Batman and Red Robin #19

I really thought it was going to be Batcow.

This issue begins with sassy, perky Carrie Kelley delivering porn to Damian. But Damian is dead so Alfred ends up with it and Bruce becomes concerned that his ten year old son was dealing with a sexy community college girl. Also, it may not have been porn. But it was $1000 for five discs of "Playhouse 90 Kinescope". That sure sounds like porn to me!

Whatever it was, Bruce wants to know somebody that knew Damian in a different way than he knew Damian. A very different way. Hopefully a different way? Anyway, he goes out to pay her a visit and the $1000 Damian owed on the discs.

Okay, I'm over Damian.

Bruce Wayne kind of freaks out a bit at this young girl dressed as his son who answers the door. Instead of finding out about her or paying her bill, he just turns around and gets back in the car and tells Alfred to get them the fuck out of there. Meanwhile, Carrie is yelling out of the window wondering where Damian is. Doesn't she watch TMZ? I'm sure TMZ would have aired the story about billionaire Bruce Wayne's son getting killed in a tandem bicycle accident with Robin the Boy Wonder.

Batman finally does the sane thing and goes insane. He's decided to find Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E., kidnap him, and, I presume, find out the secret of bringing life back to the dead. His search for Frankenstein leaves him out of touch with Alfred for long enough that Alfred becomes concerned and contacts Tim Drake to maybe go track him down.

Batman and Frankenstein have a reasonable discussion about the ramifications of resurrection on the human condition.

Or as reasonable as a monster like Batman can manage.

Red Robin eventually finds Dr. Batmanstein holed up in Castle Frankenstein in the arctic. He's begun dissecting Frankenstein so that he can figure out how resurrection works. Even with whatever knowledge Frankenstein has and even though it might be blasphemy to say this about the Goddamned Batman, I don't think Bruce has the scientific knowledge to reverse engineer life from unlife. Although maybe with Tim Drake acting as Igor, they can figure it out!

Although for my money, I'd just go back and offer the Robin job to Carrie Kelley. The Robin suit finally looked good on someone!

Yeah but do you want your son looking like a stitched up bag of luggage the color of cat vomit? There are so many other resurrection options open to you in the DCnU!

Red Robin decides it's time to get into a fist fight with Batman because Tim Drake apparently isn't as smart as everybody thinks he is. He also claims that Batman can't bring Damian back. But is Tim living in the same universe that Bruce is? Obviously people come back from the dead in this world. It happens all of the time, especially in the pages of the Suicide Squad. So let Batman exhaust his options because he just might stumble upon one that works.

Frank's head tells Batman that he's allowed him to dissect him to see how wrong it would be to turn Damian into a Monster like this. But Batman isn't listening to anybody anymore. He's crazed and desperate. So Red Robin remotely fires the lasers on his jet to destroy all of the equipment in Doctor Batmanstein's lab. Batman isn't exactly thrilled.

He should kill Tim too. Once he figures out the secret of resurrecting someone, he can bring Tim back too.

Batman takes off to figure something else out while Frank whines about needing to be stitched back together. Can't he do it himself?

Batman and Red Robin #19 Rating: No change. I don't imagine we'll be seeing much of Carrie Kelley any time soon. She just seemed a character thrown in as a nice twist for the cover. But you never know now that she's out there.

Batman Incorporated #9

When is it going to be Batman's turn to be happy?

Last issue, Damian Wayne was killed by Talia al Ghu's Batthing. Since that issue, a bunch of other issues came out with most of the Bat Family in half-assed mourning. Batman and Robin #18 was the only other Batman title that I think needed to deal with Batman's grief. Batman #18 sort of dealt with it but in a way that highlighted that lovable street urchin Harper Row and her way gay little brother. The other Batman titles really should have just ignored the whole thing. I suppose I get to see Batman mourn all over again one more time here in the comic book that actually killed the little prick.

Okay. Second panel and I'm done!

