Batman: Shadow of the Bat #9 (February 1993)

Catman gonna snatch him some Robin's eggs.

The Cover
I've held this cover in my hands multiple times now and only just now, as I picked it up once more, noticed Sasha, Catman's panther, made the cover. That's not a criticism since she's made of negative space with only her teeth and general absence of city in the shape of a panther to indicate she's there. What is a criticism is that Stelfreeze's signature cuts the negative space right down her neck. And his signature just looks like the Gotham buildings in the background, maybe showing though some shadow past Robin's cape. Was he trying to make it look like a collar and a lead? Or did he just realize that the only place on the entire three-cover spread where his signature would show up would be on Sasha's stark blackness?

Anybody else wondering what's in Catman's utility belt? I bet it's just different flavors of cat treats.

One last thought: I've been giving Alan Grant a lot of credit for things that came after this series, like Knightfall and Infinite Jest. Do I also have to give him credit for inventing the Court of Owls too?

That's a Talon looking on, right?!

The Story So Far
Bruce Wayne, the Mayor, and Commissioner Gordon have been kidnapped by The Misfits, a group of Gotham's least exciting costumed criminals. The plan was to force the city to pay a ransom of ten million dollars for their return. As is the case with most cities and governments and anybody who doesn't want more and more kidnappings to happen, Gotham has a policy to never pay out ransoms. Not that they have the money. Unluckily for this policy, Lucius Fox has access to Wayne Enterprise's coffers and agrees to pay the cash himself. I think the shareholders voted on the issue and they were all, "We're going to lose more than ten million dollars if Bruce Wayne dies! Who cares if more and more people get kidnapped because we've shown we're willing to pay the ransom? We just don't want to lose any money! We want to make money by legal extortion because everybody now thinks loans (which you pay off once and you're done) are for idiots. It's better to get investors and seduce shareholders to risk their money so that if you fail, you aren't saddled with a loan. Sure, sure. You're now under the thrall of a bunch of greedy pieces of shit but what can a business do? Get a fucking loan? What are we these days, Boomers?!"

Even though Fox has offered to pay the ransom, Killer Moth has decided to kill the three kidnapped men by sealing them in a crate and drowning them in the bay. Their only hope now is that Nimrod and Robin can hunt them down. Also maybe they still have some hope because one of them is Batman.

The Story
Last issue ended as Nimrod stated he knew where the kidnappers were being held. This issue begins with Nimrod saying they're probably at the docks because Killer Moth said they'll die precisely at nine and high tide is at nine. How the fuck does he know that? Was he jerking off to high tide tables in his shithole motel room earlier? This fucker's from Texas and he knows the high tide tables of Gotham better than Robin? Is that a thing hunters are constantly aware of?

Killer Moth has asked that Commissioner Gordon's wife (I think?), Sergeant Essen, deliver the ransom since he believes she won't risk Gordon's life by doing anything risky. She tells everybody she's going to go alone but Robin has other plans.

I once had a fuzzy kitten do a cute little angry spit at me that was more threatening than Tim Drake.

Robin's "outside help" are, unsurprisingly, Alfred and, surprisingly, Ace the Bat-hound. Too bad it wasn't Batcow so I could say Alan Grant should get partial credit for that too. I don't remember Ace the Bat-hound in this era but he looks like a flea-bitten mongrel. I was expecting a dog that loves to make criminals bleed. But instead, Fuzzy Dumpkins needing a bath. He doesn't even have a mask. So disappointing.

Fuzzy Dumpkins isn't me making a vague reference to some 1920s comic strip. It was just a stupid name I made up for a stupid dog.

Apparently, Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle created a post-Crisis Ace that was an English Mastiff. I think maybe Tim Sale didn't know how to draw an English Mastiff so he went with "mutt that sort-of, maybe kind-of looks like a Bloodhound crossed with a Dachshund? Maybe Tim Sale decided Ace the Bat-hound should just be a mix of all "Hounds"?

The tide continues to come in as Bruce Wayne tries to rescue everybody. But not too hard or else they might suspect he's Batman.

Right now, he's probably wishing he didn't need to rely on a young boy on a school night.

I know it's a school night because The Misfits kidnapped Gordon and the Mayor on a Wednesday and then immediately demanded the ransom. Sometimes I pay attention to stupid, useless details. Hmm, maybe stupid, useless details are actually all I pay attention to. By this time next month, I'll have completely forgotten everything about this comic book except that Chancer's dice logo on his chest was obviously meant to read as a "7" but actually read as a "9" (at least the first time Tim Sale drew it. Later, the lower die became covered so much by the top die that it could have been a four, five, or a six).

Ace does his job by leading Robin to The Misfits' lair. But I don't know if he did it to help or to get Robin killed. If it's the latter, then good boy!

Who's a good doggy?! You get that snot torn apart!

Robin arrives in the nick of time but Alan and Tim leave it ambiguous as to whether or not Bruce needed him to save him. Does Bruce pull the hatch off the crate's hinges before they drown? Did Robin help when he arrived and dove in? Or did Robin dive in to find Bruce already helping Gordon and the Mayor out of the crate? We'll never know! I mean, we know. Bruce definitely didn't need Robin to save him. But we don't *really* now. If you know what I mean. Wink! Did that wink help?

Robin put a tracker on Nimrod so that Batman can track him down as Nimrod tracks The Misfits down. Bruce rushes out to have Alfred help dress him in an alley. He's able to leave the scene without being questions by Gordon or the Mayor because they're practically drowned. And he doesn't have to worry about the panther outside because Tim hogtied it the way you almost certainly can't hogtie a massive feline.

By almost getting his head blown off, Nimrod delays The Misfits long enough for Batman to arrive. As far as I can tell, Chancer's luck power hasn't fucking done a thing to help recently. Maybe the luck relies on the amount of qi he's currently channeling and the idiot jerked off earlier that morning.

Are you telling me Catman can't smell that Batman reeks of Gotham Bay right now? He should totally suspect the Mayor is Batman now!

While Batman battles the original three Misfits, Chancer sees his chance to escape with the cash. But he forgot about the invisible Nimrod and winds up tackled by him as he's getting away. Also, there's a new revelation about Chancer's costume!

How does this make any fucking sense at all?! That pip has never appeared there yet!

Okay, I understand that if that pip has never been there before then I was wrong about the die being the number four (or five or six). But I only said it's a four because of the placement of the two bottom pips that were obviously meant to represent a two, making the two dice total seven (which is lucky, right?!). But here, Tim Sale (or Adrienne Roy?! Did Roy betray Tim by just adding the dot that we all knew should have been there?!), puts the dot in as if to say, "Dudes. I knew what I was doing all along! The bottom die was always meant to be a four (or a five (or a six!))! I didn't fuck up the concept art of this character at all, you dumbies!" But, I mean, I still have evidence that Tim did fuck it up. Completely.

See?! There's plenty of room along that border to have placed the dot if one had existed! Also, plenty of room in this first shot to shot there's no middle pip.

Well, now I understand why I stopped collecting this series! No way could I reward such blatant disregard for dice aesthetics. I'm nothing if not a petty piece of shit.

