Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Batman Annual #16 (August 1992)

I've got to believe The Joker is less dangerous Eclipsed.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Batman Annual #16 (August 1992)
By Alan Grant, John Wagner, Vince Giarrano, Clem Robins, and Adrienne Roy
Cover by Sam Keith
Edited by Scott Peterson and Dennis O'Neil

• Sixteen annuals! That's fucking crazy! That means that by 1992, the Batman series had been going since 1976! Incredible!¹

• During the Detective Comics Annual, The Joker escaped Arkham with the help of The Ventriloquist and Scarface. He then escaped Batman with the help of Commissioner Gordon and Eclipso. So now he's on the loose and Batman's trying to track him down. That's probably why Robin couldn't get in touch with him during the Eclipso Dinosaur Rampage in Robin's annual.

See?! Every orifice.²

• While Batman fishes a bunch of people out of a bus that crashed off of a bridge³, The Joker sits on a tall, teetering throne of money questioning a corrupt Gotham cop about the Black Diamond.

• Visually, this issue is really impressive. But I'm a Lit Major. Visually doesn't do it for me. I need, um, pathers? Pathros? Whatever that thing that the movie Pig had way, way, WAY too much of!

• I rarely look up artists to see what else they've done because I rarely one into one that fits both of these categories: I'm super impressed by their work, and I'm not already familiar with their work. Vince Giarrano did the art for "The Human Flea" story in Batman: Shadow of the Bat but his stuff didn't really strike me in those two issues. I was probably too stunned by Alan Grant using a flea circus as a plot device in the waning decade of the 20th Century to even notice the art.

• Anyway, I checked out Vince's current site and, um, wow. I'm envious of every woman he paints!

Oh to be able to pull off this outfit! I mean, sure, I'd look great in the boots. Not sure I could do a midriff exposing shirt and short skirt though!

• What impressed me most about Giarrano's work so far in this annual are his panel compositions, layouts, and "camera" angles. It feels like Alan Grant gave him a lot of room to explore the pacing of the story in this annual as it has so many extra pages to fill. The scene I skipped over completely where Batman rescues people in the sinking bus just has some wonderful shots.

• Oh! And the panel with the Joker on the teetering throne of money? DC should have made it a poster.

This could have been hanging on my wall under the bagged WaRP Elfquest issues displayed backwards to show the characters, my LPs of out-of-print⁴ Alice Cooper LPs like Zipper Catches Skin and Flush the Fashion, my massive Christina Applegate poster, and the ads for the It television mini-series cut out of the TV Guide.

• I should probably scan the sequence that impressed me enough to think, "Wait, this is really fucking good!", and caused me to go back to the beginning of the book to really look at the art.

Okay. That's enough about the art. I'm beginning to chap my lips on Vince's butthole.

• The Joker's henchmen display why Gotham's major villains can never get away with any crime in Gotham. First a couple of his guys throw the body of the now dead and rictus-mouthed cop on top of a passing train where it's easily spotted by Batrope swinging Batman. Second, a couple of his other guys steal the Black Diamond from the police evidence room only to run into a guy who used to work for them who's got Batman on his ass about the Joker's possible locations. I realize most of this is bad luck and coincidence but when Batman patrols your city, you've got to take every precaution you can to mitigate those factors while doing your henching!

• Here's a handy acronym for Gotham Henchman: ABNBO. Always Be Never Being Outside!

• Manzoni, one of the Joker's ex-henchman who Batman's been leaning heavily on, chases Joker's current henchmen who have the diamond. He's not doing it because he's afraid of Batman though; he's doing it because The Joker is, quite literally, sitting on 25 million dollars which Manzoni helped him steal and never got a cut of.

• To get Manzoni off of their tail, one of the henchmen grabs up one of the Black Diamonds and thinks about how angry he is at Manzoni. Pretty soon, orifice smoke!

• A dragon manifests from the henchman's anger and goes after the convertible with Manzoni in it. It picks them up and drops them to their death. Batman witnesses it and shrugs even though he doesn't know exactly how innocent the men in the car are.

Batman's come to terms with his superhero impotency. He saves whomever he can and doesn't lose any sleep over the others, I guess.

• It's disturbing to see Batman so cavalier about the death of a couple of Gothamites when you know, if they were innocent or important to the plot, Batman would figure out how to save them in the blink of an eye. But since the reader knows they're basically criminals who were just trying to shoot some other criminals, it's somehow okay that Batman can't save them, knows he can't save them, and just watches them die.

