Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #2 (December 1992)

Miami Vice starring Batman as the Great Old One, Cthulhu.

In my last review on the first annual of Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight (also by Dennis O'Neil), I forgot to say some things I was going to say in my hurry to wrap up the post. This is the architecture of most of my posts:

1. I ramble about my life or the cover or the general concept of the comic book. Whatever it is, it's pure rambling. Maybe I set up a theme or idea in the first few paragraphs which I can call back to throughout the review to give it a little bit of structure. A load bearing gag, so to speak.

2. I write an inordinate amount of bullshit about every weird detail in the first five or six pages. I just go on and on about everything, finding everything interesting or irritating because I'm excited about reading another comic book that I haven't read in probably 30 years.

3. By the middle of the comic book, my interest has waned and I start to check my email or Bluesky. Sometimes I'll wander off to play with the cat or play a round of Magic the Gathering on Forge. Occasionally, I'll put the comic book down and not pick it up again for a week or two.

4. Past the middle of the comic book, if it's a regular length comic, I might become reinvigorated, getting back in the mood to write stupid, snarky shit about the story or art. If it's a longer comic book, I'll just feel drained and begin summarizing great big swaths of the book. If they hold my interest like the first annual of this series, I'll do much better than usual. But often, I've lost interest and it shows by how little detail I dive into.

5. I wrap up the comic book, make up a letter grade that only vaguely means anything on its own and means virtually nothing when compared to how I graded other comics. I might sum up the overall experience, or I'll thank the universe the comic book has ended, or I'll simply go into another digression about something that has nothing to do with the comic book.

6. Sometimes I'll revisit some oddities in the story and work them through in the final paragraph. This is the important bullet point because it's the one I forgot to do in my review on O'Neil's Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #1! So I'm going to revisit that comic book now!

Why the fuck were Batman and The Joker on a plane together over Korea?! I really was going to speculate on this but I forgot all about it when I began ranting about blocking people who ruin your day by trying to debate stupid, dead ideas that only dinosaurs who are often racist want to debate. We've settled those debates, guys! Only assholes who are too dumb to understand that nobody likes them want to continue arguing online. Oh look! I'm doing it again! I'm distracting myself! But seriously: where were Batman and The Joker going? Does this annual take place after another story that ended with Batman and The Joker crashing on a plane? But that question, along with my Internet debate rant, also just distracts from the real problem in Denny's script: Batman never has to reveal whether he would save Hitler or let Hitler fall to his death! Denny lets Batman off the hook with that one by having Batman's hallucination end at the critical moment! Would Batman have saved Hitler's life? And Batman can't use all his stupid excuses he gave The Joker for why he'd feel it necessary to do so. Letting Hitler's fingers slip and fall while you just stand there taking your penis out to piss on his face isn't technically killing him!

Maybe the point of Denny's story is that we're not supposed to know if Batman's convictions are strong enough to keep him from killing Hitler. Leaving it ambiguous allows everybody to make up in their minds the answer that most satisfies them. Leftists can be all, "Oh, yeah, he totally was about to stomp on Hitler's fingers!" And liberals would be all, "He'd help him because Hitler might vote Democrat!" And right-wingers would be all, "Hitler, being the hero, would fucking save Batman, you pansy!" So see? Denny did the correct thing, I guess?

Ramble over. Let's read a fucking comic book!

The issue begins with some Gotham street thug calling Jim Gordon's bride-to-be a scag.

Looking up the definition of "scag" online was no help at all.

Being that I was young around the same time this comic book was first published, I readily accepted the term "scag" as a misogynistic slang term for a woman. I wouldn't say it was common even in 1992 but it felt familiar enough as an insult. Looking it up online in 2025, the official dictionaries only give the definition as heroin. Urban Dictionary, on the other hand, basically gives dozens of different possibilities for the definition. Are the kids okay? They can't even agree on the meaning of words anymore? Maybe it's a good thing that "scag" isn't as blatant an insult for women in 2025 than it must have been in 1992. As if women need more derogatory terms for them in everyday vernacular.

The important part of my initial statement about how this comic books begins isn't the word "scag" so I don't know why I went on about it. The important bit is that Jim Gordon is getting married! That's right! To another cop! They're out picking up his fiancé Sarah's wedding dress. But Jim is pouting because he just found out, like the day before the wedding, that Sarah wants a baby. He's being a real male about it.

Ugh. Jim is one of those cowards.

