Batgirl #3

Where are they fighting? What's she swinging on so high in the air? Why does Nightwing have a Magic Wand?

Batgirl #3 begins with Batgirl (big surprise, eh?) trying to foil the dastardly plan of THE MIRROR (I don't know why he's called that!). He's planning on blowing up a train so that some guy that fell into a coma on the tracks should have been hit by the train but he was saved in the nick of time by a good Samaritan. I guess being hit by a train and being killed while in one is close enough for this psycho. It must be because Batgirl figured out his modus operandi.



So The Mirror doesn't care if he kills innocent people when he kills people on the list. Because people die in accidents all the time. It's the people who should have died and didn't that he's concerned with. And they must die in a similar way to how they should have died before.

Although I'm not sure why the Samaritan gets blown up on the next page! Was he supposed to die because he barely saved the diabetic guy? And what about all the people on the train that Batgirl saved just now that should have died in the explosion to kill the diabetic guy? Do they all need to die in a train explosion now? This is getting complicated!

Plus it's issue #3 and Batgirl has basically failed 2 out of her 3 attempts to save people. Is that sexist? Batman has three other titles and he hasn't failed to protect anybody! Except maybe Robin who has been kidnapped by Nobody. And The Joker who had his face cut-off. And himself because he's been trapped in an underground maze by the Court of Owls! I really should be keeping track of how many times the heroes fail in their own books! Because they usually have to fail at least once before they can beat the bad guy at the end of the story line. Like in Justice League International where they failed three or four times before chasing off Peraxxus. Unless his name was something different.

Later, Batgirl and Nightwing hang out. They don't really fight like the cover shows them fighting although Batgirl does get a bit emotional on him and throws a Batarang at the back of his head at one point.



The issue takes a turn for the mushy for awhile after the train explosion. Babs gets all mushy with her dad but can't tell him anything. And Babs gets all flirty with Nightwing but doesn't want to appear needy or weak to him. And then Nightwing tells Batgirl he and Batman are concerned for her safety not because they think she's weak but because they love her. And Nightwing goes on and on and on about how he loves red-heads. That's because he must have dated Starfire in this new Universe and he probably has a current crush on Batwoman as well.

And then the detective that didn't die at the hospital does a websearch for Batgirl on the website www.SearchInGiantBlockLetters.com.



Then Batgirl ditches Nightwing because she tells him she has to catch The Mirror alone. Which seems pretty lame to risk her life on catching this guy when Gotham has so many super heroes flinging around outside the high-rise windows. But she is back from being recently crippled so I guess she has some things to prove to herself. And who wants to always think that you can only do your job because stupid arrogant Dick Grayson is standing over your shoulder? And he understands the need to do something alone, having been Robin for so long under the fascist asshole Batman! So he lets her go and she takes off to confront The Mirror (and hopefully learn why that's his gimmick because he should be the Unmiraculator or the Final Destination Face or Death Boomerang!) in issue #4.

Batgirl #2

Dear Batgirl.

I know our first date ended poorly. If only we'd ended it one panel sooner, everything might have worked out. But no. You had to add one more panel to increase the drama, even if that last panel made no sense at all. Because the first thing I think to do when I see someone murdered (which is just about every other day, you know) is to look at the other people watching and yell, "You just watched that man kill someone, you Murderer!" Because, you see, if I don't yell it at someone else, someone else might yell it at me! And I don't want to be accused of murder!

But I'm a fair minded individual. I'm willing to give you a second chance. So let's meet up again in a few minutes and we'll discuss what happened. Hopefully you'll have some new things to show me that I like. Like your boobies.

Yours truly,
Jeff



Oh, I see! Even Gail Simone must have hated the way the first comic book ended. That cop sure made a big turn around! There's a lot of distance between 'you murderer' and 'Batgirl choked'.

By they way, the cop does choke. The Mirror disappears out the window with Batgirl following it.

