Detective Comics #4

I think a quick summary of this one will do. Sure it's the last one in the story. But that just means there is a lot of fighting and knocking down bad guys!

Batman beats up the fake Joker thugs. Batman escapes from the cables around his wrists. Batman beats up Sampson (the Monkey) and Bentley (the big one that choked him) and finds Gordon already freed by Olivia. Batman chases after Dollmaker and Matilda (Sexy Nurse) who are escaping in a car. He lands on the car which explodes. The car only had mannequins in it.

The car only had mannequins in it because Dollmaker and Matilda made their escape in a police chopper.



The note Batman received from Gordon was found at headquarters. So Harvey sent the police to Mercy Hospitable. Which tipped off whoever set this whole plan in motion. Probably Mayor Hady.

The plan? Here's what I pieced together although I don't think the whole plan is ever made plain. The Unnamed Puppet Master (again, probably Mayor Hady) seems to have set this up so that Dollmaker would kill Jim Gordon. Probably because Gordon is pro-Batman and Hady hates having Batman in his city. But the Puppet Master does not kill Gordon immediately because he needs Gordon's liver to save someone's life. That life is probably his daughter Olivia.



Meanwhile, the Puppet Master decides to auction off Batman when he realizes he has Gordon as bait to capture him. This ends up being his undoing as well as Harvey sending the police to Mercy Hospital. So the Unnamed Villain flies in to rescue Dollmaker and Matilda. Olivia ends up getting shipped to Arkham for study.

Oh yeah, Olivia kills Orifice to save Jim's life because Jim expresses to her that the only thing he cares about is getting her away from the Dollmaker. So she breaks down and apologizes and murders Orifice! Too bad. I liked having a villain named Orifice.

Also, the Joker's face is still in police headquarters in some sort of see through cryotank. Of course it's see through because who wouldn't want that creepy ass face staring at them whenever they walk by.

I liked how the whole thing resolved without blatantly answering all the questions. The whole thing was well told even if some of the dialogue and metaphors were cliche or crap or didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Detective Comics #3

At the bottom of page one, Batman says this:



and the audience cheers! No, actually I die a little bit inside.

Oh! Remember how last issue ended? With the patchwork Jim Gordon being thrown at Batman's feet? And all the readers are supposed to go, "OMG! WTF? JIM! NO WAY!" And then for a full month they speculate what is going to happen to Jim Gordon on the DC Forums?

BATMANLOVER69: "Do you think they'd kill Jim this quickly?! It is a new universe! Anything can happen!"
GORDONSUCKS: "Man I hope so! F****** loser! What a chump! Way to go DC!"
XxActuallYxX: "It might be a new universe but DC isn't making many changes. Why did they even do this stupid reboot? I'm going over to Marvel."

Well, the first panel of this issue (meaning the panel immediately following that panel where Jim gets tossed at Batman's feet) is this:



Why even bother with the stupid cliffhanger ending if this is the way you resolve it?

Tony Daniel: "Fuck. I need to end this issue on a shocker!"
Lazy Editor: "Just kill Gordon."
Tony Daniel: "Are you stupid? I can't kill Gordon off! Snyder is using him over at Batman!"
Lazy Editor: "I don't mean really! Just make him seem dead. You can make it a trick of the light or something on the first page of the next issue."
Tony Daniel: "Are you fucking serious? This is why DC's continuity is fucked!"
Lazy Editor: "So what else are you going to do?"
Tony Daniel: "Fuck it. I'll go with Jim dead."

Batman puts up a fight even though half of his body is paralyzed by some drug injected into him by The Masked Sexy Nurse. Dollmaker, Bentley, Orifice, The Clapping Monkey, Sexy Nurse, and Jack-in-the-Box fail (guess which names I made up and which are real!) to stop him. Batman takes a captive as he escapes:


Captive's name is not actually Sunshine.

And then back to Jim Gordon, enclosed in a cage with a kidney seemingly removed. And outside the cage is the little girl who Batman saved who was taken from the hospital by the guy who got a bunch of knives in his chest earlier. Here's their conversation. It's kind of important. Probably.

Dollmaker, I mean, Little Girl: "Mr. Gordon, you'll die soon. Let me help you."
Gordon: "Olivia? Good lord, girl, how have you survived?"
Little Girl: "I'm a prisoner, too. But the Dollmaker wants me to be part of his family. He wants to adopt me."
Gordon: "Then he hasn't...hurt you?" [Those ellipsis mean Gordon is talking about molestation!]
Dollmaker: "No. I--I was scared at first. But now I'm getting better. And I'm learning that Dollmaker's just a victim, too. And that he has people he answers to. People even he's afraid of."
Gordon: "Do you think you can get out of here and get help?"
Little Girl Who Really Isn't The Dollmaker, wink wink: "Only BATMAN can save you here. If they see the police, they'll kill you. I heard them say it."



