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

How can Anarky's mask be Eclipsed?!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Look at this freak! Fucking terrifying!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

That sound effect is spot on.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Sorry. Old college trauma flashback.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hmm. I hope Cindy's into necrophilia.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Ranking!
I really enjoyed this issue!

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




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

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #1 (1991)

Great Mignlola cover. Denny wrote the script. Ten other artists inked and penciled the rest.

I don't know why it took so many people to finish this annual. Probably because it's an annual and everybody working on it had plenty of other regular paying gigs and were cajoled into helping out on this story. Or, and this is way less plausible, Denny O'Neil was all, "I've envisioned the first six pages in Aparo's style. Then nine pages of Giffen's nine panel grids. Then some of Joe Quesada's overwrought craziness! Then, um, just whoever you can get, I guess. But finish with some Aparo! Man, love that guy!"

Batman has journeyed on foot through harsh blizzard conditions to a monastery high in the mountains in Korea (North? South? Denny didn't say!). He doesn't know why he's come, dragging a heavy duffel bag and its unknown contents the entire way. I think Denny picked Jim Aparo for this prologue because Aparo does a really good surprised Batman face.

Batman is surprised that he doesn't know what he's up to.

I'd go as far to say that Jim Aparo is the only artist that has ever drawn that face on Batman. Most artists can't even conceive of a shocked or surprised Batman. But when doing Batman and the Outsiders, Aparo had Batman making this face 80% of the time! "Halo! Put your tits away! Human girls usually wear shirts!" "Metamorpho, stop lighting your farts on fire!" "Black Lightning, you left your wig in the shower again and it scared the batcrap out of me!" "Geoforce, you suck!"

Somehow, Batman fucked up his destiny by choosing violence. The Master, an old man who trained Batman many years ago, says that Batman has embraced violence too eagerly and while he has a gift for it, he warns that it will destroy him. So The Master gives Batman two choices, either embrace peace or — "I'll take the second choice!" yells Batman!

I bet what lies at the heart is a big fucking gun.

Batman is so averse to pacifism that he doesn't even care if total murder and mayhem lie at the heart of a life of violence. What else could it be? Either become Vegan Daddy Hugbucks, or BatPunisher. There is no middle ground!

Batman's challenge awaits on the other side of a mystery door that leads to a world that looks like Keith Giffen drew it and Malcolm Jones III inked it. The Master reminds Batman to take his duffel bag and Batman heads out on his quest.

Batman finds himself in a strange hellscape where a red narration box constantly mocks him. And don't think it's just Batman having intrusive thoughts. Something actually seems to be speaking to him in his mind because it tempts him into leaving his duffel bag behind and he answers it by speaking aloud. Okay, maybe — just maybe — they're intrusive thoughts and he's just arguing with the part of him that really wants to dump whatever the fuck he's been carrying through the mountains. If the end credits didn't specify that Dennis O'Neil was the only person to script this story, I'd really believe that Keith Giffen wrote the dialogue for this part. Maybe he did. Scripting is totally different from dialogue and Keith Giffen knows that better than anybody after working with J.M. DeMatteis for so many years.

If this were Giffen dialogue, it would be a bit snappier. And you'd have to read it four times to figure out what they were talking about.

Batman encounters several devils who try to take the duffel bag from him but he beats the shit out of each one that tries and never gives up his burden. Is this a retelling of The Last Temptation of Christ? Batman never gives in but then the only thing he's been tempted with so far is giving up his heavy bag. If only David Finch or Tony S. Daniels were drawing one of these sections, Batman would be tempted by several women exiting showers and wearing only towels. He'd definitely fail that temptation! I mean, I'd definitely fail that temptation!

Batman discovers another door. On the other side is a world conceived of by Joe Quesada and Joe Rubinstein. He finds he has left Hell and found himself in a medieval castle. So last challenge was by Nikos Kazantzakis; is this challenge by, um, whomever wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight! I didn't think that sentence through to the end or I would have formatted it in a way that didn't depend on my (or anybody) knowing the author of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

Anyway, it looks like maybe Batman is going to get to fuck a woman and then get fucked by a knight! Two times lucky!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy! It's going to happen! Man, if she turns into a vampire and sics a massive lizard on Batman instead of fucking him, I'm going to be really disappointed.

Batman drinks from the goblet and gags because it's, um, blood. Goddammit!

How do I always forget I'm reading comic books and not pornography?

The vampire explains to Batman that he's free to go if he can get past her giant lizard. She also gives him a hint as to how to kill it. In the previous landscape, the final demon he confronted begged Batman to kill it before it escaped to torment mankind above. But Batman chose not to kill it and it froze in place. Again, Batman chooses not to kill. He tricks the dragon with the old spear-holding-open-the-mouth trick, gets his duffel bag, and escapes. Once again, without killing.

I guess The Master know Batman wouldn't choose pacifism. But he apparently wants to see if Batman can continue to choose not to kill in various violent scenarios, each one more dangerous than the last. Perhaps The Master was worried that anybody who commits as much violence on other humans as Batman does would surely, one day, succumb to actually killing his rivals. So he's brought him halfway across the world to test Batman's will and patience.

I hope Jason Todd's corpse is in the duffel bag!

