Gotham Academy: Endgame #1

This cover is so adorable that I'm having trouble expressing how adorable it is. I want to say it is come-in-my-pants adorable but even though that adequately describes the crazy high levels of adorable this is, it's also inappropriate, pervy, and possibly illegal.

I don't know why all of these comic books needed an Endgame tie-in except to maybe pad DC Comics' super fat wallet but if it means I get an extra issue of Maps Mizoguchi's Gotham Academy, I'm not going to complain too much.

I wonder how many Americans in colleges across the country wind up writing a term paper that compares Batman to Jesus Christ. It's probably so overdone. I would compare Jesus Christ to Jason Todd because Batman is God. Also the other stuff that totally fits like how Jesus was killed by The Joker and then came back to life by soaking in Lazarus's piss. I should go back to college now that I have the confidence to write the papers that I really want to write! I had one college professor tell me one time that he thought my papers were refreshing because I wasn't afraid to be funny in them. If he only knew how much I was holding back! I could have been come-in-his-pants funny!

I didn't mean I would come in his pants! Don't be gross!

This issue begins with the girls talking with each other but their voices are only in Narration Boxes. So Pom and Olive have to use each other's names to identify each other.

Maps identifies herself based on the subject matter.

All the students in Gotham Academy are camping out in the gymnasium. I could have just typed "gym" but I'm a go-getter! Pomeline, Olive, and Maps are sharing a tent and scary stories. Maps mentions an urban legend about somebody called The Custodian that stalks the campus of Gotham Academy battling monsters and unclogging toilets. I bet Maps clogs the fuck out of toilets. And not because she uses too much toilet paper! She just seems like a healthy shitter.

Pomeline takes the first scary story shift to tell the tale of The Night of The Joker! Or maybe something else. Perhaps The Noonday Joker Happenstance! Or The Morning The Joker Came For Coffee!

I get annoyed when people act overly enthusiastic about something simply to prove to everybody how they're like the biggest fan of the whatever. But there's no faking it in Maps! Her head is going to explode at the idea of hearing some scary stories. And then she might wind down with a Tunnels and Trolls solo adventure while Pom and Olive (PomOlive!) make out in their sleeping bag.

Pom's story is about a kid that fell ten cents short on the price of a Halloween mask he needed for his costume so he was forced to steal it! Why that no good business owner! I hope he pays for being the antagonist of this story! When Jimmy tried on the mask, he heard a voice say, "LOTS OF HAs!" and "You've stolen my heart, Jimmy!!" Which is odd because he'd actually stolen a mask of a face and not a heart. I wonder if it was The Joker's real face?! GASP!

And then Pom said, "And Jimmy is standing right behind you!" No wait. We're not to that shocking twist campfire ending yet.

Jimmy, frightened, decided to return the mask. But the store was empty and abandoned and full of cobwebs! Jimmy thought he would return the mask and then engage in a song with the stern yet understanding owner who was just happy that Jimmy had told the truth. Instead he found himself in a nightmare of Twilight Zonian proportions! He threw the mask away and ran home only to find the mask waiting for him in the closet! And then he buried it but he soon found it on top of his collection of fifteen dozen baseballs! So then he burned it! And the next day...he woke up with it as his own face!

BOO!

I can't wait to hear Maps's story!

Professor MacPherson hears the girls telling stories and pops in to see if any of them need some inappropriate teacher/student cuddling. Just for morale, of course! But they're all fine. And Maps even wants to hear more Joker stories. So MacPherson decides to tell her an old myth about a wandering jester from the highlands of North Scotland! And it's probably a real Joker story since The Joker is immortal! Remember? He's like Pennywise now!

Those who didn't act entertained were turned into props for his next act!

That was a pretty gruesome story for this comic book! And it totally freaks Pomeline out! But Maps is still running on scary story adrenaline and she needs another fix. So it's Olive's turn to tell a real Joker story because her mother has spent time in Arkham. If there's going to be a true Joker story tonight, it'll be this one! And you know how hard true Joker stories are to come by! I've been reading comic books for thirty years and I don't think I've read one yet!

