Vigilante: Southland #3

Vigilante is still high as fuck.

The Review!
Last issue ended with Vigilante being framed for murder! Since he's a black man with a weapon in a house he doesn't own next to a dead body, he doesn't take the time to start a rational conversation about how he couldn't be the murderer based on the brain splatter patterns and the caliber of the sniper bullet and the broken window which the bullet came through and a whole bunch of other evidence that would probably exonerate him but it would be too late because he would have been shot dead immediately. So instead he begins fighting for his life against a full SWAT team who aren't high as fuck. He is in trouble!

"OH MY FUCKING GOD IT'S KEVLAR! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WE'RE DEFEATED!"

That caption wasn't hyperbole. The SWAT team really are defeated by the Kevlar. It's pretty embarrassing.

The Kevlar doesn't stop the SWAT team from shooting at Vigilante because Kevlar isn't a magic force field! I mean, it basically is in comic books but I have to believe that this comic book is pretending it isn't or else why wouldn't the SWAT team just stop shooting and go home? I mean, Kevlar, bitches! That's like Starfleet going up against Romulan cloaking technology! There's no way to fucking win! Unless you're Captain Kirk, of course. He's the anti-Kevlar!

The Kevlar isn't the only thing that helps Vigilante escape. He also confuses the SWAT team with a huge bong hit.

The sniper who sniped the guy who got sniped also gets away. But not before revealing to the reader that he has an upside down diamond tattooed under his left eye. That's a clue to the mystery! I kind of forget what the mystery was though. Part of the mystery was The Case of the Dead Girlfriend Who Probably Should Have Been the Main Character of this Comic Book. But she was investigating a mystery too and that's the one I can't really remember. I don't think it matters as long as Vigilante engages in some really exciting car chases and gun fights.

Some stuff takes place that has to do with the bad guy Spectros and his boss. His boss is a nearly naked woman who later gets naked because she's been a bad girl. Both of them want Vigilante dead.

Last commentary, I said "Vigilante" was one typo away from a sort of lewd word. It confused me at first because even I find my writing confusing if I'm not in the exact same head-space. But I quickly realized I must have meant "Vagilante."

Luckily for the plot and the reader, Vigilante found a clue while escaping the frame-up. He got the ID number of the sniper's boat! Now he's got something to investigate so the rest of this comic book isn't just Donny (that's Vigilante's real name!) getting his ass kicked in training by a guy in a wheelchair.

While investigating the boat, Vigilante is attacked by Diamond Eye Dick who tries to kill him. Since Diamond Eye Dick isn't in a wheelchair, you'd think he'd have a greater than 100% chance of defeating Donny. But you'd be wrong because apparently Donny's weakness is guy's in wheelchairs. He manages to fend off Diamond Eye Dick and escape. But while escaping on his motorcycle, he falls asleep. Probably because he's high as fuck. And just to make matters worse, he crashes right by two hungry pit bulls! To be continued! Such drama!

The Ranking!
-1! That was kind of a weak cliffhanger. It was almost as if Gary realized he was coming up on twenty pages and he was all, "Shit! I have Vagilante escaping on a motorcycle but how is that for an exciting ending?! I know! I can introduce his narcolepsy! And he can fall asleep! And he can crash! But that's not good enough, dammit! Oh! I know! DOGS! Wild dogs should be seen menacing him! BOOM! Thrilling ending! What's in store for old Vigilante next month?! Rabies? Maybe!"

Vigilante: Southland #2

Vigilante fights crime high as fuck.

I just read the last issue and I almost forgot how it ended! This one begins with yet another ex-Vigilante (was fucking everybody Vigilante?!) staring creepily at Donny as he lies wounded in bed. It took me much longer than I'm comfortable admitting to remember that Donny blew up at the end of the last issue. This is why there have been so many Goddamned Vigilantes! They're careless as fuck!

I'm just going to end every fifth or sixth sentence throughout this commentary with "as fuck." I think that sentence counts as one of them, right?

Mike, the guy I didn't mention last issue because he was just some nobody scientist in a wheelchair who Donny didn't know, begins the comic book by remembering how he used to ride a motorcycle around town while wearing a costume that was as ugly as fuck. But I guess he got blown up or hit and runned or something too! Because now he's just the guy who makes the gadgets for whatever sucker he can talk into putting on the terrible looking costume. It won't be hard to convince Donny because Donny is hot on the tail of a conspiracy and he's also stoned.

