Batman Eternal #9

Yay! My two favorite characters: Batman of Japan and Swallow! Or whatever his sidekick's name is. Does she count as a favorite character if I can't remember her name?

I wrote a thing about twenty years ago. It was a retelling of the movie Heathers in a kind of epic storytelling format. It was meant to be spoken aloud and told to a group, perhaps over a campfire or a fresh kill. I wanted to show how important the story had been to me, to try to convey how it spoke to me, and to generally celebrate movies as our modern myths. Too often popular entertainment is lambasted by adults and pseudo-intellectuals. I wanted to show how much could be gotten from a movie when a movie burrowed under your skin. I wrote the entire thing at work on a yellow legal pad and avoided watching the movie again to get any lines right or to discover other scenes that might fit with the story I told. I wanted it to come from that place it had set up shop deep in my psyche; I wanted to write about the Heathers that was real and true to me. If you're curious about it, you can Google search "heathers pop epic." I was also reading a lot of Douglas Coupland at the time which might shine through a bit.

For a long time after writing that, I kept toying with the idea of doing a version for another movie that imprinted itself on my brain, The Breakfast Club. One of the things that first bothered me upon seeing the movie was how everybody pairs up except for The Brain who is then convinced to write the essay for them. For a long time, it was just a joke I'd bring up about the movie and how much bullshit that was. But inside, I kept asking myself, "Why?" And eventually I realized the movie was all about power and shifts of power. One of the more brilliant scenes in the movie is when the lowly janitor reveals his true power of being unseen, thus becoming the eyes and ears of the school. The give and take of power between the kids and the institution, between the kids and their parents, and ultimately between the kids themselves drive the movie. It's a fairly obvious observation but one that still didn't allow me to have the breakthrough for why The Brain winds up taking on the extra work. But when it clicked, I finally I had the structure to do a Pop Epic for The Breakfast Club. At the end of the movie, the person with the greatest power is the one that tells the story. It is the writer. It is, ultimately, John Hughes. That Pop Epic can be seen here in Web Comic Format. I sometimes think of doing a text only version of it but I just can't think of the essay being separated from Lord Fondlerot as the principal. I think I photoshopped the two months of detention hand signal pretty fucking well!

I bring these things up because I've been considering writing my third Pop Epic which would be based on Mulan. While it's easy to say upon the release of each new Disney cartoon "Now that was my favorite Disney cartoon!", Mulan has remained my favorite unlike the others. Prior to Mulan, I think Beauty and the Beast held the top spot. My friend Daniel Justice wasn't a huge fan of Mulan because it didn't have a great villain like Skeletor or Blanche Devereaux. But that's what I loved about it. The enemy was not Agent Albert Rosenberg but the culture and Mulan's belief in filling the proper roles within that culture. This was another movie which left me asking "Why?" after seeing it. This time, it was why did Mulan have to defeat the Huns twice? And in the answer to that question lies the theme of my third Pop Epic.

But until I get around to writing that, I think I'll write about Batman of Japan and Sparrow! But first let's catch up on the situation in Gotham City! But first first, let me just say it didn't take me fifteen fucking years to answer that Mulan question, okay, you smart asses? I just recently decided that Mulan could work as another Pop Epic. Jesus Christ, you have to over-explain everything on the internet or some know-it-all asshole is going to try to point out how fucking stupid and ignorant you are! Okay, now let's check in on Gotham!

Hey! That's what I said Batman should start doing! Taking the fucking cash for himself!

Turns out it was Catwoman doing the stealing and not Batman because Catwoman is much smarter than Batman. She knows how to truly hurt the Evil Mr. Smartypantses. They don't offer healthcare, so putting their thugs in the hospital isn't much of a hindrance. There are always more amoral assholes ready to make an illegal buck to take the place of anybody injured. But if you take the cash, that's hurting the Evil Mr. Smartypantses right in the pants! The pocketbook part of the pants and not the crotch part of the pants!

Last issue I thought Catwoman was in Hong Kong when Batman arrived. But now it seems like it must have been Batman of Japan that I mistook for Catwoman. I'm not sure how I managed to do that. I guess you know how some people say they don't see color? I don't see gender! Or, to be more accurate before some smart-off internet asshole gets on my case, I don't see secondary sexual characteristics! Not pubic hair! I mean breasts! Anyway, if I was trying to identify somebody by their pubic hair, I would have recognized Batman of Japan instantly because his pubic hair would have been pixelated! Maybe! The internet big mouths can have that one for free! Come at me with your facts!