So the little girl overplays her hand here and says all the things the evil jerk in charge would say to lure Batman back. And who would be a better Dollmaker than a little girl? If she isn't the Dollmaker and the guy who claims to be the Dollmaker is the Dollmaker, then she's the Controller of All Dolls. But I think she's the Dollmaker because the other Dolls (Sexy Nurse and Orifice and Dollmaster) were acting like a family. And that's how a little girl would play with dolls. As if they were a family.

If I'm wrong about this, I'll mail Tony S. Daniel a nice crisp one dollar bill!

Meanwhile, Batman is off playing with the doll he stole.



Batman can't beat any information out of Jack-in-the-Box (I'm hungry!) because Jack-in-the-Box doesn't have a tongue. So he goes back to the Batcave to do some research.

This is what Batman finds out:


I'm not giving up on my dollar just yet!

The Dollmaker may indeed be this kid. But the little girl still mentioned he takes orders from someone. And my bet is it's the little girl. Perhaps his daughter who inherited the super crazy gene?

While Batman is researching, the Bat Signal is activated. Batman arrives to find Olivia has activated it with a note from Gordon. After Batman leaves, Olivia shows her true colors to the jerk cop left to protect her.


It's okay he dies. He was apparently going to kidnap her. Probably for the mayor. Or Joker.

So I get to keep my dollar! Whew! That was a close one. Gordon also realized she wasn't telling the whole truth. I think. Because here's his note with a backwards 'R' that is probably some sort of code between him and The Batman.



Batman confirms the note on the next page. He says he and Gordon have never used a code though so Batman is left to guess at it's meaning. He thinks it means to 'watch his back' (which, by the way, he fails to do in spectacular 'Batman should now be dead' fashion).



Batman also believes (before that happened) that the backwards R can mean 'there is something wrong with the obvious.' Meaning Olivia. But Batman doesn't put that together. Instead he's choked into unconsciousness and killed.

Oh, wait. He's not killed! The Dollmaker is an idiot and instead puts Batman in a ridiculous cage fight that would have been just the type of thing they did weekly on the campy television show.

Detective Comics #2

Batman flies so casually. Don't bother gripping the controls or anything. It's more important to be relaxed than to be in control.

The first few pages:



Bruce Wayne negotiates a business deal with the shirtless Hugh Marder of Mecha-North Corp. That sounds like a company that is going to create giant Bat-Robots. Oliver Queen's company actually bid more money for the company but Mr. Marder wanted to appear in a comic that wasn't going to be cancelled soon.

The next few pages:


Look, lady. You're free to show your tits all you want. But you can't decide who gets to look at them when they're out there.

Bruce Wayne gets laid in his office by reporter Wendy Charlotte. She seems to want more from Bruce than she's getting but she keeps stopping herself when she gets all naggy because she knows he'll just playboy his way on over to the next hot journalist or cat burglar.

A couple pages after that:



Batman flies his Flying Batcycle over Arkham Asylum. Unless that's Wayne Manor. Or maybe it's the Gotham Ski Lodge.

Later:



Batman discusses the case with Gordon. So the Joker is no longer going to look like The Joker. I hope that sticks in this Universe! That'll be a nice change of pace and piss off a lot of Joker fanboys.

Still later:


Is this the only way people die in Gotham City?

Batman finds another corpse while on the hunt for the serial killer taking organs and cutting up people that they decided wasn't the Joker since the Joker had his face cut off as well. Even if it were on purpose. He also finds a dead police officer whose Police Radio was used to lure everyone here. The officer's head was cut off so I guess people do die differently here. Just a little differently. Still a knife kill, I guess.

Later still:


Nobody puts weird mask wearing sledgehammer wielding baby in a corner.

Batman meets up with a family straight out of a Rob Zombie movie. This is the family of the Dollmaker. I don't know what kind of dolls he makes but since even normal ones are creepy, I'm guessing I don't want any of his in my house. The Dollmaker and everyone in his family look as if they're wearing skin masks or they've had work done on their own faces so that they look like a patchwork quilt.

Finally:


The Dollmaker does quick work!

Commissioner Gordon gets a make-over!