Mike was known as The Eastsider because that's marginally better than the name Vigilante the vigilante. At least it let people know there was a Mexican underneath that mask. Vigilante is pretty nondescript. It's also one typo away from being sort of obscene.

Donny's girlfriend's mom and Mike tell Donny that he shouldn't become the next Vigilante because he hasn't been trained. But I say I don't want to read three issues of him training! Donny seems to agree! He puts on the Vigilante mask, hops on a motorcycle, and sets off to solve The Case of the Dead Girlfriend Who Probably Should Have Been the Main Character.

"A clumsy backpedal that seeks to blame the fans and editors for fucking up The New 52!" -- Grunion Guy.

Vigilante begins his investigation at a kinky sex club. I don't know who he's asking questions or why because I don't care about the mystery part of this comic book. I just want to see Vigilante shoot people in the face while pretending he has the moral high ground. At the sex club, Vigilante battles a half-naked woman with a whip and says the F-word! I didn't know you could swear in a Teen Plus comic book! I thought the Teen Plus rating simply meant a woman was going to enjoy sex! You can't have non-plus teenagers knowing that women like sex just as much as men! At least they do when the man is good at it. That's the main reason women are attracted to confident guys because you know a confident guy can give you an orgasm. Although it's also true that some guys are too stupid to realize they shouldn't be as confident as they are based on their bedroom skills.

"For a series written by Pet Murderers, it's surprisingly light on murdered pets!" -- Grunion Guy.

Vigilante gets his ass kicked by a dominatrix because she's had way more training than he has. Also she's not stoned. What's really strange about the dominatrix is that she has the same weapon as Vigilante except it isn't electrified. What kind of a coincidence is that? If this story doesn't give a reason for it by the end of the series, I'm going to...well, actually, I'll probably forget all about it after I finish typing this paragraph. But it does seem like it should mean something, right?! Does it mean Donny's girlfriend was a dominatrix before she became Vigilante? Is that a standard dominatrix weapon, a mace on a rope? I guess that's technically a flail but this weapon seems different somehow. More sexy!

Meanwhile, Donny's girlfriend's mom does some investigating of her own. At a fancy dress party (American style fancy dress, not British style fancy dress! Nobody is in chicken costumes or Nazi uniforms here), she walks around pretending her daughter's death wasn't that big a deal. Unless she's not pretending. She might not be pretending! So Nina asks a woman where Vance Childers, the man she thinks is responsible for her daughter's death, might have disappeared to.

I've never given this specific an answer to any question I've ever been asked. And I have a college degree!

This woman knows all about the house Childers runs off to but has no idea how to contact him there. I think you've given Nina enough information to find him, Help Advances The Plot Lady.

Back at the Vigilante Cave, Donny learns that Mike can train him to turn his basketball skills into a fighting style. Ooh! Imagine if Mike could do that for the Harlem Globetrotters? They'd be the most elite fighting team in the world! As long as Sweet Georgia Brown was playing, of course.

"Tom King never used any of my fucking blurbs for the cover of Sheriff of Babylon. He can go fuck himself!" -- Grunion Guy.

I hope this comic gets the training over with quickly! Can't I read about a Vigilante that's already battle tested and street ready?! I have to read about some stoner basketball player trying to learn how to fight by getting his ass kicked by a guy in a wheelchair?

Two pages later, Donny realizes he can't beat a guy in a wheelchair. Idiot. Throw a typewriter at him or something! That's probably just the first lesson. It's a pretty lousy lesson since all it did was demoralize Donny before he goes out to follow Nina's lead. Now when he fights a guy standing up, he's really going to shit himself.

Donny discovers that Childers is also looking into the murder of his girlfriend which is why he disappeared. He didn't want to get hit and runned too! Donny breathes a sigh of relief because if he couldn't beat a guy in a wheelchair, no way would he be able to take on a fat, out of shape, middle aged college dean!

Oh! Here's the reason for the Teen Plus! The "fuck" was probably just incidental.

