me so that I could stop being a totally ignorant old person. Now I'm just a mostly ignorant old person. Finding out that women are as capable as men makes me wonder what else I believe which young people have yet to shrilly tell me is wrong? Can you imagine if the next thing they came up with was that the sun doesn't revolve around the Earth or that Mexicans aren't hardworking and family oriented?

Discounting my ego, my intense delusional paranoia, and my inherent bias that I'm the greatest comic book critic on the internet, that chalkboard is totally a secret message to me.

Bat-mite is fueling up because he plans to help the Inferior Five battle Gridlock's henchmen, the Grave Robbers! Each member of the Inferior Five are introduced on Page Two with the exact same wording as when they were introduced on the cover of Showcase #62 when they made their debut. Well, almost exactly.

Like, duh! Controversy averted!

I guess the joke is that she's a bunny and she's tough! Like how Doom Bunny is a bunny that brings doom. Totally ridiculous, right?! Ha ha! It's so unimaginable! A tough bunny! Who may or may not also be stupid. But that part of her character isn't tied to the fact that she's a woman or that she's blonde! Some people just aren't smart! And occasionally it's going to be a woman who isn't smart! Not often though because nobody wants to be Youthsplained to about punching in the right direction. I make sure when I punch women, I only punch women who are definitely taller than myself and are not wearing heels.

Bat-mite first has to finish his Sugaraccino before saving the day. Weed says, "I can't tie my shoes without my morning cup o' joe." Excuse me? A Sugaraccino is in no way coffee. It is sugar and more sugar with hints of some kind of coffee beverage hidden within the mix. Let's not pretend that people who drink Sugaraccinos are coffee fanatics. They are sugar fanatics, plain and simple. Coffee comes in a tiny cardboard or Styrofoam cup and is the color of that crayon that has "black" written on the label. It is bitter and too hot to drink. It does not have foam on it. It does not have sugar in it. It does not have anything that came out of a cow in it. If you're still confused as to what coffee actually is, visit a local church on any night that isn't Sunday or a holiday mass. If you see a bunch of people outside smoking cigarettes, go inside and drink some of the coffee they'll have for free on a table at the back of the room where some guy is talking about the time he drove backwards down the freeway while masturbating into a Jack in the Box bag and how in the morning, he couldn't remember if he'd eaten his food before or after the incident.

Ha ha! She's so du...I mean tough!

The Inferior Five continue to accidentally win the battle. They're incompetent but in a way that's so totally random and not sexist that the Grave Robbers can't figure out how to stop them. The Grave Robbers just stand around making comments about how much the Inferior Five suck while the Inferior Five slowly take them out.

Gridlock sends a humongous toy robot to help his henchmen escape. It also makes off with a priceless artifact that was probably valuable in 1986 and now it only appears on VH-1 rehab shows.

"The TV and Film Museum" is another way to say "VH-1."

Bat-mite decides to help after Tough Bunny acts really fucking tough. I mean dumb. And how is Bat-mite going to help? By transforming them into The Superior Six! I guess turning a bunch of parody heroes into real heroes is some kind of meta-parody? Or something?

Gridlock is going to be super pissed about this because he hates change!

Gridlock is so happy to be able to experience the Galaxy Trek pilot that he's forgiven Booster Gold for stealing all of his things. I wouldn't be so quick to forgive him. At the very least, I'd file a police report on Booster Gold. Just because you're a super hero it doesn't mean you have the right to take a super villain's possessions. He's just a vigilante acting outside of the law which means now Booster Gold is a vigilante and a thief. I bet he loses a bunch of endorsements.

Yeah Bat-mite! That's totally your fault! Like when somebody ruins their own life by stepping on somebody's toe and not apologizing so the toe-stepped-on person ruins the toe-stepper's life. Totally on the toe-stepper.

The Superior Six are huge dicks who love violence now, so Dumb Tough Bunny pleads with Bat-mite to return them to normal after Gridlock escapes with the pilot. Bat-mite realizes that parodies of old timey superheroes are more interesting than parodies of nineties grim and gritty heroes since they really just became parodies of themselves after about six months. And so the issue ends with Bat-mite realizing he only has one issue left to stop Gridlock. But will he have enough time?! The Shadowy Overlords of his home dimension have decided that he needs to be extracted from Earth before he makes over everybody!

Batmite #5 Rating: No change. Out before somebody Youthsplains to me how dumb is an ableist word!

Bat-mite #4

Booster Gold always freaks me out because his suit is painted on but he never has any genitals.