Detective Comics #1

Detective Comics is written and drawn by Tony Salvador Daniel. That's the guy behind the fabulous writing of The Savage Hawkman. So I already suspect he's not a very good writer. His art seems average. But my main problem, and I'm showing my prejudice here, is of an artist also doing the writing.

Okay, so Manapul over at The Flash is doing a pretty good job. But I just can't help thinking that DC is saving money by allowing the artists to also write the stories. Sure, they can probably come up with a good story as well. But you've got to be careful when writing a story that you know you're going to draw. His own abilities might limit him on what he does and doesn't put in the story. Like a director of a movie that he knows is being shot for 3D. He can't help but direct scenes toward the effect. And a writer can't help but write toward what or how he wants to draw.

I do the comic Dwarf Lover and one thing I make sure I don't do is think about the amount of photoshopping work I'm going to have to do because of the story I'm writing. I just write the story knowing that I'll figure it out when I get back on the computer to put the comic together. But in the past, I did write scenes that were easier to put together. A lot of standing around in the same location and talking.

I doubt this will be a problem with a professional DC comic book though! They have a bunch of editors keeping tight control on this stuff, right? Except, I guess the editors were busy when they had to look over J.T. Krul's work. And Tony Daniel's Hawkman fight choreography. I don't think they saw that. Or they didn't understand it and were too embarrassed to admit it.

Well. Fingers crossed! It's Batman versus Joker time!

Well, whattya know? The first action in the comic is a bit of a tussle between Batman and Joker (actually, a near tussle) which is just as confusing as the action in The Savage Hawkman. Perhaps Tony S. Daniel needs a little refresher in storyboarding a comic book.

I wish this were bigger but I can't scan it and this was the only example of the page I found on the interweb.

So the first five panels I can follow. Joker murders some co-worker or minion who was doing some crime (organ harvesting?) which Joker had not been aware. Then things get confusing.

Panel Six: Something crashes through the window. According to Panel Eight, it is a Batarang. It looks like a Batarang that allows Batman to see what's going on in a location before he crashes through a window.

Panel Seven: POV of the Batarang.

Panel Eight: Joker arguing with the Batarang and holding a duffel bag full of bomb.

Panel Nine: Joker throws the Duffel Bag in a way that makes no sense at all. Is that the light from a window along the far wall and Batman is about to crash through the window. If so, would that mean Joker's back is to this window and he's throwing the bomb at...what? A blank wall? The floor is in the bottom left-hand corner of the panel since that surface is covered in trash.

If you can interpret this panel for me, please leave a comment. I'm not trying to be dense!

Here's the panel that follows that one so you can see the aftermath of this moment:

We see Batman is definitely coming through a window. And it looks like the bag explodes near the window. And the panel after this, the Joker is escaping out of a window across the room. So the Joker must have been against the wall opposite the giant window that Batman crashes through. Which means The Joker's hand is between the wall in Panel Nine and the window Batman crashes through.

The POV in Panel Nine would have to be in the middle of the room looking at the wall with the shadow on it. Joker behind and to the left with the bag sailing over it.

That's about the best I could come up with! Well, not the best! If I wanted to spend any time on it, I'd make Batman look like Batman and draw the room with a bit better perspective and maybe try to make the light source into an antique Gotham streetlight. But that's how I envision this panel. Doesn't actually make any sense unless Joker is throwing the bomb at the batarang. It's possible Joker doesn't actually have a target for the bomb. Or he's really stupid and thinks the shadow is Batman so he's throwing the bomb at it.

But as you can see from the panel that follows, none of that actually happens. The Batman doesn't break through a window that is behind the Joker. He actually breaks through a window near where the bomb goes off.

I shouldn't be picking on Tony S. Daniel about this. He's writing and drawing the comic. He obviously has a better feeling and understanding of what is going on here. He knows what is happening. He doesn't have to explain it to an artist. He just draws what he writes. It's the editor who should be doing his job here. And there are three editors on this comic?! What are they editing? The letterer? Continuity errors (which there shouldn't be any of being the first comic in DC Continuity! And even if they are checking for that, they fucked up! Because the Joker is on the 13th floor of a building which means he's operating inside a Court of Owls headquarters!).

While looking for these pictures online (I ended up scanning what I could), I read the beginnings of the reviews that housed these pics. Nobody seemed confused by this. Perhaps it's just become standard in comics to have fight scenes occur in non-realistic spatial environments and I'm just being too picky. So I'll move on.

So I get the gist. Joker throws bomb at Batman as Batman breaks into building. Joker gets away.