Oh look! I guess I do notice breasts! British breasts! Is that Felicity Kendal?

Batman and Batman of Japan head to Wayne Industries Hong Kong Headquarters where the roof is set aside for Batman Incorporated discussions. Canary (Canary! That was it!) is waiting for them along with Alfred of Japan, Master Hong. The Penthouse is a Hong Kong Batcave with a giant Koku and a huge Godzilla statue. I don't see its version of The Joker's playing card though. I guess Hong Kong doesn't have a version of The Joker. I'm glad it doesn't because it would probably be truly terrifying.

Canary seems to be able to grow large. I thought she was stuck as a tiny little thing which is why Batman of Japan was so desperate to get his hands on a shrink ray? Maybe I just forgot some plot point where she learned how to grow again. My mind isn't what it used to be and it used to be not very good at remembering things. That doesn't imply I'm better at remembering things! It implies that my brain is even worse now! Try to keep up! If you didn't understand that, realize that you can't even follow what an addle-minded middle-aged moron writes! Hmm, that's probably not a bad thing if you can't understand an addle-minded middle-aged moron! Sorry! You were right to misunderstand everything I go on and on about.

Batman and Batman of Japan decide to go ask the local gang boss, Shen Fang, what happened between he and Falcone. But as Batman infiltrates Shen Fang's hideout, he encounters the young British lass (or more probably the Hong Kong lass that learned British English) in the Catwomanesque outfit. And even though they're both after Shen Fang, she decides to battle Batman for dibs on who gets to kick Shen Fang's ass first. But that only gets her stabbed near the kidney.

If Batman asks if you're a certain person, you should probably answer, "What? Who? I'm not that!"

Batman begins asking Shen Fang questions punctuated by punching Shen Fang in the face. Shen Fang says, "I'll never talk!" And then one knee to the chin and two panels later, Shen Fang mutters, "Please. No more." Oh my god! How did this guy drive Falcone out of Hong Kong and take over the Criminal Underground Illegal Businesses Committee!?

Oh! That's how! Smart! I mean...pathetic!

Meanwhile in Gotham City, Catwoman falls for a trap set up by Falcone. You'd think she'd have some kind of Cat-sense that enables her to avoid traps like this one even if a cat can't resist a shiny bauble or two. She should have walked into the place she was about to burgle and thought, "Did I just hear somebody think about taking me to the vet? I'm fucking out of here!" And then she should have hid directly under the middle of the bed for the next five hours.

Even though this comic book is Eternal and Weekly, it's still allowed to end with an epilogue. And I'm glad it did because this one is a doozy!

Why Alfred! You cad!

I realize that just because her last name is Pennyworth it doesn't mean she has to be a child of Alfred's but isn't it great to believe that completely?! Sometimes you just have to kick cynicism in the balls and toss it out of the house for a bit so you can actually enjoy your own emotions and good feelings for awhile. I'm going to bask in the idea that Alfred is a dad for a bit now. I'll be back next week!

Batman Eternal #9 Rating: +2 Ranking. Even though Jiro wasn't front and center in this issue, I still love seeing him. He's my favorite character ever (as of this second. It'll change when I begin reading Batwing in a bit. No wait. I won't find any new favorite characters in Batwing. He'll still be my favorite until I read Aquaman and the Others. Oh wait. How about Green Arrow? Nope. Oh well. It looks like he'll be my favorite for at least a day or two!). Plus I actually felt tingly and alive when I read that "Julia Pennyworth" speech bubble. How can I get more of that kind of feeling out of life? Heroin maybe?

Batman Incorporated Special #1

Damian's dead and Batman is posing on the cover of a comic book with a leaping cow. Fucking disrespectful.

This issue had better end with Damian being resurrected or I'm going to go stand in Starbucks and shit my pants in front of everybody.

No wait! I'm not going to do that! Not again, anyway.

Oh, ha ha! The ease and majesty of "again" in the making of comedy! Thank you, Judd Winick of Real World: San Francisco for that comic advice. I wonder what ever became of you? Enh, I guess some things will always remain a mystery!

Batman begins the issue sitting down in the Batcave ignoring the smell of cow manure as he checks the Bat-computer's case files on members of Batman Incorporated. You know what they say! A control freak's work is never done. And it's certainly never done right if you leave it up to someone else! So it's time to check in on Jiru, the Batman of Japan! Jabatpanman!

Jiro is the best because his secret Batcave lies beneath his Hentai/Sex Toy shop in the Ginza.