One of the things that I can't stand about assholes (and all Men's Rights Activists are this type of asshole) is how they'll be the biggest asshole in the world for as long as they can get away with it and then when somebody calls them out on it, they're all, "What are you talking about?" or "I'm just joking!" or "That's not what I said!" Fucking cowards. If you're going to be an asshole, own it. I'm not suggesting you be an asshole but at least embrace the things you believe, even if those things are belittling the woman you're supposedly in love with. Hell, every conservative is like this! They simply won't own up to the things they actually believe, constantly shifting their arguments and defenses so they never actually have to say the thing that they believe because they know the actual thing they believe is fucking terrible. If Jim's angry about Sarah springing having a baby on him, be angry about it! Don't pout and act all passive aggressive and ruin the entire day because you don't have the balls to say, "Yes, we probably should have spoken about this. I should have brought it up since you didn't. But it feels wrong, as if you were hiding from me, to bring it up so close to the wedding. As if you knew I wouldn't be pleased. And I'm not. So being angry at me for being upset isn't really fair. We're both responsible for making sure the other knows our feelings and maybe we should talk about this." Instead, Jim is all, "Boo hoo. This fucking sucks. Your dress is dumb. You're mean. I'm sad now!" Grow up!

To be fair, Jim Gordon is a cop and how many cops have ever been in touch with their actual feelings? I bet Jim's going to go out and beat a jaywalker later.

Before Jim and Sarah can hash out this new wrinkle in their relationship, the jerks with the interesting vocabulary bust in waving guns in their faces. I bet Jim and Sarah are both relieved they don't have to discuss their relationship anymore.

What a surprise. A dirty cop blaming an honest cop for getting him fired.

The only reason I can use the phrase "honest cop" in this comic book review is because Jim Gordon is fictional. As if there's actually such a thing as an honest cop!

This ex-dirty cop who hasn't learned to take responsibility for his own moral failings in life beats the shit out of Jim Gordon. Jim can't fight back or else the dirty cop's friend will blow Sarah's head off with the shotgun he holds right up to her head. Being that she's a cop, she must know how to disarm an overconfident asshole who gets this close with his gun, right? Even while in a wedding dress.

Jim Gordon doesn't fight back or give in so the jerk with the shotgun begins beating Sarah. That's enough for Jim to beg them to stop and listen to what they want him to do.

Is Jim asking which kid because he knows Barbara can handle herself if they had her? Or because he doesn't give a shit if they kill James? Either way, I guess Jim doesn't have to help them!

I'm assuming James Junior is the creepy serial killer fuck that I knew from The New 52. Maybe he wasn't a huge albatross hanging around Jim's neck in 1992 and he actually wants to save him from these guys? Because it's James they have and this book still has like forty pages to go. If James Junior was a creepy little creep, wouldn't the comic book end as soon as the mobsters let Jim go and Jim went back to his daily life without ever thinking about them again?

James seems a bit too young to be the creep he'll later grow into so perhaps when Jim tells Sarah he's going to expose the judge's corruption anyway, it's actually a difficult decision for him. Although he knows Batman and Batgirl so maybe it's not a difficult decision at all. He sends the evidence that the judge is corrupt to all the news outlets, gives Batman a call with the Bat-signal, and then hopes Batman does what he's supposed to do. I'm sure Jim will be all, "Damn it! You owe me!" And Batman will be all, "--hnnnh--." And then Batman will disappear as Jim begins listing all the reasons why Batman owes him.

Jim Gordon disappears into his investigation while Sarah does her own investigating. She doesn't have time to change out of her wedding dress so she's running around town in a massive amount of lace and a GCPD jacket. I don't know what leads either James or Sarah are following because my eyes glaze over trying to read these detective stories. I just want a nearby television to tell the protagonist what's happening, moving them in the right direction for the big confrontation. I understand this is an annual with a whole bunch of pages that need to be wasted. But that doesn't mean I have to treat those wasted pages like Shakespeare and pay close attention to them.

Fifteen pages in now and my attention is beginning to flag! Batman had better appear soon.

Jim Gordon disappears from the story as he investigates, according to Bullock, some person named Gleam who is involved with the corrupt cop and the ex-cop, Flass, who assaulted Jim and Sarah. Sarah thinks, "Fuck detective work," and heads out to Gotham Cop her way to answers.

I don't see this marriage lasting.

Sarah discovers Gleam hangs out on a boat in the bay. She doesn't kill the guy who gives her the information but she doesn't promise not to kill him later, especially since he attempted to sexually assault her. She also plans on killing Flass for slapping her earlier. I say "killing" but, I don't know, maybe she's not as Gotham Coppy as she seems. Maybe she just meant she's going to castrate him.

Corrupt ex-cop Flass discovers that Jim sent the evidence of his buddy judge's corruption to news outlets when one of the radio stations plays it on air. Gordon decides to call off the wedding and the entire relationship and any future relationships that might try to creep up on him. Everybody in his family has suffered because of his job because he was stupid enough to go into public service instead of being a masked vigilante. Sarah storms out of her office and spends one panel bumping into the janitor because I guess the janitor is Batman?

"Oh hi character who has no reason to be introduced and doesn't advance the story in any way so I probably shouldn't be too concerned with you!"