Batman finds a small girl in the room whose organs were probably going to be harvested by The Joker's buddy. He's about to save her when the Gotham City Police Department bust through the door and attack Batman.

Yeah, I know. Stupid law officers keep trying to kill the do-gooder vigilante. But Batman fights them because he wants to save the little girl! But there's a fire!

And it's spreading like a book of matches! Wait. What?

Yeah, they're all focusing on...oh, wait, never mind. They got her.

Hey Batman! If you're so concerned that they're focusing on you instead of saving the girl, how about you stop kicking them in the face and go after The Joker, you stupid Goddamn control freak!

So Batman runs out of the room thinking he doesn't want any dead cops so "he'll lead them out". Like they don't know what fucking fire is?

Gotham Cop #1: "Hey, Stan! What is this orange flickering shit?"
Gotham Cop #2: "Fuck if I know."
Gotham Cop #3: "AAAAAARRRRRRGHHHHHH!"
Gotham Cop #2: "Hey Bill? Are you okay? You're covered in that orange flickering shit. And you smell like steak."
Gotham Cop #3: "OH MY FUCKING GOD IF ONLY WE HAD FOLLOWED BATMAN" *DIE*
Gotham Cop #1: "You think Bill was allergic to the orange stuff?"
Gotham Cop #2: "Beats me."

Then the helicopter outside sees Batman on the infrared scope through the wall of the building and begins firing Chopper Bullets at him. Why? Why not! They've got to shoot someone! A little girl was almost killed!

Commissioner Gordon calls them all morons and the scene is over.

I read a lot of good reviews about this comic while looking for some of those earlier pictures. I think most comic book reader's brains have grown numb from years of this poorly told, cliche tripe. It's as cliche as saying cliche tripe! (I'd add an accent to 'cliche' but I'm being lazy).

Batman heads back to the Bat Cave to ponder what just happened. Apparently The Joker was naked during the fight. And the Batarang with the camera attached is called a Ro-Bat. Ha ha! Batman is hilarious.

After some discussion with Gordon about the mayor running for re-election on the Batman is a Hazard to Gotham platform, Batman intercepts the Joker again. They have a fight, Batman gets stabbed a few more times, and The Joker falls through a game of Tetris and is caught by The Batman. Batman places him in Arkham where this happens to him:

Some guy named Dollmaker removed The Joker's face. So The Joker is probably getting a new face. And the Dollmaker is either going to use the face himself or make someone else into a new Joker doll.

The guy Joker killed was Dollmaker's son but Dollmaker doesn't seem to have any hard feelings about it. Business is business, after all!

For all the complaints I had for the comic, it works. Although this is the type of comic that seems strange in this whole 52 Reboot thing. It doesn't seem like it's taking place in a new universe or dimension or world of retold stories. It's just another Batman story relying on the past we already know in order to work. The Joker is a huge problem in Gotham. Gordon and Batman trust each other. The cops and mayor don't trust Batman. Batman won't kill the Joker and the Joker thinks Batman is crazy for not killing him.

It's all been done. I expect a bit more variation with a reboot. Go crazy, Daniel! Tell some new stories. But maybe the Batman title is the place for that. Detective Comics is probably a good place for just regular old Batman stories that could take place at any time in the DC Universe. Except maybe the hacked off Joker face would have been too graphic for the Comic Code Authority years. Unless it was absolutely apparent that The Joker was a communist sympathizer.

I bet if Peter J. Tomasi were writing this book, he would begin by having some weird jellyfish creature steal the eyes from a bunch of Indians while they watched a cricket match.

Batman #5

I hope I post more pictures from this issue than the zero pictures I posted from last issue!



Oh, did I forget to mention that Batman was knocked down into a labyrinth deep in the sewers by the Talon at the end of last issue? Yeah, that happened. And apparently he's been gone for 8 days now!

So all the Gotham Super Heroes are searching for him. And apparently Robin is a little bastard!



Down in the maze, Batman is going through a trial. He's been deprived of food and water for over a week. And there is this fountain with water being vomited up by a giant owl. So he drinks.



And is drugged.

And is told a story. This story is familiar (and not just in a House of Leaves way). It's about the Court of Owls. But it's also about Batman. Rather, it is about Batman which means it's about the Court of Owls because the Court of Owls feels a lot like the story of Batman. Nocturnal flying predator. Both creatures used to invoke fear and terror.

Yeah, it kind of spins round and round just like the comic book issue as you read it.