Batman hikes through the next portal into a challenge drawn by Tom Lyle and inked by Ty Templeton. This one seems to be based on The Day the Earth Stood Still. Do you think Batman will choose murder in this scenario when he can't think of the word that follows Klaatu and Barada?

Oh, sorry. It's based on Earth vs. the Flying Saucers.

Like Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (my knowledge based on Wikipedia and not my stupid memory which I hate even though it's better than Pickle Boy's memory (my writing assistant who stopped remembering things about 26 years ago (based on trying to have discussions with him on House of Leaves immediately after we'd read it and most of his half of the discussion being, "I don't remember that part! I need to re-read it!"))), Batman defeats the alien by using sound. But first he has to call a National Guardsmen fat and shove him to the ground. He doesn't throw a sandwich at him but now, in my mind and stupid memory, he always will have thrown a sandwich at him when I think about this story.

The alien tells Batman that he fucked up by crashing his flying saucer into the Capitol Building and to recover from his humiliation, he needs to kill a human in one-on-one combat. Batman doesn't want to kill him so instead he tells the alien he can just find asylum in America because in 1992, America still cared about helping people. Or maybe it didn't. But Batman did! By not killing the alien even when the alien was practically begging for it so that he wouldn't be the laughingstock of his people, Batman has passed yet another test in controlling his violent nature.

Do you think Batman failed his violent nature test in The Poison Tomorrow when he, arguably, caused the truck to crash off of a bridge and almost certainly kill the two men in the cab? Or was that just part of proving that Batman walks the walk and doesn't just talk the talk because earlier he questioned Green Arrow's decision to save one person over thousands. Batman allowed those two men to die to save thousands of babies because he's a true hero and also it totally wasn't his fault! Those idiots who smashed themselves to smithereens at the bottom of the chasm were responsible for their own lives!

"See you later, fatso!"

Just so you know, I don't approve of Batman fat shaming that soldier even if Batman only did it to save his life. The soldier wanted to fight the alien himself and Batman decided to choose a worse form of violence than actual violence: patting a slightly overweight guy on the stomach and hinting at how fat he's getting. Is Batman my uncle?!

Batman's next challenge takes place in Dan Spiegle's steamy dark version of Gotham. This test will be easy! Batman's spent his whole life not killing people in Gotham!

It might not actually be Gotham though because it's 1920s Chicago and Batman's now in The Untouchables. To pass this test, Batman will have to ignore the advice of Sean Connery! And who can ignore the advice of Sean Connery?! Oh, um, you know what? I hope everybody ignores the advice of Sean Connery because isn't he the guy who said, "You're wife doesn't clean the dishes, you slap her. She yells back at you, you put her in the morgue." Or something like that. I'm not mad at my memory this time because why would I need to remember a terrible quote about domestic violence?!

Batman walks out of the misty night and stumbles on some mobsters bootlegging. They immediately begin firing bullets out of their tommy guns at an alarming rate. You can tell because while most guns go "POW!" or "BANG!", tommy guns go "BRRRAT!" Even Batman finds it terrifying!

How come fans got so angry at Kevin Smith when he made it canon that Batman pissed himself when Denny O'Neil made it canon that Batman shit himself? "BRRRAT!"

The FBI shows up and in the confusion, the Mobsters steal Batman's duffel bag. Batman's desperate to get it back because it probably contains a much needed change of underwear. As well as Jason Todd's corpse, of course.

Batman steals one of the FBI Agent's cars and gives chase to the escaping mobsters. They lead him on a chase directly to the location where they're delivering the illegal hooch. I think in the '20s, if you got the items you were smuggling to your home base, the cops had to stop pursuing you, snap their fingers in disappointment, and say, "Shucks! We'll get 'em next time!" Too bad Batman isn't from the '20s! He crashes his car into the bar and does his chronologically first crashing through the skylight.

Excuse me. I do not think that's true, Batman!

I'm pretty sure the modern equivalent of a speakeasy is just a fucking bar!

See in that panel where Batman notices the trucks are unloaded? Those trucks arrived in the middle of a high-speed chase with loads of gunfire! That's why I made up the thing where I equated playing tag or hide-n-seek to smuggling liquor. Why else would they be so confident to stop running and shooting and casually get out of the truck and unload the booze?

Once again, Batman doesn't kill anybody. He even goes so far in the other direction that The Master must be stroking his beard and raising his eyebrows and thinking, "I've never seen anybody like him!" Because a fire breaks out as Batman gets his duffel bag back and instead of leaving an unconscious gangster to roast, he tries to save him. It doesn't work because the floor collapses sending them into an underground river and the gangster drowns but, you know, in a test like this, it's mostly about Batman's intentions and less about how successful he is.

Look, he did everything he could. Now it's up to the unconscious man to save himself from drowning.

Falling in a river and resurfacing acts exactly like walking through a door so now Batman's in the world of James Blackburn and Michael Golden. I've never heard of either of those artists! I've heard of John Blackburn but not...I mean, no, wait. I've never heard of him either! Not knowing Michael Golden is just ignorance on my part. I've seen, at the very least, his Man-bat profile in Who's Who (the binder version)!

Is that the right-way round?

Batman finds himself in a snowy landscape. He decides, after so many tests, the best thing to do is take a nap in the snow. Sure, he's also soaking wet from the plunge in the river. But he built a fire! And his suit probably has electric blanket technology sewn into it.

