Batman #15

[superfangirl1]

Comments

[espanolbot]

Hm, wouldn't have thought of it that way. But if he took Babs Snr to get to Jim, why did the Joker give Babs are severed finger/wedding ring?

Doesn't really make sense to go through the effort only to side-step the motivation.

...But James Jr. did mess up the layout of the plan by adding parts to it without the Joker's knowledge...

Hm, I'm stumped.

[kenn_el]

I thought Babs and Bruce were talking about TKJ? I think you're right about her brother being the one that got Barb Sr. involved, though that raises the question of why Joker would even team with James Jr., unless one or both of them knows Barbara is Batgirl. And even if they did, Barbara has not been shown to be close with her mother. If 'getting at' Batgirl by way of attacking those closest to her, then mission accomplished last issue of this book, except for the fact that Babs doesn't seem to be aware of her father's condition in either book.

[espanolbot]

As Val Klimer once said: It just raises too many questions...

[darkknightjrk]

I'm certain they were talking about The Killing Joke. That was the plot of it, after all, to kidnap Jim Gordon to try to drive him insane.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm part of me thinks Bruce has a point. That there isnow way the Joker could have made it....

but he's the Joker....

also kinda like how Snyder kinda get's all the personalities... and Damian is not calling women wenches.... that's a plus.

[icon_uk]

Oh look, this story's tention hinges on Bruce keeping secrets, how novel. Never mind refusing to consider that THE PEOPLE HE TRAINED, might have less of a blind spot about what is going on than he has. This is... amateur night stuff, this would break up the Scooby Gang for the 22 minutes it would take them to sort it all out.

And I may have mentioned this before, but didn't we find out that the Joker basically groomed Jason Todd to become Robin, and MUST have known what happened to him in terms of being adopted by Bruce Wayne, so him knowing these secrets.

Oh, and let's not forget the other villains who have got into the Batcave undetected, like Ra's Al Ghul (in his debut), or David Cain (as revealed in Bruce Wayne: Murderer etc, or Dr Hurt and his International Gang of Villains and so on....

[kenn_el]

How many of those actually happened, though? Even though it's gradually increasing, this is still the condensed timeline that we're talking about, so therefore the Court infiltrating the way it did was probably the first time this Batman has had it happen, and he doesn't believe that the Joker could have done so as well. He may be proved wrong. The pre-Flashpoint Batman hardly ever was.

[icon_uk]

The general DC line appears to be, in the case of the Bat-family, unless we are told otherwise, it still happened. Ra's presumably as debuted by now in the DCnU, and his first appearance sort of hinged on it being an impressive feat that he not only deduced who Batman was, but found his way into the Cave. Batman RIP must still have happened, so Dr Hurt and Co would have been in a while back.

[wake_the_dragon]

Really at this point it's just become a cycle for the Batfamily: Bruce keeps secret, him keeping a secret alinates the others, then they eventually come back together. Rinse. Repeat.

I don't know if I'd feel diffrently if I'd read the issue, but from the scan, I kind of got the impression that Bruce was in denial.

Also, I'm a bit unnerved by how young Bruce looks. It didn't bother me before for some reason, but just seeing him around the rest of the Batfamily...he really doesn't look that much older than any of them, except Damien.

[philippos42]

It's disturbing, is what it is.

[icon_uk]

Agreed, I assumed that that was Dick in the second panel.

[intertobamf]

Well... new continuity? Murderer/Fugitive, Towel of Babel, Infinite Crisis, etc. apparently never happened, so this would be the first time Batman got called out for keeping secrets.

[jlroberson]

And it really is no good for DC to ask people not to think too much or too hard about stories concerning what's supposedly a detective.

[sistermagpie]

I love how Bruce looks so bored lecturing everyone over and over about how they're wrong and they just don't get it.

When did this happen?

[blue_bolt]

I don't recall an Joker story involving a blimp.

Which comic was this?