• Batman does check on the victims of the dragon, at least. Manzoni has somehow survived⁵ and he tells Batman that they were on the tail of some of The Joker's henchmen when the dragon appeared. Batman knows the body of the cop was dumped on top of a train by The Joker so he just follows the train back to a likely place where the body could have been dropped on it. Plus earlier, he and the cops found some pink wax under the dead cop's nails!

• Batman solves the easiest case of his life when he locates an overpass above the train and sees a Wax Museum nearby. "Let's see Superman solve this shit!" he cackles as he climbs the building to check if it has a skylight to drop through.

• I just made up the entirety of that last bullet point to save time and then I read the comic book and, um, it's exactly what happened. Sure, most if it was already telegraphed and obvious. But, um, that bit about the skylight? That was just me being cheeky.

Cheeky but correct.

• Does every building in Gotham have a skylight? Is a local ordnance that mandates skylights? Did Bruce Wayne lobby that contracting law onto the books?

• Batman crashes down, disarming The Joker and stealing his bag of Black Diamonds. Too bad The Joker already had one in his grubby mitts!

• Batman defeats The Joker's henchmen while The Joker tries to muster up an Eclipso.

Is this where we learn The Joker loves Batman so much that he can't even pretend to be angry at him?

• I wonder if there are 1000 Pink Diamonds that cause a person to be possessed by Aphrodite?

• The Joker does manifest into Eclipso (because he's aggressive!). Batman, knowing he can't match Eclipso, does the only thing he can: turn into Eclipso himself. Now Eclipso once again has to kill himself before he can properly manipulate whoever wins.

• The battle rages for several pages and it's both entertaining and hot. And then it suddenly becomes genius⁶.

I wasn't expecting this to become a critique of the comic book medium and how characters are trapped in an endless middle story.

• Batman and Joker, being evenly matched as Eclipsos, battle until the sun comes up. Eclipso is banished and then, I mean, you know who wins that fight. Batman takes Joker out in one punch and hauls his ass back to Arkham.

The Ranking!
What's going on? I generally hate Annuals and I'm often disappointed by these massive crossovers. But here I am enjoying annual after annual! I even liked the Robin annual! I must have done permanent damage to my brain when I took a hammer to my head. Should I re-read Scott Lobdell's New 52 Teen Titans?! Do you think I'd like it now?! What about New 52 Superboy?! Maybe I'll finally understand Ann Nocenti's writing! It's a new dawn for my love of comic books! I'm so fucking excited!


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¹ This bullet point is so facetious that it shouldn't even garner it's own footnote but I am posting it on the Internet which means it's necessary to point this out: that was a dumb joke, stupid.
² See Footnote 4 in Robin Annual #1
³ Don't worry. Nobody was hurt by the bus plummeting into the water from a great height even though busses don't have seat belts or harnesses. Even the baby was perfectly fine!
⁴ At least at the time. I'm not sure when Alice's albums between '80 and '83 were eventually re-released on CD.
⁵ But not for long!
⁶ Or amateurish if you'd rather your stories didn't explicitly point out the smart stuff. I, for one, love how Grant worked it here. He gives you several pages for what he's doing to dawn on the reader before going, "Well, this is the point. Did you get it? I bet you got it! But I know some of you didn't. So here ya go!"

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Robin Annual #1 (July 1992)

How can Anarky's mask be Eclipsed?!

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Robin Annual #1 (July 1992)
By Alan Grant, John Wagner, Tom Lyle, Scott Hanna, Timothy Harkins, and Adrienne Roy
Cover by Sam Keith
Edited by Scott Peterson and Dennis O'Neil

• If your enemy is named Anarky, I'm going to root for him (her?) every time.

• Anarky always freaked me out because he reminds me of the one image that creeped me the fuck out for most of my childhood.

I would obsessively open the book to this page, get a quick glimpse, and slam it shut, feeling super creeped out and upset.

• I'm not sure why Robin gets an annual in this Eclipso crossover. Why is Eclipso trying to possess fucking Robin? Also Robin didn't have his own monthly series until after his second annual. I know rules aren't real but what the fuck, DC? This shit doesn't make any sense.¹

• Didn't it turn out Anarky was a twelve year old girl² or something? Man, I hope so! Mostly because that means Robin will either get his ass kicked by a young girl or will kick the ass of a young girl. It's a lose/lose situation for our young hero!