Before he can freeze to death in his sleep, Batman's awakened by the butt of a rifle in his back and being called a pig in German.

Has anybody actually shit the same pair of trousers twice?

Uh-oh. This is Batman's real test! It's like that time Mulder found himself on a ghost ship full of ghost Nazis and he wanted nothing more than to kill every single one of them because they were the perfect symbol for everything he stood against. Meanwhile Scully was all, "There's no such thing as a ghost! Where is everybody? How come I don't get to participate in this story?!" What I'm trying to say is if there's something that Batman feels he can reasonably kill without feeling like he's actually killed anything, it's an undead Nazi. But The Master might not agree with that technicality!

Batman, having dealt with zombies probably at least forty or fifty times in his career, realizes fleeing is his best option. Besides, this test isn't "Stop undead fascism". This test is "Can you live by violence without letting it corrupt you into killing your enemies"? Up until now, Batman's had an easy time of it. Does he kill a demon begging for it? No, you never help a demon! Does he kill a dragon? No way! He's just doing his dragon thing being a dragon! Do you kill a pathetic alien loser? Why waste your time? Do you simply let a mobster burn to death even though none of it is really your fault? No but you probably shouldn't have let him drown either! So The Master is all, "I need to make this test hard! What or who can I throw in front of Batman to really tempt him into murder?!"

Uh-oh. Now I want him to fail! I don't want to think about what it says about Batman if he passes after this test!

Dennis O'Neil has written the only story that matters! How far will Batman go to preserve his rule about not killing somebody? How much evil will he allow to remain in the world just so he can look Superman in the eye and say, "Well, I've never killed anybody" (and then mutter, "Technically.")? Because as we saw in The Poison Tomorrow, Batman has the capacity to think about "If somebody raises some thing or person or ideal above everything else (Green Arrow needing to save Dinah (or Batman needing to never have killed!)), then how many will die (thousands of babies (or, in Batman's case, everybody The Joker murders after every time Batman doesn't kill him))?" Surely Batman isn't responsible for every murder The Joker commits when Batman catches him but doesn't kill him. Because Batman is just following Jesus's words and ideals about redemption. And also Gandalf's!

Batman decides his only way to escape this army of undead Nazi's is to use Hitler as a hostage. As he chases the tank with Hitler in it, it crashes backwards through an old bridge. He has his chance! Does he save Hitler? Or does he let him fall?

So Hitler was a metaphor for an even worse evil? The Joker?! That's backwards, right?

Batman realizes that the voice that's been mocking him all along was The Joker. And the head wound he kept receiving in every "fantasy" was an actual head wound he received from The Joker throwing a rock at his head. Yes, the burden he was pulling along all this time, the burden the voice kept trying to get him to leave, was The Joker. Batman was hallucinating from a fever brought on by the cold and the head wound.

Batman's grand philosophical response to this debate is "Shut up." Everybody online could learn a thing or two from Batman.

At one point, The Joker learns that Batman hallucinated that The Joker was Adolf Hitler and The Joker is all, "I'm flattered!" Which is the appropriate response by The Joker because having The Joker be all anti-Nazi and constantly trying to prove it with that bit where he's insulted by The Red Skull's Nazi affectations is stupid, useless bullshit. He's fucking crazy. He's a murderous madman. Proving that even he hates Nazis doesn't mean shit. "Oh, wow! Even The Joker hates Nazis! Well, let's applaud The Joker for having one rational belief although none of his beliefs are rational so why are you relying on this one being so?!" This, for me, is The Joker's canon response to Nazism and Adolf Hitler! He's pleased as punch to be anywhere in Hitler's league! That says more about how shit Hitler and the Nazis are than having The Joker somehow defend hating them!

Apparently Batman and The Joker were in a plane crash and Batman is dragging The Joker to an army medical station. On the final page, Batman answers the question as to why he won't kill The Joker and it's all the standard bullshit that I can't buy into. "Oh, I'd be no better than you!" "Oh, I believe all life is sacred even the life of a person who keeps taking lives over and over again and promises to keep doing it." "Oh, I just don't want to give you the satisfaction of seeing me fail my test." Maybe those answers are satisfying to some people on some level. But I still think the only real reason to keep somebody like The Joker alive is practically religious. It's utterly Christian. And it's the thing I said earlier about Christ's words on redemption. But, as I also mentioned, it's more because of what I learned from Gandalf. We don't have the right to bring back those who have died even if they deserve to be alive, why do we think we have the right to take the life of those we think should be dead? Of course, Gandalf's early words to Frodo are given the strength of an author writing like 900 more pages to prove Gandalf right when Gollum, who everybody wanted to kill, accidentally saves the world when Frodo loses the strength to do so. I guess real life isn't that cleanly written and perhaps there are some people who a real life Batman should kill. Or maybe we should develop techniques to convince evil people to kill themselves! That shouldn't be too hard, right? Maybe some Christian Rock band can learn how to backwards mask some hypnotic shit like that!