A woman never has to ask if she was any good in bed! If you're a woman and you just let me put my penis anywhere inside of your body, you did a great job! You don't even need to go that far! Sometimes just slowly sliding your hand down the front of my pants is a job well done, and quickly! I think the only time a woman is bad in bed is when she tries too hard. I don't need to think you're the wildest person to ever bone. In fact, the stiller and more corpse-like you are, the better! I don't want to have to remember that you're an individual with a distinct personality and her own agency when I'm defiling you with my love squirts.

As Childers is about to reveal the reason for the conspiracy, he's shot in the head by a sniper! Oh no! That's probably the same sniper who crippled The Eastsider! And just as Childers is killed, the police break down the door and storm the house! Oh no! Vigilante has been framed for murder! And he's still high as fuck!

No wonder The Eastsider was only crippled instead of killed. This sniper needs to get his scope fixed.

The Review!
More of the same 80s action clichés! How about a side of being framed with your vengeance appetizer?! Would you like a glass of conspiratorial cover-up while you wait?

Vigilante: Southland #1

I wish saying "not" after a statement to negate it sarcastically wasn't such a stupid piece of shit thing to say because right now I want to say, "This comic book looks fantastic! NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT!"

Which came first? Plans for Vigilante to appear on Arrow or pitch meetings for this egg?

When I first saw that a Vigilante comic book was coming out, I got super excited! But only for like the three or four seconds it took my body to absorb the endorphins released by the nostalgia factor and then I thought, "This comic book was never really very good, was it?" But it was printed on Baxter paper! So cool!

The issue begins with Vigilante beating up some thugs. I don't mean thugs in the conservative media vernacular where they're slyly winking as they say it because their audience knows what they really mean. I mean thugs in the comic book sense! Those are just nameless henchmen or free-range criminals who the hero beats up in the parts of the story that don't really matter. Comic book thugs are the guys Batman beats up at the beginning of the story to show some quick action before he sees the Bat-signal and rushes off to listen to Gordon whinge on about The Joker suddenly being back in town. So that's what Vigilante is doing here! He's beating some guys up so readers can get their violent action boners going before the boring talking parts have to happen.

Also, when I say "boners," I mean both male and female boners, whatever those are. I think they're like elementary school drinking fountains?

Vigilante might have the ugliest costume in the DC Universe, counting Lobo's original pink and purple one.

In the past, Vigilante has been a white male and a white female. Now he's a black male. What will Vigilante be in his or her next incarnation? A little person?

You know, I don't hear an awful lot of clamor from little people about representation in comic books. Maybe that's because I don't know any little people so I'm not around to hear them moan about the lack of representation in comic books. Who was the last little person in a DC Comic book? Oberon?

As I read about the main character going about his business playing basketball and ignoring his girlfriend's texts and smoking dope and playing video games, I realize the first two pages are doing that thing where the comic book has to show the reader the action that will happen in the future before returning to the boring, non-action parts of the story. I fucking hate that shit. It's like the writer has no confidence in the story or the audience. It's as if I can't be bothered to read a comic book that doesn't assure me, right up front, that somebody will eventually be punched in the face. I mean, I did call that part the exciting bit and the non-violent part the boring bit! So my opinion my be radically at odds with itself.

The main character, Donny, might also not be the only main character. His girlfriend, Donny's girlfriend, might be the main character too! She wears another terrible version of the Vigilante costume to do some corporate espionage. Or maybe she's just doing some simple civil disobedience to expose a corporation's criminal behavior. I'm just guessing because I've barely read four pages of this comic book. It's far less interesting than what I might have to say about it. Also, I had to make sure I mentioned, again, how terrible Vigilante's costume is.

Well, at least I don't have to learn Donny's girlfriend's name now! Thank you, evil corporate man in black hit and run driver!

Now Donny can go about his video gaming and getting stoned without being nagged by Vigilante! If she was Vigilante. I was just making an assumption. But she probably was and now Donny will start going through her things and find her suit and all of her evidence proving whatever injustice she was trying to prove! Then he'll have to get off his ass and continue her work! Even though she could have continued the work just fine and the story could have been about her if Gary Phillips hadn't decided to kill her.

Donny begins investigating the hit and run on his own. I guess without his girlfriend to pay the Internet bill, he's lost his online Xbox play. He might as well get out of the house because single player games are boring as fuck. NPCs don't rage quit and send you spiteful messages when you teabag them.

