Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Four #4 (January 1993)

Fat Batman's belt got its own interior lighting.

Come on, Joe Quesada and Kevin Nowlan. What the fuck were you thinking while doing this cover? Were you guys selling your own line of '90s Superhero Utility Belts? Is this a fucking advert? Because I can't see any other reason to have Fat Batman (Biis in Batman's costume, FYI) entirely surrounded by flames which aren't lighting him at all, standing in silhouette so all you see are eyes, teeth, and the Bat emblem (which is a standard editorial note to make Batman seem ominous and cool), and you fucking choose to draw the belt as if it's some object not subject to the physics of the rest of the silhouette? Why is it the focal point of this entire cover?! You'd think Azrael or his sword or Batman's emblem would be where they wanted the viewer's eye to be drawn but fuck no, man! Look at the fucking cool belt! Only $29.95 plus shipping and handling! Look like a real life Image character!

Fuckin' hell. For Halloween, I really want to go as Fat Batman in silhouette with a bright brown (how is it BRIGHT BROWN?!) belt! People will ask, "What are you? Devil Batman?" And I'll be all, "No, I'm a terrible comic book cover." Maybe I'll get a friend to go as Liefeld's Fat Big-Breasted Captain America.

This, the final issue, is called "No One is Innocent" which must include Batman and Alfred too. I wonder what the fuck Alfred did? I bet he was a sleep creeper in his early twenties.

Azrael, Alfred, and Nomoz have arrived at the estate of the member of the Order of St. Dumas who Biis is about to kill (or has just killed). Taking advice from Biis (before he knew he was Biis and just thought he was the Order's bookkeeper, LeHah), Harcourt hired some men to patrol the edge of the estate so nobody would interrupt his meeting with Biis. They try to keep Azrael out but Azrael is all, "You might just be hired hands of the man we're here to save and thus not really out enemies but, um, did you read the title of this story?! No one is innocent!"

Not even dogs, I guess!

So Alfred just witnessed this college kid commit murder but since he's trying to find Bruce Wayne, I suppose he'll let it slide. On the positive side of this wanton murder of man and dog, I may have discovered why I fucking hate this kid. Oh, he's a weapon of vengeance, you say? I'm supposed to find that cool, am I? And he just killed a dog and the hired hand of a man they're trying to protect? Yeah, um, get the fuck right out of here. This kid's a fucking creep. He's a piece of shit and I'm not about to praise him for his ability to kill indiscriminately!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. No one is innocent. Suppose this massacre is okay then.

Look, even Jesus basically believed that no one is innocent. But his take wasn't that they should all then be killed! His take was that they should understand that everybody deserves a chance to find redemption. It's the whole point behind the "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." I know most people love to read that and go, "Yeah? I'm without sin! Let me kill somebody with my huge ass stone!" But the point was that if you had been killed for a previous sin you've committed, you wouldn't still be around to throw a stone at somebody else who has sinned. He's saying, "You were given the chance to redeem your sin. Why then do you think you should take another person's chance at redemption away?"

In other words, fuck this Cousin Oliver Azrael piece of shit! Boo! You suck! Eat dog turds!

After murdering all of the hired help, two dogs, a parking attendant, and four maids, Azrael crashes into the greenhouse to discover Fat Batman finishing off Harcourt. Alfred realizes immediately that it isn't Bruce Wayne because Bruce has never weighed more than 210 pounds. Is that a good weight for his height and musculature? I have no fucking idea. I've never worked at a carnival.

Fat Batman somehow escapes in a car so that Azrael could pull off this maneuver.

Denny was writing this script dreaming of a possible movie deal, right?

Cousin Oliver doesn't last long on the hood of the car because a tree branch knocks him the fuck out. Man, Batman would have known the location of every single low tree branch in the vicinity. Also he never would have let the guy get to his car unless he wanted him to get to his car for plot reasons.

After failing to catch Biis/LeHah/Fat Batman, Alfred, Cousin Oliver and Nomoz head back to a dark room to strategize. This time, instead of trying to guess which member he's going to kill next, they decide to head to the property he owns in Texas. What about his apartment in Gotham? Or was that just a hotel room? Why would they think he'd be heading to Texas when he still has so many more members to kill? Why am I asking questions that don't matter since I know that he'll be in Texas because this is the last issue and it's halfway over. They need to confront him immediately! It's time for their hunches to not just be close but to be spot on!

Meanwhile, in Texas, Biis has Bruce Wayne strapped to a pipe in one of LeHah's oil refineries. Good call, Alfred and the boys! Knowing that LeHah has a hostage with him, I would have found evidence of his private plane leaving Heathrow to see where it was headed next. That also would have worked because I'm assuming I'd have the same number-of-pages deadline that Alfred and Azrael have. Any hunch would have been correct at this point!

Oh ho! Who's the master detective now?! Me! It's me!

Alfred finally gets around to asking Cousin Oliver his name and guess what? Cousin Oliver doesn't remember who he was! I guess that explains why I keep calling him Cousin Oliver! I'm sure if he's curious, he probably has some college blue books lying around his place back in Gotham with his name written in them. Although I bet Nomoz has already firebombed his apartment and erased his entire history.

For some reason that's almost certainly not sexual but it's hard to tell because Joe Quesada wasn't allowed to draw Biis's penis, Biis strips completely naked to murder Bruce Wayne.