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Annual #1 Rating: A-. I know I don't rate annuals. But guess what? I'm tired of ending every annual explaining to readers why I didn't rate the stupid fucking annual! And since my ratings on every other comic book don't actually mean shit (seriously. Try to make sense of them! It'll drive you mad!), why not just rate these fuckers too? This issue might have gotten an A+ if that last page where Batman explains himself to The Joker was left out. He should have just left his response as "Shut up." This is the problem with Batman and the Internet! People always feel they need to explain their positions to other people who don't actually give a shit about your position or your explanation. They're just the fucking Joker trying to rile up your shit. Even "Shut up" is too much. You do know just about every site (except the Nazi site now, I guess?) has a well-executed Block function! Use it, guys! Use it for everything! Man, I block people who haven't even engaged with me who just slightly irritate me! Sometimes I'm just in a mood and I don't want to see a screenshot on Bluesky from Twitter and I'll be, "Get the fuck out of here, BronyFucker2003!" And that'll be after really enjoying some of BronyFucker2003's anthropomorphic animal sex sketches!

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #6 (March 1993)

Cover with sealed bag hawking all the goodies inside.

"All the goodies" basically means "a comic book with a pretty shitty 'poster' as well." I haven't scanned any of the posters because they haven't been anything special. It's not like they had moving pictures that looked more like Brundlefly teleportation accidents or were full of homoerotic imagery like the alternate cover of this issue.

Just imagine two men fucking and that's what this cover looks like when you pull the tab.

That technological cover is clear enough that you can see how Robin wants to stay and watch the two men fuck but The Huntress thinks he's too young and tries to drag him out. Even though she also wants to watch them fuck. She's horny but very responsible.

Last issue ended when Robin's dick decided that stopping the bad guys and saving The Huntress were less important than rescuing a girl who seemed like maybe she was sort of interested in putting her hand down his pants. If you didn't read last issue, you might be giving Robin the benefit of the doubt and giving me no benefits at all (which I don't deserve even if I'm going to tell you why you're wrong about giving those benefits to Robin and any Christian charity in the United States) and thinking, "Well, the girl must have been in immediate danger so of course, as a hero, he'd throw out the earlier plans to blow everything to shit." But this girl wasn't in any danger at all. He actually put her in more danger by trying to rescue her since stopping the bad guys and saving The Huntress would have resulted in the girl he wants to fuck being rescued as well. You might think I'm judging Robin here but I get it. When you're a hormonal teenager, you never think you're going to get laid and you do some really stupid fucking shit in the service of possibly getting laid, no matter how terrible the odds are. Sometimes you even miss out on getting laid because you don't quite understand "sunk costs" as a teenager and you continue to pursue the person you've put loads of time into trying to fuck when other people are sidling up to you and basically throwing their genitals in your face but you've gone genital blind pursuing the first person. That's a common problem, right? It wasn't just me acting like a professional soccer goalie deflecting tons of pussy from going into my net because I was so focused on one quite specific pussy? And by "pussy", I mean "person I was totally in love with", of course. I'm not a creep!

This issue begins with Tim getting caught trying to put the lady's hand on his junk.

Rookie mistake, Tim! You don't want to force an experience like that! What you want is surprise hand on your dick! Like that time I was at a party and this girl (I was still a boy! Actually we were late teens!) followed me into the bathroom and then embraced me to kiss. She slid her hands down the back of my pants and into my underwear and I was all, "Whoa! That's cool!" But then guess what she did?! She slid her hands around to the front and grabbed my pee pee! Then I was all, "Ultra whoa! This is way cooler!" But there wasn't a lock on the door to this bathroom at my friend Chris's house and I still really had to piss so I broke it off and later we went across the street to a local library where we didn't have any sex at all even when she pulled down my pants and exposed my weenie to the entire book-loving library world (it was like super late at night though so don't get all freaked out about some daycare kids seeing this smut!) and then I pulled her pants down and she was all, "Do you have a condom?" And guess what? I didn't! So I pulled our pants back up and we made out a bunch and I didn't think until much later that she probably wanted to at least give me a hand job! Still acting like a soccer player but this time I basically scored an own goal! Fucking idiot!

So anyway, as I was saying, Tim didn't get a hand job because some Russian mob guys interrupted. Was The Huntress off somewhere getting a hand job? I don't remember. Let's find out together!

Maybe? Is this how women react to hand jobs?

I'm saying "hand job" because that's much less violent sounding than "finger bang" and I'm no misogynist! Also I'm an American so I'm pro creating jobs. Oh, but if I'm American than I should be pro guns as well and I should be totally find with "finger bang"! Maybe I'm just confused and I just like thinking about a woman getting a hand job and then gasping and spitting out a bunch of saliva bubbles. What I don't like is some weird guy with a Guy Gardner haircut looking on.

Ariana seems confused by Robin saving her but not saving any of the other women being forced to package heroin. Also she's been drugged so she might not even realize all of this is actually happening.

So when G.I. Joe told me "knowing was half the battle," the other half of the battle was "getting laid"?

KGBeast hasn't immediately killed The Huntress because his boss wants to know who she's told about his counterfeiting operation. He's all, "You are being just a woman! Surely you have being told a man about what you are being up to being!" And The Huntress is all, "Get fucked. Men suck!" And he's all, "I am being a man! KGBeast! Being choking her until she being spitting bubbles!" That's when that panel I scanned earlier happens. She wasn't having an orgasm at all! She was nearly dying! These comic book artists seriously have a hard time drawing hot women in distress. It always looks like they're coming their brains out! Or is that just me? Insert a pic of David Mitchell in a Nazi uniform with the words underneath, "Am I the grossie?"