It turns out it's not a story about how Sybil ran into The Joker during an Arkham riot at all. It's just a story from Sybil's childhood so it's probably as untrue as all the rest of them. But it doesn't even matter because The Joker isn't in it! It's just a story about a dumb kid that played Bloody Mary wrong and accidentally summoned the Candyman and then played with a Rubik's Cube that turned into the Hellraiser puzzle after he had a scary dream where Freddy Krueger chased him into Michael Myers' house where he got trapped in the attic by Jason Voorhees. Pshaw! Everybody's heard that story!

But Maps loves it anyway and declares it the best scary story ever! My favorite scary story is the one where Jesus keeps calling Peter up on the cross but the Roman guards keep kicking the ladder out from under him before he can hear what Jesus has to say. Man, that one is killer!

And as the girls tuck themselves into bed for the night, The Custodian keeps watch on the school keeping it safe from Joker-faced people! And The Custodian turns out to be...Headmaster Hammer!?! He's so much cooler than I thought!

Gotham Academy: Endgame #1 Rating: Did you all see how cute Maps was in this issue? What a doll! She's a breath of fresh breath! A wind in the willows! A cherry Pez after four lemon Pez! A Grandmaster of Flowers in a 2nd Edition game of Dungeons and Dragons! A real, living goat that actually turns the tables on that fucking Rachael Rosen! Maps! She deserves five songs and a bag of pineapple Lifesavers!

Arkham Manor: Endgame #1

Didn't Arkham already deal with Jokerface?

Hey remember in Detective Comics #15 when Clayface raped Poison Ivy and nobody fucking said "Boo!" about it? What a missed opportunity for outrage! It was even a Death in the Family tie-in! Maybe I just never saw any posts about it. It seems like something people would have been concerned about plus they would have felt righteously indignant at something DC Comics put out. Win-win!

Endgame is that story in Batman that has yet to come to a conclusion even though the first week of Convergence books shipped. I think Batman is late! I'm sure they planned it this way for some reason but I'd rather be reading Batman #40 by Scott Snyder than Arkham Manor: Endgame #1 by Frank Tieri. Frank Tieri?! Are you kidding? Didn't he take over on Deathstroke or Team 7 or something? Whatever he wrote so far in The New 52, I wasn't a fan! But then, I'm not a fan of much of anything if it doesn't involve a hand on my penis. Usually my hand but I'll take a raccoon paw with a near thumb if one is free and available.

The issue begins with Harvey Bullock interrogating some guy named Stone about something horrible that happened at Arkham Manor. Let me guess! There was a riot and a bunch of inmates escaped! Nailed it! Probably.

Oh, and this is an Endgame book so they were all Jokerized. Jokerised for my British friends.

I don't actually have any British friends. Although I do have two friends currently living in Britain! Hi Ron and Rob! Smoke a kipper for me or whatever they do over there that isn't too weird.

This is the beginning of the story! Why is Eric Border wearing an inmate's jumpsuit?

I think Stone is lying to Harvey to cover up something horrible Stone did. It's so obvious because that's what Harvey thinks too. And Harvey has a mug that says World's Greatest Detective on it.

Joker opens all the cells and throws a Joker smoke bomb that give great big grins to all of the escapees. Zsasz makes an appearance! And then Bane! And then Clayface! And then Poison Ivy! And then Mr. Freeze! It's an all star cast! All of those Arkhamites except Zsasz were unaffected by the Joker Gas and were looking to find an easy way out. So they recruited Stone to get them out of the Manor. Bane probably should have stayed inside Arkham because he's going to get his ass beat by Killer Croc on the outside. Oh wait. That's Batman Eternal not Endgame. I really need a timeline for this shit!

Also, what is Bane doing in Arkham? Isn't he more of a Blackgate kind of guy?

They try to fight their way to the exit but it's no use because STONE IS FUCKING LYING HIS ASS OFF! I just know it! Bane in Arkham? Ridiculous! When did Arkham start providing rehab?

Where is Jack Shaw when you need him?

The Joker was actually Jeremiah Arkham in a Joker wig. Stone knocks him out cold and all the Jokerized victims stop acting like crazed Jokerized victims. Were they all pretending just to get in good with The Joker? I think this Arkham riot was just a serious case of peer pressure. Bullock and the Gotham SWAT Team show up to get things under control. Which isn't something that would have happened if everybody was truly Jokerized. So I think my peer pressure theory stands.