I don't think Batman would call Biis gay (little pink bow) for no reason so I'm decided this is sexual and Batman's just commenting on Biis's rock hard penis.

Maybe my explanation doesn't make sense because why would Batman assume Biis is gay just because he's got a hard-on while trying to murder another man? It's more likely he just gets off on killing people and I don't think murderers are typically known for wearing little pink bows. I don't think gay guys are either but it's definitely some kind of "you're gay" comment a hetero man might make in the '80s and '90s.

Azrael, Nomoz, and Alfred all arrive just in time to stop Biis from shooting Bruce in the face. Instead of hitting Bruce, the bullets fire into various piping in the refinery, leaking oil all over the place. It quickly lights and the entire refinery goes up in seconds. Azrael, who normally doesn't save, only vengeances, saves Bruce when Alfred asks him to. Because Alfred used all those manipulation techniques earlier to get Azrael on his side instead of the rotten little gnome Nomoz's side. They all escape but Biis is left to burn, probably because he knows Batman's secret identity. When they finally reach safety, Nomoz screams at Azrael for doing some minor saving because that's not his fucking job. At all! It's at this point when he reveals he's begun to take some control of the Azrael persona so that maybe he won't just go around murdering dogs and servants.

Oh yeah! That was his stupid name! Another reason I hate him!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Four #4 Rating: C+. And that's the story of Azrael, a character Gotham never fucking needed and nobody asked for. Because this piece of shit arrives on the scene, Dick Grayson's time as Replacement Batman gets delayed for like another decade or two! Although maybe that was a good thing, seeing that Grant Morrison was the one to write that stuff. I still need to read it because I finally fell in love with the character of Dick Grayson during The New 52 and people have assured me that that version of Dick was forged in Morrison's run with Dick as Batman and Damian as Robin. One of my favorite things in The New 52 (and there weren't really a whole lot of them. I loved the concept but DC mishandled it from the absolute beginning. They could have done anything and they tended to just stick to the old history of the characters but contracting their past into five fucking years! So badly done!) was how Batman clearly treated Dick Grayson as an equal and a peer. Batman! He never even treated Alfred that well! Or Superman! It was just really nice to fucking see that relationship finally get to that point. And was Dick Grayson the only character ever who seemed to have all his shit together? I mean mentally and, for the most part, personally? He was like a good egg doing the best he could without any weird fucking hang-ups or obsessions. Unless his lusting for redheads was a problem. Was that a problem or was that just sexy hot?!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Three #3 (December 1992)

Denny came so close to creating the Court of Owls but he completely fucked it, what with Cousin Oliver and terrible lore.

My comic book reviews really slow to a crawl in the summer because it's too fucking hot in my office to read comics and write on a computer. I could move everything to the air-conditioned room but my laptop's battery is dead and I feel bad that my computer would have to be unresponsive for the move. I have a new battery but whoever made the ASUS laptop was a fucking dick and decided that to replace the battery, you basically have to remove every screw imaginable and take the entire thing apart just to get to it. Motherfucker.

Bah, I'm just bitching because I'm in a bad mood because I just remembered that I have two more Azrael comic books to read. Thor Almighty, I can't stand this guy.

I would have normally typed "Christ Almighty" but how the fuck is Christ mightier than Thor when the Scandinavian countries have the happiest and most content people on Earth? Hell, if you believe it when some patriotic dipshit farts out "God Bless America!", it must mean God loves fascist fuckers too scared to ride a subway in a city or drink a beer that was advertised by a transgender woman or answer their door without first firing six bullets through it if the person on the other side of their Ring camera has a slight tan. If that's the kind of shit Jesus is into, I'd rather my Lord and Savior be drunken goat fucker who's obviously compensating for a microdick with his massive hammer. Man, I feel like I really know Thor!

Last issue, Cousin Oliver was shot to shit by Biis and fell backwards out of a third story window. The moment was so satisfying that this issue decided to repeat it!

Too bad he's got a bulletproof costume in that duffel bag. Hopefully he wasn't holding it low enough to cover his balls.

You know what else I hate about conservatives? They know that being a racist bigot makes them the bad guy so most of them try to mask their racism with the stupidest, most illogical arguments ever made about pretty much everything, since everything they believe relies on systemic racism and they can't say, "Yeah, I support that because of its inherent racism." So they make up stupid arguments like how taking down Confederate monuments is "erasing history" instead of what it really is: removing shoddy sculptures that were made as quickly and cheaply as possible to put in as many public squares as possible to intimidate minorities during reconstruction and the subsequent battle for civil rights. We all know that they just want to keep up monuments to their heroes, those men who fought to keep slavery in this country. But they can't say that! So they have to claim taking down a really shit statue is somehow erasing history even though we can all still read about the history of those abhorrent human beings in all the books about the Civil War and our country's time thinking slavery was the absolute Bee's Knees.

What's that? They're trying their best to ban books and remove exhibits in museums to erase the history of slavery in America? But what about their arguments that progressives were the assholes erasing history just because they didn't want some huge ass cheap statue of Jefferson Davis overlooking a public park? Ha ha! Just kidding! I already made my point earlier. They don't actually believe any of their arguments. The just love racism.