Okay, I'm sure that's false and I just stopped buying this series because I lacked the funds to keep with it. But there's also another possibility regarding Chancer's dice. Perhaps they appear as something other than a seven when his luck goes bad! The one time his luck seems to fail him, his dice change from the usual 7 pips to 8 pips. Although how lucky is seven anyway when the majority of time, seven is the number you're trying to avoid while playing craps!

The story ends with Nimrod telling his sad tale but it's boring so forget about it. Batman rearrests him and tells him maybe when the truth comes out at Chancer's trial, Nimrod will get another chance. What a bunch of bat guano! Batman knows how the justice system works! Once it has a patsy for a crime, that shit rarely changes. Batman's sending Nimrod back to jail for life. But maybe Nimrod thinks he deserves it because of that boring story I'm still not going to mention.

The Ranking
I'm sad that I don't own more of this series because I was actually enjoying it. A Batman series where nine issues in the most prominent villain he's faced (at the time) was Calendar Man? Sure, sure. He knocked out The Joker during that Reverse-Knightfall bit early on but that didn't really count. The only villain you could count in that sequence as having been a real part of the story was Amygdala. And this was when Zsasz was created so he doesn't count either. My local comic book store often has big end of the year sales so maybe I'll see if I can hunt down some more issues of this series for super duper cheap at Excalibur in a week or so.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #8 (January 1993)

You never want Calendar Man to be the most recognizable character on a cover.

The Cover
This cover got me asking a number of questions but the one foremost in my mind was this: Does Calendar Man change the number on his left shoulder according to the current month? Some of the other questions: "Who is the guy in the suit and why is the back of his right hand so fucked up? Tattoo? Damaged ligaments?"; "Where's Firefly's flamethrower?"; "What? That's not Firefly? Is that Sauron? Is this a Marvel crossover?"; and, "Who the fuck is Killer Moth again?" The question I didn't ask (and, in fact, never ask) that was answered by next month's cover was "Where is Robin?" Although, and I know I'm getting ahead of myself, but having a cover where Robin faces off against Catman, while not laugh out loud funny, is quietly clever. The last question I had about the cover that doesn't have anything to do with the cover is "Where are all the tatas? The Misfits have a serious 'too many testicles' problem. Like my grandfather."

The Story So Far
Killer Moth, knowing he's an absolute loser among losers in Batman's catalogue of villains, decided to team up with some other all-time great losers. Too bad Alan Grant didn't have as huge a boner for Killer Moth as Tom King did for Kite Man or else Killer Moth could have had a popular resurgence in the early '90s. Hell, maybe he did! I barely read any Batman comics and I certainly didn't give a shit about Killer Moth. I know I should have. I could have been the coolest and most indie nerd at the nerd table in the lunch room (this metaphor doesn't work so well seeing that by 1992, I was in college) by declaring Killer Moth my absolute favorite Batman villain. "Did you guysh know that Killer Mosh figured out Batman'sh identity before even The Joker?" Then some other kid who was keen on being King Nerd would be all, "*snort* Like The Joker ever even really wanted to know Batman's secret identity actually." Then I would have had to scramble to get back the power and, amid scraps of chewed tater tots, spit out, "Killer Mosh wash alsho the reashon Babsh Gordon became Batgirl!" And just to make sure everybody knew how indie and cool I was, I would use my coup de grâce: "Wedge Antillesh ish my favorite character in the Shtar Warsh shaga!"

So, um, The Misfits have decided to kidnap the Mayor, Commissioner Gordon, and Bruce Wayne. Then they'll ransom them off for ten million dollars, split the loot, and never get their asses beat by Batman. I know it doesn't sound like a great plan. But they have luck on their side: a new guy named Chancer! Although getting lucky could mean any number of things. Like, "You guys were lucky Batman only put you in the hospital instead of the morgue!" So, you know, it only goes so far, really.

The Story
Alan Grant and Tim Sale decided that this issue would be so exciting that they'd fuck with readers by beginning it with the most boring splash page in the existence of comic books.

Does Gen Z even know what this is a picture of?

That wasn't me making fun of Gen Z! God forbid I should think any generation is better or worse than any other. As if I would recognize any obsolete piece of technology from before I was born! At least Gen Z has technology that still mimics the look of watches while doing about ten thousand more useful things than the one or two a watch could do (two is giving a watch credit for sometimes showing the date as well as the time). I haven't worn a watch or cared about time since I was twelve. Now I just free wheel carelessly through life. I haven't needed to know the exact time since Lost went off the air!

The first person The Misfits target is Bruce Wayne. Catman and Chancer set up some bombs last issue to cut power to Wayne Tech just when Bruce Wayne usually gets to work. The bomb goes off, the power cuts out, and the gates don't open just as Alfred tries to roll right through them. He smashes into them which would have taught him a lesson about assuming if he'd lived through the accident.

Don't worry. Alfred survives. As I mentioned earlier, Alan Grant just didn't have the juice of Tom King.

I have no idea what's currently going on in the main DC Continuity so I don't know if Alfred is still dead. I think I stopped reading DC Comics around the time Dick Grayson was sniped in the face. I never found out how that ended either because it seemed to never be mentioned again (at least for as long as I continued to read the comics). What boggles my mind is that DC allowed Tom King to kill Alfred but years earlier they refused to let Scott Snyder do it in "Death of the Family". I don't know if Snyder wanted to but everything in that story felt like it was leading up to The Joker killing Alfred and then serving bits of Alfred to the rest of the Bat-Family. And since that story ultimately had no repercussions or reason for existing (other than to create tensions between the kids and Batman which, ultimately, didn't even change much), Snyder must have been planning on having The Joker kill Alfred. It's the only thing that makes sense!

On a side note, why the fuck wasn't Alfred wearing his seat belt? I suppose a man irresponsible enough to raise a child who needs therapy by not giving him therapy and instead allowing him to travel the world to learn the deadliest martial arts only to return home, don a Furry Costume, and get his kicks beating the shit out of criminals probably isn't the kind of person to wear a seat belt.

Killer Moth and Chancer, using Chancer's luck and some gimmicks from Calendar Man, manage to successfully kidnap Bruce Wayne and make their escape. Killer Moth makes sure to mention how important Calendar Man's help was so that the reader might accidentally start associating him with other competent villains. Meanwhile, the other Misfits are about to kidnap the Mayor and Police Commissioner.

Classy. Kidnapping them at an AIDS Charity event. I bet even The Joker's tugging his shirt collar over that one.

Somehow, Catman and Calendar Man make kidnapping the Commissioner and the Mayor look easy. I suspect it's because nobody figured any criminal would have the gall to interrupt an AIDS Charity event. Even The Penguin would have just shown up to donate. These Misfits really are the worst criminals in Gotham! That "worst" is meant to be ambiguous!

Now that The Misfits have kidnapped three of the most important people of Gotham (one of them the most important but they don't even know it yet because Killer Moth's missing the part of his brain that remembers that fact), it's time to profit! I don't know who is going to pay the ransom for them. I guess Bruce Wayne's ward, Tim Dickstodd?