The last thing I dreamt before waking up was Tracy Morgan saying, "Rosario Dawson? That bitch needs to be hung up by the eyeballs." I have no idea what Dream Tracy has against Dream Rosario. I think she leaves windows open in houses which isn't the best idea in certain neighborhoods. Like the neighborhoods where it snows a lot.

The issue begins with Weed and Reagan walking into their apartment to stand aghast at what Bat-mite has done to it.

It's hilarious because it makes no sense how it got this bad! He was just making a sandwich!

Weed and Reagan deserve to have their house burn down. Who invites a stranger into their house and expects it to go well? Unless you invited the stranger to stay because you plan on turning that stranger into sausage later that night, things probably aren't going to go smoothly. You see, when you own a thing, you're careful with it because you know how much it cost you and how much you love it and how much you don't want it to become damaged. But a stranger just sees everything you own as disposable goods. It's why having children is a bad idea. Children are just strangers you're stuck with for eighteen or more years. Unless you get lucky and they run away or get kidnapped or fall out of a really tall tree.

I hope nobody who has lost children reads my commentaries because they might be offended by how I'm about to lecture them. How could you lose a child?! I get losing keys or a wallet or one sock. But a whole child?! How irresponsible and imperceptive do you have to be to lose a child? Just the amount of noise they create should make it easy to find them. Did you check between the couch cushions?

I lost a child once while "helping" at a wedding. It was unavoidable because I was watching The Little Mermaid while also watching an open door to keep the kids from walking out of the building. But The Little Mermaid was far more interesting than the kid who went under my outstretched legs and made a break for it. That kid shouldn't have been so boring. Maybe I would have noticed him! Luckily some woman who wasn't mesmerized by The Little Mermaid for some reason noticed and kept the kid from escaping forever. Unluckily, I had to slink out of the room and go bus tables while avoiding eye contact with anybody who might have been the child's parents or heard the story from that awful woman who didn't like The Little Mermaid. She may have saved the day but at what cost?! Who doesn't like The Little Mermaid?!

Booster Gold drops by because he needs to make a Scooby Doo joke and he also needs Bat-mite's help and maybe some genitals. Either set. I don't know why the absence of cameltoe or mooseknuckle in a skin tight outfit disturbs me so much but it fucking does, okay?! Nobody should be that smooth down there when I can see a perfect outline of their abs and ribs and all the muscles I never bothered to learn the names of because I don't think I have most of them.

Bat-mite teleports Booster out of the apartment to battle him. But he soon realizes Booster Gold is a good guy who actually needs his help. Booster is looking for Gridlock. He's the guy that's basically Dan Jurgens in comic book form. He doesn't want the world to change and laments the day the calendar switched from 1989 to 1990. He realizes that 1990 was still technically part of the "eighties" but preferred to think of the eighties as 1980-1989 the way that everybody does. Can't we all just agree to accept that the first decade of our current calendar was only nine years long? That way the years in every decade after go from "0 to 9" instead of "1 to 0." It would just make me feel better.

This "Booster/Buster" joke is acceptable because new people are being created every day and some of them have yet to read it.

I'm fairly certain Booster Gold is the only guy in comicsdom that ever gets called "Buster."

Booster Gold needs to stop Dan "Gridlock" Jurgens before he can stop time's forward momentum and wind it back to the eighties where people will be able to understand all of his dated references. Because they won't be dated anymore! They'll be timely!

Before Bat-mite helps Booster find Gridlock, he has to rehash all of the old jokes about Booster Gold's name from Dan Jurgens' initial Booster Gold run. Bat-mite also gives Booster Gold a makeover so he looks grimmer and is more death friendly. Dan Jurgens is still dealing with the changes made to comic books in the nineties. Just wait until he hears about this whole New 52 thing!

Do I smell a Beverly Hillbillies joke on the horizon?

After the makeover, Bat-mite finally takes Booster Gold to Gridlock's lair so that Booster Gold can save time. Or whatever he does. Maybe he's just doing this to earn some lucrative endorsement deal.

The big fight takes place but Gridlock gets away because this isn't Issue #6. But Booster Gold steals all of Gridlock's things. That seems like a dick move. It's not like Gridlock stole this shit. He was even keeping it well-preserved. Who's the real villain here?