I know I'm supposed to be reviewing a comic book but I really fucking hate Azrael so I thought I'd discuss something I hate slightly less: Conservatives! But I'm done with that now! Just remember how much they suck and then think that Democrats suck just slightly less than that. I've been saying for well over a decade that our political parties will eventually shift so that Republicans become right wing Nazi assholes (which they've done) and that Democrats will shift over to Reagan Republicans who are slightly less bigoted (which they've done) and the left party will be Progressives (which is hopefully going to happen soon? Somebody? No, not you Newsom. Fuck off, you shit!).

Yes, I'm a 53 year old white mostly-heterosexual male who's probably more progressive than your teenage daughter. I've started putting all of my off-site writing onto this blog and will continue to do that with more stuff (maybe eventually just hosting it all on Places & Predators Dot Com (where all of my images currently reside)). Maybe some day I'll get around to all of my college papers from the early '90s and you'll see that I'm not just some Johnny-Come-on-his-Mom-Lately in regards to progressive shit. You can tell I'm super progressive because even though I was raised in the '80s, I have yet to call Cousin Oliver an F-slur! I'm not saying I've thought about calling him that! I'm saying I grew up in the '80s, man! Even Bill and Ted, acted by two of the greatest human beings to ever live, used the F-slur in the greatest movie of all time (after Heathers)! The '80s were quite the decade. It was the pendulum swinging back from what was actually turning out to be a pretty fucking cool decade, the '70s. During that great time, a bunch of rich, Conservative assholes and Lee Atwater were all, "Why are all the cool straight white kids hanging out with cool straight black kids and also all the gays and trans? We need to nip that shit in the bud right the fuck now!"

Everything cool is always ruined by some kids who nobody liked who decided if people weren't going to hang out with them, they'll spend their time ruining everybody else's good time. And they always seem to find an old doddering celebrity puppet to pass their terrible beliefs into laws.

Anyway, rich guy Bruce Wayne decides to go after whoever shot Azrael. But not as Batman!

No time to just slip on the fucking cowl?! You're already wearing the outfit under your jacket!

Alfred stays behind to take care of Cousin Oliver so maybe it's a good thing Bruce doesn't dress up like Batman. Having Batman traveling around the world with Bruce Wayne's butler might be enough evidence for one or two of the smarter people in the DC Universe to figure out Batman's secret identity.

Batman chases Biis to a storage room in the hospital where Biis pushes over a shelf full of jars of ether onto Bruce's head. Hallucinating from the fumes, Bruce believes he's fighting an actual demon and not just some fat guy in a gaudy costume.

The first half of this issue is narrated by Biis as Biis reminds Bruce what just happened. See, Biis kidnaps Bruce and takes him to Page 12 where he's all, "You're kind of loopy from all the jars of ether that were knocked on your head so let me remind you what happened in the previous eleven pages. I know that it's weird to have me telling the reader what they're reading but it makes sense that I'm telling it to you once they get to Page 12. Also, some readers, based on the law of averages, will be pretty fucking stupid so having me describe what's happening will really help them out." Whew, good thing Biis explained it like that before I started moaning about the way the narrative was presented! I don't want people thinking I don't want dumb kids to have access to comic books like this!

Also for the dumb kids! Don't forget the dumb kids!

Some of you might be thinking, "No fucking way are you more progressive than my teenage daughter! She'd never use the D-slur!" Well, you know, I probably am more progressive which is why I believe that words shouldn't be in the saddle riding mankind simply so that we can Other people who use language differently and by our own definitions. We can take back words and allow them to be as neutral of inherent bias as we want. Dumb can just be a fun way to say ignorant if you want it to. Just like lame can be fun slang that doesn't have to mean crippled! Don't let the words weigh you down, man! I mean, sure, some of them are just so vile that we can leave them in the past. But I'm not having that discussion here!

It turns out Biis might be the smartest person in the DC Universe after Timothy Drake!

Damn! He's know Bruce Wayne for fifteen minutes and he already figured it out!

Cousin Oliver turns out to be barely hurt thanks to his folded up costume held in front of him. But now Alfred has to actually spend time with him while he's conscious so it's only a matter of minutes before Alfred hates him as much as I do.

You know what? I've thought about it a little bit and I may have been exaggerating a bit to suggest I was more progressive than a teenage girl! Sure, I'm more progressive than some teenage girls! But not the ones I was suggesting. How could that even be possible?! My male gaze constantly rats me out when I'm totally trying to be a good feminist. The amount of Fuck the Patriarchy! meetings I've been kicked out of because my brain couldn't help replacing some word I was saying with "Boobies!" Stupid brain and dick are in cahoots!

Biis, being the money man of an international Templar organization, recognizes the name of Bruce Wayne. He decides he won't kill Bruce because he'll need to take him to 5000 different ATMs and take $300 out of each of them. He needs an infusion of cash to fund his new start-up, a little company that plans to disrupt the way people conventionally worship St. Dumas. I mean he plans on murdering all the active members of the Order.

Luckily for Cousin Oliver, Nomoz the Gnome irritates Alfred far more than he does. Alfred, not realizing he's going to some day regret buddying up to this jerk loser jerkfaced loser jerk, agrees to help the Order of St. Dumas track down Biis. Obviously Alfred needs Azrael to help save Bruce. But they need Alfred to, um, make tea and scones while they do it?

Alfred using classic manipulation techniques to get Cousin Oliver to regard him more than Nomoz.