During the ordeal, Bane and Poison Ivy and Clayface and Mr. Freeze escape. And that's why Harvey's grilling Stone because he thinks Stone helped set them free for some payola. But Harvey figures he can't prove anything and lets him go. But Jeremiah Arkham gets fitted for a straight jacket and shoved into a cell. Who's going to run this place now?

Arkham Manor: Endgame #1 Rating: I don't really rate these one-shots or the annuals or any of these extraneous titles. I like that it starred Harvey Bullock. He should always be the investigator when Arkham Manor returns for more stories. And let him prove to be a great detective at times! But also one that relies on his gut too often and tends to make his own investigations harder than they need to be by ignoring the clues because his gut is all, "Don't worry about evidence, Harvey! Get me a danish! Also, that ugly fucker that looked at you squint-eyed probably did it. And even if he didn't do it, wouldn't you like to rough him up a bit, Harvey? Also, wouldn't you like to put a Kit-Kat in me? Come on! I'm stahvin' 'ere!"

Detective Comics: Endgame #1

How many anarchists does it take to screw in a light bulb? One.

I really hope this comic book doesn't spoil the end of Snyder's Endgame. I'm sure it will just be about a bunch of people punching a bunch of other people with Joker grimaces on their faces in their faces. Sometimes my editor thinks I should rework my sentences so that they aren't so convoluted but then I put my finger in her face and scowl, "No! Where is the fun in that?" But then I wish I'd said "Where is the fun in that?" in a more convoluted way. And often I just wind up feeling guilty for talking back to my pretend editor when she's just trying to do her pretend job improving my pretend writing skills.

This issue begins during the Joker Riots of Whatever Year This Is (not to be confused with the Joker Riots of Whatever Year Came Before This and the Joker Riots of Whatever Year Came Before That, et cetera, et cetera (Fun Fact! My pretend editor's name is Et Cetera (I might be stretching the definition of "fact" and "fun" with that fun fact))) before Detective Yip shot Lonnie in the face for being a youth on the street during a time of crisis. No wait! It probably occurs after Lonnie got shot by Yip and was released from the hospital with his Anarky gift mask or else how could Lonnie decide to don a mask he doesn't own and become Anarky to help stop the anarchy caused by The Joker?

You see, The Joker's anarchy is the bad kind of anarchy. It's the kind of anarchy that most people think of when they hear the word. It's the kind that movies and comic books would like you to believe would take the place of civilization if our system of laws were ever to be thrown in the toilet. It's belief in this kind of anarchy that causes an outcry for more control of the populace and encourages fascist regimes to take control. So Anarky has to use the good kind of anarchy (some might say "vigilantism") to stop the spread of the bad kind of anarchy!

Anarchy is really the most mature of all social philosophies and political ideals. It posits the theory that we are all fucking adults who can take care of ourselves. Most people want a nanny state and a protective father figure ensuring their safety so they can blissfully walk about with their noses stuck in their cell phones. But order and control is just an illusion and we're all in a perpetual state of denial. The law of everybody's neighborhood is actually anarchy. At any moment, if just a tiny fraction of the population decided to do whatever the fuck they felt like it, the system would break down. That means that the system is just an illusion that we have all agreed to for our own selfish reasons. That's anarchy, people! Citizens (white ones, anyway) might feel safer knowing that there is a police force to protect their lives or, more importantly it seems, their property. But even if a neighborhood police force didn't exist, people would still protect themselves. So now you'd have neighbors living in the exact same community but having to maintain their own protection. Basically what you'd have is the same thing you have now but probably more weapons and deadbolts in every single house in your neighborhood. But you'd almost certainly still have the same community. All that road warrior bullshit? It might happen in like Texas or something (not Austin) but most people are still going to be decent people if "the law" were to suddenly not exist. The evidence is all around you every day. Sometimes people do shitty, murderous, nutty things and they'll do it whether laws exist or not. Anarchy is not something to be feared! It's an ideal to be striven for!