Gleam turns out to be the boy in the bubble and the man in the iron mask all in one. Or he's just a sex pervert who's one-upped Frank Booth by living in the gas mask instead of using a teeny-tiny handheld mask. Amateur! He's decided the dirty cop who proved that he was too violent and out-of-control to be a cop can no longer be trusted because he was also too violent and out-of-control as a mobster ex-cop. Gleam's also decided to blow up his boat because the FBI are onto him. That's convenient for Jim Gordon because Sarah will probably be on it when it explodes, taking care of all of his marriage problems.

Little James Gordon gets stuffed in a sack and hung off the side of a bridge until his father decides to play ball with Flass. A familiar man in a mustache is left to guard him.

Am I wrong to assume that every bit character with a mustache is Batman working outside of the main narrative as he follows Gordon's requests to save James?

Sarah, fed up with Gordon treating her like shit as he falls deeper into isolation to protect those he cares about, heads up onto the roof to contact Batman by Batsignal. Batman's already there sitting behind the spotlight waiting for her to turn it on. She ran into the "janitor" on the way to the roof so he knew she'd be up there and ran up shedding his janitor disguise to confront her. At least that's what I'm guessing happened because this story isn't about the reader following Batman's trail to saving the day. We're stuck with the common people who feel helpless, caught up in Gotham's whirlpool of crime and hopelessness. Batman knows what Sarah's going to ask of him because, as he says, he's been eavesdropping. I bet he's already saved James since I'm pretty sure he was that other mustached guy too! Now Batman's just toying with everybody.

Turns out Jim's heading out to Gleam's boat after leaving his badge and a letter of resignation with Bullock. He plans on killing Flass, having already given up his son for dead. Meanwhile on the boat that Jim's headed toward that's about to explode, Flass and the corrupt Judge sit around wondering why Gleam asked them there but there's nobody else on the boat. Yeah, that's not suspicious! Might as well wait around for a few hours to find out what's going on.

Batman figures out that James is probably hanging from a bridge somewhere and heads out to look for him so I guess Batman isn't every background character with a mustache. Just most of them.

Turns out, Batman would save Hitler from falling off of a bridge.

Is it unfair for me to compare a young kid who hasn't done anything in his entire life except be a complete and utter victim with the arguably most evil person in Western Civilization? Nah, I don't think so. This kid's going to turn into a massive creep and that's good enough reason for me to call him Hitler. Plus, we still don't know how many genocides he might commit before DC ultimately kills him off!

Over on Gleam's boat, Sarah arrives by helicopter before Gordon arrives by boat. Both of them, along with the corrupt cop and judge, wind up locked in an airtight room in the boat's hold. They're all liabilities but I don't know how they're liabilities because I don't know anything about Gleam or his plans. I don't think he actually has any. He's just the main mob boss who hired Flass the ex-cop and was trying to get a judge in his pocket elected mayor. Oh! I guess that was the plan! Get the mayor in his pocket! Anyway, Flass the dirty cop fucked it all up with his revenge plans on Jim Gordon and now all of the people involved in that plot arc need to be exploded into goo.

As the oxygen begins to run out and the boat sinks beneath the bay, Jim and Sarah get married with the corrupt judge officiating.

I guess now that they're married, Jim will have to stop treating Sarah like shit and an afterthought, right? Is that how marriage works? It fixes all the ills of the relationship?

I'm not a believer in superstitions or omens but I do think that getting married by a corrupt judge while your brain is deprived of oxygen and the ship where the wedding is taking place is sinking into a bay might be a bit unlucky for the couple's future happiness. Maybe I'm overthinking it. Um, Mazel Tov!

Luckily there's an oxygen tank in this airtight chamber because I guess Gleam would lock himself in it to get high on his pure oxygen when at sea? After the wedding, Gordon builds a bomb, blows the door, and they all swim to the surface. A chopper flown by a guy in a mustache drops a ladder to save everybody. Little James happens to be in the helicopter too! The wedding day ends happily after all. I guess I don't know anything about lucky omens and whatnot.

Batman sends a flock of bats to torment Gleam with a message stapled to one of the bats that says, "Soon." I guess that takes care of him! The story ends with Jim saying something about how love is all that matters and big dumb idiots who keep everybody at arm's length and can't find love are just stupid moronic imbeciles who are wasting their life.

cri cri cri

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #2 Rating: B+. Batman barely appears in this annual and yet that's what actually makes this story interesting. Is this comic book worth anything because it contains the marriage of Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen! That's like the 18th biggest wedding to take place in comic books in 1992! That's a made-up statistic meaning "Nobody fucking cares, right?" I didn't even remember that Jim Gordon got remarried and I owned and read the comic book where it happened! I thought the title, "Vows", would play more of a role in this than it did. I guess the idea was that Gordon's cop vows were seemingly more important than marriage vows. But then when Gordon's cop shit couldn't save the day and everybody was going to die anyway, he realized that love and marriage were more important than his career. I'm not saying I buy into that conclusion! Sure, love and marriage are more important than career but that just means love and marriage are two of seventy million things in life that are more important than career! Especially when said career is being a fucking cop! Things more important than being a cop: love, marriage, Magic the Gathering, pornography, learning to build a Wickerman for the spring festival, raccoons, taking a huge shit, tacos. I could go on like this forever but basically it would just be the dictionary minus "cops" and "police".

Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow (December 1992)

This cover probably has you asking, "What is happening?" I'll tell you what's happening: you haven't even begun to ask "What is happening?" until you see the back cover.


You fuck one college professor for better grades and suddenly you're a "deadly temptress."

You still might be asking "What is happening?" so let me tell you: that's the look of a woman really enjoying her pudding.

The previous sentence sounded so much like a euphemism that I couldn't go on without addressing that it was absolutely earnest and sincerely not meant as a euphemism. It was as innocent as a woman enjoying her pudding can be.

So last issue is how I begin 90% of my comic book reviews but I can't begin this one that way because it's a Prestige Format One-Shot. Did that also sound like a sexual euphemism? I think DC did that one on purpose. Their offices are full of dirty old men and deadly temptress women.

I guess I'll begin this review how I begin the other 10%: this issue begins with this set of Narration Boxes.

And then I jizz in my pants.

The entire scene looks like this and it's fucking crazy because Batman's too nonchalant about discovering this professor in the act of whatever the fuck crazy shit the professor is up to. It's certainly not science. I mean, it could be science. Scientific experiments come in all shapes and animal-murdering sizes.

"Get out of here, Batman! I'm making spaghetti!"

I'm not suggesting that we shouldn't use animals in some of our scientific experiments; I'm suggesting that we share the results of our findings with them. Not a single mouse or rat should ever die from cancer again once we finally cure that shit. Doctors should have to treat six rats for every person once cancer cures begin.

Maybe Batman has seen so much violence in his life that he's absolutely desensitized to it. Maybe that's why he's so casual in the first panel. But then the neurons in his brain begin to fire and recognize that a man swinging an axe around and destroying everything in the room might indicate trouble. That's why Batman's tone suddenly changes and he's all, "Put it down. Now." But the professor is all, "Why should I? It's my axe and my tomato sauce. You're invading my space!" So he takes a swing at Batman with the axe which, if this is the Professor's property, is absolutely justified. If you're an asshole who fantasizes about killing somebody, I mean. I don't think you should swing an axe at somebody who opens the door to the room you're in and tries to confirm your identity indicating that maybe they know you or are looking for you. Swinging an axe at somebody who comes to your door just means you've been looking for the right moment to swing an axe at somebody where you might not immediately get shafted by a murder or manslaughter conviction.

Remember that time that drunk cop came home from a night of getting drunk and her keys wouldn't fit in the lock of her apartment and a Black guy answered the door, being that it was his door, and she shot him? Remember how (and I assure you this is true because I heard the right wing radio assholes suggest it, especially that one super pro-gun lady at the time who had her own show whom I absolutely hope is dead now) people suggested that he should have had his own gun and maybe it's his fault for not answering his door by immediately shooting the person on the other side of it? Remember how people turned logic upside down to insist that being on the side of the cop wasn't racism at all and just — oh, I don't fucking know. I can't think like these people — just plain murder?

Goddamn it! I'm just trying to read a simple Batman teams up with dumb Green Arrow to fight the sexy villainess lady and now I'm suddenly mad at idiot conservatives again! That isn't to suggest some conservatives aren't idiots. That's just a really good adjective to describe them all so I stuck it on there.

"No! My delicious tomato sauce!"

Turns out many of my assumptions were incorrect. I'm happy to admit that! Most people don't like to admit that their reading of a situation was wrong. It's one of the reasons so many cops and District Attorneys stick to their guns after they've arrested and convicted an innocent person, even when mounting evidence overwhelms any possibility of the person's guilt. If I'd just looked a little closer, I would have noticed that Batman hadn't come through a door but a rolling bay door, like in a warehouse or the back of a truck. It turns out Doctor Parsons had somehow gotten into the back of a random trucker's truck and began smashing it up. Batman must have gotten the call via Truck Stop Bat Signal and come to save the day. He's calm because he's sort of surprised. He's all, "Hey! I recognize that madman. He's a professor. Maybe I can talk some sense into him." And then the guy turns on him with the axe and Batman just offers a calm and well-advised opinion to drop the axe. Because, you know, Batman will make him if he doesn't and then he's going to spit out all of his tomato sauce.

Oh, that was another mistake I made: he wasn't making spaghetti at all. Whoops!