This entire story so far has had Gotham City as a major character. The city has supported and been there for Bruce Wayne. And Bruce knows every inch of the city. The Court of Owls labyrinth has caused Batman to become lost in Gotham for the first time in his life. More than any other thing that causes Batman to suddenly become fearful and feel he needs to hide in the shadows of the maze is this feeling of being lost in his city. For the first time, he feels like the Court of Owls is real and that Gotham is their place and always has been. It's not just fear he is feeling now. It's hurt. It's loss.

Bruce also goes around and around in the maze. We see him in a room of pictures where he starts clawing at the ground saying that he invented the tricks. He does this again several pages later and ending up back in the room with the pictures. These pictures are of people lost and killed in this labyrinth over the last hundred years.

And then he finds this room:



Upon all the coffins is the picture of a small child. And the talon on the wall. These are the Talon assassins from across the last 100 years. Each one created in the exact same way The Batman was created. Tragic loss as a child. Orphans. Trained in killing and revenge. But Batman, of course, is not a killer. He had Alfred. And perhaps being a child of wealth put him at an advantage so as not to be used and manipulated. He had time to become a more ethical man yet still very closely tied to what these Talons are.

And the empty coffin. With the picture. The picture that Bruce seems to recognize but denies himself the ability to believe. My guess: Lincoln March. Of course, it's not that much of a limb to stretch out on being that he's the only other major character in the book who we don't know anything about and the Talon just has to be someone we've been introduced to up until now to get the full effect.

But to guess that Lincoln March was Talon before this moment was just being a cynically douchey smart ass who knows all the conventions of mystery writing! Now, we see why Lincoln reached out and flirted, I mean, felt such a connection with Bruce Wayne. Lincoln was also an orphaned child but he grew up in a dilapidated orphanage that very nearly collapsed and killed everyone within. He was perfect for the Court of Owls to gather up and train.

Along with the House of Leaves reading and theme of loss, we get this bit of Memento redemption:



Just as in Memento where we see the one flash of his dream future, we see him with his wife and the tattoo on his chest in the place he was saving for when he finally got his wife's killer, we see that Batman's quest is not about revenge or justice either. He's just looking, somehow, in someway, to get his parents back.

But this can never happen, just as Leonard can never actually bring his wife back. So Batman, like Leonard, has lost himself in the routine of hunting and hunting and hunting and hunting. But while Leonard can trick himself into thinking the quest is never over by falsifying clues as to the killer of his wife that he'll never remember falsifying, Batman does not have this luxury.

But in this brief drug-induced hallucination, we see his true quest.



And then it is done. The Minotaur's hunt is over. But is this just part of the hallucination? Or is it just one more stab wound that Alfred is going to have to brew a nice hot cup of tea to cure?

Batman #4

Now that Batman knows there is a secret organization controlling things in Gotham City, what's he going to do about it? More importantly, who are the six owls and the talon in the current Court of Owls? Two blonde women. Two blonde men. Two dark haired men. And a seemingly invincible assassin. Who are they and why do they want Bruce Wayne dead?

Well, none of those questions are answered in Issue #4. Probably because it's a story told by Bruce to Dick about Bruce's investigation into the Court of Owls when he was a kid after his parents were killed.

What kind of a kid, even a Batkid, is going to run a proper investigation? Hmm, this line of questioning is going to bring us back to the Hardy Boys. Or Nancy Drew. Or Trixie Belden. Or Scooby Doo.

So little Bruce Wayne fails to find the Court of Owls and learns a valuable lesson in detective work. Follow the clues. Don't follow your desires.

Bruce needed the crime to not be random. He couldn't accept that. He needed there to be a mystery to be solved. But he found no proof or evidence.

Then what's going on now? Could this be some sort of new set-up that has decided to use the folklore of Gotham City for its own ends? Are all the old rooms just set decorations and fake history?

Or is Batman just not a very good detective? Since he has another comic book title called 'Detective Comics', I'm guessing he's a pretty good detective.

So who are these jerks? I hope we find out in Issue #5 because I'm done reading #4 and that's all I have to say about that. *SPPBPBPBPBPPPT*

Batman #3

He's still fighting this guy? Come on!

Alfred must be really, really good with the combat medic stuff. How many times does Batman have to be stabbed before he's put out of commission? Does Waynetech have some sort of nano-healing technology based on pig's blood and Mob Rule that keeps Batman on his feet?


This is Bruce's great-great-grandfather, Alan Wayne, in 1922.