While Bruce continues to resist Biis's attempts to learn his PIN, Biis continues his murder streak across the continent. He arrives at this Harcourt's estate to murder him while wearing Batman's cowl. As he prepares for the kill, Alfred and Azrael arrive at the gate and begin making their way in for the final confrontation!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Three #3 Rating: B. It's too bad that I haven't found the love for my hate of Cousin Oliver in these first three issues. Maybe I didn't really begin hating him until Knightfall. It's also possible, having just turned 21 when this series came out and I was high on the masculinity of having fucked two women by this point in my life, I was all, "This guy's a fucking sexless nerd! College geek! Four eyes! Probably a huge virgin who hasn't had sex with any girls let alone a whopping two of them! Poor sad lad!" Maybe things just go so badly in the final issue of this limited series that my brain will explode in a majestic epiphany of remembered hatred and I'll shout, "Oh yeah! This is why I hate the little fucker so much!" Then I'll come in my pants so hard that it will count as having had sex with a third woman!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Two #2 (November 1992)

Whose blood is Batman covered in?

I understand the blood coming out of Batman's mouth and dripping down his chin and flowing away on the ground. But what about all that other blood?! Does Batman's cape and cowl have capillaries? Maybe the weird blood in rivulets all over Batman is meant to distract purchasers of this fine art/word media mash-up from noticing how motherfucking huge Azrael's forearms and fists are?

I felt like I didn't get too many chances last issue to truly hate the Cousin Oliveresque character that will become Azrael. In my mind, I hate him so much that all I have to do is look at him now and I'm filled with an internal rage. The question I'm left with is this: is there an actual reason for that internal rage? Do I hate him so much now just because I remember hating him so much back then? Did I hate him so much back then simply because he looked like Cousin Oliver? Did I hate him because he's obviously unworthy to be this amazing, kick-ass assassin (three asses in a row!) and was angry because DC knew he wasn't worthy of the role so they had to add the whole post-hypnotic suggestion shit to the guy's childhood? Maybe I hate him because he's not just Cousin Oliver but he's Cousin Oliver to the fucking Robins! And Robin, no matter which one, is just the absolute worst part of Batman, if you're trying to take Batman seriously (which maybe you shouldn't since he's a comic book character). Obviously Robin makes no sense in the totality of the idea of a man with a criminal vengeance boner who goes out at night in the dark fighting dangerous madmen. To bring a boy in a bright outfit along is madness and/or criminal exploitation. But DC felt they needed a kid insert so kids could read the thing and think, "I could do what Batman does too!" Is that it? So Cousin Oliver/Azrael is for college STEM nerds in the same way Robin was for children?

I guess I don't absolutely fucking despise Kyle Rayner because he didn't look like a stupid Brady Bunch character and also he was an artist and not a science geek. Although, to be absolutely transparent, I never really liked him much. At all. Although now that I bring it up, it's possible he filled me with incomprehensible rage as well. There must be a reason why I absolutely loved the Omega Men Convergence short story where it looks like he gets his head cut off.

Last issue ended with the arms dealer LeHah, the man Daddy Azrael tried to kill and the man Batman has been tracking, blowing the absolute motherloving shit out of The Order of St. Dumas's headquarters. Bruce and Alfred were in a Batcopter above the scene which was blown out of the sky and sent tumbling into a nearby pine tree. Nomoz and Cousin Oliver survived by hiding in a bunker underneath the chalet when they heard the helicopter approach. Afterward, five million tons of snow crashed down the mountain, obliterating every trace of everything that just happened. So can I stop reading here and pretend they're all dead? It's tempting!

Page 1: The end!

Cousin Oliver and Nomoz become trapped in the basement bunker under tons of snow so Nomoz immediately cracks open a tin of beans and begins eating them cold. Like Rorschach does! Is eating directly out of a cold tin of beans shorthand for "crazy person"? It must be because why the fuck is Nomoz immediately hungry when they've only just become trapped? Bruce and Alfred survive hanging upside down in their helicopter. LeHah and his henchman escape in their helicopter by outrunning the avalanche. All of that takes up about the first half of the comic book. Or maybe it was just a few pages but it felt like half a comic book. I did begin reading this week's ago and just haven't been able to muster the energy to continue to read about — ugh — Azrael.

Turns out Lehah and his henchman don't fully escape. Their helicopter is damaged by falling debris and it eventually crashes. Both survive the crash although the henchman doesn't survive LeHah's break with reality as he begins communing with a demon named Biis.

I guess if I'm a demon, at the absolute limit, I'll accept a human head carved from a body as tribute. But you'd better get to the virgins pretty quick or we're fucking quits, man.

As Bruce and Alfred, stuck halfway up the Alps, begin their long hike back to civilization, a massive hovercraft explodes out of the snow in a spray of fire and flames. Alfred is all, "Is it a volcano?" And Batman is all, "Idiot! Wrong geography for volcanoes! The Alps were formed by folding tectonic plates and not by, um, whatever tectonic movement causes volcanoes! You know, the other kind of tectonic action. The hot kind? Frottage, I think it's called." Later back in Gotham, Alfred begins slipping Bruce saltpeter in his tea. "Embarrass me, will you? Wait until your next date with Catwoman! Batman? More like Can't-Get-It-Up-Man!" Then the intercom will crack into life and Bruce will say, "Talking to yourself, old man? You know I've wired this entire house for sound, right, Alfred? By the way, it's a myth that saltpeter causes impotence. You know what doesn't cause impotence? Selina's massive tits!"