Re: When did this happen?

[espanolbot]

Presumably cut from the issue itself for page lengthiness.

Re: When did this happen?

[espanolbot]

There were was one in Lovers and Madmen.

Re: When did this happen?

[jlroberson]

You don't remember the mid-90s summer event from DC, CRISIS ON INFINITE BLIMPS? in each comic across the line that month, a villain's plot revolved in some way around a blimp.

The Inferior Five assumed this would at last be their moment, but no one really enjoyed this event occasioning their grim and gritty reboot, which started with a scene of Dumb Bunny blowing fifteen men in Bangkok while shooting up.

[philippos42]

Bruce looks too young here. Yes, I know about Flashpoint. He looks too young now.

[jlroberson]

He and Dick, in fact, look the very same age. Like brothers.

[silverhammerman]

I think the idea that the giant card in the Batcave is a replica of a regular card that Bruce found might actually be goofier than it just being a souvenir from some previous adventure. It's certainly more obsessive at least.
Anyway, this is kind of a weird scene. Bruce seems to be pretty heavily in denial, but somehow I'm hoping that the Joker didn't actually make it into the cave. It'd just be too much for me personally, to really buy. I don't love the idea that the Joker can just do anything for the sake of it being dramatic, it ruins my suspension of disbelief, like at the start of this arc when the Joker just waltzed into the police station and killed a bunch of dudes, with no explanation as to how he managed to do that and not, y'know, get super-murdered, other than that he's the Joker and it was dramatic.
I feel like the Joker is being set up as a bit to competent for my tastes, a bit too much of an ultimate villain.
I am intrigued by this story though, so Snyder is clearly doing his job, but I'm definitely looking forward to this storyline wrapping up.

[espanolbot]

Well he IS Batman's main villian, and just as Batman is the world's greatest detective it should only make sense that he have the World's Greatest Criminal Mastermind as his foe.

He's Moriarty to his Holmes (despite Sherlock and James only actually meeting three times, tops), while say, Ra's al Ghul, is more his Fu Manchu to his Nayland Smith.

Completely different dynamic.

[stillanerd]

Okay, far be for me to fault Scott Sydner's capabilities as a writer, because he is unquestionably a very good one. That being said, he's definitely repeating himself here in the sense that we have yet ANOTHER Batman story in which Bruce, due to being overconfident in his abilities and beliefs, ends up being blind to what appears to be the most simple explanation. Just like in the Court of Owls where Bruce's knowledge of Gotham and a defining moment from his past convinced him beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Court of Owls did not exist despite the fact that they obviously did, this issue has Bruce's knowledge of the Joker and ANOTHER defining moment from his past also convince him beyond a shadow of the doubt that the Joker is lying when he knows who Batman really is and everything about the Bat-Family despite the fact that he obviously does. It's not so much one can't have different stories with similar themes and beats--it's when you have them one right on top of the other that's the problem.

And seriously, Bruce--just like you assumed the Court of Owls didn't exist because you couldn't find them yet never entertained the possibility that maybe they didn't wish to be found, just because you might be correct about Joker couldn't have accessed the Batcave the way you described doesn't mean he couldn't have found some other way in.

[jlroberson]

Isn't it interesting too that both rely on past events from a history--a part of it anyway, a version of it--that isn't even established.

[twospirit.blogspot.com]

Hang on - Bruce had a giant replica made of the playing card. That means it's either made out of crayons and butcher paper by Alfred, or he contracted out to have it made. What's to stop the Joker from having the giant card manufacturing traced? What if it had a tracker implanted in the manufacturing process? Even if it didn't, if the Joker saw a giant playing card manufactured, I would bet money he would find out who it belonged to.

The Joker has shown himself to be a shrewd detective in his own way. It's silly to think he couldn't have found a way to trace this, especially if the card was meant as a misdirection instead.

