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!

DC Universe Presents #18: Starfire

The use of "UNLEASHED!" for the cover copy usually annoys me since nobody is actually ever leashed. But Starfire most definitely was throughout her youth. So I'll give it a pass this month. But no more characters UNLEASHED! from here on out.

Starfire's story begins with her killing a bunch of alien gorilla men. Some pen on paper journal entry narrator claims she came in promising liberation but bringing devastation. Well what do you want, slave? A whip across your back but relative peace or freedom and war? Make your cho--oh wait. Starfire just made the choice for you.

If I ever again find myself in a position where I know I'm going to die and somebody asks me this question, that's the answer I'm giving next time! "To give you hours of oral pleasure" may save your life until help arrives but it's not a story I'm particularly ready to tell my grandchildren! Although if my captor looks like Starfire next time, I think I'll definitely go with my original answer.

The Gorilla Aliens Kori kills are guards on a gigantic space ship filled to bursting with slaves from all over. The interior is not just composed of prison cells though. The guards she just killed kept watch over a small village of slaves with huge red beauty marks on their foreheads. I think it was a slave ship like this one that crashed in Roswell in 1947 causing Lobo to be imprisoned on Earth for many, many years. Kori was a slave to these aliens as a child but she escaped. This time it seems she allowed herself to be captured so that she could ruin the slavers day.

"Grow a backbone, you coward! Unless your race doesn't have backbones! I didn't mean any offense! Unless you take offense at me thinking you're a coward. Then I meant offense!"

So this guy confronts Starfire thinking she'll leave. But she doesn't. Instead, she cuts off both of his hands and tells him to shut the fuck up or get the fuck out. I'm pretty sure he's going to betray his own people simply to get back at Starfire for humiliating him. Oh, and maiming him.

What I meant to say was that the reader will suspect that he'll betray Starfire but it will really be Starfire's little pal! So totally obvious. You really thought I thought that other thing for real? Ha! No way!

The village kicks Kori out now that she has a scout ship and can leave the vessel. They'd rather be alive and slaves than dead and dead. I guess the saying would typically go something like "free and dead" but if you're dead who the fuck cares about anything else? Slave and dead, or free and dead. It's all fucking the same thing! So Kori gets away and then the person that wanted to purchase her as a slave is revealed!

It's Fin Fang Foom! From the Speedy Issue!

DC Universe Presents #18: Starfire Rating: No change. What the fuck is wrong with you, Fin Fang Foom?! You know what it's like to be a slave and now you're dealing with slavers? Asshole. The timing on this thing is weird but I guess I can sort of make it work. Maybe. While Speedy was freeing Fin Fang Foom, Jason Todd and Kori were putting Nuts and Bolt in jail. But immediately after that, I guess Kori was captured by the slavers. Then she spent about an hour putting the lives of the red spotted people in danger before she was kicked out and escaped. It couldn't have been too long since Fin Fang Foom wanted her captured and he could have only given the order while free of his hypno-neck leash. And since Fin Fang Foom's previous master still has a black eye from his fight with Speedy and Fin Fang Foom, I think all of this Kori stuff happened in the space of a day or two. That works!

This comic book wasn't bad which is why I didn't lower the ranking. But it's the kind of comic book you forget about immediately after bagging it and putting it away. Just not much going on in it. Unless you like stories that teach Kori that not everybody wants what she has to give. Then you might cherish this as the best story ever told!

DC Universe Presents #17: Speedy

Since Scott Lobdell won't be writing this whole thing from Arsenal's point of view, I might actually enjoy it. Man. The next time Lobdell does a Red Hood and the Outlaws book narrated by Speedy, I'm not going to read any of the boxes. I'm just going to get the neighbor boy to fill them all in with a marker before I read the comic book.

The issue begins with Joe Keatinge trying to mimic Lobdell's take on Jason Todd and Starfire. Except he's awful at it. Because this first page was decent! At least when Adrian Nathan Edmondson was writing Grifter he captured Brandon Choi's flare for writing the shittiest shit he could possibly come up with.

This page also stars Bolt! I don't know who the other guy is. Probably someone whose name goes with Bolt somehow. Nut?

But Keatinge nails Roy Harper's Narration Boxes! I wonder if the neighbor would mind me knocking on the door at 3:45 AM to see if little Alex is awake to color in my comic book? I guess I should read all of the boxes to see if they improve. I can't fault Joe Keatinge's (is it pronounced KEY-TINGE? or KEY-TEEN?!) choice to write Roy Harper the only way he's been portrayed so far in The New 52. In much the same way Nathan Edmondson continued making Grifter spout profound nonsense in the vein of Brandon Choi, Joe Keatinge makes every Narration Box of Arsenal's feel like electrodes on my brain.

Although they do quickly begin to get better! Maybe these first few were an homage to Scott Lobdell's penchant for inducing migraines in his readership.

I'm tempted to ask, "Who thinks like this?" but fuck it if my own thought processes don't come perilously close to this garbage. Maybe that's why I hate it so much! I hate my stupid brain. Which means my brain hates itself! It's a self-loathing organ.

His Narration Boxes don't actually get much better. Tolerable, maybe? No, not even tolerable. Simply annoying. But they don't add anything to the story. So they really might as well have been left out. Or marked over! Stupid sleeping neighbor kid.

Arsenal has been captured by some guys known as the Triad. I think the Triad is actually a conglomerate of Hong Kong gangs. They're a bit pissed off about what Red Hood and the Outlaws did to Suzie Su. Jason Todd killed a lot of Hong Kong gang members so maybe The Triad is simply one of the gangs and maybe Suzie Su led them. Whatever the case, Roy Harper is going to be killed out of revenge for Suzie Su's murder.