Meanwhile, Nimrod the Hunter makes crank calls while cranking his, um, crank.

If I'm misconstrued what's happening here, I don't want to be corrected.

I don't know why Nimrod has a photo of an egg above his bed. Maybe that's a picture of the woman Janine he's trying to get justice for by hunting down Chancer. I'd say more about what Nimrod's up to but Al and Tim haven't really laid it all out yet. Best to get to know Nimrod and what he's up to in fits and starts, like showing him using his camouflage suit or masturbating in a run down room.

Gordon, the Mayor, and Bruce Wayne are all dumped in the warehouse doubling as The Misfits headquarters. Killer Moth takes a moment to reflect on his past history with Bruce Wayne that he can't quite remember because a bullet made an omelet of his brain.

Look at me memeing instead of being clever! It's so easy and fun!

Back at Wayne Manor, Tim Drake has arrived to teach Alfred about seat belts. Also, he might be able to figure out where The Misfits took Bruce. He is a super genius, after all. The superest! I don't think you're allowed to have a dumb or even normal intelligence sidekick in the DC Universe. Except maybe The Flash. Wally West certainly wasn't winning any MacArthur grants. I'm not being insulting to Wally. I've never won one of those either. I'm just saying DC has a bit of a problem with making their teen characters geniuses. Even Jason Todd was like a "street smarts genius"! I think. I forget. He died and I never had to think of him ever again. At least, that's what I thought. But then Judd Winick had to come around with the one joke he ever wrote ("Again!?") and "again" Jason Todd back into continuity. Jerk!

Batman doesn't clear the cookies on his computer so Tim discovers the last thing he was working on was trying to discover the identity of Nimrod and his connection to Chancer. Nimrod himself wants to find Chancer to clear his name since it was Chancer who killed the person Nimrod was sent to prison for life for killing. When the Bat Signal goes up, Nimrod and Tim both head over, Nimrod because he wants work with Batman and Tim because he knows Batman is in the clutches of the Misfits. Because Nimrod thinks he knows how to find Chancer, Tim and the cops agree to work with him. Lucius Fox has decided to pay the ransom but Tim and Nimrod are going to try to track the money to the gang to stop them and save the kidnapped. They'll need saving because even if The Misfits get the money, Killer Moth intends to let the rising tide of Gotham Bay drown them as The Misfits get away.

Oh, also, I guess that's Bruce Wayne on the cover? I was refusing to allow for that possibility since Batman's on the previous cover and they fit together like a poster. Maybe I'm wrong. Perhaps it's the mayor?

The Ranking
Once Robin made an appearance, I found myself bored which is why I simply summarized the final five to six pages of the comic book. Why am I like this? Why can't I simply see Robin as another valid super hero trying to do what's right? Am I jealous of his genius status and his efforts to make the world a better place? Does he reflect back at me all the possibilities in life that I squandered? Am I the mirrored antagonist to Tim Drake?! It's becoming a stronger and stronger possibility that I simply stopped reading this series because it concentrated too much on Tim Drake for one single issue! I suppose I could ask what's wrong with me but if I really wanted an answer to that question, I'd get therapy. Instead, I write much too personal posts on the Internet about my life. A therapist would probably say, "Why did you post this on the Internet instead of sending it to your father?" And then I'd have to throw down a smoke pellet and climb out a window instead of answering.

Batman: Shadow of the Bat #7 (December 1992)

Dice Guy and Pink Eye looking a little overconfident going up against Batman.

The Cover
If you picked this up off the rack on October 13th, 1992, you could be forgiven for thinking DC fucked up the cover by clipping it poorly. What happened to the little box surrounded by a solid color design?! But then on November 17th when you picked up Issue #8, you'd begin to understand that Brian Stelfreeze has painted a mini-poster for this three part series. It's more probable that by the time you picked up Issue #8, you'd have forgotten about the off-center image on Issue #7 and simply assumed they'd done away with the box design entirely since Issue #8's image extends to both the right and left borders, leaving it looking like a regular comic book cover (if you easily ignore the band on the bottom). But by Issue #9, with it looking the reverse of Issue #7, some astute readers would have dug out the last two issues and lined them up on their mother's kitchen table to marvel at DC and Brian Stelfreeze's work of ingenuity!

Since DC apparently couldn't publish a cover without the UPC box, they could have at least centered it on the middle issue. Sure, it'd have been weird. But who the fuck cares?

We live in a world ruled by precedent and tradition for no reason other than the illusion of maintaining some kind of order and continuity. But we don't have to! If women could suddenly wear pants one day (and, sure, it was shocking (at least that's what I'm told?)) then men can wear skirts (and not just kilts because that's "acceptable". Skirts! Short skirts! Long skirts! Ruffled skirts! Colorful skirts!). And that's just one example of the infinite choices we could be making every day but we limit ourselves to fucking tradition and precedent. It's the bane of my existence because, yes, in some ways, I also limit myself due to tradition and precedence. Like in that skirt example that I didn't pick just out of nowhere. I want to wear fucking skirts. They're so fucking comfortable and — let's face the genu-wyne facts of the matter — absolutely adorable. But you know why I don't wear them? Because I don't like people noticing me. It makes me anxious and uncomfortable. So if I go out in a skirt, people, basing their existence on tradition and precedence, might assume I'm trying to disrupt things or make a statement or stand out in the crowd. But all it would mean to me is that I was cute and comfortable! But no! Instead DC Comics has to ruin the symmetry of their three cover mini-poster by off-setting the middle cover's UPC box! Look, they stuck the third cover's box to the right! Why can't they just stick the fucking thing in the middle?! Cowards! Yes, yes. I'm a coward too or else my wardrobe would be full of the cutest fucking skirts you'd ever laid your eyes on. So I'm a hypocrite?! So what! Maybe I'll got to Torrid tomorrow and pick up another skirt to at least wear around the house and while doing yard work! Let my neighbors drool with jealousy!

Yeah, I said "another" skirt. Go fuck yourselves.

Oh! This reminded me of a note from Richard F. Burton's footnotes in his translation of The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night! "In the East, where Common Sense, not Fashion, rules dress, men, who have a protuberance to be concealed, wear petticoats and women wear trousers." I'm glad I was reminded of one of his non-offensive notes! I could have been reminded of this one: "And, as will be seen, Persians have bequeathed to the outer world worse things than bad language, e.g. heresy and sodomy." Dude. DUDE.

Double oh! This double reminded me that recently I needed a new pair of pajama bottoms because my old pair with Superman's symbol all over it had a huge, sexy hole in the crotch. So I went to Hot Topic because who else is going to have tons and tons of various unisex pajama bottoms? Probably nobody was my immediate assumption. They were conducting a 60% off sale on their Wednesday products which happened to have pajama bottoms. Now I've never seen the show but everybody knows and loves The Addams Family (except maybe those weirdo The Munsters freaks) so I got a pair. When I put them on at home, I noticed they were definitely not unisex. They fit just differently enough to what I'm used to to realize they were women's pajama bottoms (I only noticed later the buttons on the fly were decorative as their wasn't actually a fly). But you know what? They felt fucking sexy! I love them so much! I don't know who this fucking Enid is that's also on them but she's cute too!

