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!"

Batman Eternal #39

The Riddler is about to ask Mr. Owl about Tootsie Pops.

I just picked up another one of my books from when I was a wee lad and read it while scanning Batman Eternal's cover. It was called My Little Book of Cats and now I'm a bawling, snotty, teary mess.

Why wasn't there a trigger warning on this thing?!

The author, N. Gretchen Greiner, died in 1988 so I wasn't able to send an email telling her how much this book touched me just now. So instead, I sent virtual flowers to her virtual grave (with pictures of her real grave!) and a note of thanks at Find a Grave dot Com. I wonder if anybody ever comes by to clear out the clutter of virtual flowers and notes? Do I have to keep going back if I want her grave adorned with flowers and a note exerting my ego onto her resting place because people have to know that I took the time to appreciate her work?

You know what work I didn't appreciate recently? Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning! Holy crap was that the worst one of the series so far! First off, Jason Voorhees isn't in it. Spoiler alert! The killer is a fucking EMT who decides the appropriate way to react when he finds out that the kid he ditched at childbirth after the mother died was killed by a kid at a work farm for kids with mental problems. The kid that murdered this guy's son is hauled off and placed safely in jail while the EMT goes about murdering anybody else he can find, whether or not they had any connection to the work farm. And after he's dead and the movie needs one of those big twist shocker endings that became the film series' signature endings, Tommy (the kid that murdered Jason at the end of the fourth (and final!) chapter that was played by Corey Feldman. But he's not Corey anymore because it's something like five years later which means that Part V took place in 1990 (but filmed in 1985 (and probably not canonically "1990" but if you were paying attention to dates during the other movies, this one took place in 1990, dammit!))) gets out of his hospital bed and puts on the hockey mask the EMT was wearing that somehow ended up in his hospital dresser and then murders Pam, the psychologist or assistant or whatever she was. It doesn't make any sense! I think you're supposed to think Tommy is the killer throughout the movie and then when he isn't and "Jason" is dead, we're supposed to be relieved. And then shocked when we find out that Tommy has gone crazy like we thought he had but then realized he hadn't but, No!, he really had!

The worst part about this installment was the special effects. I know Tom Savini did the effects for the first one and maybe some of the others before Part V and they were all pretty good and gory. But in this movie, the special effects guys weren't even trying. Most of the shots were of a hatchet being raised, then a reaction shot from the victim, then the victim's arm falling to the ground. I think they blew their wad on the guy getting the flare shoved in his mouth since that was shown on camera where the shot lingered for a few seconds. It wasn't great but at least you saw the kill! One woman gets killed by hedge clippers and you just see her scream, then the hedge clippers are raised and lowered, and then the shot shows the hands of the murderer closing the clippers. Not once do you see the victim stabbed. It's all left to your imagination. Except later when the body is discovered and we get a look at her face which just looks like someone covered her eyes with red dye. At one point a guy gets his head cut off while riding a motorcycle. Sounds gruesome, right?! Maybe if seeing a blade flash out in front of the camera which shows the perspective of the guy riding the cycle, then the shot changes to the cycle's tires going by, and then somebody tosses a rubber head across the frame without any blood or gore at all makes you queasy.

So Friday the 13th Part V: A New Beginning has a horrible plot, a lousy murderer, a crappy twist ending, and the shittiest special effects of the series so far. But it does have a lot more naked boobies than the others! It also seems to be the first one to really begin introducing the stupid, silly, jokey characters that make the movie seem rather silly instead of scary. Perhaps somebody pointed out that A Nightmare on Elm Street, released the previous year, had a character that kept cracking one liners and it made a ton of money (maybe. I'm pretty sure it was successful!). So they said, "Make sure that shit is funny! Maybe throw in a fat guy that has chocolate smeared all over his face and candy bars squirreled away in every pocket. Get it?! He's fat! So he eats like a slob and loves candy! Ha ha! Fat people! Can you believe they can eat so much?!"

Oh shit. Um, sorry Batman! Why do I keep forgetting this blog is about comic books! I blame N. Gretchern Greiner for distracting me this time! And then the shitty segue I came up with to begin talking about Friday the 13th!

If you're so smart, Red Robin, why didn't figure out the riddle on sight as well?

Don't worry, everybody! Batman has it figured out! He'll take it from here like he always does. And while he heads off to the Pineskills Casino to confront The Riddler, Mister Freeze is captured by a bunch of men with guns on his way to Blackgate Prison, and Vicki Vale gets the hardest assignment of her career: she must learn the truth! Ha ha! That's a good one! News outlets don't want truth anymore! They just want access to politicians and police whenever they need a quote or an interview. So why would they want to ferret out the truth of the statements made by those people?! Better to have access to their lies than point out that they're liars and lose them completely.

Once Batman finds The Riddler, he learns that Nygma received a poorly designed invitation as well but chose to ignore it because none of the "i"s were dotted with little question marks. But that doesn't mean The Riddler doesn't want to play his own game. So he challenges Batman to answer more riddles before he'll help Batman uncover the person behind Gotham's problems.

Meanwhile a whole bunch of super villains have been freed from incarceration and gathered together on the street along with Catwoman who got an invite and actually decided it was worth her time to show.

I have some advice for you Batman! Just give up and move to Metropolis already.

The person behind it all gives all of these goons every resource taken from Batman and Wayne Enterprises. Money, weapons, huge batsuits equipped with Gatling gun fists. They receive them all and are told to begin fucking up Gotham.

Oh man. I hope Wrath isn't behind all of this!

The Riddler refuses to help Batman and would rather die in an avalanche. So they're consumed by snow. Too bad for Riddler, I'm looking at the cover of Batman Eternal #40 right now and it looks like the avalanche doesn't help him get away. But there's good news for Vicki Vale! The deadline on her Truth Report has just been extended!

Other bad news: she might be too dead to take advantage of the extra time.

Batman Eternal #39 Rating: No change. I really have forgotten what it's like to just sit down and read a comic book without wanting to suddenly write about it and maybe go off on a tangent for five minutes before getting back to the comic book where the entire flow of the story has been interrupted by my need to write about Friday the 13th. Are comic books even worth reading when you're not entertaining yourself by writing about them and cracking stupid jokes? I don't think they're worth three to four dollars without all this extra commenting fun! I guess, in a way, I'm more entertained by myself than I am by the comic books. Yay for me!