After the battle, Booster Gold leaves because I guess he saved time by stealing all of Gridlock's toys and comic books. But before he leaves, he gives Bat-mite a copy of Reagan's photo album which Bat-mite torched a few hours earlier while making a sandwich. And Bat-mite gives it back to Reagan who appreciates it so much that she forgives Bat-mite for destroying it and tells him he can live with her and Weed forever. That seems a bit much. I can understand feeling gratitude but he was the one who destroyed it in the first place. And he's shown he has no respect for Weed and Reagan's things. I would probably kick him out and never speak to him again. But nicely and in a way that didn't cause him to think he needed to make it up to me.

Bat-mite #4 Rating: No change. This comic book is Dan Jurgens message to comic book fans, publishers, artists, and writers that they need to embrace change in the medium. It seems a bit ironic that Dan Jurgens is the person working this theme in his comic book since he still writes everything as if it were taking place in 1986. But I don't blame him for dropping references that can only be understood by old farts like me. All we have at our disposal is the shit that's permeated our skull and seeped into our brain over the time we've been extant. Jurgens may even be poking fun at himself because he's really a dinosaur in the comic field today. But at least he understands that comic books shouldn't be the same as they were in the nineties, or eighties, or whatever decade came before that. This entire story has been about change and makeovers (even if those makeovers themselves were distinctly out-of-date). At one point this issue, Booster Gold says to Gridlock, "You don't get to force your culture down the throats of the young." It's a silly comic with a lot of jokes that rely on knowledge of television shows from the eighties and earlier but I can get behind the message. Those people who complain about changes in comic books and characters? Just remember that those changes aren't for you and you won't be able to stop them from happening by ranting and raving. But you can write funny jokes about them and point out when they're fucking ridiculous! Like how Wally West was made into a troubled black youth from a broken home! Hilariously stereotypical misstep, DC Comics!

Bat-mite #3

Obviously Bat-mite will be murdered before this issue is through.

Bat-mite is currently living with a Shaggy look-a-like named Weed and a derpy woman named Reagan. They work for some place called The Agency. I think they invited Bat-mite to live with them so they can have a wacky three-way. If that's not why they proffered the invite, I don't know what they want. Nobody is that friendly without wanting a little kink out of it. At least, I'm not.

For an E is for Everybody book, there's an awful lot of booze guzzling and bare ass! I guess if nobody is drinking or doing drugs to excess and the ass isn't portrayed in a sexual manner, it's okay. Plus it's Bat-mite's ass and he's kind of like a cherub, right? And children are allowed to see as much cherub ass as they can stomach.

Reagan's supervisor tells her that she has to allow Bat-mite to live with her as long as she wants. He doesn't say it exactly like that. He just kind of orders her to find out everything she can about him. That shouldn't be too hard since he's been living there for just one night and she's already seen his penis.

Now we're getting to the part of the story that isn't just rehashed jokes from old eighties sitcoms about roommates.

Bat-mite helps out Damian by using a rehashed jokes from an old sixties sitcom about Bat-roommates. Damian doesn't seem to like Bat-mite and threatens to cut his head off. That threat isn't out of place in an E is for Everybody comic book because Damian's contract with DC Comics allows him to commit one decapitation per comic book no matter what the rating is.

Gridlock arrives just in time to forestall a battle between Damian and Bat-mite. He also reveals his plan which he previously revealed only to the readers which they've probably forgotten if they don't keep detailed notes about the comic books they read like I do.

So Dan Jurgens is basically basing Gridlock on himself?

Gridlock moans about blogs and tweets and likes and instagrams and vines and periscopes and redtubes and youtubes and bluetubes and video games because he's an old fuddy-duddy robototron stuck in the eighties! He plans on forcing the youth into watching old eighties television dramas and liking them! I hope he makes them watch Little House on the Prairie because I can't flip past a station if I find that playing. I'll probably never buy the set on DVD because then I'd do nothing but watch Laura Ingalls be a raving bitch over and over and over again. She's my fucking hero.

Bat-mite says, "It's time to pull the goalie," and Gridlock is all, "Dur? What does that mean? I am into stupid sports that are not hockey!" He doesn't realize that the only sport worth going to see live is hockey. The only sport worth watching on television (and I use "sport" in its loosest sense) is golf because everybody talks really softly (except the one or two idiots who are still fucking yelling, "Get in your hole!") and it's super calming and helps facilitate falling asleep for a nice nap on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon.

Gridlock paralyzes Bat-mite and drops him in the water where he drowns yet again. But Damian keeps him from being eaten by sharks because Damian is a hero and can't even let an annoying imp die. Although he did die so whatever. Mini-series over!

Oh yeah! I forgot about mouth-to-mouth! I probably should never have been allowed to be a lifeguard.