If I was able to pretend two full issues of Captain Atom never happened, I think I can pretend that one stupid panel in Batgirl never happened either. I'm going to go get a big fat black sharpie and just black out that last panel. Whoever reads the comic next will thank me.

Except they won't, will they? That's human nature! They'll be so curious and upset that somebody blacked out that final panel, that they'll hunt down another issue of Batgirl #1 so they can see what they missed. And then they'll read that crap and realize that they had been given a gift. And they turned it down! So they'll black out the panel in the copy that they have and hope that the next person will be wise enough to forget about this horrible, unspeakable panel.

But they won't. They'll also seek it out! Because people are more curious than wise. It's their tragic flaw! Or one of them. This also sounds like an H.P. Lovecraft story! No, everyone would go insane after reading the last panel. Maybe it's just a Philip K. Dick short.



With all of these people swinging from ropes throughout Gotham, is there ever a collision? The Mirror. Batgirl. Batman. Robin. Nightwing. Batwoman. Batwing. Azrael? And I'm sure there are more. Hopefully someone will put that scene in a comic book some time. Or if they already have, someone link to it in the comments!


Does auto insurance in Gotham cover Bat-Related damages?

Let me just take a moment to state the obvious to people who know comic books. Barbara Gordon is Batgirl. Commissioner Gordon is Barbara Gordon's father. Batgirl was played by Yvonne Craig in the Batman television show and starred in an episode of Perry Mason called, "The Case of the Lazy Lover." Which, um, has nothing to do with the comic.

Back to Batgirl, she's followed The Mirror to an old cemetery. Not a cemetary like in Smallville, but a real live honest-to-goodness cemetery called The Hollows.

They duke it out for a bit in the cemetery but Batgirl just doesn't have the strength to take him out. And then he pulls out his super secret super power!


I love the way he responds to Batgirl not freaking out.

And it doesn't do anything to Batgirl. It's made everyone else freak out a bit though. So maybe Batgirl doesn't have a true face.

But it doesn't matter since The Mirror is strong enough to just beat the crap out of Batgirl. But then the sirens start wailing and The Mirror disappears.

So who is this new guy? He's got something against people surviving incidents that should have left them dead. And he, supposedly, can show people their true face. Which has really only been used to disorient the victim so that he can brutally murder them. So, seeing how Batgirl reacted, his power might only be in his head and everyone just freaks out when he opens his cape because he has all of those stupid mirrors attached to the inside.

But why was he in The Hollows, a cemetery in downtown Gotham where all of the influential rich people are buried? Is he a high ranking somebody?

And then while Batgirl is out and about doing research and going on dates and trying to figure out why The Mirror was in the cemetery, we get a little clue as to what might be going on over in Simone's other book, The Fury of Firestorm.



Oh, really? Professor Stein is alive? Or is this just a little tease because fans of Firestorm want this to be true? I suspect he is still alive, in some strange and weird Firestormy way.

But back to Batgirl! She has a conversation with The Mirror who she figured out was, possibly, some war hero whose family burned in a car accident while he was pulled to safety. He feels he was cheated his chance at death and now suffers the guilt of surviving. The Mirror has a list of people who should have died if it were not for some random happenstance that caused them to be saved.

So he tells Batgirl about this one guy who should have died. And how he put a bomb on the train this guy is on in order to relieve him of life. But what about the other people, The Mirror? You know what's going to happen, right? Batgirl is going to stop the bomb and then you'll have to add all of the people on the train to the list because they should have died by your hands! You're a self-fulfilling jerk!



Why does he say it like that? I'm beginning to suspect that this guy isn't the guy Batgirl thinks he is! Maybe this war hero was his first victim though. And since I mentioned Silence of the Lambs earlier, wouldn't that mean that The Mirror has at least some relation to this guy and his family? Like maybe a parent or parent-in-law?

Batgirl #1

She's just excited to be out of that wheelchair!

The comic book starts off a little strangely...


It looks like everyone is a little bit excited!

This pervert has this list, you see.