What the kids are screaming about is a vending machine vended them a human hand instead of an ice cream cone. I don't know what they're complaining about. Human hands are worth way more than a stupid ice cream sandwich.

Wait. Are they going to investigate the organ harvester or have a ménage à trois?

Jiro and Canary's detectivating lead them to a Capsule Hotel where business men check in and check out weighing a few ounces lighter. For once, that wasn't a euphemism for masturbating! It was a euphemism for having an organ harvested!

Actually, the businessmen never check out at all. They're completely harvested and then the bodies are thrown in the bay. This place must have horrendous Yelp reviews.

I was actually hoping for a Batcow Monthly Series but I think Batman of Japan would kick some serious ass each month.

Seriously though. Batwing is boring the shit out of me and Batman of Japan is just languishing in some editor's desk drawer? At least change Batwing's title to Batman Incorporated and follow stories of the various Batmen around the world month to month. Or just start up a Batman of Japan comic book! The New 52 is currently something like five comics short!

The story ends with the capture of Doctor Inside-Out and about eighteen thousand puns. And poor Jiro still doesn't have a shrink ray!

The next case file stars Knight who used to be Squire but is now Knight because Knight was killed by Batthing!

Oh come on! Be funny!

Knight pouts about for a couple of pages because Batman Incorporated has disbanded and Knight is dead and little girls want autographs. But then Springheel Jack attacks and suddenly Knight is needed again! Because the only other heroes are a Mechanic and some guy that wears a Potato Sack on his head. Also Knight is letting everybody call her Squire so I guess she's still Squire even though Squire is a dumb name for a hero without a Knight.

Her ass is pretty fucking impressive though. If you ignore the extreme bifurcation.

Squire defeats Srpingheel Jack and comes to terms with her loss by taking on the name Knight (I was jumping the gun!) and fighting Dinosaur Droogs manning flying battleships. Seriously. Look for yourself!

I'm beginning to think every other member of Batman Incorporated would be more interesting than Batwing. Although he did recently fight a Lion God and Termite Men. Maybe I'm just being lured away by the newness of these characters! Sorry, Batwing, it looks like our relationship has simply lost its passion and run its course.

Hey DC? If the Wonder Woman movie is "too complicated" to make, how about making this one starring Knight and her battle with the Dinosaur Droogs?!

The next person Batman spies on is Raven Red and Man-of-Bats.

The Raven Red story is about Raven Red battling Coyote in the high girders of a half-finished building while remembering a moment speaking with an old man that seemed to be preparing to jump from the top of a casino. The old man worked building skyscrapers and his story makes me feel queasy and uneasy just thinking about the men that built those steel frames. I'm not afraid of heights but those films of men walking around the girders fifty stories or more in the sky just make my stomach fall out of my body. And the man's story and description is exceptionally well told in this short story.

Speaking of heights and not being afraid of them, a recurring dream I used to have just came to me (because of the feeling this story gave me? Possibly!). I grew up in the south bay of the San Francisco Bay Area and was familiar enough with the hills of San Francisco. When you're driving up a really steep hill, it feels like nothing is grounding you to the world and there's absolutely no reason that the car isn't flipping over backwards and sending you tumbling to your death. I used to have dreams about being a passenger in a car driving up these hills. We never flipped over in my dreams but these dreams may have been the most terrifying dreams I had as a child.

Anyway, what I was trying to say is it's a really nice and evocative story. It's the type of story that every back-up story should try to emulate. This what I absolutely crave in a short eight page back-up feature. Well done!

The next case file stars Nightrunner, El Gaucho, and Dark Ranger. I'm most familiar with El Gaucho because he had the most panel time in the Preboot Batman Incorporated.

These guys are hanging out in Buenos Aires dealing with a city gone mad from some kind of high frequency radio madness attack.

Worst radio station ever. And that's saying something!

While he may be the worst disc jockey I've ever seen (again, that's saying something!), he does have a way with words.

Aquaman would be a good nemesis for a villain that nobody has ever heard of!

They eventually save the day. Batwing would be glad to hear that I'm not exactly clamoring for a comic book starring these guys. Although that's mostly because I still really don't know much about them.

And finally we get to the star of he comic book: Batcow! I'm not going to say this story is worth the cover price because everybody who reads the comic book will then demand that I repay them for thinking this story was worth the cover price. But it does have some really nice Batcow images that I'll probably have to make at least one new Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea header out of.

Batman Incorporated Special #1 Rating: Just a taste of some stuff that DC had better realize needs to continue. Keep Batman Incorporated's Characters working!

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!