• Robin got them tabi boots like he a ninja or somethin'.

Look at this freak! Fucking terrifying!

• Am I the only person terrified by people with long necks? Is that a phobia? I am severely unsettled when I see an actual person with a disproportionately long neck. Maybe that's just a leftover evolutionary trait retained from thousands of years ago when we lived on the African savannah to keep people safe from giraffes³ and, um, probably ancient aliens.

• It's also possible I'm pre-remembering how I'll be killed by somebody with a long neck. "Pre-remembering" is probably a scientific concept if you don't think about the science too much and instead concentrate on the Woo Woo. You can have Post Traumatic Stress so why not Pre Traumatic Stress? I rest my very well-argued case.

• Anarky torments that artist in the above panel to steal his Black Diamonds which he carelessly uses on his art pieces. Why does he want them? How the fuck should I know? I've almost certainly never read this comic book before and if I have, I wouldn't admit to it. It has fucking Robin on the cover! Blech!

• Robin, also looking for the Black Diamonds because Batman told him to, arrives too late to stop Anarky. But not that too late because Robin just looks out the window and sees Anarky swinging away on an Anarkyrope.

I'm so ashamed of comic book readers that we all just bought into this "get anywhere in Gotham by swinging from a thrown rope" business.

• Robin catches Anarky because Robin has way more experience throwing a grappling hook into the sky — hooking I don't fucking know what a gargoyle I guess — and swinging after the thief.

• Robin calls Anarky a "14 year old genius" but then uses the male pronoun so, um, Boo! Hiss! Sexism! Maybe. I don't know. What the fuck am I going on about?

• Anarky, being a genius, throws a smoke bomb at Robin and slowly walks away as if Robin coughing on smoke is all that's needed to defeat him.

Oh. It is? I mean, of course it is! Robin sucks.

• Christ I just love Anarky's design. So fucking cool. And creepy!

• My love for the concept of unheimlich began all those years ago when I was fascinated by Alice with the long neck, didn't it?

• To make sure he gets away, Anarky gives one of the Black Diamonds he stole to the only man he encounters on the street this late at night: an angry drunk man railing against outside façade of The People's Bank of Gotham. The man instantly produces a smoke Eclipso from every orifice⁴ which attacks the bank.

• Robin, a protector of capitalism (being Batman's ward), decides he must stop this creature from destroying a fine institution of the city!

Cool but I don't see how that's going to help.

• Surprisingly, Robin's solar-powered fleshlight doesn't stop the rampaging beast and the entire bank collapses into rubble.

• The beast, once it's successful with the vengeance demanded by its creator and thus gaining free will, turns on Robin. But Robin just jacks it off with the fleshlight and it dissolves into nothingness. You know, like all guys after orgasm.

That sound effect is spot on.

• Robin steals the Black Diamond from the drunk groggily getting to his feet like one of those assholes in an old Reese's Cup commercials where they're idiotically walking down the street with a whole jar of peanut butter and enjoying it in the way that nobody has ever done outside of a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup commercial and then when they run into the person eating the chocolate bar and the bar winds up broken in twain in their jar of peanut butter, they take out half of the bar and begin eating it. Dude. That wasn't your fucking candy bar, you asshole! Give it back!

• Robin reports back to Batman with his failure but tries to zhuzh⁶ it up by emphasizing how he managed to obtain one of the Black Diamonds. He doesn't tell him that he had to use the BatFleshlight though.

• Batman heads off to interrogate Anarky's father while Robin swings over to juvenile hall, the last known place Anarky was living. But it turns out, Anarky moved out with all his favorite books, his posters, and his clothing. He left nothing important behind. Except his computer, of course. Probably because it's a stupid tool of capitalism.

Robin exhibiting how he got the moniker "The Boy Wonder".

• Anarky, being a huge Lord of the Rings nerd⁷, uses the same old password trick that the dwarves use on the back door of Moria. But instead of "Speak friend and enter", his computer displays "Enter Codeword For Access". Yes, the statement, like the dwarves' statement, is literal. The codeword is codeword.

• Meanwhile, Anarky sits on his throne of seeds surrounded by all his books, clothes, and posters.

Being that Anarky is fourteen years old in 1992, I'm assuming most of those books are Xanth novels.