I haven't mentioned that I'm currently reading Infinite Jest yet this review so here's where I mention it. One thing I was really surprised by it was what it was about, having only known of the book as a lengthy thing full of endnotes written by a guy who eventually hung himself from his back deck. So I was pretty surprised when I realized the genre was "Sci-fi tennis." At first I kept thinking, "Are all of these characters mutants? Why does he keep mentioning their 'bigger arm'? And then I was all, 'Oh yeah! They're all training to be tennis pros and tennis pros basically just use the one arm while the other one atrophies!'" Also there's a league of wheelchair bound assassins! I bet you want to read it now!

I also just recently finished John Steinbeck's Cup of Gold, Stephen King's Night Shift, and Kurt Vonnegut's Jailbird. Two out of three of those were a re-read. The only thing I didn't accomplish since my last comic book review that makes me mighty ashamed to have not accomplished was shitting directly in Donald Trump's stupid fat mouth while J.D. Vance watches a cries from the corner of the room.

Now somebody's going to accuse me of having Trump Derangement Syndrome. But that's okay because the only reason people accuse other people of that is so that they don't have to try to rationalize all of Trump's stupidity into intelligence sounding nonsense. It's just an invented retort because they can't say, "You obviously see the rational truth of the situation but I have to continue to pretend to see a brilliant leader and intelligent person even though there's nothing but Fox News propaganda that I can point to to justify that belief. So instead, I'll accuse you of being mentally ill with a made-up mental illness. Ha ha! You idiot!" I sometimes feel so bad for these people who went all-in, lost everything, but now continue to sit penniless at the poker table pretending they're holding any cards. All these people apparently thought the little kid who said the Emperor was naked was the villain of the story. They're all out here wanting to be the people who saw the Emperor's wang but pretending it was covered by slacks. Y'all fuckin' stupid.

My word! *fans myself with a delicate lace-lined fan*

Before Russian Guy Gardner can carry out his, um, threat?, Robin kicks in the door and begins kicking ass. He distracts KGBesast with his face while The Huntress kicks the shit out of knock-off Gardner while hanging tied up from the rafters. She throws out some feminist quips while doing so but since this comic book is from 1993, it's not woke and those quips shouldn't exist. So I'll just pretend they don't for the sake of the dumb-ass morons who think they're being criticized anytime anybody mentions any sort of compassion, justice, or community awareness. As if superhero comic books haven't always been pretty much 100% that for their entire history!

Robin and The Huntress flee from KGBeast but do not leave the building because Tim's dick is all, "Wait! Wait! We still need to get laid!" So Tim is all, "We can't leave yet! We have to save the girl we thought was dead who isn't dead because she's here packaging heroin!" And The Huntress is all, "Look, if risking your life for getting laid is that important to you, I'll jerk you off when we get out of here." But Bruce Wayne didn't train Tim Drake to flee from a potential fuck possibility! They go back for the girl.

Meanwhile, the Ghost Dragons show up to murder basically everybody. They're a bit late. There's only 12 pages left in this six issue series!

He put too many skill points in "Care What Other People Think of You" and not enough in "Self-Preservation."

I don't know why people would put skill points in "Care What Other People Think of You" but I see it all the time so I guess people love to pump that skill. I think the majority of pedestrians who get struck by cars and killed in Portland at night during rain storms by drivers who were not being careless or drunk are examples of this Russian guy's imbalance of skill point distribution.

Should I explain myself better before I'm eaten alive by people who think I'm defending cars and not pedestrians? I'm just pointing out that there's way too many people who have really low scores in "Self-Preservation" and they tend to cross streets without a light or a crosswalk in the dark and the rain while expecting cars to stop for them because why wouldn't they? But they don't realize that we have far too many cars with the brightest fucking headlights in the world now who often blind cars driving in the opposite direction so that with being blinded, being dark, and having sheets of rain come down, it's much harder to see somebody in the street especially when it's a surprise person in the middle of the street because they're nearly impossible to see until it's too late. I'm not pro car! I'm pro people wanting to love being alive enough to take the proper care to keep themselves alive and not expect everybody else to keep them alive! Be careful out there, my fellow pedestrians! And bike riders! And car controllers too!

King Snake winds up battling KGBeast for the big climactic battle since we've seen KGBeast is simply too much for The Huntress and Robin. I kind of like that because we rarely see when the heroes have limits that they don't eventually, heroically, overcome them. But here, there's like eight pages left and The Huntress and Robin are fucking legging it. No way they'll wind up having to beat KGBeast, right?

The Huntress and Robin run into Ghost Dragon Lynx as they're escaping with Ariana. That's a big climactic fight that's more their experience level.

Hmm. That climactic battle was a bit anticlimactic. Maybe The Huntress will battle KGBeast!