The Story
The story begins with "Dice Guy" from the cover robbing an armored car and describing how he's always been super lucky and everybody around him is super unlucky. So of course he went into crime instead of, I don't know, scratch-offs?

I don't get it. If his whole thing is luck, why do the dice on his chest indicate he's rolled a 9? What's so lucky about a 9?!

The guy with the dice calls himself Chancer and he's about to find out just how lucky he can get when Batman swings down from a rooftop (or zeppelin? Sometimes, it seems his bat grapple is just attached to nothing but stardust, man) to attempt to apprehend him. Chancer gets lucky and knocks Batman down. Instead of running, he doubles down on his luck to taunt Batman. This seems like a mistake because Batman gets back up and grabs Chancer. He's about to break a few of Chancer's bones for fun and/or justice when "Pinkeye" joins in the fray.

No kid reading this in 1992 understood the Biblical meaning of the name Nimrod here. They just all thought he was basically calling himself Idjit the Hunter!

Here's the pertinent Biblical passage that gave Bugs Bunny the idea to mock Elmer Fudd and call him Nimrod: "And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth. He was a mighty hunter before the Lord: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the Lord." So you see, calling yourself Nimrod should be enough to signify that you're a great hunter. But being that the Looney Tunes fucked the meaning of the name Nimrod, turning it into the "Hey Einstein" for hunters, Nimrod here had to add "the hunter" to the end to clarify that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord (so much so that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord (fucking Bible is so repetitive!)). I get the feeling that Nimrod the Hunter might wind up having to explain all of this to his new mates when he joins The Misfits later. Or else he'll just get mocked mercilessly by the others until he kills one of them.

Also, um, Chancer? What a fucking stupid name.

Chancer uses Nimrod's distraction to get away by leaping off the edge of the multi-story building's ledge they were battling on. Batman presumes to his death.

How (or why?) Chancer got up there after robbing an armored car, I have no idea. Lucky nine, I guess?

Chancer's life is saved by Catman who catches him by the ankle with a wire trap. I know what you're thinking: "Must have ripped his leg clean off!" No, no. I don't think G-forces caused by deceleration exists in comic books (or acceleration according to Flash comics when he just grabs people at super speed to get them to safety). As long as a person is stopped instantly by something other than concrete, they're gonna be okay. Plus, Chancer has the luck of the number nine on his side! Which Catman passive-aggressively comments on.

Has Gail Simone ever written a story where Catman and Catwoman fuck and afterward she has a litter of nine human babies?

Catman suggests, with the help of a full grown panther, that Chancer help him out on a small job he's doing. Once that's successfully completed, Catman offers Chancer an opportunity to join his small crew with a "scam" they've got coming up. Chancer agrees because he doesn't realize one of the members of Catman's crew is Calendar Man. I'd be too embarrassed to team up with that guy. Who bases their personality on the shittiest of Christmas gifts? Oh, I know! A guy who thinks his chest logo represents the number seven when it actually represents the number nine!

The guy in the suit on the cover of Issue #8 is, I think, a cop Batman begins working with who's investigating the armored car robbery. They begin working together and sharing information as they learn more about Chancer and Nimrod the Hunter. This cop (I don't think he's been named? Maybe he was a regular in Batman or Detective Comics in 1992) points Batman to an escaped prisoner out of Dallas that just recently came in on a wanted sheet and since they know Chancer came from Dallas, he believes it might tie in to the Nimrod thing.

Hmm. I wonder if Dean Hunter has anything to do with Nimrod the Hunter? Probably going to find out Chancer's name is Chance Phillips and Catman's name is Silly Billy Fuzzybottom.

Meanwhile Calendar Man sets up some bombs or Polaroids or traps or something around the building where a charity event with the Mayor and Commissioner Gordon will be taking place on Wednesday. Obviously this is the scam mentioned by Catman since Officer Nobody mentioned the event in passing to Batman. Calendar Man obsessively quotes an old nursery rhyme about telling the fortunes of a child based on the day of the week they're born. I guess Alan Grant had to come up with something thematically interesting that he could be obsessed with other than just the names of the months or numbers no greater than 31. I wonder if he's also obsessed with pin-ups and cute kitten and puppy pictures?

Turns out even Catman's not quite sure about the whole Calendar Man deal.

Is Calendar Man's real name Janus Julius Augustus?

The final member of The Misfits is Killer Moth. A terrible name. Unless there are killer moths? I mean, probably, right? In a recent Shadow of the Bat review, I was trying to remember all of the characters who were created as mirrors to Batman. Well, here's another one! Killer Moth came up with his persona to be the Batman for criminals. He even issued a bunch of "Moth Signals" to his clients so they could shine them into the sky to get his attention. I mean, come on. That's pretty good, right? I guess he's also the reason that Barbara Gordon became Batgirl? Somehow? Oh! And he also once kidnapped Bruce Wayne to steal his identity only to discover Bruce Wayne was Batman. But then later he was shot in the head and had the part of his brain removed that housed the knowledge of Batman's secret identity so that all worked out, I guess!

I'm not sure why this panel is in the comic but I fucking love it.

Killer Moth explains the job to Chancer: they're going to kidnap three prominent Gotham figures: the Mayor, Commissioner Gordon, and Bruce Wayne!

The Ranking
According to DC's Who's Who, this plan to kidnap Bruce Wayne will be, at least, the third time Killer Moth has attempted this. Apparently not only was the part of his brain removed that let him know Bruce Wayne was Batman, some other wiring got fucked so that he'd continuously relive the moment that led to him getting shot in the head. Maybe the rest of his brain was trying to regain that which it lost? Some kind of brain-damage forced quest to return to him something lost. Sort of like a shittier Memento. Maybe Killer Moth should think about tattooing "Bruce Wayne is Batman" on his chest just over his heart.

Oh, um, as for how I liked this issue? It's continues the streak of really good fucking stories in this series. Okay, maybe "The Ugly American" was a slight miss. But that can be forgiven, right? If this story continues to be as enjoyable as this issue, I'm going to be hard pressed to understand why I stopped reading this series after Issue #9.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #34 (Late July 1992)

The Batrapier needs a little more branding work.

This one time, the Non-Certified Spouse and I were out for a walk. We passed by some kid's toys strewn across the sidewalk. They looked like some kind of investigative kit but with Disney branding. The Non-Certified Spouse suggested it was a Disney branded rape kit. I pointed that a Disney-branded rape kit would just be a picture of Prince Charming. That's the end of the story. It fit here because i mentioned branding in the caption and the word "rape" in "Batrapier". Thank you very much!