And I guess he needs to go around and jerk off on each one of them! So it's up to Batgirl to stop him! Or to help him with his problem. She'll probably just end up sticking him in Arkham Asylum where he can fling his liquids on unsuspecting federal agents visiting serial killers to find out clues about their next cases.

Okay, so maybe that wasn't what really happened. Maybe.

Most of the story revolves around Barbara Gordon moving out of her father's house and into a new apartment with an unnamed woman. She has nightmares and flashbacks of being shot in the stomach by the Joker and crippled.


Since it's a new timeline, couldn't The Joker at least be dressed differently?

So I guess The Killing Joke remains canon in the DCnU. But instead of crippling Barbara Gordon for life, he only manages to cripple her for about three years. And now she's back up on her feet to go toe to toe with The Masturbater! I mean, The Mirror!

The Mirror seems to be going around killing people who survived tragic accidents. That's why Barbara Gordon is on his list.

At the end, The Mirror goes after some criminal that Batgirl just put in the hospital. She also saved his life when he knocked them both out of an upper floor window. Batgirl arrives and freezes up because he has a gun and points it at her stomach. While frozen, The Mirror pushes the criminal out of the window. And then one of those really super stupid retarded suck-ass moments that always happens in comic books happens.



Why why why why why why is this some kind of standard cliche for comic books?

Cop: "Hey! Look! A murderer in a costume is here! He just killed a guy and he has a gun! What should I do? I know! I'll pull my gun and point it at the bystander who doesn't have a weapon and call her a murderer!"

WHAT THE FUCK, GAIL SIMONE?! I've heard nothing but good stuff about your writing and you write this? This is bullshit! It's stupidity! Nobody would act this way! EVER! Point your gun at the psycho pointing his gun at you!

I'm going to hold off placing Batgirl in the rankings so the comic gets a fair shot. Because that was a J.T. Krul nonsense move right there!

Lame. LAME!

Batman and Robin #5

If Robin and Nobody kill Batman, I won't ever find out how The Court of Owls storyline ends!

Batman finds this note out by the family grave where we last saw Damian approached by Nobody.



I would expect Bruce Wayne's bluetooth earpiece to be much smaller than a normal one. Unless Waynetech makes mostly normal technology as a cover for all of the Batman super high end gadgets. And since Robin left the note where we last saw him, does that mean Robin keeps a pocket printer on hand for these occasions? Or else he was trained in Grandmaster Font Writing and Ignoring Paper Folds. Or else the note was pre-typed up by Nobody and left there to make Bruce think Damian went with him of his own volition but was actually paralyzed and dragged away. Drug away? English is hard. I think it's probably 'drugged away' because he was both filled with toxins and removed by force!

While snooping in his room, Alfred finds a big book of Damian's drawings. The drawings are of different Bat-Villians being killed in various ways. Unless this wasn't done by Robin either! Maybe Alfred planted it!



If this were a Hollywood movie (and it might be! If nobody is lucky!), Batman will save Robin. But Robin won't want to be saved. And during the climactic battle, Nobody will do something to show he never gave a shit about helping Robin and has only done this to Robin to get back at Batman. This point in the climactic battle will have Nobody about to strike the death blow on Batman while Batman mutters what he thinks will be his final words: I love you, son. And Robin will become enraged and strike down Nobody! But Robin won't kill Nobody! He'll win the fight and turn and walk away and the audience will know that Batman has won Robin back! But it'll still be a long road ahead and everyone should expect plenty of sequels!

But since this is a comic book, let's hope it doesn't get all mushy with crap like that!



When I posted the excerpt from my Places & Predators Sidekick Manual, I was really looking for the text where I discuss how Robin is just a decoy for Batman. I still can't find where I discussed it so I'll just start again.

Did you ever wonder why Robin's costume is bright and flashy? Batman is dark and hides in the shadows and can't be seen very well. So the bad guys can't even find him to hurt him. But then this kid in a bright yellow cape with a bright red shirt and glowing pale legs sticking out of bright green underwear comes sailing down from the rooftops and now you've got something to shoot at! But while you're distracted and almost killing Robin, Batman has time to safely take you down without risk of bullet induced injuries! What a big bat jerk!