Donny hits up his father--who he has serious issues with, of course--to do his shady underworld investigative shit to find out who might have killed his girlfriend. While Donny waits for that to happen, he begins going through his girlfriend's things. You know, just like I said he would! Behind the box with the vibrator and a stack of Penthouse Forums, he finds her Vigilante costume and her electric mace. I think it's an electric mace. It might also be a vibrating Ben Wa ball.

At this point, the story is almost over and the whole dead girlfriend thing is getting depressing, so the narrative speeds up a bit. Donny and his father get some information they need from a witness of the hit and run but that witness has also been bought out by the bad guy, Spectros. So when Donny gets home later that night, his house explodes on him! I might think he's dead but for those first couple of pages at the beginning of the comic book! Way to ruin the suspense, Phillips!

The Review!
So far there's nothing original in this script. It's basically every 80s movie about some guy who loses a loved one and then reaps deadly vengeance on the killers. It's also got whiffs of a chosen one story where the hero begins as a shitty, crappy, lazy asshole and has to rise to the occasion when the real hero (this time, his girlfriend) dies tragically in the first three minutes. Donny's girlfriend was far more interesting in the scant few pages in which she appeared. Donny is just a lazy asshole. But I guess that's part of the story! He has to prove himself and rise above his flaws to become the hero his girlfriend already was! Although I don't know why he has to do it in an even more terrible looking costume than her already awful one!

Batman Eternal #38

Batman Eternal has now run more issues than any other comic book in The New 52.

Friends Update!

With Jason Bard having lost the respect of all of the honest cops in Gotham and possibly some of the corrupt ones as well, Batman feels he's able to turn his attention to the daily chaos of Gotham City for a bit. Right now, that involves yet another mass escape from Arkham Asylum. This time it was because The Spectre dropped a Vengeance Bomb all over Arkham Grounds and sank the fucking hospital. The inmates who weren't found bleeding out or pinned under debris made a break for it and now they've started a new gang. Those inmates are Bane, The Scarecrow, Clayface, Poison Ivy, The Joker's Daughter, and Mr. Freeze.

Catwoman has been helping Batman to uncover their location because Catwoman really wants Batman to get off her back and stop lecturing her simply because she's trying to save the city in a different way than he is.

Is anybody ever going to talk about what Clayface did to Poison Ivy back in Detective Comics #15?

And after I don't know how many issues, the story once again turns to Jim Gordon in Blackgate Penitentiary. He was so close to getting free after his daughter, Batwoman, and Red Hood found evidence that would have exonerated him but they handed it over to Jason Bard without ever making a copy of it. That doesn't seem likely, does it? You know what else doesn't seem likely? That Batgirl would have just shrugged her shoulders and gone on with her life after they failed to free her father. Especially after she went so far off the rails that Batman sent Jason Todd to look after her. She must be working on another plan that the reader just hasn't been privy to up until now. Maybe Jim let everybody know that he's fine in Blackgate for now. Maybe he knows he can help with this entire mess better from behind bars. Especially since his bunkmate is Rex Calabrese.

I first heard the Urban Legend of the Ether Bunny from my friend Bob when he got back from the first war in Iraq. It seems The Ether Bunny Urban Legend was mentioned way back in Richard F. Burton's The Book of The Thousand Nights and a Night! See the link to my Richard F. Burton page for more fun notes by good old Dick! Maybe that should be my New Year's Resolution! To finally finish reading Richard F. Burton's translation of the 1001 Arabian Nights!

Batman takes out The Joker's Daughter and Mister Freeze quite easily. Bane and Ivy plan on ambushing Batman though. Although Catwoman and Killer Croc set up an ambush of their own to spring on Bane. And it looks like Ivy was in on it as well.

Killer Croc takes down Bane by cutting off his supply of Venom and then lacerating him in dozens of places so that Bane begins to bleed out, drugs and all. He wants to make an example of Bane somehow but I don't think the somehow will be revealed this week. But it was this revenge against Bane for throwing Croc out of Wayne Tower which allowed Catwoman to manipulate Croc to help Batman.

Oh. I guess that's the example. Humiliate Bane and prove to everybody that Croc ain't no dummy. He even knows a little French!