Does this truck driver not recognize Batman or is he just trying to casually discover Batman's CB handle?

His CB handle is probably just "The Batman", right? With the article capitalized?

As Batman's dragging the professor away, Green Arrow shows up out of nowhere asking about him. He even knows the professor's first name which probably gets under Batman's skin since Batman only remembered the guy's last name. Imagine being a rich conservative crime fighting vigilante with loads of cool bat-themed gadgets who knows less about the current case than some rank super liberal billionaire who uses a stupid bow to fight crime? So fucking embarrassing!

You didn't answer the question, motherfucker.

Oh? Batman doesn't allow law breaking in Gotham City? What is he? The fucking Pope of Gotham? Mr. Batdictator? Batman breaks every law there is (except for murder (but definitely not manslaughter. You know some henchmen have died in the care of doctors after Bats has broken two or three of their legs). Maybe Batman is just talking down to Green Arrow in a way that he believes will facilitate communication. He isn't going to get into a debate about justice with Green Arrow and whether it's just to take a man who's obviously having a mental or physical health crisis (possibly brought on by spoiled tomato sauce) into custody. So he firmly states, "The guy broke some laws. He's going to jail."

But Green Arrow, being smarter than Batman (as I pointed out earlier), sees how Batman is trying to manipulate him while also not answering the question directly.

Get his ass, Ollie!

Normally, one hero would pop off with the "I don't have time to explain!" bit so that you could get two heroes fighting which, I hear, some of the kids really love. I do not love that shit. I like when people are all, "There's time to explain because a long, drawn out fight where one of us could get seriously hurt will almost certainly take much longer than me explaining what's happening, especially since I know and respect you and realize that you will see the logic in my case." Why are we so willing to accept comic book stories where good guys beat the shit out of each other over a miscommunication or, even worse, lack of communicating at all? Are those the kinds of people we're supposed to be looking up to? Those that choose violence over reason and diplomacy?

I bring it up because Ollie, whom this comic book is making me truly love in just three or four panels even though I hate him as much as Aquaman for all the same biased reasons (lame costume, terrible skill set, small dick), actually deescalates the situation. You know, like a good liberal or progressive would!

Obviously Denny O'Neil has a strong love for and history with Green Arrow. And it fucking shows in this scene. This is the kind of shit I love.

Oliver explains that a few days ago, this Professor bit Black Canary while she was shopping. He, being a man, progressive or not, was waiting outside the store and saw the attack through the window. He rushed in and liberally beat the shit out of the guy. That's a good pun, right?! But it was too late! Dinah was already infected with this guy's creeping skin disease. When Oliver went to question the professor at the local jail, he found that he was already gone. He traced him to Gotham and that's where the story began. Now Ollie wants to take the professor back to Seattle because Dinah's infected with the same sickness he is. And he believes the professor knows the antidote, if they can get him to not be an absolute lunatic for the few minutes it would take to describe it.

The professor begins coughing like crazy in the back of the Batmobile so Batman decides to take them all to the hospital. On the way, the professor begins babbling about loving somebody so much. He then has his own little hallucinatory memory of how he contracted the disease.

Do you think this was a disease from her butt or her front butt?

I re-read Poison Ivy's Who's Who entry from the '80s series as research before reading this series. It turns out, according to Who's Who, Poison Ivy's main motivation is sex. She doesn't just want people to fuck her; she wants people to love fucking her. And if they won't even fuck her, she declares them her enemy. Which is why Batman, according to the Who's Who, is her biggest nemesis. Because he won't fuck her the most.

Immediately after remembering the best night of his life, the professor coughs up a little more Prego and dies. Green Arrow grabs him by the lapels and shakes the shit out of him because he learned CPR from a gorilla when he was trapped on that tropical island for years. Needless to type, Ollie is not successful at resuscitating the professor. Hopefully a doctor will be nearby when Dinah's time comes.

The professor's last words before he dies are not "Poison Ivy's bush was incredible!" They are "Luivy luver to the bone . . . gotta cure . . . skeleton's gotta cure -- *HNGHH*". Green Arrow begins to cry like the liberal snowflake he is (that was a compliment! Being liberal and able to show your emotions are good things!). Batman, unable to cope with any displays of emotion at all due to Joe Chill, interrupts Ollie with logical solutions: he knows a guy who would be willing to cut up this body without any prior notice! I bet he works at Arkham in the "let's experiment on violent felons" wing.

Meanwhile in Seattle, Poison Ivy puts on her boots in the sexiest manner possible.

If that man wasn't in a HAZMAT suit, he'd explode as soon as Ivy presented her nether bits in this way.

I'm not one to complain too much about the art of a comic book unless I'm feeling really sassy but couldn't Mike Netzer have drawn this panel from the perspective of the other side of the couch? So we'd be looking directly up Ivy's crotchport? I'm salivating at the possibilities! Somebody get me a HAZMAT suit, quick!