Okay, back to our regularly scheduled comic book about the greatest impotence pill ever invented: Azrael. Normally when I read a comic book, it's boner city! But reading an Azrael comic book, my penis is all, "How deep inside you do you think I can retract before it begins to get painful?"

Batman leaps aboard the hovercraft which is seen as a hostile act by the people within. That's reasonable, right?

I bet Bruce is rethinking his costume choices now. Maybe he should have gone for the green bikini briefs and a yellow cape.

Before jumping on the hovercraft, Bruce mentioned how his Bat outfit is lined with battery operated heating filaments. Does that explain the cover? It's not blood; it's overheating heating filaments!

Speaking of Batman's outfit, what the fuck is going on here?

Were these shoulder horns a '90s thing or just a Joe Quesada thing? Or part of his snow costume? Or did he just need to look more like a demon for this script?

Batman and Azrael engage in fisticuffs and you've got to hand it to Batman because he realizes Azrael is just a huge fucking nerd underneath the scary religious costume right away. Azrael may have been hypnotically trained in several martial forms of battle but you can't hypnotize away the way a nerd moves or throws a punch.

Batman should have been all, "Don't make me drop your britches and spank your little bottom blue!"

Maybe I shouldn't suggest Batman quote some blowhard who gets himself killed after giving up his weapon to some nobody who turns out to be Billy the Kid. Especially when I just suggested Batman was good at identifying what kind of person he's battling and that guy Billy kills in Young Guns who said the little bottom blue line has no ability to assess how dangerous the person he's interacting with actually is.

Batman, thigh deep in the snow, tells Azrael he can't fight properly in the snow because he isn't wearing snowshoes. There may have been some miscommunication between Denny and Joe on the script. Unless Joe Quesada believes snowshoes help moving in the snow even when you're halfway buried in it.

Whatever the case, it doesn't matter because Batman's prophecy about Azrael not hitting him twice comes true and Batman defeats the idiot. But then Nomoz gets his one hit on Batman with his weapon: the hovercraft. While Batman heals from the broken spine and internal injuries caused by being run down by a hovercraft, Nomoz and Azrael get away although Azrael loses his magic flaming sword in the process.

Batman winds up unhurt from the collision. He mentions that his cowl absorbed most of the impact which, once again, must have been a miscommunication between Denny and Joe because the hovercraft did not hit Batman in the head.

I bet this is why Bane was able to break Batman's back so easily. It was halfway there already.

Batman and Alfred explore the crater from whence the hovercraft came while Nomoz and Azrael flee. But not before Nomoz depresses the button on a detonator that will destroy the bunker and those within. How many times does Denny O'Neil think he can fool me into believing Batman's dead in just two issues? How many more times will he try in the next two? Did Denny forget he was writing mostly to adult children by 1992 and not to children children with no ability to think past the words being fed them in the story?!

LeHah makes it back to civilization where the first thing he does is create a costume to represent his new lord, the demon Biis. Cousin Oliver also gets a new Azrael outfit, one with better bullet proofing than the one his father wore. It also includes built-in flaming swords so he doesn't lose another one.

I will never buy into that being the head of a hero. I just want to stick it in a toilet bowl and flush!

Biis just looks like fat Skeletor. He needs two full belts to hold up those pants!

Cousin Oliver learns a little history of the organization but he's not the type to question any of it, even though he's supposedly a college student. Nomoz explains how the organization is an off-shoot of the Templars and they made themselves rich by investing the loot taken during the Crusades. Cousin Oliver does not question that he's working for a white supremacist, religious fundamentalist, imperialist organization based on racism, pillaging, and looting. He's just all, "Oh, we're angels of vengeance serving our lord Azrael. No, no, I don't need to know anything about this Azrael. And I'm not worried about how our vengeance is saved for our own members who decide to leave the group and never used against anybody else. It's not like this is Scientology, right?! I trust you, you toothless, ruthless, little gnome of a man!"

Meanwhile, Biis stands naked in front of a mirror declaring himself to be Supernatural Punisher.

Is it an old person thing to stand around naked in the dark? Or is it another crazy thing? Did Rorschach ever do it? Or is standing or sitting around naked in the dark just a Samuel Beckett character thing? Since I've done it more than I ought, I'm going with the Beckett option.

Batman and Alfred were surprisingly not blown up. They owe their lives to stupid random luck that a wire fell away from the bomb during all the ruckus. While Batman searches for clues and a way to track all the living members of the Order of St. Dumas, Alfred whips up some spinach fajitas. I like this version of Alfred where he's always Bruce's manservant and not some extraordinary British military hero who also moonlights as a butler. This Alfred doesn't try to examine the scene because he's too busy doing manservant things like making spinach fajitas and then getting his feelings hurt when Batman doesn't finish his spinach fajita.

Cousin Oliver eventually asks Nomoz about the theology behind the Order of St. Dumas and Nomoz's answer is "I'm not going to tell it to a college student who will pick it apart with logic and rational thought!" So Cousin Oliver just drops it. Nobody reading this cares about the theology! They just want a cool costume and an easy to understand mission. And what could be easier than "Kill the guy who's going to kill all the other members of your Order"? Too bad DC also constantly thinks, "Readers want to read about characters that are exactly like them! And college kids read our shit now, right? We need a huge nerd as the next Batman!"