I suppose Batman will catch Mr. Lime by the end of this issue but, for the moment, that's finally not the main thing on Batman's mind. Right now, he wants to destroy The Cavalier for being a big lying liar. Sure, he has made the streets of Gotham safe from violent criminals for the past month or two. But he was also stealing from rich people! So, you know, that means he needs to be stopped. It also maybe means Batman wants to fuck him because the last time somebody was into burglary and being an ethical person, Batman fell in love with her and married her and had a child with her. Sure, it was on a different Earth. But the Batman of this Earth still loves fucking Catwoman even if he's not editorially allowed to marry her. Also he can't have a kid with her even if he's allowed to have a kid with some hot assassin who's probably killed way more jewels than Catwoman has stolen.

I don't expect intelligent commentary from local news reporters but it sounds like she's saying The Cavalier's double life was because he was a burglar versus his jewel thievery.

The issue also begins with The Cavalier revealing that Ellen, the pale, suicidal woman he has fallen in love with, is a murderer. He says murderess because this was written in 1992, I guess? Or is The Cavalier such an old fashioned stuntman who worships all the super gay action stars of the mid-twentieth century that he thinks murderess is the Chicago Style Guide's recommendation for a woman who murders?

You know what? Forget I wrote that last paragraph. It was absolute shit. Let's pretend I wrote this one instead: The Cavalier calls Ellen a murderess because his thin mustache apparently has roots all the way into his frontal lobe.

Robinson and Sale spend the first three pages explaining why The Cavalier began stealing jewels. The most evil evil person in the world, Randolph Salt (such an old timey name that, along with the whole murderess bit, I'm beginning to think this Batman story took place in the '50s), was a guest of Ellen's husband. One night, while Salt was slinking around the shadows of their house, Ellen's husband raised his hand to her one time too many. She fought back. She grabbed a knife in self-defense and her husband was impaled as he charged her. Salt saw the whole thing. Instead of acting as witness to the husband's abuse and her defense, he convinced her to cover up the crime with his help. But he kept the knife with her prints and her husband's blood so he could blackmail her. When he had drained her of all her money, she became so filled with despair that she was driven to suicide. That's when The Cavalier saved her. And to save her even further, he approached Salt to get the weapon back. But Salt would only return it if The Cavalier stole a bunch of jewels for him. Which is what led to his confrontation with Batman on his final job and the end of The Cavalier's good reputation in Gotham.

Mr. Lime wasn't mentioned once during the Mr. Salt revelation. And we haven't seen hide nor hair of Mr. Tequila yet.

Back at Wayne Manor, Alfred sees a chance to be free of his lifetime servitude to an obvious madman!

"Yes, yes. Only sleep will cure you of your massive head injury! Rest well, deadman. I mean Batman!"

Love that Alfred's main concern with Bruce's health right now is that he's running himself ragged just like always. As if the head injury wasn't the catalyst for the onset of all the physical problems Bruce is currently experiencing. So Bruce sleeps and doesn't die from a subdural hematoma. Instead, he has fever dreams about hunting bad men, his parents' murder, and his final confrontation with The Cavalier. At the end, his eyes pop awake and he's all, "I know who Mr. Lime is!" So that's all it took? A nap? Maybe he should incorporate naps into his investigative tools.

Who the fuck is Dewhurst?!

I didn't mention Dewhurst or scan the one panel in which he was mentioned in the first issue of this three part story because I was too obsessed with Photoshopping Catwoman to make it look like she was taking a shit. But here he is in what mystery writers for television and movies call the "Playing Fair" moment (unless they don't call it that because I made it up! Which would make sense because it isn't really playing fair. It's like that moment in that everybody missed in Along Came a Spider where some guy who's part of the murder investigation is asked a quick question or something and it's revealed at the end of the movie that he was the killer instead of the person they were chasing. It's like how in True Detective, they talk to that landscaper for a second so they can reveal at the end, "It was this guy! Did you guess it? We gave you a chance!"):

Why stop at Dewhurst?! Maybe they were all in it for the inheritances!

Batman knew it was Dewhurst because his parents were the only elderly people murdered at close range. Seems so obvious that I'm annoyed Batman didn't see it sooner. I guess living in a place as chaotic as Gotham where insane killers kill randomly all the time, it's easier to get away with something like this.

Anyway, Batman catches the guy before he gets shot in the face even though Batman's still suffering from the blunt force trauma.

Meanwhile, The Cavalier becomes a murderer just like the woman he loves! They have so much in common now.

As he gave up the knife, Salt threatened that he might use his eyewitness testimony at a future date to blackmail Ellen some more.

This has been a story about how everybody fucks up. Mr. Lime fucked up by discovering he had a real joy in killing old people and kept at it too long after killing his parents which gave Batman time to figure out the scheme. Ellen fucked up by not going to the police immediately after accidentally killing her abusive husband, becoming trapped in Salt's machinations. The Cavalier fucked up by not killing Salt immediately so that he wouldn't have thrown away his vigilante career getting caught stealing jewels for the bastard. Salt fucked up by telling a guy with a sword that he's going to fuck his girlfriend sometime in the future. Gordon fucked up because he continues to work with the Gotham Police even though he knows every single one of them is corrupt, even the fat guy and the lesbian, probably. Alfred fucked up by letting Bruce go to sleep with a serious head injury. And Batman fucked up by not realizing who Mr. Lime was before he killed dozens of elderly people. All of that is supposed to make the reader feel better about how they fucked up by living the kind of life that would wind up in reading comic books, right?!

I guess all that's left is the sword fight between The Cavalier and The Batman. Cue Batman raising a sword up by his head and saying, "Ding ding." That's a reference to whichever Rocky movie ended with Apollo and Rocky fighting with no audience to see who was actually the best and then the movie ended because fuck you, audience, you suck and we're not going to just hand out that kind of information, especially when it's a white guy against a black guy! We're in the business of making money not in commenting on racial disputes!

Before Batman can sit back and relax, Gordon comes to him and tells him The Cavalier wants to meet up. So Batman, constantly on the verge of passing out now because he apparently needs a good sleep and not surgery to reduce the swelling in his skull, decides to meet with The Cavalier.

To the death? Ha! Batman wouldn't even kill Hitler in the annual!

This issue still has twelve pages left. Is that how long this duel is going to last? Or does the story need an epilogue where The Cavalier gives up everything to move to Metropolis with Ellen and Bruce Wayne is remembered by the populace of Gotham after he dies of a head injury?

The inner monologue of both combatants merge as they both think nearly the same thoughts throughout the battle. They are equally matched: The Cavalier exhausted; Batman sick and wounded. They battle from rooftop to rooftop until they come to an old derelict building with a weak roof.

Bruce Wayne thinking, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh! I should buy this property and fix it up! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Down below, Gordon and the police have gathered to watch and contain the fight. But being that they suck at their job, Ellen rushes past them and into the building. Being that they don't suck as bad as actual American cops, they don't shoot her as she runs past. Ellen finds Batman lying on the ground, ribs broken, ankle sprained. The Cavalier stands over him. Batman tells The Cavalier, "I'm finished. You've won. Do what you will. But be gentle, baby." But Ellen is all, "No! Don't fuck him!" And The Cavalier is all, "What? Of course I wasn't going to...? Who do you think...? What the hell?"

It turns out The Cavalier simply assumed Batman would win the battle and kill him. He was choosing suicide by Batman, the big dumb idiot. Doesn't he know Batman doesn't kill?! What a fucking waste of time.