Bat-mite blows a horn that sounds like a fart and then leaves Damian because Damian has no sense of humor. After Bat-mite leaves, Damian cracks up at the fart horn which proves Damian has no sense of humor.

The issue ends with Skeets informing Booster Gold that they are going to need Bat-mite's help to stop Gridlock.

Hopefully in the next issue we'll find out what the fuck is happening in Booster Gold's pants.

Bat-mite #3 Rating: No change. I hate when people say, "It is what it is," or "Everything happens for a reason." I especially hate when people say them both. Fuck you, Clay from Big Brother. What an idiot. Although your mother fosters raccoons so she's cool.

Bat-mite #2

If Bat-mite can fly, why does he insist on floating at cock level?

What is the selling point of this comic book (besides the homoerotic possibility that this story might be entitled "Bat-Mite Might Suck Hawk Cock"?)? Nobody wants to read a comic book with Hawkman in it! And anybody who has played Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham doesn't want to read a comic book about this jerk who is constantly putting Help Tokens in the middle of everything which I accidentally hit over and over and over again and then have to scroll through his useless "help" suggestions. It's like following Neil Gaiman on Tumblr and having to wade through post after post of people asking him how to write! I just want to get to the good stuff like punching bad guys into Lego coins or pictures of Neil in sunglasses and a black leather coat and black pants with that look on his face that says, "Stop asking me how to write, you people who suck at writing!" I'm not one of those people because I never ask him how to write. Um, also I'm terrific at writing!

One of the things Neil Gaiman always tells fresh new writers is to "finish something." My advice is to not finish anything. My advice is to abandon all attempts at writing anything forever and just go scroll through Craigslist job ads because money is better than constantly annoying your friends with half-finished manuscripts that don't have nearly enough sex scenes in them. You might also scroll through the Craigslist ads for sexual encounters because then you might gain enough life experience to make your scripts more interesting for your friends. Although they'll still probably meet up at the coffee house without you and read your stories out loud to each other as they mercilessly rip your writing to pieces and then still pretend to be your friends to your face.

I don't let my friends and family read anything I write anymore because my writing is often filled with sentences like "I hate my friends so much that they've gone right past being enemies and into being friends again!" and "I should probably call my mother for Mother's Day but PEE-YUKE!" and "My father was a disappointing father and lousy friend and my life probably would have turned out better if he'd drunk himself into an early grave!" Hmm. Now that I think about it, I don't let my friends and family read anything I write anymore because they all stopped talking to me.

So this comic book begins by almost venturing out of the E is for Everyone Rating Territory!

Judging by Victor's choice of assistants and the gender of his reanimated sex doll, I think I know why he was a clumsy lover!

Bat-mite rescues Hawkman from becoming the next body for Doctor Trauma's brain although how much could it have hurt to put a new personality inside of Hawkman's body? The old one hasn't really been working out too well over the last few years. Bat-mite feels the same way but he thinks the brain exchange is a bit much. He's going to make over Hawkman for the 21st Century! Although I don't know how he's going to do that when a robot stuck in the 1980s is writing this comic book. The makeover will probably come down to magic, nanobots, an oversized pink blazer with no shirt, or a boxing match against Ivan Drago.

Bat-mite comes up with an idea for a new Hawkman that might not work but at least it proves that Dan Jurgens is finally entering the nineties!

Weapon as arm? Check. Long hair? Check. Bad-ass tattoos? Check. Pouches? Opposite of check. He's his own Father From the Future come back to kill himself to save the past and/or future? Probably check.

Bat-mite gets gassed again and tossed into the ocean. Dr. Trauma is upset that Bat-mite's skills rival her own although I have to assume that Dr. Trauma's assistants' skills rival her own as well or else how are they going to transfer Hawkman's brain into her body for her? I think she's going to have to kill her henchmen after the surgery is complete.

Uh-oh. I think Dan is venting! "It's tough being 'male', 'old', 'stale', and, um, 'old'!"

As Nurse Agnes pulls the switch to transfer Dr. Trauma's mind into Hawkman's body, I begin to feel a sense of dread. How is Dan Jurgens going to write the rest of this comic book sensitively enough to not be called transphobic?! He's a male robototron from the 1980s! The only thing he knows about transgender issues he probably learned from an episode of Donahue and that conversation was probably dominated by transvestites and drag queens!

Bat-mite doesn't die underwater at all because he can teleport. He heads back to save Hawkman but it's too late! The brains have been transferred! It's time for an epic battle of fisticuffs but with weapons and magic.