So Batman packs up a bunch of villains having only lost Poison Ivy who knew to get out while the getting out was particularly decent. Scarecrow, before falling, tries to convince Batman that The Riddler knows more than he's been riddling about the chaos in Gotham. But my money is still on Catwoman being behind it all! That Batman needs to be taught a fucking lesson, the arrogant prat!

Finally, Jason Bard goes to see Jim Gordon in prison and confesses everything to him. Bard explains that he can make it all right but he needs allies and he needs help. Gordon's advice is to do everything legally and by the book from here on out or none of it will count for anything. Also, Jim would very much like to be let out of Blackgate, please.

Batman Eternal #38 Rating: No change. This was a good chapter for the current Catwoman title. It helps to explain how she built up her reputation so fast amongst the Gotham Underworld by removing the crazy, super villain element from the playing board. So Selina really is playing all sides to set herself up as the savior of Gotham. Batman might frown on her method of restoring order to the city but is it really any more illegal than the things Batman does to maintain order? Hell, it's a lot less violent!

FRIENDS UPDATE!
In the second episode of the season, you can already see how the Pilot was tweaked to make the show more successful while maintaining its artistic edge. Joey's hair wasn't quite as moppy, and now he seems to be as into food as he is into women. It's played as jokey here but foreshadows the dark, gluttonous life ahead of him as he continues his lonely pursuit of fame. Monica is a clean freak with parental issues, indicating a personality that is going to eventually spiral into loneliness and, quite possibly, madness. Phoebe is still spacey but they decided to give her a more grown-up look. But it's still her childlike naivete that allows the viewer to accept the chilling and macabre experiences from her past. Chandler didn't tell one dream but he loves to tell jokes every chance he gets, if the definition of a joke is mentioning other television shows or old folk songs without much context. At one point Rachel says, "I was in the kitchen," and Chandler finishes, "With Dinah?" The audience goes wild for this joke! Later, while watching Potato's Sonogram, he says, "Star Trek!" or something, and everybody goes crazy. Chandler's obviously the character trying hardest to keep from getting too close to the others. What dark secret lies in his past that has taught him a harsh lesson that every relationship ends in inevitable loss and pain? The producers seem to have decided that the laugh track worked best when calibrated to The Big Bang theory range where the audience titters at nearly everything and guffaws whenever anything is said that probably deserves more than a titter. Ross seems to have been cast perfectly as a literal sack of potatoes because he's still a literal sack of potatoes. But now he's having a baby sack of potatoes with his wife and her lesbian partner. He reacts even more like a sack with even more potatoes in it. Rachel continues to be The Newborn Babe, having gone from spoiled rich brat to a completely blank slate now lost in a new reality where people get jobs and aren't completely shallow. Or, at least, shallow in a totally different way than rich people are shallow. She is the cypher brought in amongst the already close set of friends which will allow all of the others to see themselves through her newborn eyes where they'll learn something about themselves and, just possibly, be saved. Still no sign of the monkey or Gunther.

I forgot to mention my favorite joke of the Pilot Episode! It's when Phoebe said her mother committed suicide. Ha ha! Oh, hilarious. The only time I laughed during this episode was when Ross's ex-wife suggested they name the baby "Helen" if it's a girl and Ross said, "Seriously? Helen Geller?" Ha ha! Maybe you had to hear the way he delivered the line. Kind of like a chicken stuffed in a sack of potatoes, choking on a worm. Anyway, you can't go wrong with a good Helen Keller joke! Although this is probably the best Helen Keller joke: Why can't Helen Keller drive? Because she's a woman. Ha ha! Get it? Women can't operate machines as well as men can! You expect the punchline to be ableist but then it goes all M. Night Shyamalan on you and winds up being sexist!

Batman Eternal #37

I want lots of awesome stuff. My New Years Resolution is to become Catwoman.

I probably check Facebook on a daily basis but I don't really use it for any reason. I don't wish people Happy Birthday even when Facebook reminds me that it's somebody's birthday. I don't post status updates. I don't play Facebook games. And I certainly don't do the "Year in Review" thing since, well, what will there be to review? I used to link my Tumblr to my Facebook but I figure the only thing that accomplished was getting a bunch of friends and relatives to block me from their news feed. Anyway, today I logged on and Facebook decided to show me what my Year was like with a preview of a Year in Review thing.