• Not only did Anarky leave his computer, he left all of his computer disks with all of his anarchistic plans on them. It's so convenient that Robin should assume that he's being led into a trap. But Robin doesn't suspect that at all. Robin just suspects he's outwitted Anarky.

• It is possible, being a 14 year old kid, Anarky simply made a stupid mistake? I guess we'll see if I can manage to read to the end of this comic!

• After discovering what Anarky's demands to the mayor are (which if not fulfilled will result in a bridge being blown up (safely, though! It's not open to the public yet!)), I think maybe Anarky left all his information for Robin to find so that Robin will think, "Man, this is a good plan! This kid really knows how to make the world better. Unlike that stupid Bruce Wayne!"

Centrists who are super scared about the changing of the status quo getting really fucking pissed right now. "This is ridiculous! Better things are scientifically impossible!"

• Just really fucking amazing that I'm supposed to think Anarky is a villain. I imagine he was created as a 14 year old kid because then all the adults could shake their heads and say shit like, "Oh, how sweet and naïve! He thinks the world works for everybody!" and "If you're not liberal when you're young, you don't have a heart. But if you're liberal when you're an adult, you don't have a brain!" and loads of other things that make them sound smart and responsible instead of what they really sound like: hissing ghouls feeding off the corpses of the quickly expanding graveyard they're living inside.

• I bet when Anarky is stopped, Batman will lecture him and be all, "Your heart is in the right place but you're going about things the wrong way. You have to change the system using civility and decorum and by rocking the vote!"

• Anarky heads to the bridge where he plans on becoming Eclipso via his rage against the machine. But he sets a solar flare to erupt in 90 seconds so that he won't remain Eclipso for long.

• Like the cover shows, when Anarky is Eclipsed, his mask does the whole eclipse make-up thing. Which is just stupid because, well, you know why! Why would I need to explain that to you? Or anybody?! Sometimes things are so obvious that you don't need to "Expand this thought!", Professor Guenter!

• Sorry. Old college trauma flashback.

• Anarky's plan is successful! Um, not the one to make Gotham a better place and to house the homeless and to make the city more friendly to pedestrians and to save money via a commuter transportation overhaul and to institute Universal Basic Income. No, no. The plan of his that's successful is where he destroys the bridge and then drives Eclipso from his body. See? Hard work, planning, and having a compassionate heart can really get things done! Or get things destroyed. Whatever. Who cares.

Oh sure. Nothing calms the populace's nerves like sudden and catastrophic crumbling infrastructure.

• I just find it extremely rich that a vigilante and his vigilante sidekick think the kid anarchist needs to be reined in. Oh? You don't approve of the way he's doing things? But you're okay that the law doesn't approve of the way you do things? How come people who think they're responsible enough to do whatever they want can never extend that belief to anybody else? Okay, sure, the kid just blew up a fucking bridge. But that's beside the point! I'm being theoretically philosophical right now!

There's never any money for giving people a hand up, always plenty of money for locking them up.

• The public would feel safer with less homeless on the streets. So housing the homeless would make people feel safer in the same way people think hiring more cops makes people feel safer. But hiring more cops is only an illusion and a political act to signal to the people that you're interested in their safety. More cops doesn't actually make people safe. But giving the homeless a place to live does make people more safe, including, and especially, the homeless! So you fire some cops and spend their salaries and all the bullshit overtime they pad their checks with to house the homeless. Don't have enough? Fire a few more cops!

• The main problem with that proposed solution is that cops are dirty bastards and if they lose their jobs to a program that uses the money to help people they look at as inferior and unworthy and thieves, the cops will probably turn to banditry and crime. Like all of Caesar's soldiers after taking Rome!

• Robin figures out where Anarky's next Eclipso attack will be and manages to stop him. But in so doing, the Black Diamond lands in the purse of a spurned teenage girl and she begins leaking Eclipso smoke out of every orifice⁴.

• The girl manifests a Tyrannosaurus Rex which goes rampaging across a carnival looking to bite the head off of her teenage rival. Anarky cannot stop it because he's an idiot and his solar flare fucks up. Robin, who is also an idiot, cannot stop it because his solar fleshlight has broken. And Batman? Nobody can reach him!

"Ciiiinddeeeeeee! Ciiiiiinnnndeeeeee! I'm going to get you! Right after I fuck this ticket booth!"