Batman figures out where all the members of The Order of St. Dumas are located by tracing their use of satellite relays. While he's doing that, Biis goes after the nearest member of the Order in a hospital nearby. Nomoz also knows about this member so he and Cousin Oliver head on over to protect him.

Oh. Sorry. I mean "to avenge him."

Does that mean that Azrael has to wait outside the member's room until Biis kills him before he's allowed to act? Is this some kind of Libertarian shit?

If you're a Libertarian and you didn't understand what I meant by that, which you probably didn't because Libertarians are less about understanding things and more about spewing semantic bullshit that lets them do whatever the fuck they want to do, no matter who it hurts, then I'm not going to explain myself. Get smarter.

No wonder Batman and Azrael can't seem to maintain a healthy relationship. Batman wants to protect; Azrael wants to avenge. I wonder why Jason Todd didn't take up the mantle of Azrael when he came back to life instead of adopting the Red Hood persona? Why take a name associated with the madman who killed you? Oh, wait. I think I finally understand Jason and Bruce's relationship. Just another butthurt teenager trying to make their parent angry by doing stupid shit. I don't know why he couldn't have been like the rest of us and just went the roller rink every weekend where he hardly ever put our feet in roller skates but sometimes were allowed to put our fingers in vaginas.

The issue ends with Cousin Oliver forgetting to put on his Azrael costume before entering the room of the freshly-murdered-by-Biis member of the Order of St. Dumas. That leads to a slight problem and also another moment for Denny to think, "Ha ha! I'm going to really screw with the emotions of the young kids reading this funny book!"

That "To Be Continued" box is really fucking pissing me off. This should have been the end!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book Two #2 Rating: C. This series feels like the 1992 version of The Court of Owls but poorly thought out. Batman discovers a secret organization exists who control a superhuman killer used to protect the organization. I mean avenge the organization? But it lacks all the shit that made The Court of Owls so interesting. Like how they secretly ruled Gotham and the psychological impact they had on Batman when he discovered he never knew about them and he's supposed to have been such a great detective. Plus Bruce feels like he's in control of Gotham and then he learns that Gotham actually prefers to be controlled by these other people who fuck it so much better than he's ever fucked it. And also owls prey on bats! Plus the masks were cool and, I guess, they also served the purpose of allowing any major character to be discovered as a member at any time. We all thought Commissioner Gordon was going to be one, didn't we? Or was he? I bet The Joker was a member! Man, my memory fucking sucks. Anyway, my point still stands: Azrael is a far worse Talon working for a far worse Court of Owls. The Order of St. Dumas should be for more nefarious than "We have a lot of money and just want to force our members to remain members." Come on, Denny! You could have workshopped this a bit longer.

Of course, there are still two issues left in this series! Maybe I'll be surprised by how elaborate the Order of St. Dumas and their machinations actually are!

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book One #1 (October 1992)

If you love this comic book, I ask you to turn away now. I'm going to hate fuck it so hard!

Now, I'm not entirely sure that I'm going to hate fuck this comic book so, for the moment, I'm going to put my anger dick away. I don't particularly remember any details about this comic book. But I do remember that I couldn't fucking stand the Cousin Oliver little shit who becomes Azrael. I probably never gave this character a chance because I hated him so fucking much. Maybe not as much as I hated Danny Chase but it was probably pretty close. If that twat is already Azrael in this comic (which it appears he is), maybe my rage will remain caged? Who knows? The adventure of life is discovering things that fill us full of various emotions, that wrench us outside of the status quo comfort of our daily lives. Perhaps in the heat of my hate, I will rediscover the passion I once had for life! Maybe that's why so many people actively fill their lives with drama? Because it makes life so rich and full! And also awkward and uncomfortable and a real pain in the ass. I don't get loving drama but then, I guess, some people only subconsciously love drama and they don't realize that they constantly sabotage shit to feel alive. Is that a kind of Munchausen Syndrome? "My life is sick and also I didn't make my life sick it just happened to get sick why are you looking at me like that i'm telling you the truth! i think it's dying and you're asking me why i have so much antifreeze in my kitchen?!"

Small Bit of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Trivia: This is the first comic book I've reviewed written by Dennis O'Neil. Also the first comic book drawn by Joe Quesada!

Much More Extremely Smaller Bit of Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea Trivia: Also the first book inked by Kevin Nowlan.

I can't tell you if it's the first comic lettered by Ken Bruzenak because I don't keep track of the letterers. Some people make a point of praising letterers but I'm going to stick to my guns and not give a shit about them, no matter how important they are to the finished work. One cannot be made to care about everything! If you're such a champion of letterers, go write your own blog where you praise the shit out of them. Just don't contact me when you realize you've run out of ways to describe their work! "Oh, it's so competent! Incredibly legible! Fantastic? More like fontastic!" But if you do contact me, I'll just respond like so: "Ah ha ha ha ha! Mortal fool!"

What the fuck did I do?!

Oh wait! Az is pointing accusingly at another comic book character and not directly at me. Heh. I actually knew this comic book character wasn't talking to me because I am not a liar. I mean, maybe that's not true but I'm certainly not a betrayer. Or, at the very least, you can't definitely say I've ever defiled anything. At least not on camera. Oh, um, also he's a second dimensional character while I'm a third dimensional sentient being which means while I can observe him and talk to him all I want, he cannot see me, talk to me, or even hear me. That's probably the better argument because then I don't have to poorly defend his accusations to prove he wasn't speaking to me because he almost certainly wasn't. Right?