The Golden Girls is a thirty year old reference but to a robototron from the 1980s, it seems like a timely pop culture reference.

Bat-mite gasses Hawkman and has Nurse Agnes reverse the brain switch without pulling an Airboy #2 gaff of any kind. I'm impressed! Maybe the Robototron Dan Jurgens isn't as backwards as I thought!

After the rescue, Bat-mite befriends some youths named Reagan and Weed. I bet those are just nicknames! Weed because he smokes pot and Reagan because she's into trickle-down theory, if you get my meaning! Wink wink!

I hope putting "wink, wink" after something I don't understand makes it sound sexual!

Reagan works for some place called "The Agency" or something. It's all very secretive! Unless it only seems secretive because Bat-mite just met Reagan and Weed. They might actually be really open about it and they'll tell Bat-mite all about it over breakfast in the morning. What is a secret is that they're being watched by some guy named Gridlock!

For some mysterious reason that I can't put my finger on, Gridlock is against any social changes that happened after 1989!

Bat-mite #2 Rating: No change. I know this comic book is rated E for Everyone but I don't think that's true at all! It's actually for mature readers. And I don't mean mature as in a person who remembers not to laugh at dick jokes and farts. I mean mature as in people older than forty. Although I am thoroughly entertained by Dan Jurgens using this comic book as a means to vent his feelings that he's being put out to pasture while all these young hipster kids swoop in to take his job because they can actually relate to the younger market. You go get 'em, Dan! Robototron Attack!

Bat-mite #1

Prank the Legion of Substitute-heroes! Prank them right in their stupid faces!

Here's what I wrote about the Sneak Peek:

In the Sneak Peek, Batman meets Bat-Mite for the first time. And he doesn't like him. I'm not sure I like him either. I don't think Dan Jurgens has the comedy chops to pull this off. I could see this working if Dan turns Bat-Mite into the Don Rickles of the DC Universe (you kids can look him up on Wikilearnstuff). Bat-Mite is off to bug other heroes besides Batman and it seems like, with his meta-analysis of Batman, he'll have the ability to comment on the fandom's issues with each of the heroes. If Dan Jurgens can be critical enough and a bit mean-spirited when it comes to critiquing what other writers and artists are doing wrong, Bat-Mite could be a wonderful comic book! But I know that would go against the spirit of feigned camaraderie at DC Comics! It's probably against the unspoken rules to mention how horrible Ann Nocenti is at writing Catwoman. Although remember when Jeff Lemire, Scott Snyder, Yanick Paquette, and Steve Pugh were doing Rotworld? Remember how they turned all the comic book heroes that were currently being written terribly into all the decaying, disgusting Rotworld "heroes"? That was some divinely subtle commentary, that. And maybe a little playful poking. It's hard to say.

Forget Bat-mite being a mean-spirited critic of writers and artists working at DC Comics because this comic book is rated E for Everyone. That means he can't describe Scott Lobdell's writing style as "kidney stones for the masses" and he won't describe Marat Mychaels artwork as "images miscarried stillborn from Marat's mind." Those are more like Teen Plus descriptions! But I guess DC has decided that if you're a silly, wacky character that is probably more out of continuity than in, you should be rated E for Everyone. Other rules at DC Comics for ratings? If you're female or gay or bisexual and have a healthy sexual appetite for sex and sexing, you get a Teen Plus. I guess overly violent comic books whose sole purpose is to display as much on-panel killing as possible have been rated as Teen Plus as well. The only one I can't figure out is Martian Manhunter! Is an addiction to Oreo the stuff of adulthood? Wait! I know the answer to that since I have that addiction! Yes! It is the stuff of adulthood because adults have the means to buy as many Oreos as they want and often rub the open-faced cookies on their genitals before eating the entire bag.

I wonder if I should begin adjusting my reviews to the rating of the comic book I'm reading? I don't want a younger everyone reading about that time I bottomed out on Oreos. At least it's good enough of an excuse for why I'm not telling that story! I don't want the younger kids to begin asking questions like "What is Cookies and Cream Felching?" or "I wonder how many cookies I can fit into my butt?"

The issue begins by showing the reader Bat-mite's balls. E for Everyone is way different than I imagined it!

Two ball and chains?! Bat-mite must have read a Scroll of Amnesia before reading that second Scroll of Punishment.