As noted on the cover, Killer Croc is also here and he's with the Triad. Although apparently against his will.

Does this mean Killer Croc survives getting all of his Hydra heads chopped off by Wonder Woman over in Batwoman?

Killer Croc is actually Roy's reason for being in Hong Kong. Since Killer Croc helped Roy get into AA (or NA, I guess) to kick his heroin addiction, Roy decided to help Killer Croc when Roy heard he was being held against his will in Hong Kong. I guess Roy didn't mind Medusa using Croc since sponsoring a guy for AA isn't the kind of favor you pay back by battling Medusa and a bunch of Urban Legends. But traveling to Hong Kong to shoot some arrows into street gangs? No problem!

Did you know Arsenal's name is Arsenal because he can use anything as a weapon? I didn't know that! Maybe that's because I always refer to this jerk as Speedy. And that nickname didn't fucking mean anything so I figured Arsenal didn't really mean anything. Unless this is a new twist on the New 52 Arsenal since there have been 17 issues of Red Hood and the Outlaws and I don't think this ever came up. He just shoots his arrows and smarts off. And when I say "smarts off", I don't mean to imply that anything that comes out of his mouth is the least bit smart or witty. He's just one of those assholes that loves the sound of his own voice and believes if something is coming out of his mouth, it's funny. Except everybody else either gives a polite and awkward golf laugh or just rolls their eyes and pretends they were busy doing something other than listening to him.

Here are some of the things he says up to and during his escape:

Speedy: "Sucks to be me."
Speedy: "Holy crap, dude! You learned Chinese?!"
Speedy: "Do you guys offer some sort of special Triad Chinese Tutor?"
Speedy: "Word was you started holding international criminals against their will, but no one mentioned the educational component."
Speedy: "What's your health care plan like?"
Speedy: "A whole 'skyscraper's worth'? Really? Oh, wow. That's a lot of new faces."
Speedy: "Seeeee yoooooou soooooon...!"
Speedy: "And knock it off with the guns! They're so lame!"
Speedy: "Murdering's for wimps."

Speedy says the murdering is for wimps line after he impales this man like so:

See? All the way in!

with this screwdriver:

Yeah. I'm pretty sure he just pierced that asshole's heart.

Speedy finally "disables" a skyscraper's worth of henchmen and arrives at the Boss Room. Inside is the leader of the Triad and the thing Speedy thought was Killer Croc. It's not. It's some Chinese Dragon version of him. Speedy has simply wasted his time. And mine! Thanks a lot, DC, for blowing another issue of DC Universe Presents on a character from one of the shittiest comics of the New 52.

You know what? Speedy mentioned the "murdering is for wimps" thing a few pages ago. Does that mean he's against killing and guns in Red Hood and the Outlaws? So he's against Jason Todd's entire method of fighting crime and yet he backs him up? What the fuck is the difference, Roy Harper? You might as well be killing people too (and he may have in Red Hood but I don't specifically remember him killing anyone, so I'm going to assume he hasn't because this comic book shows he thinks murdering is for wimps).

So we come to the part where Roy Harper fights Chinese Killer Dragon.

This panel may be a joke but it exemplifies everything I hate about Narration Boxing. Obviously the Narration Box isn't needed here. That's maybe the intended joke. Or the intended joke is that when a character is being punched in the face, "Oof" is definitely all they should be thinking about. They shouldn't be going over shopping lists or thinking about how Chinese Killer Dragon was a little off-balance when throwing that punch. Whatever this panel actually intends, it's really quite the argument for why Narration Boxes suck. It's also totally meta!

Joe Keatinge obviously didn't mean for that last panel to be commentary on how stupid it is to have characters thinking complex and smart ass thoughts while getting pummeled in the face repeatedly because that is exactly what Roy goes on to do in the subsequent panels. It does show that if I'd had the neighbor boy mark out all the boxes, I wouldn't be fucking missing a thing.

Here's what goes through Speedy's mind as Chinese Killer Dragon punches him bloody and throws him through a window!

Speedy: "This certainly stopped going well."
Speedy: "I'm pretty sure this window had bulletproof glass."
Speedy: "It sure felt like bulletproof glass."
Speedy: "All of my insides are in all kinds of pain."
Speedy: "But let's give a round of applause to balconies, am I right?"
Speedy: "Sure beats falling to my death."
Speedy: "My squishy, squishy death."

Roy manages to destroy the inhibiting collar on Chinese Killer Dragon and gains an ally.

Speedy decides to go all Wolverine on his adversaries.

After the fight, Wolverine discovers that the Chinese Killer Dragon is named Fin Fang Foom or something. When did I start reading Marvel Comics?

Roy makes friends with Fangfengfoom and leaves him with some words of wisdom that could have been uttered by Christ himself.

"Do better, douchebags. Do better."

DC Universe Presents #17: Speedy Rating: -1 Ranking. I'm simply giving this comic book a negative ranking because I can't stand Arsenal and his Narration Boxes. I have a feeling the comic would be better without the Narration Boxes. Just a second.

Yep! I just read it without the boxes and it was much improved. They added nothing to the comic book! These things are like training wheels. If a writer relies on them too much, that writer will never be able to get on without them. I think they can be used adequately if used sparingly. But mostly it just seems like the writer thinks they need to be shoving words in panels that don't need words. It's a lack of confidence as much as it is lazy writing. Maybe if characters said really interesting things in their Narration Boxes, I wouldn't mind so much. I generally didn't mind it when Shade thought stuff in that way. Whatever. No use continuing to complain (although I will!). I guess I'm stuck with them!