I would never be Poison Ivy's enemy! She'd love me so much because she'd be all, "You came so quickly! You must really enjoy fucking me!" Sure, those would be the last words I'd ever hear as my skin erupted in sixteen thousand botanical STDs. Totally worth it, though, right?

The man in the HAZMAT suit is some guy named Mr. Fenn. He's the business brains of whatever these two are up to while Poison Ivy is the artist. Every artist needs to cultivate a good friendship with a business person early in high school so that both can be successful in later years. Well, the business guy will probably be successful. But how come this stupid world expects artists to be good at both art and business if they want to exist in this capitalist fuckhole? It's totally unfair! Especially since I hated all the business types in high school and mistakenly made friends with a bunch of other useless artists! Dumb jerks!

Fenn and Ivy have concocted a plan to let loose a super STD on the world. Not for the kicks, mind you! I mean, Fenn doesn't think it's for the kicks but we all know how much Ivy fucking loves kicks. Fenn thinks they're going to profit from the cure and vaccine that Professor Parsons developed before he died. Fenn is concerned that the professor turned into a violent maniac but Ivy assured him that his violent outburst was because she deprived him of any more poontang and not from the disease itself. Fenn believes her because he's thinking too much with his money penis. If he were thinking with his brain penis, he probably would realize she's lying to him. He just wants to be super rich so badly!

You don't need to know who this guy is. He's just here for a mid-review jerk-off intermission. Have fun!

The autopsy guy Batman left the professor's body with delivers the results and Batman's first instinct is that the toxins which killed the professor were probably created by Poison Ivy. I'm glad he's such a good detective because this comic book is already 60 pages long. Who needs another twelve just to watch Batman investigate the professor's death?

After Fenn left Ivy's jungle "compound" earlier, the guards of her "compound" burned his HAZMAT suit with a flamethrower. That makes me think whatever toxins and viruses are floating around Ivy's place are pretty contagious and somebody leaving the premises probably could be carrying many of the contagions out into the wider world. Fenn doesn't think like that because when he visits her the next day, she gives him a shot of the vaccine and he immediately tosses the HAZMAT suit aside. He plans on going directly to his kid's little league game after this so why bother with precautions, right?

Oh, never mind. He's never going to make it to the kid's game anyway, is he?

A few hours? I was under the impression that fucking is measured in minutes? Does Fenn think she's offering to play some Monopoly?

I love how horny '80s and '90s Poison Ivy is! She really is an iconic diva!

While Poison Ivy fucks Fenn for hours, probably loading up with way more STDs than the professor had, Batman and Green Arrow wait around until nightfall before heading out to investigate. Their first stop: investigate the professor's hotel room. What they find waiting for them there are several men in HAZMAT suits with machine guns waiting to terminate him.

What? Are you havin' a laugh? Of course he'd rather mess with the idiot with the bow over Batman! Easy choice!

Batman recognizes a bunch of these henchmen and knows for whom they work. Green Arrow doesn't really care; he just wants to know how hard to beat them up so they'll tell him where to find the cure for Dinah. Batman puts together all the clues and realizes he knows where Poison Ivy's currently headquartered. They head out while Poison Ivy reveals her real plans that have nothing to do with making stupid bankers and businessmen richer than they already fucking are. What does she want with money when money's destroying the world? Better to destroy humanity to help get the planet back on track. Not that the planet really needs any help in the long run. It can take care of itself. Just tweak a few variables and kill off all life for a few million years until somehow, somewhere, another spark occurs and life returns to change the entire face of the world again. And maybe this time, it won't get too smart for its own good.

I guess I should mention who the hot guy from earlier is because he's Ivy's actual partner in all this. And by partner, I might mean sex toy. He's just another person who, like Ivy, is immune to the disease that the Professor died from. And now she's sent Fenn into the world as a carrier himself. And he'll pass it on to his kids and his business contacts and they'll pass it on to Wendy's employees and sex workers and they'll pass it on to dog walkers and trash collectors and pretty soon, 99% of humanity finds itself dead! So it's worse than Green Arrow thought! This isn't just about saving Dinah! It's about saving, um, well, you know what? I bet, for Ollie, it's still just about saving Dinah.

Ollie's never heard of Poison Ivy so Batman loads up the Who's Who on the Batmobile Mobile Computer and gives Oliver the salient points.

Rule #1: Don't fuck her. Rule #2: GODDAMMIT WEREN'T YOU LISTENING I SAID DON'T FUCK HER!

Sure, a gentleman doesn't discuss fucking a woman when he hasn't fucked her. But a pig does discuss fucking a woman when he hasn't fucked her! But does a gentlemen actually not discuss fucking a woman when he's actually fucked her? This whole line of questioning is getting gross because it's literally turning women into objects! Grammar joke!