How does Bruce actually cope with this? Damian was only ten or eleven years old! He was his son! Peter Tomasi wrote these two so well in the pages of Batman and Robin that The New 52, for the first time in my 25+ years of reading comic books, finally gave me a Robin that I liked. Hell, I loved the little prick! Their relationship was so fun to read at the hands of Tomasi. This might be the first time I've truly been sad about the death of a comic book character. If I'd been reading comic books at the time, I would have been very sad about Ted Kord's death as well. But I missed out on that one, so I don't count it. I thought I would be sad when Cerebus finally died but Sim was right about that one: that fucker died unloved and unmourned. Mostly due to Sim exasperating most of his readers with Cerebus's explication of Genesis.

So now I get to watch Batman bury his son. Yay! What a great morning!

Or maybe (hopefully!) the entire funeral will be taken up by Batman's flashback where he puts the Batthing in a coffin too. I'm pretty sure Batman is allowed to kill animals and since the Batthing came out of a whale's vagina, I think that makes him a whale. And while Aquaman might be a little bit pissed if Batman kills him, killing a whale doesn't go against any of Batman's ethical codes. But while Batman takes out his anger and grief on Batthing, Nightwing comes to and realizes he fucked up like a big fucking fucked up fuck up fucking up.

How do you feel about encouraging him now? I can't wait to see how how badly Alfred takes it since Alfred let him out of the house! I think Tim Drake had it right! Who's protecting these kids? You fucking enablers!

Nightwing immediately joins the fight against Batthing while Talia's thugs with the guns and arrows just stand by. They may have simply had orders to kill Damian because they could easily be doing the same thing to Nightwing and Batman that they just did to Robin. The Batthing fight's outcome is interrupted by Bruce saying some words at Damian's funeral. He says some things and then says Damian's death will be avenged. I think that means Damian's mother is going to have to die.

Meanwhile in London, Knight is given a hero's funeral. And then Squire takes on the mantle of Knight. That makes sense. You can't run around fighting criminals by yourself when your name is Squire. You'd be a laughingstock.

And while Batman and Alfred and Tim and Dick bury Damian without a thought as to how super heroes are constantly coming back to life, the Prime Minister of Britain, like a good comic book character, is keeping all options open in regards to Knight! Good for him!

"And don't forget, Prime Minister, the five hundred and sixty-two other ways to resurrect a person in our reality!"

And then things get really awful. Just. I mean. Come on, Bruce! Don't be a dick!

Not the vacation!

Stop blaming everybody else, Bruce. Hell, you can't even blame yourself for this one. Everybody did everything in their power to reign this kid in. Even Alfred couldn't have stopped him if he had actually tried. Damian's death is on two people: Damian and Talia. According to Ra's al Ghul, the kid may have been destined to house Ra's personality. But Talia only ever had one destiny in mind for this kid. He was simply a tool to be used to hurt Batman as much as he could be hurt.

Back to the fight with Batthing, Nightwing and Batman are both nearly beat when Red Robin uses the tank in the lobby of Wayne Enterprises to put a shell right up Batthing's ass. Batthing may be tough but he slinks off to heal after that one. Nightwing grabs up Robin's body and they retreat back to the Batcave.

With Gotham erupting into chaos and in the grip of Leviathan, the Mayor of Gotham (who, I think, is a total dick anyway), basically accepts surrender under some pretty shitty terms. Well, shitty for Batman and his friends.

People can barely stay alive with Batman allowed in the city! The residents of Gotham might as well just go lie down in their graves now.

Jason Todd has been captured by a bunch of women from the movie, The Horrors of Spider Island. And the rest of Batman, Incorporated is searching for him and for any clues as to what the Ouroboros Bomb is or how to stop it. And Batman finally breaks down after realizing what a true genius his son was when he examines Damian's greatest gift to the world.

Batcow would outsell most of The New 52 titles. Unless Scott Lobdell ended up writing it. Then it would be scenes of Batcow standing around chewing his cud while he Narration Boxes, "Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo. Moo."

Batman Incorporated #9 Rating: +1 Ranking. Anybody who doesn't like Batcow doesn't like freedom. Why isn't DC marketing the shit out of Batcow? I need a Batcow shirt right now! I wonder if Grant Morrison has retained all rights to Batcow. He's going to be sorry if he gave that one to DC for free!