King Snake defeats KGBeast just like he knew he could. I guess he was right about being the greatest assassin in the DC Universe (between him and KGBeast, of course. Later, I'm sure he'll be killed by Deathstork or Lobo as he tries to prove his title). The Huntress shows up with a flamethrower and threatens to burn all the counterfeit money if the Ghost Dragons don't let all of the Commie Tsar's prisoners go. He agrees not realizing that Robin fucked with the printing so that the bills will easily be flagged as counterfeit. The Huntress and Robin head home to get their lives back in order which means Robin only has two pages left to get his dad to not send him to Metropolis, get his counselor to not file paedo charges against Bruce Wayne, and get Batman to not fire him for disobeying him all week.

No wait. I was wrong. It's just one page!

Is Batman hiding in the bushes with his Bat Signal Flashlight? Fucking needy bastard.

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #6 Rating: B. I'm so glad 21 year old me purchased this series so that 53 year old me could read it again 32 years later and think, "Ho hum. Whatever." What a majestic life I'm leading!

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #5 (Late February 1993)

You know what? I think they figured out this stupid cover technology five issues in!

Maybe I spoke too soon. When I tried to view the other side, it was just as shoddy as before. I think the reason the cover looked so good on the first scan is that I never actually moved it after purchasing it thirty-two years ago. The first four were shit so why would I even bother with the fifth and sixth issues? It's not like Robin's clothes fell off when you pulled on the tab.

The alternate cover with Robin failing to crash through the skylight. Such an amateur.

I'm still reading John Steinbeck's Cup of Gold but I decided to take a short break to read one of Chuck Dixon's great Algeresque works of literature. It's going to take me a long while to get through Cup of Gold because I've already begun to do that thing that I began doing ever since I read Gravity's Rainbow where I basically read a book twice as I'm reading it. So I'm now most of the way through the first chapter of Cup of Gold for the second time. Not because I didn't understand it the first time! It's because Steinbeck's writing is so layered and complex and beautiful that I felt I wasn't giving it its due by reading it just once. Take the description of how Henry Morgan's mother tends the fire in their small house as an example of how Steinbeck's always writing about the thing he's writing about plus at least one other thing (although often as many as four other things). When he discusses how Mother Morgan stirs the fire so much while tending it that the flames go out leaving just the embers which she then must beat to try to get them lit again, Steinbeck's explaining the way she's dealt with her husband over the years. And like the way winter comes into the Welsh valley as weather, emotion, history, and time all in the same instance. But the best part is when Elizabeth stands in the doorway of her house backlit as she looks out into the dark and Henry basically sees the outline of her naked body through her thin nightgown. I don't mean the best part in how Steinbeck layers it with different meanings; I mean it's the best part in how many layers filled my pants.

This story begins in Amsterdam with a covert meeting between criminals!

Joke or not, I'm not even sure that's a proper answer to the question.

So that one joker is there to get some kind of counterfeit blanks from the guy with no sense of humor and then kill him. Oh, the guy who doesn't laugh doesn't know he's there to get murdered, of course. I'm sure some criminals would be all, "Oh, you want me to deliver this thing worth a ton of money to an absolute monster and then let him kill me? Sure. Why the fuck not?" But this guy was all, "You're not funny. OH MY GOD I'M DEAD! THIS SUCKS!" And the other guy was all, "Next time you'll laugh at my joke, you Dutch buffoon!"

Amsterdam is in Dutchonia, right?

Meanwhile, Tim whines and moans while Alfred dusts the Batcave and wishes Tim would go whine and moan somewhere else. Then Tim mentions he's been crimefighting with Huntress and Alfred is all, "Batman is going to kill you. So please tell me you're at least getting tossed off by her."

What the fuck is this judgmental look Alfred's throwing at Tim?

You might think it's sexist that I had Alfred suggest The Huntress would jerk off Tim just because she's a woman. But I can assure you, and I have thousands of pages of comic book reviews that will back me up, that I would have had Alfred suggest the same thing if Tim were going out at night with Azrael.

Tim's response to Batman possibly getting pissed off that Tim's running around with The Huntress is that it'll be the least of Batman's worries when Tim's school counselor sends the cops to arrest Bruce Wayne for pedophilia. At least Tim will be in boarding school in Metropolis when that shit hits the Batfan. He'll be much safer in Superman's city.

Tim grabs his gear to go meet up with The Huntress. She's currently busy teasing some teenage boys.

Is concern for some babe's well-being sexist?

At first I thought this gang was two old people and two young guys. Then I realized the young guys are trying to rob the old people. It's astute observations like that, where I check and double check my perceptions and assumptions, that make me the crack comic book reviewer nobody thinks I am.

Oh! Remember how earlier in this review I mentioned I was reading Steinbeck's Cup of Gold? Well because library holds on books are so fucking random and never actually take as long as you think they're going to take, I'm apparently reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest right now too! I'm only through the first chapter of that where the narrator, an amazing tennis player, Hulks out during his college interview because he ate some mold when he was like five. I don't know if that first twenty pages indicates the themes I should be looking for throughout the book but if so this might be a few of them: 1. Don't eat mold off basement walls. 2. Communication with other living beings is hard. 3. Being a super smart person in a body you can barely control or speak through will cause other people to think you're a monster. Although that third one I already learned from Steven C. Stewart and Crispin Glover's It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.

During the beatdown (it's hardly a fight. Huntress tears the two teens five new buttholes in a non-sexy way), the reader might notice that The Huntress wears an armband with Superman's logo on it. I guess the old guy kicked it recently. And yet Tim's father still wants to send him to Metropolis?! It's so fucking dangerous there now!