[theflames]

That's pretty true - and y'know, if they wanted to, that could be a fair route to move the story down. But that'd also make Bruce look a little stupid.

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

The Joker doesn't necessarily know about the giant card, since it was made after he might have been in the batcave.

All Bruce Wayne had to do was have a giant baseball made one week, a giant flyswatter the next, the giant card the week after that, a giant toothbrush the week after that, and a giant penny the week that. That way the card wouldn't stand out.

[silverhammerman]

I think making too many novelty items of that sort gets you on a government watch list in the DCU. As a rich, semi-unbalanced orphan, Bruce Wayne sounds like a good candidate to snap one day and start committing crimes based around novelty props.

[sadoeuphemist]

What? Surely Joker could just as easily find out who Batman is by tracking the manufacture of batarangs/batmobiles/batsuits.

(The point being that Batman makes it very hard to trace his purchases thru dummy companies and whatever)

[jlroberson]

Another job for the Gotham Oversize Advertising Company, who have caused so much havoc in Gotham before, usually in seemingly-unwitting aid of a major villain:

[sadoeuphemist]

This is a super-dumb secret that Bruce has been trying to keep, incidentally. Didn't they put out that Jason Todd story where it's revealed that Joker planned the whole thing to get Batman a new Robin and therefore has known who the Bat-family are for ages? I mean in RIP Batman unmasked directly in front of the Joker!

But nooo, Batman's all like, "Well, he couldn't have figured out my identity all those years ago when he stuck a playing card on my boat, so there's no way he could know my identity now, because there's surely no way at all he could have found it out in the interim despite all the times we've clashed!!!"

[rijsg]

WHY IS THIS STORY SO PERFECT!?

This really is the Joker story I've always wanted. And Snyder is one of the few writers who really gets the entire Batfamily.

Can it be next month now?

[lucky_gamble]

Circles...everyone is going in circles.

[chieflewal]

Tim gets to say ONE thing in this whole scenario, and Bruce tells him to stop talking. Come on, man...

[jaybee3]

I really am curious how Snyder would have used Cassandra in this story if they had let him use her. Back in the Murderer/Fugitive arc Cassandra was incredulous that Bruce might have killed Vesper Fairchild (unlike Babs who believed it possible) and she doesn't have the history with the Joker that all the sidekicks (even Damien vis-a-vis Morrison) have. Since Cass always seemed to understand his mission better than the others, It would be interesting to see someone on Bruce's side here.

Not that this makes it any better. Why is it so impossible for Bruce to believe that the Joker does indeed know Bruce=Bats even without the Batman Inc. connection? Readers figured that out even without Morrison implicitly telling us he knew in the Dr.Hurt arc.

[espanolbot]

I think that Bruce is kind of in denial about this, because the alternative is that the Joker knew all this time who he was, and could have snuck into Wayne Manor or where ever and murdered them in their sleep at any point he wanted.

Which is exactly the kind of omnipresent threat the Joker is trying to present himself as within the story (claiming to know which bar Detective Bullock was in when he went on the GCPD HQ killing spree, for example).

...I think that Cass and the Joker did meet at least once, (twice if you count dream sequences) where she released him from Arkham (this was early in her career and she didn't know what she was getting herself into at the time) so she could defeat him and thus prove she was a valid replacement for Barbara.

It didn't go that well because her bodyreading ability didn't really work on him that well (same thing when the Joker met Midnighter in the Wildstorm/DC Dreamwar crossover), so in the end she pretended to loose interest and walk off before one punching him when he started focusing on her to get her attention.

[skemono]

...I think that Cass and the Joker did meet at least once, (twice if you count dream sequences) where she released him from Arkham

She also met him in Azrael's book at least once. Though Azrael seemed to think it wasn't him.

[benicio127]

I thought Snyder wrote Cass quite well, so I completely agree and wish that he had that chance in this arc.

[minyandu]

Is it just me? Some of the facial expression or body language don't seem match the story tension....