On the way to Ivy's hideout in a toxic superfund site 80 miles outside of Gotham called Appleville, Batman and Green Arrow pass a baby food truck loaded with Ivy's deadly sex toxins. Only after Batman and Green Arrow beat up the guards at Ivy's complex, Batman figures out Ivy's plan.

Oliver isn't too smart. Or Denny just assume us readers ain't too smart. Either way works for me!

Batman points out the plan is to poison babies and Oliver is all, "Why are you so obsessed with babies, you fucking billionaire pedocon!" No, actually, it's worse than that. Batman lays out the reason for needing to go after the trucks immediately instead of finding Poison Ivy. He points out the toxins are in baby food. Going to babies. Shipped as they speak. To store quite nearby in Gotham. And Ollie is all:

I don't know how Batman keeps from slapping him.

You know what? That panel is even worse than I thought! I just assumed that Oliver got the gist of what Batman was saying on the panel where's he's mentioning babies every other panel. And then I assumed his reaction, "There are a lot of trucks," was his argument against going after the baby food truck because, you know, how are you going to find it now that's it on a highway full of trucks! But it turns out, Batman still needs to explain what the fuck is going on to this thick-skulled dunderhead because it takes another half page of Batman explicating the situation before Ollie does this:

"I should have had fifteen V-8s!"

I don't think Denny was trying to make Oliver look stupid; I think he was trying to make Batman look like a great detective. Sometimes you don't achieve the goals you set out for yourself when you begin writing!

Also, Oliver Queen is sick with worry over Black Canary. I shouldn't be so hard on him when he can't understand what Batman's trying to tell him. Plus I don't actually know how thick Batman's Gotham accent is. Perhaps Oliver isn't catching every fucking word because Batman sounds like an ignoramus.

I don't mean to suggest that everybody who has an accent sounds like an ignoramus! But I do think Gotham's street accent would probably be a kind of cross between the worst New Jersey accent coupled with the heaviest Boston accent, with a little bit of Pittsburgh in it when Batman gets excited. I know he's a rich fuck who probably sounds posh, especially since Alfred would have whipped the accent right out of him if he'd had one, but I like to think Batman spends so much time with the criminal element and the people on the street (as well as the cops; local cops always keep the strongest accents, right?) that maybe he can't help talking like just another Gothamite.

Even after Oliver realizes hundreds, maybe thousands, of babies are in danger, he opts to stay behind in the hopes of catching Poison Ivy and saving Dinah. Batman's all, "One life already half-lived versus thousands of lives yet to get a chance? Okay, I guess." Oliver's counter-argument is "You wouldn't understand love, you monster!" Somehow Batman resists turning around and yelling, "Oh yeah! Well I fuck Catwoman all the time!" I guess cause he's a gentleman?

Meanwhile, Ivy is still feeling horny.

Batman catches up to the truck on a bridge. The truck, being driven by Ivy's henchmen, tries to force the Batmobile off the bridge. It's crushed between the guardrails and the truck so Batman abandons it, leaps to the driver's door, and knocks him out in one punch. This results in Batman killing the two men in the cab but later explaining how he didn't kill them! Bad driving did!

"You should have learned to drive unconscious, you fool!"

I'm assuming these guys die from this page but I'm sure it doesn't happen, being that Batman never kills even when he's not in total control of a situation like this where he's now relying on pure luck that these men survive the fall into the bay. He'll probably save them from drowning and tie them up on the shore before returning to help Green Arrow. That's when the guys will die of exposure before the cops find them, probably.

Back at Ivy's compound, after putting on one of the unconscious guards' HAZMAT suits, Green Arrow begins searching for Ivy. What he finds is Jason, Ivy's sexy boy toy. Jason has a shotgun but he doesn't blow Green Arrow away because he knows Ivy loves to jerk off to him kicking the shit out of people. And Green Arrow doesn't shoot Jason in the throat with an arrow because he can't operate his bow in the bulky suit. After getting several fractures and being kicked in the balls at least once, Oliver realizes he'll have to remove the suit to engage in proper fisticuffs. And since his ultimate goal is to get the cure for Black Canary, who cares if he gets infected too, right? They'll either live together or die together! Batman could never understand that!

I was speaking from Ollie's perspective there. I think Batman does understand love. He wouldn't be doing the insane shit he does nightly if he didn't know how to love. He's like Socrates in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Batman loves baseball. And billiards. But most of all, he loves . . . he loves Gotham City!

Oliver beats Jason once Ollie sheds his suit. After the battle, Poison Ivy tries to fuck him.

Later, after Oliver has saved Dinah's life and they've locked themselves in a penthouse apartment to celebrate all night, Dinah will turn to Ollie and ask, "Dear. Why is your penis green?"