• Cindy's boyfriend, the guy who nobly dumped Dinah in the hopes of fucking her, skedaddles when the dinosaur approaches. Since they were just about to fuck in the Tunnel of Love, this leaves her with massive lady blue balls. But then Robin arrives and she's all, "I'm fucked! I mean I'm saved! And then, hopefully, fucked!"

• She really does seem to be into Robin for some reason. I guess even dorks and nerds and losers can seem attractive to a woman when they're displaying competence, bravery, and compassion.

Hmm. I hope Cindy's into necrophilia.

• Cindy's massively swollen lady parts now see Anarky as their only relief so she runs off with him leaving Robin to molder and decay.

• Oh wait. Robin's not dead. Silly me! I can't believe how often comic books fool me with that trick! I still think maybe Superman really did die back in 1993. The guy we have now is just a simulacrum.

• Robin finds a solar-powered car being shown at the carnival, steals it, and drives it into the dinosaur, shining its headlights on the beast which are powered by batteries that were powered by solar power. I mean, okay, I guess. But really, if that's how this whole thing works, anything can defeat Eclipso because it's powered by the sun all the way down! That's just called life on Earth, baby!

• Robin decides to arrest Anarky and make him pay because, um, you know. He's a jerk. Robin, I mean. Anarky's cool.

• As Robin leads Anarky away to have him arrested (or maybe set him free. It's not like he waits at the carnival for the cops to show), he scolds him just like I thought Batman would scold him. "You might have the public good in mind but you can't do evil to attain good! Also, you can't find public money for the general good. So you shouldn't even try, idiot!"

• Robin probably fucks Cindy on Page 55 but my issue doesn't include that page. I guess I'll just have to sketch it out later after I take off my clothes and get a washcloth and some lotion.

The Ranking!
I really enjoyed this issue!

I know. Shut up! Maybe I'll delete this entry later. Stupid proof that I enjoyed a Robin comic book.




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¹ Outside of the context that rules aren't real, I mean.
² Maybe that was Anarky in The New 52. Comic book continuity got me, um, how do post gifs here?
³ Giraffes are dangerous, right? I bet they headbutt people to death on the regular.
⁴ Yes. Every orifice. Even the sexy ones⁵.
⁵ The pee and the butt holes.
⁶ Jeuje, juje, tszuj, zhoosh, or any number of alternate spellings. Take your gayest pick!
⁷ I'm assuming because Anarky is a 14 year old genius.

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Detective Comics Annual #5 (June 1992)

If you want to destroy Batman's sweater. . .

Eclipso: The Darkness Within: Detective Comics Annual #5 (June 1992)
By Alan Grant, John Wagner, Tom Mandrake, Jan Duursema, Rick Magyar, Bill Oakley, Adrienne Roy
Cover by Sam Keith
Edited by Denny O'Neil

The Cover!
I'm not going to give Sam Keith a hard time about this cover because, I mean, it's fucking great. Did you look at it? Do you have eyeballs? Does your brain function? I suppose I could criticize Keith's vision of how clothing tears and comes apart but that would be an assumption on my part that Batman's costume isn't made of steel wool. And even if I was going to be an uptight prick and moan about the weird curly pasta threads hanging down from Batman's torn shirt, I'd only be doing Keith a disfavor in that I'm ignoring his (as far as I can tell) realistic gun. Did anybody ever think to show John Romita Jr. this cover (or, I don't know, an actual gun)? If I wanted to be a useless, whiny, piece of shit comic book reader, I could ask how the fuck this has anything to do with Eclipso? Oh, sure, there's a moon in the background and you usually (although not always) need the moon for an eclipse. I mean I don't know what those "not always" moments might be. Like, say, Galactus is fucking Venus or something and his great ass blocks out the sun. But I guess, technically, that's a moon as well. And also Galactus doesn't live in the DC Universe. So pretend I said The Authority's Carrier was fucking a space whale and got between the sun and the Earth. So, anyway, that's my ignorance exposed! But I'm telling you, why would I want to criticize this fucking cover? I love it! I bet if this hadn't been an Eclipso tie-in issue, I'd have picked it up anyway. I would have been all, "Hey Brent! Did you see this cover? I didn't know Batman's costume was made of steel wool and pasta noodles! And I think that's Tiny Toons Joker guest starring! That's a weird looking gun though." (Up until 1992, I'd only ever seen guns drawn by John Romita Jr.)