He should have thought of this first: suicide by cop.

The Cavalier unloads the pistol because he doesn't want to hurt any cops but he wants them to feel threatened so they don't feel guilty about murdering him later. As if cops ever feel guilty about killing anybody. If this were real life, he could have just gone out with the sword and they would have shot him. Or just went out and refused to lie on the ground when they all started panicking and shouting at him. Why are the people who are supposed to protect and serve actually the most cowardly and blood thirsty members or our society? Defund the police doesn't go far enough! Imprison the police!

I don't know for sure that he's going to get suicided by cops being that I have yet to read the page following the one I scanned. But he's turning a knob which means he's probably going outside and he removed the bullets from the gun and he wants to die so, you know, I did some math.

Neither Ellen or Batman try to stop him even though they have plenty of time because if there's one trope you don't fuck with in story telling, it's that when a person ends a scene by leaving the stage, you don't go after them or try to stop them. You just say their name over and over and refuse to show any agency yourself.

The next page might be the most realistic page I've ever seen in a DC Comic.

Maybe in real life, there would have been twice as many BLAMs.

And that's the end of the story except where Batman contemplates The Cavalier's final words to him about how there's potential for evil in every man. Maybe that's why Batman wound up creating a bunch of In Case of Emergency Kits, one for every hero in the DC Universe in case they turned evil or were mind-controlled or were Starroed or Eclipsoed.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #34 Rating: B. The Cavalier didn't commit suicide because he'd killed Salt and his bodyguard. He killed himself because he liked killing Salt and the bodyguard. Isn't that sometimes one of Batman's reasons for not killing? Isn't he sometimes all, "What if I enjoyed it? Who would ever stop me? Certainly not that joke Superman!" Or is Batman usually just, "I might find it too easy to find reasons to cross the line over and over again, even if I don't like it which you can't prove that I do?" I guess this is also a story about love and what people do for love. The Cavalier basically threw his body in front of a speeding bullet headed for Ellen to save her life. And Batman obsessed over stopping Mr. Lime to his absolute breaking point, almost dying, because Bruce loved his parents so much that he couldn't stand to see other people losing their parents every few days. And Alfred, I don't know, has given up a regular sex life because he loves his little boy Bruce so much?

Before I get to the next issue about Fat Batman, I have another $1 comic from the yard sale I went to a couple of weeks ago! It's going to destroy my brain so badly but I'm going to read it out of, um, love, I guess?

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #33 (Early July, 1992)

Is this some kind of Kristallnacht subtext?

You can tell I'm a heterosexual male who's spent too many hours of my life in strip clubs because my first attempt at spelling "Kristallnacht" was "Krystalnacht".

For those young people who don't know anything about Kristallnacht (or just the superficial stuff), might I recommend the Wikipedia page on it or the local library and not trying to learn more about it via YouTube. But that's just me because I like to know more about reality and less about other whackjob's versions of reality as seen through being "red-pilled", the worst-named process in the history of the worrrrrrllldddd oh shit-well-don't-forget-to-look-up-Kristallnacht-because-I'm-being-dragged-away-by-a-tangentAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

If one were to watch The Matrix with the realization of what being "red-pilled" meant in today's (or a not-so-long-ago vernacular, anyway), one would think that taking the red pill meant that you didn't want to know reality and would rather have your mind poisoned so that you'd be angry and fighting phantoms on the daily. So you'd watch the movie and realize that Neo's life at the beginning of the movie was reality. But by being red-pilled, he started to see imaginary enemies all around him, made-up by the angry assholes who convinced him to take the pill in the first place. He spirals into delusion and madness which eventually winds up in a mass killing. The woman stranger sitting by me when I first saw The Matrix in theaters when it was released, a woman I often make fun of because of her reaction, may have been more right than I knew when she gasped and said, "The trench coat and the shooting! It's like Columbine!" Being red-pilled isn't about understanding the world at all. It's about being driven crazy by stupid bullshit until you eventually break and kill other people and yourself because you couldn't find joy in reality. You could only find joy in anger and resentment.

Oh, I got here because I looked at the cover which says "JEW" backwards on the broken window of a high-end shop. I'm sure there's also some kind of pogrom or holocaust reading of The Matrix as well but I'm not going to look for it right now. After this, I have to re-read Steinbeck's To a God Unknown which I read about a month ago was left thinking, "Wait. What?" I think I have a bit of a grasp on it but I need to read it again with the half-formed ideas from the first read (actually second since I read it about 30 years ago).

Oh, so now Gotham has a jewel thief to deal with too?

If you own jewels and you learn that somebody has been going around stealing people's jewels while not harming them or destroying their property or kicking their dog, then you're not now living in fear. Thinking somebody might steal your jewels, one small percentage of your outrageous wealth, isn't fear, you soft, smelly pieces of fucking diaper fruit. You can't report on a jewel thief and claim people are living in fear when some other guy has been, for way more than just two weeks, killing elderly people. I guess if you're over 63 and you have a massive pile of jewels in your home, you now find yourself spending way more money each week on Depends than before. But that's about it! Don't fucking bung up my television programming by declaring rich people are living in fear because they might lose what amounts to pocket change. I'll tell you what I really think: rich people actually should be living in fear! Every fucking day of their lives should be ruined by the worry that the masses are going to relearn how to build guillotines.

Batman doesn't give a shit about a burglar (except that maybe his dick twitches at the hope it's Catwoman); he's busy not being able to stop Mr. Lime the Old People Killer. He's so frustrated that he's smashed up the entire Batcave. Or maybe Bruce Wayne smashed it up because he's so scared of his jewels being stolen.

The attitude you can show to your boss when you can't be fired because you know his deepest secrets.

I bet Alfred has a massive Henry Hoover but he's painted a bat cowl on it.

The Batsignal is just Gordon needing Batman's help to stop rich people being robbed. Batman tells him to fuck off because he's busy trying to deal with crime that actually matters. He suggests Gordon contact The Cavalier since that guy seems like the type who would love to beat up a non-violent criminal and later be showered with adulation from rich folks. Gordon's all, "Okay. Sorry I bothered you but you know the police are really only here to protect rich people's property. I get that's not what Batman's about. You must not be a rich guy, I guess."

The Cavalier is currently busy telling criminals that drugs are bad and to not do drugs after he's beaten the shit out of them. I don't know about you but I'd rather let some people in Gotham do drugs than worry about people who do drugs getting fucking destroyed by some fop with a thin mustache in a bandanna. I know it's not an either/or situation but also if there wasn't a guy beating people up, I still wouldn't care about people doing drugs. Now I'm thinking there should have been an '80s anti-crack campaign that could have had Marie Antoinette saying, "Let them do coke."

The burglar who probably isn't The Cavalier, I'm totally sure of it, works for an evil man named Randolph Salt. I know he's evil because James Robinson spent several narration boxes describing how some people are evil and then other people are, like, really super evil! And Randolph Salt is one of those super evil types. Also he's basically white he's so pale which means he's not full of life's passionate juices. He's a dry, husk of a man. But he has something that the burglar wants and will only give it to him after he does one more major burglary. I hope it's not WayneTech or Bruce Wayne's mansion!