I don't know what DC Comics considers the age range for E for Everybody but since it includes, right there in the rating, you know, everybody, I'm going to assume the range is from just out of the vagina to just stepping into the grave. Which is probably why it begins with Bat-mite being sentenced in a court of law because everybody should learn about the justice system and how it works to keep us all safe and how it isn't corrupt in the slightest.

Speaking of Bat-mite's balls!

Bat-mite is exiled from his world. The first start of Banishment Tour 2015? Gotham City, of course!

Currently in Gotham, Bat-mite has stolen the Batmobile and is out chasing criminals around in it. As he's doing so, he mentions pogo sticks and then says, "Not that anyone knows what a pogo stick is...." I wish kids today didn't know what a pogo stick was! The fucking neighbor kids spend hours jumping on the squeaky pieces of shit every time we see a sunny day up here in Portland! I just wish pogo sticks were more dangerous! Little bastards! Maybe I should introduce them to stilts?

The criminals being chased by Bat-mite think they killed Batman until Batman shows up in the middle of the road in front of their speeding car.

Batman is not responsible for their deaths if they chose not to wear seatbelts.

Bat-mite appears next to Batman and begins offering him all kinds of Bat-Advice. Most of it amounts to "Pack bigger weapons on your Batmobile!" I'm pretty sure Batman already has guns and other deadly weapons on his Batmobile. Bat-mite just couldn't find the right buttons to push. For some reason, Batman is completely against handguns. But he seems to be okay with outfitting vehicles with missiles and guns and other deadly weapons. He probably has a strict policy to only use them on giant robots and the occasional out of control Martian Manhunter.

The only thing Batman says to Bat-mite is "You." It's possible that Batman thinks he's hallucinating Bat-mite due to being bathed in Scarecrow toxins and Joker gasses for so many years. Also Alfred goes a bit heavy on the ruffies sometimes when he has to keep Batman in the mansion so his boners can mend.

Batman saves the woman in the trunk of the car who miraculously avoided injury when the car slammed into the tree at fifty miles per hour. He boards his Batplane and leaves Bat-mite to be gassed and kidnapped by a thuggish nurse. Her boss tells her to bring Bat-mite to him. Probably so he can castrate him and stick a doll mask on his face and turn him into one of those transphobic, uncanny valley, Dollotrons.

Actually, he's not kidnapped by Professor Pyg even though that's what I wanted to happen beside all evidence to the contrary. You know? Like how the bad guys kidnapping the woman still had their genitals and their regular faces? Anyway, the person that kidnapped Bat-mite?

Doctor Dream, German version! Close enough, anyway. Shut up.

I prefer the name Doctor Traumalama! Then I'd have Nurse Ding and Nurse Dong!

Doc Traum (if you'll allow me to use the diminutives) here was kidnapping the woman in the trunk of the car so she could put her brain inside the woman's body. I'm not sure how Doc Traum's body was going to do the surgery without the brain inside of it but I guess she has superb muscle memory. Or she really trusts her henchmen who must be just as skilled as she is at the surgeries and would therefore have no qualms murdering her during the surgery and taking over her business. I bet it's tough being the leader of a gang of lunatics.

Doc Traum's nurse throws Bat-mite in the dungeon where he stumbles upon Hawkman waiting to be processed. I bet somebody would pay a lot for an Nth Metal Infused body! Although, thanks to the Nth Metal, wouldn't Hawkman's body regrow his brain if it were taken out? Can Nth Metal do that? It seems to be able to do everything else!

Bat-mite, realizing that Batman has been in good hands the last three years, decides Hawkman probably needs his help more. After all, Hawkman has had to deal with writers like Tony S. Daniel and Rob Liefeld. Bat-mite being in charge of him couldn't make things any worse. But Bat-mite learns that Hawkman's brain is shutting down! That means his body will be in total control next issue and Hawkman's body is a violent bugger! I think a big fight is coming up next issue!

Bat-mite #1 Rating: 7 Out-Dated References out of 10. Shall we go over some of Dan Jurgens out-dated references? Yes? Okay! "Great Caeser's Ghost!" Although Dan does point out that the reference is probably lost on the current audience. But this is an E for Everybody comic book, so some of the readers will get it! "Trickle down economics!" "Helloooooo Nurse!" "Nurse Ratched!" Probably some others. I mean, they're not technically out-dated references. But I'm being overly judgmental of Dan Jurgens because he's a robot from the 1980s that somehow can't absorb references too far out of that decade. Hopefully he's getting some upgrades down at the new DCyou! Maybe somebody should consider wiping his hard drive and installing some modern software in him.