Isn't The Huntress cold sitting in the snow in her little short-shorts?

When not swinging around the city on a rope attached to angel dong's (or whatever. I don't know how these fucking Batpeople swing around the Goddamned city), The Huntress drives a Lamborghini. It's a pretty shit looking Lambo but I think that's because Bob Smith, being paid an artist's wage from DC, had never actually seen one. He probably based his drawing off the same fucking Lamborghini Hot Wheel we all grew up crashing around dirt berms and into the side of that red double-decker bus. Helena and Tim, in full costume, drive around the city in her car looking for another printer that the Russians might be harassing into printing counterfeit cash for them.

While Tim and Helena scout print shops, the murderous joker (not that one!) returns from The Netherlands.

Ha ha ha! Made a killing!

This guy probably had a great line for if the customs official had said, "Do you have anything to declare?" but then the guy ruined it with the "Nothing to declare?" line. He probably would have been all, "I have a ten inch penis!" or something, um, funnier! I'm not the funny guy. He's the guy with all the good lines. Made a killing! With the fog! What a cut-up!

Oh man! I wished he'd killed the Dutch guy with a knife then my "cut-up" line would have been a good joke. But he shot him instead and there's no way you can make shooting a guy funny.

Robin and The Huntress discover the counterfeiting operation at the last place they investigate. Also staking out the Russian counterfeiting ring? The Ghost Dragons! Remember, they need to kill KGBeast so that King Snake can be the most dangerous dumbass in the DC Universe. But they also want to kill Robin and The Huntress for beating the shit out of them several issues ago. So they're pretty excited when they realize they're all in the same building at the same time.

Robin watches from the rafters as the Commie Tsar murders the two men responsible for the counterfeiting process (because they've already printed one billion scudoons). I guess if you're a criminal, bullets are a lot cheaper than cash. Being that they were criminals, Robin doesn't seem to give a shit that they were just murdered. He continues to keep an eye out to see the final few steps in the counterfeiting process. But that's when KGBeast appears dragging The Huntress behind him. He's all, "You are being cold in the shortest shorts, yes?" But even with The Huntress in danger, Tim still hesitates and waits for a better opportunity to do vigilante justice.

A mundane round of farts could drown out Def Leppard. "Standing by the trap door! Aware of me and you! The actor and the clown! They're waiting for their cue!"

Dammit! Now I actually want to hear that song! That backfired!

Tim drops down and begins knocking out thugs with his feet as soon as the machine's start back up. Then he fiddles with the printing press's controls to fuck up the counterfeiting operation before heading downstairs to find where they took The Huntress. Now, remember, Tim found this place by searching for local printers. The Russians, presumably, also had to find this place at the last minute since they killed Ariana's father who was supposed to print the money for them. So it's odd that when Tim goes downstairs in this print shop, he discovers the Russians' heroin operation as well. Why the fuck did they drag their heroin operation to the print shop? They really could have left it back at their Little Odessa headquarters, couldn't they?

Currently The Huntress is being killed by KGBeast and Ariana is not in immediate danger. So, um, yeah, save Ariana, I guess.

Tim throws the whole mission away by busting into the heroin packing plant and causing a bunch of chaos. He saves Ariana (as well as the other women forced into the drug business) but can't lead them out of the building before the ruckus he caused brings reinforcements.

Ha ha ha! Oh, that guy! He kills me!

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #5 Rating: B. I don't know if that bit about leading her to the grave was a joke but the guy is so funny I can't help laughing at nearly everything he says. I guess it's just the way he delivers his lines. One more issue remains and there's a lot to resolve yet. Tim's home life. Tim's school troubles. Tim disobeying Batman's rules. The Huntress captured by KGBeast. The Ghost Dragons vendetta against, I don't know, everything? Tim's sex life (real and imagined). And I guess the Russian drug and counterfeiting ring. I feel like some of these issues are going to get short shrift in the conclusion.

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #4 (Early February 1993)

This is like trying to watch scrambled porn on '80s cable.

This cover technology is so shit. But what's weird is that I just glanced at Issues #5 and #6 and their pictures read perfectly. Did they improve the concept five months into this little experiment? Or did I just never read Issues #5 and #6 so the cover hasn't shifted at all? It's basically impossible to keep the insert properly aligned so that you can see either picture perfectly without ghosts of the other picture coming through. Perhaps they figured out how to keep the insert aligned by Issue #5? We'll see when I finally unbag it! Anyway, here's the shitty alternate cover:

Weird. This one lined up pretty good totally on accident!

The alternate picture on the alternate cover shows King Snake and Lynx running along confidently before KGBeast sneaks up behind them and clocks King Snake in the head with a Russian tire iron (a potato stuck in a bit of concrete). I guess they were full of bluster and bravado when they mocked KGBeast when he wasn't in the room because they look terrified here (and slightly concussed).

The issue begins with Tim getting caught playing hooky from school by Alfred Pennyworth. "Getting caught" makes it seem like Alfred cares; it's more like Alfred, while putting away some Bat Towels, stumbles upon Tim who was too stupid to hide somewhere other than the Batcave. Alfred tries to help him out by offering to put make-up over the bruises on his face and Tim rips him a new asshole. It makes Alfred very sad.