Whoever is after Batman wants Batman to believe that some shadow organization called The Court of Owls is behind it. This organization is a Gotham legend. Batman doesn't believe the legend. He believes he knows Gotham so well that there is no way the Court of Owls can possibly exist.

In the last issue, the Gargoyle that Batman grabs onto to save his fall is the thirteenth Gargoyle on the original Wayne Tower. The gargoyles on the tower look in the direction of the entrances to the city. The 13th Gargoyle was added to watch over the people arriving by air. You know, like owls. The 13th Gargoyle was added by Alan's son, Henry.

So back to 1922 and Alan Wayne acting crazy. He's obviously crazed about owls. And what is the 13th hour? Along with the 13th guardian, I'm going to go out on a gargoyle and guess there are 13 Owls in the Court of Owls. After this scene, Alan Wayne drops into a manhole. Dies? I don't know.

But the Owl Assassin that attacked Bruce said he loved killing Waynes. So is Alan one of them? Is Batman's dad one of the Wayne's he killed? Have there been more?



So back to the present and Batman's investigation. He does the investigating a little bit differently than those Hardy Boys. He beats up a bunch of gang members in the Gotham rail lines beneath the city but finds that none of them know anything.

So back to the Batcave to ponder!



These few pages with Batman and Alfred moved me quite a bit. It didn't actually play emotional but the trust and care that these two show for each other really shines through here. Batman trusts Alfred implicitly. And he respects Alfred's opinion and knowledge. Alfred, of course, also knows more about the family history than Bruce Wayne does. So he hits him up here and finds his great, great grandfather suffered from a sudden onset of oclophobia.

Also, fuck you, Google! When I want to search for a made up term, I want you to find results for me of that made up term! Don't suggest a different term and find the results for that term and then give me a tiny link asking if I'd like to look for my original term! Just fucking look for it! If you think I made a mistake, then search for my term and add your little arrogant thing you always used to add: "Perhaps you meant to search for Ochlophobia?"

What Google has basically done is decided that the majority of people searching the web are too dumb to know what they're actually searching for and so they've made it more convenient for these boneheads. But now I need to do a bunch of extra steps every time I want to search for something made up!

And while I'm passing around the fuck yous, here's one for Netflix! You and your shitty new Xbox interface. You know what I would like to be able to do, Netflix? I would like to be able to go into a Television season's list of episodes and pick the episode I want to watch instead of having you fire up the episode you think I want to watch next. Also, you stick a bunch of information on the title of each movie or show but you neglected to add the year. I'd like to see what year a movie is from without having to start the stupid fucking movie and then have it in my 'recently watched' list when I never wanted to watch it in the first place. And why show me one Goddman meaningless still when I hover over the selection for too long?

To be fair, I can now see the full title of a television episode unlike the old format where you could never under any circumstances see the full titles of any television episode that was over a certain length. So they did one thing right.

You know who else needs a little fuck you? The Xbox music player. It's all wrong. When a song is playing, you cover up the length of the song with your little equalizer bars showing that song is playing. And as the song plays, the timer shows you how long the song has been playing. Fucking show me how long is left in the song or don't cover up the length of the Goddamn song!

These fuck yous are dedicated to Achewood and its sorely missed Fuck You Fridays. Even though today is Wednesday.


Aha! Here's how Alfred keeps Bruce healthy! By offering him tea with medicine that Bruce ignores!


Lincoln March flirting with Bruce Wayne.


That's only half the picture with 6 owls. I'm sure there are 7 more on the other side.

After an "A-ha!" House moment during the conversation with Lincoln, Batman zips off to find the secret lair of the Court of Owls. He deduces that owls make their nests in abandoned nests or the nests of rivals. And that his ancestor Alan Wayne was superstitious and one of the first to begin constructing buildings with no 13th floor. But he kept a small space between floors 12 and 14 to house the bad luck generated from the 13th floor. So he goes back to Wayne Tower and cuts into the 14th floor's floor to find the creepy old headquarters of the Court of Owls!

In fact, Batman finds a headquarters in nearly 20 different buildings in Gotham all associated with the Alan Wayne Trust for Assisting Young Architects, each more modern than the next. And the pictures only show six Owls and a Talon. The 13 makes sense in that the talon would be the 13th. Maybe each owl represented two of something somehow. No, one picture shows less. So maybe the number of owls in the Court doesn't matter. As long as their is one Talon. The Talon, by the way, is the assassin.

They're real! Oh noes! And Owls eat Bats! What an unlucky choice of superhero name, Mr. Wayne!

While investigating the most recent, Batman trips a trap and...


Whoops!