So Nobody takes Robin on a mission to murder the famed Bat-villain, the Oscar Wilde Headed Man!


He does dastardly crimes while saying paradoxical things in poetically profound ways! Like "A bad bank robbery will see Batman crash the party." And then he sips from his drink and says, "But a truly great bank robbery must have Batman as an invited guest!" And then everyone chuckles and laughs and drinks some more.

Batman is off hunting for Robin before Robin can finish this action:


I suspect Nobody chose this guy because of the size of the test head.

Batman and Robin #4

That's a lot of bats!

Batman and Robin are enjoying their night out at the drive-in. They're drugged and snuggled up in the front seat. Instead of seeing the movie I was hoping they were going to see (about Robin's origin!), they're forced to sit through an Arkham Asylum Educational Film.


Maybe if it was a dark hole that they didn't escape from every other issue!

1922 Educational Films -- "WELCOME TO ARKHAM!"







Dr. Arkham: "Because here at Arkham Asylum we don't believe in 'guards' or 'cells' or 'incarceration' or 'reform'. These are words that make our guests feel like inmates!"
Dr. Arkham: "Our trained staff works here out of the goodness of their hearts! You see, if we paid them, they would feel like they're just doing their job. But those who want to be here to help the helpless and insane need no cash rewards! True, occasionally, perhaps every few issues, a volunteer custodian falls to temptation and accepts a bribe to allow the incarcerates a little extra-curricular recreation outside their units."
Dr. Arkham: "But they learn never to do it again! Mostly because they and everyone else inside Arkham has been killed by our guests at that point. But don't judge them too harshly! They're just the lunatic fringe, not very different from you or me! Just a little outside convention, a little off-kilter from the norm."
Dr. Arkham: "Here at Arkham, we do our very best to provide Gotham with identity! When's the last time you noticed a madman in Metropolis? Nope, just evil geniuses and giant gorillas there! So when you come to Gotham, be sure to stop in at Arkham Asylum. I say Bye! The Riddler says Bye? And Killer Croc says, "ARRRRHGGGHGLGLGLGLGLEEGGLGLGLGLE!"



END EDUCATIONAL FILM.


Actually, Batman, it's 'another think coming.'

Batman and Robin escape because Batman has a secret locator in his boot and Alfred flies a remote control Batplane shooting rubber bullets out to free them. So they get out. Robin acts like a spoiled assassin. Alfred tries to teach Batman how to be a father. Nobody tries to recruit Robin. And the dog's name becomes Titus because 10 year old Robin not only knows grandmaster chess and can kill 10,000 different ways and use hundreds of different weapons and dodge bullets, he also knows the complete works of Shakespeare.

Just six more issues until Robin kills a major DC character*!

*This might not actually happen.

Batman and Robin #3

It seems to me the worst reason to have Robin running around with you would be the danger to your secret identity. If you're a high profile rich man with a young boy or ward and Batman is a high profile urban legend who runs around with a young boy at his side, I'm guessing people would make connections. Even if there are a million people living in Gotham. People are going to speculate who Batman might possibly be over tea and biscuits. People are going to realize Batman needs money and technology with his crazy Batplanes and Batcycles and Batboats and Robat Boomerangs. Besides, if you take Detective Comics as part of the mix, everyone already suspects some connection between Bruce Wayne and Batman. It doesn't take much more than a stray thought to connect Damian with Robin as well.

But it is a comic book and secret identities are just part of the suspension of disbelief the readers are asked to maintain. And I don't mind maintaining that aspect of things. Everyone makes comments about Superman and Clark Kent and the whole pair of glasses as secret identity thing. Although some people do it better than others.