Oh yeah! I'd forgotten how the last issue ended because my brain had to process so much Objectivist bullshit in the interim! Cavalier had saved that super pale woman from killing herself. Could she be a relation of Randolph Salt, a man so evil that he drove her to suicide? And now is he working for him to earn her safety? I don't know because I stopped reading the comic book to write all of this speculation!

While The Cavalier obsesses over the woman he found and subsequently politely kidnapped, I guess, The Batman thinks he's figured out Mr. Lime's next victim!

Mr. Lime decided to just start shooting people now because there were too many variables in setting fires and hits-and-runs so Batman's a little more focused on events like these.

Batman hangs upside down over the stage like, um, a kid on a jungle gym is probably the best way to describe it. He's ready to stop Mr. Lime's faster-than-sound rifle bullet before it hits its so-fucking-old target. Nobody notices him up with the lights even though his cape hangs down about twelve feet. I guess it just looks like more stage curtains.

This motherfucker's talking about Batman Returns (in theaters now (back then!)!), isn't he?! Let him die, Bruce!

Batman notices the podium is ticking and he swoops down to save the old guy before it explodes. In the explosion, a piece of debris nails Batman in the base of the skull. He notices Ameche, the actor, is okay but Batman struggles to get up. Oh fuck. He'd better go to the hospital or he's going to go the way of Bob Saget and thousands of people's elderly grandfathers who fell off of ladders and were all, "No, no! I'm all right! Just a little Easter egg on the old noggin'!"

While Batman shivers and can't see straight and tries not to vomit on the old guy, the burglar begins their final burglary before Randolph Salt will give them whatever the burglar seems to need from them. Probably Ellen the Suicidal Pale Girl's freedom. While trying to steal the massive gem from a museum, he slips, falls, and sets off all the alarms. By the time he gets to the roof, the cops are there with spotlights. They light up his face and his whole life turns to shit because he fell in love with the wrong suicidal woman.

I mean, maybe don't wear your hero mask to your crime?

Nobody knew who the fuck you were, dude. You get arrested? You probably don't kill your career as The Cavalier if you leave the mask at home. But I guess this is the kind of shoddy planning you'd get from a guy named The Cavalier! Now the big dumb idiot is going to have to fight Batman. Luckily, Batman's had a recent head injury so the battle should be fairly even!

Batman knows he should be home getting a nice massage from Alfred but he's going after this non-violent thief who even the cops identified as committing the recent burglary crime spree because Batman can't stand being fooled. Batman's about to get himself killed from a swollen brain because his widdle bitty feewings were hurt when he was lied to by The Cavalier. On the other side of the chase, The Cavalier's just happy to have his adrenaline pumping. Motherfudging stuntmen, amirite?!

I'm publishing this post before the Watershed so I had to tone down some of my bloody swears. I was talking about the American watershed which doesn't exist but also where the simple word "bloody" isn't a stupid swear word. Not that American broadcasting doesn't care about airing adult material! They totally fucking care because they suck which is why I watch so much British television. But if America had to acknowledge a watershed, it would be from 10 PM to 6 AM. But, again, even at those hours, prudes gonna prude to the FCC by letters and emails.

The Cavalier throws a knife at Batman that disables his one-man Batcopter which crashes to the . . . what? Oh yeah! You want to see Batman's stupid solo copter? Or is it cute and adorable? I'm struggling as to how masculine or feminine I should be about the copter. Part of me is all, "OH MY GOD IT'S FUCKING ADORABLE! Why didn't Bruce paint it pink? Why isn't there a cute little chibi bat mascot on it?!" And the other half is all, "So stupid. It's totally stupid. How lame. Not cool at all. See how I'm not smiling even more than when I usually don't smile? I'm a fucking guy, man. I can't enjoy stuff. So stupid."

It's like a high chair for a big bat daddy.

The Batcopter may also be a flying toilet. Bats is definitely using it as a disabled vehicle here being that he can't swing on a rope without crashing through an apartment window.

Okay, so The Cavalier causes Batman's copter to crash but then Batman can't make his muscles work and he's about to die in the fiery wreckage. So The Cavalier, bewildered at Batman's inability to do anything cool, drags him from the fire and points out that he could have left him to die or killed him himself. So maybe take that into consideration maybe for when he's feeling better and winds up kicking the living shit out of him. Maybe go a little easy on him, you know?

Ellen tells The Cavalier to flee but he's all, "I have to get your ownership papers so we can fuck! It's totally worth maybe getting beaten by Batman and thrown in Blackgate!" And Ellen's lady place is all, "Whoosh!"

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #33 Rating: A. Was this entire series this good? Okay, minus the single issue "Family" by Hudnall which was just kind of bland. But James Robinson and Matt Wagner and Tim Sale? This is some great shit!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #32 (Late June 1992)

Shit about to go down! Batman finally faces a guy with a knife!

I wonder if this is the story about the first time Batman had to fight a guy with a knife? More likely it's about his first time facing the League of Assassins or Kobra or a bunch of guys with knives and kanji tattoos that read stuff like "This side up" and "impotent white guy" (so like Kobra or the League but more local and more lame). I'm suggesting Batman will be fighting a gang or an organization because the title is "Blades" and not "Blade". Although that might just be so Marvel doesn't get all up in their ass crack with lawyers. I could glance at the covers of the next two issues but I want to be surprised! Also, I'm already looking at the cover of the second issue in the story (because of the way stacks work) and it's no help.

Before we get to the comic book, I need to scan the inside cover advert because, hoo boy, guys. GUYS.

Intriguing! I didn't think I was into watching hot women take shits until just now.

I've often said that every single fucking company in the world needs a Department of Cynicism so that they don't wind up making hilarious errors like this advert for Catwoman: Defiant. Every department would just be a room full of the most clever and observant men and women that exist in every friend group (you're all thinking of somebody right now!) sitting around playing video games or Dungeons & Dragons. Every time the company comes up with an idea that's going to go out in the public, just slip it under the door. They'll pass it around and within a few minutes, you'll know if you accidentally just marketed a Fleshlight to toddlers.

I mean, that advert is super hot though. I can see why whoever okayed it was all, "PRINT IT!", without looking too closely because they just wanted to begin masturbating as soon as their office door was closed.

The issue begins (I mean after the Catwoman's ropy shit advert) with Batman investigating the scene of a long gun assassination.

Batman's smarter than I am so I'm not going to question "Bullets fired from a long-range rifle meant food left uneaten." I guess if somebody broke in with a pistol and shot them, they'd have finished their breakfast?

Mr. Lime, the assassin, can't be the focus of this book because a long-range rifle isn't a blade. Wait. Let me check something. Hmm, yeah, okay. Yep! The OED backs me up on this!