The Story So Far!
Eclipso has eclipsed Valor, Starman, The Creeper, and Star Sapphire. Am I missing any? I don't remember and I'm not bothering to check. Let's see if Batman falls to lovely purple diamonds! I mean Black Diamonds (but they're really purple). I bet Catwoman loses her shit (and not in the appropriate litter box receptacle (Goddammit I think I just developed a new kink)).

The Story
The issue begins with totally legit business-puppet Scarface re-opening his club, The Ventriloquist's Club, while Batman hassles him and his guests by just making himself obvious up on the nearby street buildings. He's purposefully swinging past streetlights so that his scary and terrifying shadow passes across the front of the club and mumbling to himself, "That'll strike terror in the hearts of these people just trying to have a nice time at a totally legal club run by somebody who has served their time for the crimes they've committed but whom I don't like or trust."

I'd sue his ass for trying to tank my business.

Imagine suing Batman and then finding out in the discovery phase of your civil suit that he's Bruce Wayne. The amount of "Cha-Chings!" rattling around in your head would probably send you straight to Arkham.

I don't know anything about law and law terms so I probably got the lingo wrong and I'm not bothering to check but you probably understood what I meant.

Batman ignores the club full of Gotham's most wanted criminals because he's got a robbery to stop down at the Old Egyptian Goods Shoppe. The criminals try to flee in their truck which is, you know, truck-sized. It's drawn truck-sized. I saw it with my own eyes over multiple pages that it was truck-sized. And then when Batman goes to stop them (by making the truck crash which obviously kills the men in the cab because they're criminals and they don't wear seatbelts), the truck becomes a fucking Mini Cooper.

I'm less concerned about the dead criminals than I am about Tom Mandrake's ability to pass off that panel as professional work.

At least I know what Tom Mandrake thinks of me early into the comic book so I won't feel bad at all when I trash all of his actually adequate and not-bad-to-look-at pencils. You don't declare I'm a stupid idiot that will accept any old shit you draw and expect me to act politely about it! If by the end of the book we don't find out that Batman was sipping on some Gingold earlier which is how he reached the steering wheel from outside the passenger door, I'm going to carve Tom Mandrake's name onto the skin of the yearly goat I sacrifice to Baphomet to curse those who have done me ill.

While Batman's engaged in M.C. Escher crime fighting, Scarface busies himself with insulting every major mafia boss in Gotham at his new club. Most of his insults have to do with plastic surgery gone wrong. Look, he's a little thug who shoots a gun, not a comedy writer. Somehow he (and the guy with his hand up his ass) survives the gig, probably because the mob bosses are using all of their brain power trying to figure out what Scarface's scheme is. I'm using all of my brain power trying to figure out what Eclipso's scheme is. Maybe he won't show up in this comic book at all since Batman doesn't have any super powers. Why would Eclipso want to possess him?

Oh no! A threat from a normal criminal who apparently wears his seatbelt while he crimes.

Batman ignores the threat because is any threat actually a threat to Batman? I bet he doesn't even hear the guy because he's too busy trying to figure out how to defeat Superman if he ever winds up mind-controlled or how to fuck Catwoman if she ever winds up mind-controlled. He does notice a Black Diamond earring on the ground near the crash after the cops have gathered up the loot and the criminals and left the scene to go enjoy some paperwork. They'll especially love the extra paperwork they'll be doing later since they just left the smashed truck and didn't cordon off the crime scene. You might be thinking, "How do you know they didn't do any of that? Maybe Al, John, and Tom just decided not to show all the boring procedural work, you fucking douchebag?" Well, they do show us because Batman calls for the cops to stop and take the Black Diamond for evidence but they've already left. And this is the scene as Batman leaves.

The cops: "Enh, leave it. It'll make a great artificial reef when the sea levels rise."

Oh! I didn't mention that tonight, this very night that Scarsfaceman and his fister are eavesdropping on all the good Gotham mafia goss while they serve them tons of free drinks and Batman has found some jewelry that hopefully Tim Drake won't think was a loving present from his second father . . . this night is the anniversary of Babs being shot in the back by the Joker and definitely not raped at all because when has, um, Alan Moore ever, um, written a . . . you know what? She was probably raped. But nobody needs to dwell on that because she's dealing with it in the best way she knows how: help a government black ops organization break tons of laws all over the world and kill loads of people labeled as enemies of the United States. Even in 1992, we understood that the best time to label a person an enemy of the United States was after you've killed them so they can't say on the record, "What the fuck are you talking about? I don't even think of the United States! Like that scene in the elevator in Mad Men that will be written in twenty years or something!" Just like everything else he claims he invented because he knows nobody will fucking say to his face, "You're a delusional narcissist who lies about everything and doesn't actually know any Goddamn facts at all," Trump didn't invent the state killing civilians and then dragging their names through the mud. That's a time honored American tradition that they stole from Great Britain who stole it from, I don't know, The Romans or Christians.