My year was adorable.

At the end of last issue, we found out that either The Riddler was behind Gotham City falling apart or he knew who was and figured it was time to help Batman figure it out as well. Mostly he just wants to make up more riddles because he's got a bit of an obsessive personality.

I bet I know who's behind it all! Catwoman! It's all a big trick to get Batman to admit that he loves her! I don't know how it's meant to accomplish that because it's so convoluted. But sometimes that's what it takes to reach a humorless man that has never been in a real relationship with anybody his entire life. He pays the man that's closest to being a family member and expects him to clean his house and wait on him. All of his wards were trained to fight at his side instead of being kept safe and spoiled and pampered and educated. Most of the women he dates he either never sees again, or they die, or they're super villains. He keeps the only thing on Earth that can kill his best friend on a ring in his Batcave. You know, just in case. You need a big plan to ensnare a guy with those kinds of trust issues.

Catwoman nearly gets assassinated by some guy in a Japanese mask with a flaming sword. Right in her own Egyptian Club Casino, Bar and Grill. I guess she really has hit the big time.

While I'm on the subject of Catwoman, will somebody put together a history of New 52 Selina Kyle for me? Please! Last thing I knew about her past is that she was a street orphan and I think she ran around with another kid that might have been her brother? But then later as an adult, just before she became Catwoman, she discovered something about her family and her name and the Russians or something? And now she seems to accept that she's the daughter of Rex Calabrese? Did I miss something somewhere or is everybody else just as confused as I am? Has DC just decided to dump Selina's past as written by Ann Nocenti and chosen to just graft on some Preboot Selina history? But even that's wrong, right?! Wasn't she Falcone's daughter? Does any of it make sense? Maybe I should just move on to the next scene which should make more sense.

Hmm. Okay. Next scene then?

Batman is currently out looking for Arkham inmates who escaped during the building's collapse. Killer Croc isn't one of them. I guess eating people he finds in the sewers isn't against the law. So Batman runs off to find a villain that should be locked up while Catwoman decides to offer Killer Croc a job.

The ex-Arkham inmates have decided to form a little gang to try to take over Gotham (again) while chaos reigns (also again).

But why would Ivy want to follow you after what you did to her at the end of Detective Comics #15? I don't know what it was because it ended with a "Fin?" before it could happen, but I'm fairly certain it was rape-esque.

Spying on the Villains Anonymous meeting is a black cat with a kitty spycam around its neck. The make and quality look to be Alice Tesla's work. And I'm really trying not to hate Alice Tesla simply because Ann Nocenti created her. If she appears in this book, she'll have real, honest-to-goodness writers penning her dialogue, so she shouldn't annoy me too much.

Another strange meeting is taking place in a shitty diner. This one stars Harvey Bullock and Maggie Sawyer. Bullock might seem a lot rough around the edges, but I bet Maggie knows he's a decent enough guy when you get right down to it because he has cats. And nobody that has and loves cats can be a bad person. They might not be polite people. And they might tell you to your face that they hate your stupid guts. But that doesn't mean they're not good people. Cats are good judges of character. Dogs, on the other hand, love anybody, no matter how despicable.

Jason Bard tries to ask Bullock and Sawyer for help because he's suddenly looking for the honest cops to help turn around this shit he helped start. But they don't want anything to do with him because he's a huge dickhole.

And then Catwoman sets up a Batsignal to reel in her prey. I mean, so she can show Batman some footage from her Kitty Cam. Did that sound dirty? I think that sounded dirty.

Oh yeah. It was definitely dirty.

Finally, Batwing calls up Penny-Two for information about g-g-g-g-ghosts!

Batman Eternal #37 Rating: No change. I'm trying to do three commentaries per day so I can finally catch back up to the current week's comics by January 7th. But holy shit am I burning out quick! That's my excuse for the horrible quality of the next thirty commentaries! I'm rushing, I'm burned out, and I need some other kind of stimulation in my life! Not that kind of stimulation! Okay, maybe that kind of stimulation. But with cookies.

Batman Eternal #26

Oh Red Hood! Batman has had more influence on you than all of the other Bat-children. The only reason you wield two guns is to show how rebellious you are!