So in Batman #3, Robin is hating the Great Dane that Batman purchased for him. Bruce seems to think it's a nice reward for Robin showing restraint while catching criminals. Robin seems to see it as a distraction and an annoyance. I'm with Robin on his one! Stupid big slobbering mutt! I think it would have been funny if Batman got him a purse dog.

Bruce also asks Robin to name the dog before Bruce leaves on patrol, leaving Robin alone to rebel and go out on his own. So now Batman and Robin have a dog just like Aquaman and Mera! I smell a play date coming on! A big stinky play date that smells like fish and big wet dogs.


Every time I go out, I mentally prepare for this.

Robin stops a mugging in that way that every other Robin has never done. I think something might be weighing heavily on Damian's mind. Man, mother issues. Some people deal with them by going out and beating criminal strangers into pulp and other people just write a concept album and animated movie.


Nobody knows everything!

This Nobody guy watches Damian very nearly kill the mugger. He does beat him brain dead. But I guess that's technically not killing him. And he did use the other mugger as a human shield when the first mugger shot at him. But, again, technically that's not murder. Robin didn't pull the trigger! Besides, he's only 10 years old! There's a reason 10 year olds should not be held responsible for criminal acts. They don't actually understand the complexities of ethics and empathy, justice and morality. He's a flippin' ten year old! He knows he wants what he wants and doesn't have the mental ability to really understand the consequences of his actions.

Plus, he's just a ten year old who has been trained to be an assassin. He sort of tries to be good for Batman but it goes against everything he's learned. And at ten, you don't have enough life experience to really judge the things you learn against other ways of thinking or being. He's as helpless to his need to hurt people as a young Christian child is in his belief of God or a vegan's child's belief that meat is murder. These are beliefs they've been given and not beliefs they've come to on their own. And now Batman has to at least show Damian another way he can go.

It might not take. And many people would argue that Batman's way isn't the best way anyhow. A lot of people could easily point out that a dead Joker would be much better than one that keeps escaping from Arkham Asylum to kill again and again. I'm not saying I do! I believe in the Gollum Factor! For you kids today, we can think of it as the Spike Factor, ala Buffy.

Why don't they just kill Gollum/Spike when they have the chance? He's bad and evil, right? But, of course, in the end, the world is saved by Gollum/Spike's self-sacrifice. Not that Gollum meant to be all self-sacrificing! But that's the problem with trying to merge two analogies at once! I've always thought Gandalf said it quite well. But I'm not good with quotes so I'll have to paraphrase. He told Frodo that we don't have the power to give life back to someone who we think didn't deserve to die, so what makes us think we should have the power to take the life of someone we think deserves to die?

Although maybe the Joker should just be killed since the Batman comic is going to go on forever and the Joker is never really going to have his moment to show there was a good reason to not kill him. He'll just keep killing and killing and killing! And the Gollum Factor probably only works in fiction as an interesting plot device. I'm not sure Jeffrey Dahmer could have ever been counted on to save the world, even by accident!

Batman arrives to save the day before Morgan Nobody can corrupt Robin but Batman fails. Batman and Robin end up in some lone drive-in in the middle of Nowhere in a dilapidated convertible. When they come around, Nobody begins a film that will hopefully explain it all!

Batman and Robin #2

This is the first page of Batman and Robin #2. So Talia is Robin's mom. I don't know who that is. It feels like I should know who that is. If it's a new Catwoman, I know nothing of her.

I think it's just my obsession with Catwoman that makes he think Batman could only have a child with her! One thing you could tell from the previous issue is that Robin was raised by someone with a different set of moral and ethical beliefs than a mainstream 'good' person.

And, once again, I find the conversations between Alfred and Batman to be some of the finest dialogue. I imagine even Alfred's idea of what it means to be a father is quite a bit skewed seeing as the child he's basically raised is a costumed vigilante.

Batman: "I need to fix this kid!"
Alfred: "It's your job to take him out on the street every night fighting criminally insane psychopaths and putting him at risk of injury or death, not to fix him, Master Batman."


Robin's early years.