Anyway, The Joker will be broken out of Arkham on this auspicious anniversary by Scarsfaceman because The Joker, supposedly, knows where 25 million dollars has been stashed. At least that's what one of the crime guys thinks because he was a henchman for The Joker and somehow survived the job and is also incredibly credulous if he thinks The Joker actually gives a shit about money.

Cue Tim Drake snooping around the Batcave.

Bruce Gordon shows up because he's tracked a Black Diamond to Gotham. In a previous issue, he mentioned he could only track them while they're in use. The one Batman found is currently safe but there were two others in the loot from the robbery earlier. Those are in the hands of the police and there's nobody angrier than a cop who was just, in his own eyes, disrespected. That means there's probably an Eclipso or two smashing up the evidence room right now.

Commissioner Gordon finds the two gems still on an Egyptian statue. I was trying to give Grant and company the benefit of the doubt for breaking an rule established in an earlier annual. If Bruce Gordon can track the Black Diamonds while they're not active, this whole series is going to get pretty boring. The whole set-up is simply to get Commissioner Gordon's hands on one so that he'll be so angry at The Joker that he'll turn into Eclipso and strip The Joker naked and take loads of photos and also shoot him in the spine and probably almost certainly doesn't at all in any way, shape, or form rape him. That's probably what happens. I can just stop reading now, right?

Of course it's happening! You forgot to tell them the most important rule: don't get angry around the Black Diamonds!

Gordon's Eclipso manifestation, a massive twenty-foot tall monster with huge teeth and claws, smashes its way out of the police precinct and heads for the toy warehouse where the cops have surrounded The Joker and Scarsfaceman's gang. When it gets there, it immediately kills at least three cops which means Commissioner Gordon is a cop killer. Although I think the Comics Code Authority jerks demanded a later panel to make sure Gordon's hands were clean of any cop blood:

I mean, it is a miracle because I saw the way Tom Mandrake drew them all being gutted. But then I also learned not to believe that hack on page three.

While giving chase, Batman drops and breaks Bruce Gordon's solar light gun. That means he can't stop Eclipso now! Except we, the readers, know that some of the toys in The Joker's warehouse are lightsaber knock-offs called "solar lances". Well, they have "solar" in the name so they must have the same power as the sun, right? Not just shitty light enabled by two 'D' batteries.

During the fight, Batman crashes into a crate of solar lances where he reads the label: "Powered by the sun." Well, that's all well and good if only the toy hadn't been stashed in a crate for the last number of years and it was now currently night and there's no way the stupid thing would be charged.

Wait a second. I think I see my problem with this comic book. It can be sorted out with a hammer and three hard whacks to the back of my head. *whack whack whack* Ah! That's better. I'm now dumb enough to enjoy a comic book again!

Batman picks up a Solar Lance which, having been charged by the sun, has the power to defeat Eclipso. So like something out of one of the two good Star Wars movies, Batman strikes Eclipso down!

Jim had to help for psychological health reasons. This was him dealing with his anger at Alan Moore.

Scarface and The Ventriloquist are arrested after everything calms down but The Joker manages to escape in a cloud of smoke, ninja style. An editor's note says that his story will be continued in Robin Annual #1 because of course Tim Drake found that Black Diamond Batman left lying around and was all, "Stupid teenager problems. I hate everybody!" Which will mean he'll have to kill everybody once he Eclipses. The main Eclipso story will continue in Superman Annual #4.

The Ranking!
That was fucking awesome, man! Incredible! What art! What story! And that part where Batman reaches in the truck window to steer the criminals into a streetlight? Phenomenal! The twist ending with the lightsabers? Genius! And I'm all on pins and needles about The Joker escaping! At least I think that's why I'm feeling pins and needles everywhere. Where'd all this blood come from? Whose hammer is that? I think I'm going to go lie down for a spell.