Oliver's tempted because as we saw on the back cover, Ivy is a deadly temptress. But at the last second, he shoves her junk out of his face and screams, "No! That's my purse! I don't know you!" After that, Poison Ivy points out that the antidote doesn't exist and everybody's going to die so, you know, they might as well fuck. At least Oliver has the choice of getting laid one last time before he dies. It's better than what Batman gave the truck drivers he just killed. Yes, that's right. He killed them!

I guess if he never checks to see if they survived, he never has to deal with the guilt of having killed them! Genius!

Obviously I'm teasing about Batman having killed these men. Batman isn't responsible for their deaths at all. People have to take way more responsibility for the circumstances that lead to their eventual downfall and stop blaming other people for their own terrible choices. See, these men were going to kill many, many babies. And Batman just wanted to stop the truck and destroy the tainted baby food. But they tried to drive him off the bridge. Then when his Batmobile was smashed into oblivion, he did the only thing he could. He jumped to the truck and tried to stop it by knocking the driver unconscious. Obviously Batman would have steered the truck to safety and saved both the men and all of the babies around the world. But the stupid passenger chose violence.

See?! That's why the truck went off he bridge! Not Batman's fault at all. Leave the poor guy alone!

I'm sorry I hid this information from you so that I could make Batman look guilty of murder. It was poor form! This other truck driving idiot chose to swerve the truck into the railing of the bridge in an effort to shake Batman from the truck. I suppose if you're a really cynical asshole, you can point out that they never would have died if they weren't so afraid of Batman catching them. But then I could just go back further and point out Batman never would have needed to stop them if they weren't about to kill five million babies. Sheesh! Learn to argue, Internet!

Back at Ivy's place, she finds she has about five free minutes being that she and Ollie don't fuck. So she explains her plan to Oliver.

Is this the first story where we see Ivy as an eco-terrorist? Or was that already well established?

While Ivy and Arrow discuss the horrible future Batman just stopped from happening, Fenn, Ivy's business partner, has taken his children up in a helicopter to fly by Ivy's compound and set off a bunch of explosives he's supposedly had placed there. He doesn't want her eventually exposing him in their plan, thinking he still has a legitimate cure and vaccine. He tells his children all about how he's going to blow up this woman so that she doesn't expose him. I guess he really fucking trusts his kids, hunh?

Don't worry! Green Arrow, a normal man with no powers or protective equipment, survives this not-as-massive-as-it-looks-I-guess explosion!

Ivy is knocked unconscious in the explosion but Green Arrow and Poison Ivy are separated in the explosion and Ollie can't save her. He barely escapes with his life and collapses outside the gate. Batman arrives just in time to cradle him intimately when Jason, the buff dude, comes out of nowhere and strikes Batman from behind. Batman throws a wild punch as he falls unconscious, knocking Jason out as well. Then Ollie passes out thinking, "Maybe I could have saved her. Maybe I didn't want to." Then everything fades to black and they all die from the toxins, I guess.

Time passes. Oliver's in the hospital being treated for his burns while Batman visits him. Ollie tells Batman they're all going to die now because he infected them all. But Batman, being the great detective he is, realized what the professor was trying to say just before he died of Ivy's toxins and also a massive orgasm while thinking about the time he fucked her. He said that thing about skeletons and Batman realized it meant the cure was a bone marrow transplant using the bone marrow from somebody immune to the toxins! But since Poison Ivy has gone missing, they used Jason's bone marrow to save everybody! With his consent, of course. He was happy to help Green Arrow because Poison Ivy showed such interest in his penis. Man, I bet even Dinah would have had to forgive him if he'd actually fucked Ivy! What a missed opportunity!

Batman realizes there's one last thread to torture: Fenn. So he visits him at his home to torment him with the inevitable death of his kids.

Justice!

Batman/Green Arrow: The Poison Tomorrow Rating: A+. Exactly what I'd expect from Denny O'Neil: an engaging story with characters following well-thought-out motivations in a situation more realistic than many super hero comics tend to deal with. I say that after having, according to my blog, only read Denny's Sword of Azrael series which I moaned about the entire time. But mostly because I hate Jean Paul Valley and also because The Order of St. Dumas was eventually done so much better by Scott Snyder as The Court of Owls! I'm sure I've read other Denny O'Neil books in my time but I can't remember them off-hand (although two more will follow this as I just happen to have a bunch of Denny books all stacked together (not because I would have organized them that way (my organization skills are only just the other side of completely random) but because he just happened to write a bunch of Bat titles around the same time in 1992)). But I'm sure they were mostly as well done as this book! Plus Poison Ivy was so fucking horny! I thought for sure there would wind up being a plot reason for why she was sucking her finger in every other panel but you know what? There wasn't! She was just really fucking hot to trot!