Why did Robin need to be grown in a glass bubble? Did Talia pull some Snake Ninja trick with her vagina where she caught up Wayne's sperm so she didn't have to gain any pregnancy weight?

And I hope this bit is explored a lot further as well when Batman says, "I built this...life to wage a war, Alfred, not to have kids exposed to all this insanity on a regular basis. But somehow I keep failing in that regard. In a strange way, I'm no better than Talia."

So why have a Robin in the first place?



Oh, sure. Maybe Batman needs a Robin. That kind of makes sense. It keeps Batman grounded in reality. Keeps him at arm's length from his death wish because while protecting a sidekick, he's also protecting himself. But Robin only needs Batman because Batman created Robin and now Robin needs someone to protect him! Here's one of the Sidekick Types I wrote about in my Roller Playing Game, Places & Predators (Copyright ME, Forever):

"The Opposite: This Sidekick provides balance to whatever attitude The Hero has decided to use. If The Hero has decided to go for the vengeful, full of angst and depression savior of the downtrodden, The Opposite Sidekick will end up being a really happy go lucky, perky and cute teenage girl who is into pink ponies and unicorns (or a young boy in green bikini briefs and a yellow half-cape, if you prefer something more feminine). This Sidekick helps out in every situation by keeping The Hero from making any mistakes because he is concentrating so hard on Roller Playing his attitude correctly. The Opposite Sidekick can always just Roller Play the exact opposite way The Hero is and then they’ll be able to solve almost any problem because they can see the whole balanced picture (except maybe the middle)."

Of course, that's the way the old Robin has always been. This Robin throws a new twist into the mix. This Robin is a crazy, amoral killing machine! And he doesn't seem to care as much as Tim or Dick cared about making Batman proud. This Robin is all about the action and excitement. Batman doesn't have to worry about physically protecting this Robin. Batman has to worry about ethically protecting him.


Aww, father/son bonding!

So Batman and Robin bust some guys and leave them hanging. And then nobody shows up to make sure this comic tops the list of the gore thrillers.



Maybe all the blood is just to balance out the fact that you're reading a comic book with FRICKIN' ROBIN IN IT! Or it's just to say, "Hey, look old time DC reader, this isn't the Robin you knew and never loved!"

I should probably slow down while reading this comic! I've already missed two places where I thought about commenting, didn't, and then read further and wished that I did! The first one was this picture that would have gone with the Father/Son Bonding pic:



I would have said something snarky about fatherly praise. But now I don't have to because Alfred did it for me:



Then, Robin was training and destroying the training robots with his swords.


How much money is Bruce Wayne blowing on Robin's rage?

That's something like what I would have said. But I can't know for sure since I didn't actually say it when I wanted to say it. But the thought about how much money it was costing even Bruce Wayne crossed my mind when they show Robin just destroying robots like this.

So the Batcave says: Approximately 1.1 million dollars in damage/replacement costs this week.

And Batman: I'm a billionaire, Damian, not a trillionaire.

I really like these moments because it shows Peter Tomasi is paying attention to what he's writing. He's not just throwing away panels so he can get to the panel where he gets to draw the half naked woman in the bunny ears. He is crafting the story. I just want Peter Tomasi to know this is very much appreciated by this reader.

And then Alfred witnesses Robin acting like a serial killer.







See?! This is a good way to handle Robin! This Robin needs a Batman whether or not Batman existed. This Robin was not created by Batman. But this Robin needs to be shaped by Batman.

The comic ends with Morgan turning up to confront Batman about his Batman Inc project (I guess?). I'm not familiar with Morgan but Bruce thought he was dead. Morgan admits to being Nobody. Morgan also killed Ravil. This all sounds like Batman Begins Bruce Wayne in Tibet learning from a killer cult type stuff that is all vaguely familiar but I don't quite remember.

But it's the New 52! So I don't need to remember! They have to end up explaining it all at some point because they have to assume we're all new readers! Maybe!

I hope!