The OED is the Oxford English Dictionary, just in case that was a mystery to you. I feel like everybody knows that but then everybody I know also has a degree in literature so it's worth it to feel like I'm overexplaining. I hate to leave in an "IYKYK" moment. Whenever I see anybody take the time to write "If You Know, You Know" or the acronym, I get angry because I'm all, "You have time to explain! Stop gatekeeping your trivial information! Let me be somebody who knows!"

Let's contemplate an assassin that would take the name Mr. Lime. Is it because he fires bullets into people's coconuts? IYKYK!

You don't have to tell me I'm a hypocrite! I've known that for decades longer than you have!

As we, the readers, learn more about Mr. Coconut in the main panels of the book, long, vertical side panels on each page tell the story of a fop vigilante getting all dressed up like Porthos to make his Gotham debut.

I've never read The Three Musketeers but I have played the text adventure game about it which, luckily, managed to keep the memory of the novel alive! But I couldn't remember the names of any of the four Three Musketeers so I checked IMDB.

Normally, this caption would read, "Nice! Milla Jovovich is in this!" And then my dick would find out where it's streaming. But instead, this caption reads, "Second woman on the cast is just 'Blonde'. Fucking Patriarchy."

I'm sure Helen George was labeled as "Blonde" simply because the cast is probably listed in the order they appear on-screen? I wish IMDB had notations under each actors name in IMDB that read "Shows tits" or "Shows Dick (flaccid)". I think the only person with "Shows Butthole" would be Anne Heche in Psycho.

Batman begins his analysis of Mr. Lime with "The world is overpopulated. That is a fact." Since he's only thinking, nobody standing around him (meaning Alfred) mutters, "Nice. A billionaire hoarding resources that could be used to alleviate the issues with current overpopulation, making the current population actually sustainable, complaining about other people existing. Not a great look, Master Brood."

Bruce doesn't actually express an opinion on overpopulation other than labeling the population being too much over an unspecified number a fact. He's just coming to grips with Mr. Lime's reasons for killing, scrawling them down in his little Bat Notebook. Mr. Lime only kills people over the age of 63. He kills them in a variety of ways: rifle, slit throats, forcing cars over cliffs, hit and run. I guess he mails the police after to explain that any random death of an old person in Gotham was his doing. Or maybe he's just reading the obituaries and taking credit for when old people die? I bet it's some fourteen year old on some local Gamma World Bulletin Board dialing in and leaving cryptic, poorly spelled confessions in forum threads about turning toasters into explosives (in-game, of course! With flow charts and dice rolls and advantages for having certain mutations).

Later that night, The Fop makes his debut as he stops a mugging.

His actual name will probably be something like the Swashbuckler or the Devilish Dandy of Gotham.

His name is The Cavalier which I have to applaud for the various meanings that can be applied to it (probably not this one though: "an adherent of Charles I of England"). But to my credit, Merriam-Webster's online definition for its use as an adjective to mean "aristocratic" contains the example, "portrayed the plantation owner as a cavalier fop". His attitude as well as his dress speaks to his moniker. He acts as if he's filming a dramatic scene as he battles the muggers. By the time the police arrive, they're basically standing and applauding, throwing roses and hiding boners. Batman's going to hate that they love this guy!

Gordon wonders if this new vigilante will be trouble, especially since Batman's mind has been consumed with Mr. Lime. Gordon can't understand it because Gordon doesn't know Batman is secretly a young boy still nursing the wound of his parents' murder by a violent criminal. Gordon can't see that Mr. Lime represents every pain, every confusing thought, every grieving second of Batman's life. Is that why he's Mr. Lime? Because the lime's acidity burns when it gets in old wounds?

By the way, sometimes I get distracted while reading and reviewing a comic book. Most of the time, there isn't any external evidence to my having wandered off to fuck around on the Internet or play some video games or take a nap. But I just got distracted and there's physical proof of it. Here you go:

I'm so subtle!

Batman stops by Gordon's office to pick up police files on Mr. Lime. While he's there, Gordon points out that the people of Gotham really love this Cavalier guy. Batman's all, "If they love him so much, why don't they take him out behind the school and get him pregnant. Also, I'm not mad. Please don't print in the newspaper that I got mad."

Man, writing is easy when you just steal other people's jokes! No wonder ChatGTP can write so much so quickly!

Also, Batman really is mad. I think his eye was twitching when Gordon told him about the lovable scamp, The Cavalier. It's hard to know for sure because you can't depict with absolute certainty an eye twitching in a comic book panel.

Batman's notepad's getting a little scary when he starts sounding like Rorschach. Lines like, "But I'll win. I must. No more killings, Lime. No more tears. Too sad. Too sad." I guess it's not as poetic as a dead dog with his head caved in but Batman's new to this journaling thing.

Eventually, Batman "accidentally" runs into The Cavalier.

Oh, Batman! Remember this line 19 years from now when you finally learn about the Court of Owls!

I love how Scott Snyder's creation of The Court of Owls technically didn't retcon anything. We can always surmise while reading earlier issues that they've been in the shadows controlling things. And anything that does conflict with past events isn't a fault of Snyder's story; it's the fault of The New 52!

Batman pulls a card out of the authoritarian playbook (something he's often wont to do being, you know, a billionaire) and "allows" The Cavalier to remain in Gotham playing vigilante. But he only allows it because The Cavalier reminds him of the last happy moment of his life: sitting in a dark movie theater with his mother and father watching Zorro. The Cavalier does his cavalier thing and pretends to be gracious while also threatening Batman with a future battle of swords. Batman doesn't respond because Batman is simply thinking, "Um, like, yeah I'm way better at swords than you, you douche."

The Cavalier's secret identity is revealed to the reader: Hudson Pyle, stuntman. His plan was to make a name for himself as The Cavalier only to later reveal his identity when he became super popular. Then he'd easily get movie roles instead of just stunt jobs. But now that he's got a taste of saving people on the streets, he's not sure he wants to reveal his identity and move on to movies. He's considering giving that up to become Gotham's favorite crime fighter.

Batman probably already knows all that, or at least would know all of that if he wasn't so obsessed with the old person killer. This time, he set fire to a care facility for the elderly. Batman and the firefighters manage to save all but one person by the time the fire gets too out of control to safely enter the building. But Batman enters anyway! He's got to save the old person! Which he, of course, manages. Everybody at the scene begins to think, "Hey! Maybe this Batman isn't so bad. Would The Fop have gone in there under those conditions? Smiling and cocky and full of swagger? Surely not! But Batman? That guy doesn't care if he lives or dies! That's who I want to save me in a certain death situation!"

The issue ends with The Cavalier watching the fire from across the city, admitting to himself he would have been useless even if he had been there. Some things are better left for Batman; some things better left for The Cavalier. There's room enough for both in Gotham, thinks the Court of Owls, probably. But as he's contemplating his place in Gotham, he sees somebody jump from a nearby bridge! He swings in to save her on his Cavalierope only to find she didn't want to be saved. I mean, sure, at the moment. But she'll probably be grateful later.

Is this vampire Barbara Gordon?

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #32 Rating: A. What kind of rating were you expecting from a James Robinson/Tim Sale jam? It lives up to the credits on the cover. I don't know why Catwoman decided to take a shit on it.