For some reason, the Bat Family cares about Batman again! Why? I don't know! Slumber parties at Wayne Manor? You know the kind! The ones where boys and girls mix but they're not quite old enough to want to engage in any kind of sexual behaviour but they still like to lie close to each other, both pretending to sleep, until maybe somebody's arm touches somebody else's leg and they lie there for five hours feeling like their crotches are going to explode! I'm specifically talking about Dick and Babs, of course. Tim Drake was pretending he knew Bruce Wayne was Batman all along and Jason Todd was probably passed out from breaking into the liquor cabinet. Unless these slumber parties took place after Jason Todd was murdered. Those slumber parties were filled with games of "Pin the Crowbar on the Robin" and "Light as a Feather, Stiff as Jason Todd."

Actually, this issue begins with the Bat Family not caring about Batman as much as I thought! They've once again bonded over the need to know what Batman is hiding from them. Once before, they told Bruce "no secrets" and he agreed even though there was that one secret about Dick not being dead but you can't count that one since it was a secret before the "no secret" agreement. But now Red Robin thinks he can waltz into the Batcave at any moment and declare "No secretsies!" and Bruce has to come clean.

Scott Lobdell would probably rewrite this with a ton of Tim Drake Narration Boxes where he thinks, "Now's the part where Bruce tells us all that Hush is behind it. Does he think we're stupid?"

There was a time when I would read a Batman story and I would think every villain he encountered was a challenge. But that was before every villain he encountered was hellbent on breaking Batman. Now every time some villain comes along that's rocking Bruce's world, I just think, "Really? Hush? Why is he so scary?" Or "The Riddler? A guy that tells stupid jokes?" Or "How does The Joker pull off such intricate plans? He's a nutjob!" I think the main thing the Reboot got wrong was that it didn't deescalate the threats to the heroes! Every fucking thing they face is practically the end of the world, if not the omniverse itself!

Also, I can't remember reading any major stories with Hush so he doesn't feel like much of a threat. He just feels like a kid throwing a huge tantrum.

Thanks for asking the only questions that matter, Penny-Two! Especially since I'm incapable of being constructive. I'm better at the other one. The opposite of constructive!

Now is when Bruce tells Julia that Hush is some asshole named Tommy that, strangely enough, led a life that closely mirrored Bruce's. But Tommy turned into a huge dick while Bruce Wayne turned into an obsessive, emotionally closed off asshole who is also a vigilante.

Bruce tells the story of his friendship with Tommy at a young age and it turns out Tommy's life only mirrored Bruce's because Tommy forced his life to mirror Bruce's. Basically it was a tantrum because Bruce's family was important and worth a lot of money and Tommy's family was a disgrace and broke which made Tommy want what Bruce had especially since Bruce didn't seem to want it. Or Tommy just wanted a neat butler with a cool accent that made delicious waffles.

Watch the "Master Bruce" shit, Penny-Two! You're in public and he's in costume!

Jesus Christ. The fact that Lex Luthor is the only person to figure out that Bruce Wayne is The Batman says less about how smart Lex is and more about how fucking stupid the rest of the DC Universe is. Except re-imagined Secret Origins' Tim Drake, of course! That story was a close save, returning Tim Drake to the Preboot genius he was always meant to be!

I'm not a fan of the art in this issue. The bandages stuck all over Bruce Wayne just look like slugs crawling all over his skin. And Bruce himself looks like an over the hill boxer. And The Joker's Daughter on the last page looks like a Garbage Pail Kid. And Alfred, having been transferred to Arkham Asylum to wait on Maxie Zeus, looks like an overweight business man that just woke up after a weekend bender that turned into a thirty-six hour long lemon party.

Batman Eternal #26 Rating: -2 Ranking. Didn't Scott Snyder already write this story except with The Joker playing all the parts? A villain that knows Batman's secrets. Alfred drugged and kidnapped. The Bat-Family worried that Batman has lost control of the city and probably gave away all of their secrets. Oh, sure! A lot more is happening in this than in Death in the Family but I can't help but notice, just under the surface, it's the same fucking story. Maybe I'm just being overly critical right now! It's not like The Ten-Eyed Man made an appearance in Death of the Family! Also, we're twenty-six issues in and not one appearance of Bat-Cow or Titus! Well, maybe Titus. I can't remember. But I don't think so! And definitely no Alfred the Cat!