"Dick used to love my help!"

Poor Alfred probably thought his days of getting shit on by Robin were over thanks to The Joker. But apparently Tim can be as angsty as Jason Todd when everything is going wrong in his life and the girl he though he was going to lose his virginity to has apparently been killed by Russian gang members and his school counselor's accusing Bruce Wayne of diddling him while she also dreams of fucking his dad. And he's been going out at night getting his ass kicked while sporting a huge boner because have you seen how much of The Huntress's ass hangs out of her costume? It was right on the cover! And getting your ass beat while you're sexually aroused will definitely cause psychological problems later in life that he's certainly not going to deal with being that his role model is the most anti-therapy asshat on the planet, Batman.

Alfred doesn't put up enough of a fight for the mood Tim's in so he goes home to try to guilt his wheelchair-bound father.

Normally I'd be on every other side that's against any father at all. But right now, Tim's just being a whiny shit.

If The Huntress really wanted to be a hero, she'd wank Tim off and get him to chill out. But even if she knew how Tim's life was falling apart from all the stress and anxiety he's under (which can be partially cured by an orgasm which is why I suggested the hand manipulation), how is Tim her responsibility? She hardly knows the kid. Bruce Wayne should wank Tim off! Not in a weird, sexual pervy molestation way! In a therapeutic way! For science!

Tim finishes his conversation with his dad in the tried and true teenage way where they scream "You don't me! You don't know anything about me at all!" and run out of the room crying. Tim's dad puts his head in his hands because either he feels like a failure or he's praying to God that his son dies. Probably a fifty-fifty chance he's thinking one of those two thoughts.

Tim's not sure whose life to ruin next so he breaks into The Huntress's apartment hoping that she's in the shower. But she's not home yet so he sits in the dark to wait for her while thinking how hot it would have been if she'd been in the shower.

Also she's on her way home to take a shower.

Chuck Dixon really fucked up the order of things in this story. If David Finch had been writing it, The Huntress would have gotten home and hopped in the shower before Robin arrived so that he could draw her coming out of the bathroom in the smallest towel she owns. It's really about the only good writing decision David Finch ever made with which I agreed. He was smart enough to script at least one woman in a towel scene every issue and while I wasn't a huge fan of his art and very much not a huge fan of his writing, I'd always stand up and applaud when some woman showed up in a towel. Really smart work! Super creative!

Helena isn't too surprised that Robin figured out her identity since he practically brags that he got the Robin gig by figuring out Batman's. But all Helena cares about is Batman and what he's like and does he have a girlfriend and is his ass really that tight or is that just the outfit? Tim ignores her questions while convincing Helena to show him where she found the counterfeit papers being used by the Russians who "killed" Ariana. Tim feels he needs to avenge her death since it seems like the only part of his life he can control at the moment. Also he probably just wants to hang out with a hot woman. I know I'd pretend to care about justice if I could swing around the city with a half-naked woman. And also I were wearing a red Speedo and green tights. I bet that would make my junk look huge! Or would it just make my junk look normal-sized but squashed all funny? I once wore tights in high school when I went to a Halloween party as a Playboy bunny and it was not flattering. Which is why I also wore a tight black knit skirt over my crotch. Nobody wanted to see my smashed junk all night. Except it was a high school party. I bet most of the girls there actually did want to see my squashed junk! Man, I was so stupid!

While Tim and Helena search the room where Huntress found the papers, they're surprised by the Russians who had the room wired for some reason.

The Huntress stole that soda from the mini-bar because she isn't beholden by man's laws! She fights for pure justice!

Tim subdues the Russians but before The Huntress can torture any information out of them, KGBeast crashes through the wall like a barely literate Kool-Aid Man.

"Oh to be yeahing!"

A scuffle ensues which ends in Bane hanging out the window twenty stories above the street while Robin and The Huntress try out Kama Sutra pose #53.

This position's called "So Much of The Farmer's Dick Deep-ends in a Red Wheelbarrow"

The next day at school, Tim avoids his counselor as best he can. I guess he can't skip school twice although he'd like to because now he'll have to explain the bruises on his face and his scratchy voice from being choked out by KGBeast. You know Ms. Hollingsworth will be all, "Why's your voice so gravelly, Tim? Does Bruce Wayne have a thick hog? It's really thick, right? Just massive? I can't help you unless you answer my questions about Bruce Wayne's dick, Tim." So instead of going through that, Tim flees her office through the window and runs home to do some research on the Russians. That's when his dad tells him that he's transferred Tim to an All Boys Private School in Metropolis. Oh no! What'll Tim do?! Superman doesn't need a sidekick! Also Superman has just died so, seriously, forget it, man.

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #4 Rating: B. King Snake and Lynx weren't even in this issue. Shows how fucking dangerous King Snake really is! What a pathetic jerk. Although KGBeast was in this and he didn't seem too dangerous either. He was beaten by a little boy and an exceedingly attractive woman. That wasn't meant to be patronizing! Those were just cold hard facts and also KGBeast called them exactly that before getting his ass kicked by them. So I don't think either character deserves to be thought of as the most dangerous assassin in the DC Universe. Besides, if Deathstork heard either of them claiming that, he'd have to stop fucking his underage lover and go murder them.