Quesada's art and layouts on this thing are so fucking crowded that they remind me of Chris Bachalo's work on Steampunk. I should probably come up with a comparison that more people know so they could exclaim "Oh yeah! I see that!" instead of "What the fuck is Steampunk?" The main difference is that a Steampunk page, while crowded, looked like a complete work of art, as if all the swirls and flourishes added to the sense of it all. Quesada's pages just look like somebody dropped a bunch of really violent postcards to different vacations sites on the ground.

I'm not complaining! I'm just describing! Remember, my anger dick is still tucked away in my pants.

Now that I've scanned just that page without the facing page adding to the chaos, it doesn't strike me as quite as crowded as seeing them together. The logic of that statement is just off the charts but I'm leaving it in! "So this comic book I'm reading, if you look at two pages at once, there's a lot more going on than if you look at just one page! Ever noticed that?!"

That guy holding his bleeding eye socket where Azrael's burning sword just was? I don't know who he is. But Azrael dropped in to kill him for being a liar, a betrayer, and a defiler, so I'm going to assume he's the bad guy. Mama didn't raise no fool nor a man who is equipped to be on a jury. But while Azrael dropped by with a flaming sword, this man had a gun with bullets that could pierce Azrael's body armor. So Azrael takes three bullets to the chest. When he's shot by the guys with Uzis, I'm going to assume they didn't have the power to penetrate his body armor so he probably still has a chance to live if he can throw himself out of the window and fall forty feet to the ground in time. And, um, softly?

Luckily there's a parade going on in the street outside so four or five baton twirlers break his fall.

Does T.O. Morrow run the local Gotham news network?

That's a joke about these reporters looking like robots. If I knew who was the most famous person in Gotham for making sex dolls, I would have used that person's name instead of the guy famous for robots. Oh wait! Dammit! Professor Pyg!

Some readers might be thinking, "If you suddenly came up with the sex doll maker's name, why don't you just re-edit this and use the joke you say you wanted to use in the first place?" To them I say, "You might be too stupid to read really stupid Internet comic book reviews." Now that I've said that, it's up to you to come up with why I kept the bit in that I wanted to keep in and not the bit I said I wanted to think up in the first place. It's an easy assignment because I'm telling you that I wrote exactly what I wanted to write. Oh, and don't send me your homework. Just work it out in your head (probably in the shower since that's the only place anybody seems to be able to think anymore because their minds are always scrolling their phones). I don't need to hear your conclusions.

Speaking of phones, you know how people hate AI for what it's doing to people's ability to think for themselves and come up with their own arguments and it ultimately is going to make everybody dumber? That's the way I've felt about cell phones for, like, ever. It's just people feel they can hate AI because there's enough pushback against it. But mostly everybody just accepted phones and how dumb they're making everybody and so if you say what I'm saying here, people will hate you forever. "Oh no! He criticized a thing that I've been using most of my life and it's just part of my life and he says I'm dumber! What a fucking prick!" Yeah, maybe I am. But you're still dumber for attaching yourself to that tech.

Azrael swings onto a parade horse and races away, trampling the sexbots in the process.

They must be really high end sexbots. Look at all the blood and gore they produce when trampled!

It's not that I don't think cell phones don't have their uses! Airport pick ups now that you can't meet your friends and family at the gate? Cell phones are invaluable! But you don't need to constantly be connected to everybody and you don't need a device that keeps you from feeling the need to ever really know anything because, hey, you can look it up on your phone! Also, great for taking pictures and videos of your cats and posting them on the Internet. 10/10 application. Probably why I'm like, "Okay, fine, I won't complain too much! Look at the kitties!"

I also just realized I probably say this a lot too: "Okay, fine, I won't complain too much! Look at the titties!"

It's a good thing this comic book is about Azrael and not about those news reporters or else it would be over already! I wonder if anybody cares that two plastic talking heads were just killed while doing a puff piece in Gotham? Probably not. Maybe a few Facebook tributes with myriad comments from people's creepy uncles saying things like, "Man, those titties! What a loss!"

Azrael stumbles through a back alley on his way to whoever the fuck patches him up after debacles like this.

Didn't I recently read this comic book?!

I recently read The Crusades if anybody was wondering what I meant by that caption. It had a lot of scenes just like this one! Too bad it was written ten years later so I can't accuse O'Neil and Quesada of plagiarism. My anger dick twitched but I was all, "Calm down, buddy! These guys couldn't have copied The Crusades and if The Crusades copied them, it's too fucking late to rage about it!" Also, just because two things are similar isn't a reason to automatically assume somebody copied somebody else! That's almost always an accusation by the unimaginative who think it makes them sound smart to say, "Look at this! I noticed similarities between two different things in life! I am so observant and smart!"

Azrael manages to drag himself to the door of his son. His son answers and my dick pops out of my fucking pants and screams, "It's showtime!"

MOTHER FUCKING COUSIN OLIVER PIECE OF SHIT!

Cousin Oliver's father dies in front of him after giving him a few instructions on how to keep the identity of Azrael secret and how to become the new Azrael and probably directions to the Brady house where he'll be living from now on.