Did I use "striven" correctly? Fuck it! Of course I did! I'm an anarchist and I can use it however I want!

He is an anarchist. He does know he doesn't have to sign his name at the end of each text, right?

That's the only page I've read so far but judging by the cover, Lonnie is going to don the Anarky mask and get to work protecting his mother and, I guess, Gotham by whatever means necessary! By the end of the issue, he'll have spray painted the Anarky symbol on the Bat Signal and have jerked off onto the back of a homeless person's head while listening to some radio friendly "punk rock" like Sublime, Green Day, or Blink 182. Anarchy!

Lonnie winds up getting shot at by some Joker cops (or normal cops. Really, what's the difference, amirite?) and meets a guy named Dax. Dax has an "X" in his name, a septum piercing, and a mohawk hairstyle (originally made famous by General Mohawk during the civil war. I think) which instantly identifies him as an anarchist and totally chill dude except when it comes to discussing society at large! Lonnie is about to hear some truth down in here! And probably some really crazy shit about Project Cloverleaf and how AIDS was created to kill black men and was, in the late seventies and early eighties, an actual ingredient of malt liquor.

Who would have guessed?! They're punks!

Dax's friends are Dre and Riko. They're anarchists too! When Lonnie asks if they're heroes, Riko (or Dre) says, "Nah. We're just us." Now that whole "just us/justice" thing might have been clever the first bazillion times people began to use it. But here it's clever again because of the theme of anarchy and how everybody is responsible for their own happiness and safety. And guess what helps make somebody's selfish desire for happy and safety to come about? Keeping your community happy and safe as well! So you see, an anarchist has a truly selfish reason for helping to keep their local community safe. So Dre, Dax, and Riko don't need the cops. They have "just us."

Also, Lonnie turns out to be some genius hacker that goes by the name of Moneyspider. A hacker! Those guys are total anarchists! And his mom is a stripper. Pure anarchy!

I might be shouting "Anarchy!" too much. I think everybody gets what the comic book is about. Sorry.

Does anybody sense a crazy, wacky Anarky title in the style of Burnside Batgirl? Can you say "Anarchy"? Sorry.

Ann Nocenti spent six issues writing dialogue for some truly beautiful characters drawn by Trevor McCarthy and not once made them interesting or gave me any reason to care about them. Dax and his gang look like your average, run-of-the-mill comic book characters and, in just a few pages, Brian Buccellato has created a group of kids whose monthly comic book I would pick up and read.

Trevor McCarthy really did draw an adorable looking Zell. Although she could have been a little chunkier.

Lonnie ditches his new friends to go save his mother as you probably know if you actually read the page I scanned so why am I typing this paragraph? But what you might not have known is that they decide to go after him because he's Moneyspider! Or because they just liked the cut of his jib. Is that sexist?

Oh my god! They fly?! I guess gravity is a law and fuck laws, amirite?! Anarchy!

They're not actually flying. That was just the artist's interpretation of three kids jumping from one roof to another in the most absurd way possible. But if you're going to be a hero in Gotham and have any hope of starring in your own comic book, you've got to be able to jump from one rooftop to the next.

The Anarkids run into the Batfamily in the middle of a Jokerfuffle. They don't have time to help them save a stripper because they judge. So they send Spoiler to help them out.

Since Batman Eternal, Spoiler apparently got her hands on some kind of growth formula.

Spoiler's plan is to shoot a few Joker Citizens with tranq darts but Lonnie has a better plan! Spray paint joker smiles on masks fished out of the strip club's dumpster, spend an inordinate amount of time cleaning the buffalo wing sauce and ranch dressing off of them, put them on, and storm the strip club! Then it's hugs and dollar bills all around! Happy endings for everybody!

Detective Comics: Endgame #1 Rating: Since this issue ended with a "The Beginning..." closer, I'm going to jump off a limb and say this is a pilot for a monthly Anarky series depending on how well it sells. I'm all in for that series as long as Buccellato is writing it. How about instead of teaming Buccellato up with Manapul, give him Justin Gray for awhile! Then Jimmy Palmiotti can use Manapul and we'll see if more magic happens! Or at least maybe some writer's block curing handjobs.