Meanwhile at Wayne Manor, creepy uncle Bruce Wayne is all, "I really liked that reporter's tits so I'm going to investigate her death, Alfred."

I wasn't aware Batman deals with a lot of vanishing angel cases?

I wouldn't jump right to the conclusion that Bruce Wayne is psychologically unhealthy but maybe setting his secret door clock to the exact time his parents were murdered doesn't help not lead me to that conclusion.

Police found some body armor close to the scene that was completely riddled with bullet holes so Batman figures the angel was shot by the arms seller who lives in the apartment above where the angel fell. An even more important thing we learn as Batman discusses the case with Alfred: Batman puts his shirt on before his underwear.

Hell, according to these panels, my guess is he's standing with his dick out while just wearing his top, cape, and gloves. Poor Alfred.

Meanwhile, Cousin Oliver opens the mystery package his father left for him some time ago that the idiot was to incurious to open. It contained instructions on where to go if his father ever died along with forty thousand dollars. So this kid, having witnessed his father die in some truly insane way, decides, "What the hell? I'm only currently busy getting a computer science degree! Heading to Switzerland with forty grand in my pocket sounds way better!"

Somewhere in Switzerland, after being taken from the airport to a hidden chalet six hours into the Alps, the kid meets a strange little creature named Nomoz. His job is to inculcate him into the Order of St. Dumas, a secret organization from the 1300s, and train him to be the next Azrael. I suspect that an important feature of Azrael is that each one comes from a single bloodline or else why wouldn't they just put a bullet in the back of this kid's head as soon as they saw him and searched for a more appropriate Azrael?

Oh, okay. Wouldn't want all that post-hypnotic suggestion to go to waste by killing the dumb kid.

Obviously the post-hypnotic suggestion thing is just O'Neil giving a sly wink to the readers saying, "We know you'd never believe this fucking nerd college kid could become a cold-blooded holy assassin so will this idea of hypnotic suggestions implanted over the course of his life be enough to get you fuckers off our backs?" No, Mister Denny, sir. It is not. I am going to hate this fucker for the entire four issue run!

Batman learns, from Commissioner Gordon, that witnesses saw the angel with a flaming sword at one end of an alley and then witnesses at the other end of the alley described him as not having any kind of sword, flaming or otherwise. Gordon is all, "Man, I wonder what happened to that sword?" And Batman is all, "I guess I'll go check out the alley and find the one obvious place where it could have been sequestered since your fucking cops are too lazy."

Without even mentioning the Gotham Cops, Batman thoroughly savages them.

Gordon mentioned how the cops would love to have the sword to check for fingerprints and other evidence. But Batman definitely isn't going to give it to the Gotham Police because they couldn't even be bothered to look in the only place the sword could have been hidden if a person believed the witnesses which the cops probably didn't. They probably had a gut instinct that the witnesses were lying and also another gut instinct that one of the witnesses was the angel. They're probably still investigating all of the witnesses and asking the District Attorney which one could most easily go down on trumped up charges.

Meanwhile in Switzerland, Cousin Oliver's subconscious hypnotic training is brought to the surface. He finds he's able to defend himself against attack instinctively now.

Ha ha ha! Oh, no. No no no no no. You're still a floppy-haired loser.

With the help of Oracle, Batman learns all about the Order of St. Dumas. They were an off-shoot of the templars and were involved in the Crusades. She says their order disappeared in the 1400s. So they didn't hang around for long, historically, before disappearing into the shadows. Now I guess they're less of an order and more of some dwarf in the mountains with a few bodyguards and the family that gets to cosplay an angel every generation?

With Babs' help discovering that the Order settled down in Switzerland, and Batman's investigation of the weapons merchant Azrael tried to kill, Batman finds himself over the Alps in a helicopter hovering above the chalet where the Order of St. Dumas resides. Also looking down on the chalet? The weapons merchant with a rocket launcher full of experimental explosives. Apparently he knew all about the assassin who attempted to take his life and he's looking for revenge.

And I guess he gets it?

Bruce Wayne and Alfred are in that helicopter in the last shot. Cousin Oliver and the creature Nomoz were in the middle of the explosion. I guess the final three issues of this series will be Batman searching the rubble for clues, going back home, and shrugging that it all must have worked out somehow?

Batman: Sword of Azrael: Book One #1 Rating: B+. The art is fucking fantastic. Great job. The writing is top notch. Excellent portrayal of Batman doing detective work. Nice mythology set up that feels redundant having recently read The Crusades (was that comic pitched as an Azrael Vertigo book and then just changed to exclude any ties to mainstream DC?). A lot of good shit that should have probably made this an A-rated comic book. But then it also starred fucking Cousin Oliver who sucks so badly that he doesn't even get a fucking name. He's just "son" and "computer science major" and "stupid haircut nerd with glasses". Is there some kind of collective unconscious symbol within our human brains that leads us to hate the floppy bowl-cut haired, tow-headed, glasses wearing kid? Or is it just me? Am I projecting my dislike of Cousin Oliver, Danny Chase, and Azrael onto everybody else? Did some kid who looks like these jerks beat the shit out of me in second grade, pin me to the ground, and spit in my mouth and I've just blocked those memories but unconsciously hate anybody who resembles the perpetrator? This hatred of this character type doesn't suggest the need for therapy, does it? Sure, sure. Other things suggest it, like the way I blame my anger on my cock. But not this, right?