Batman and Robin #18

[superboyprime]

The origin of Absence, the absence/emptiness-themed villain who is the newest addition to the ranks of Gotham's theme criminals.

Una Nemo, a woman who used to date Bruce Wayne, was shot through the head in a robber gone wrong but survived through a freak genetic condition.

Comments

[thanekos]

Her entire rant is ruined by "mansplain."

Ah well; either way, she's gonna cut Dick.

[batman]

Well, that's certainly extreme circumcision.

[neev]

That last panel...

Y SO MOE, ALFRED?

Seriously, his eyes are huuuuuuuge and I'm a little scared.

[ian_karkull]

It does kinda scream You Gonna Get Raped (with this telephone reciever), doesn't it?

[fifthie]

So her origin is "WOMEN, amirite?"

[icon_uk]

Given how Bruce Wayne treats the circle of socialites he dallies with, I'd say not really, any more than say, Two-Face is "Lawyers amirite".

[kirke_novak]

Bet he missed her like a hole in the head!
Mwahahahahahaha.... ha... hahaha ha? >_>



I'll get my coat.

[kenn_el]

Well, I thought it was funny. Kudos to you.

[icon_uk]

I loved Dicks comment to Damian "When I'm in this particular position, could you please NOT be Mr Diplomatic!"

[darkknightjrk]

"Damian, most of us DON'T have mommies that harvest body parts if they're cut off!"

[jlbarnett]

she's missing most of her brain, how loigical is she supposed to be?

[darkknightjrk]

That, plus she's a Batman villain, which inherently means that she's a bit koo-koo insane.

[tropicsbear]

What freak genetic condition lets you live with a giant hole in your head? o_O

[icon_uk]

A condition which causes the brain to not form at the centre of the skull, but to operate as a layer of tissue around the outside of the skull.

Add in the pollutant chemicals in a river you're body has been dumped in and you're halfway to a standard Bat-villain.

[ian_karkull]

Well now, that's just dumb.

Also, mansplaining? Really..?

[liara_shadowsong]

I know! Use "mansplain" in your villainous rant, and your credibility will go to hell in an instant.

[liara_shadowsong]

"Mansplain"? WTF?! ...And just because some person is smarter than (or claims to be smarter than) some other person, doesn't mean they can't still come to an incorrect conclusion, especially if they are only working with half the information (half the info + smart + sane = "okay, I have a couple of viable theories, and one of them, if right, would be pretty damn bad" whereas half the info + smart + completely Arkam-villain-worthy-variety-of-bugfuck-crazy = "OMG it is this and nobody can tell me otherwise and I am right and perfect lick my boots you bastard bwahahahahaha"). Why exactly is a crazy straw "feminist" with only half a brain (I know people can survive and even thrive if they have to have a lobe removed due to cancer or something, but she's probably missing most of her hypothalamus, among other things, and her head is completely open in a way that would probably be fatal for other reasons unless she's like that liquid metal robot from the Terminator movie) and a massive, easily infected because it's freaking open to the outside world, hole in her head a new Batman villain? Feminism doesn't>/i> work like that. To the best of my knowledge, brains also don't work like that, not even with freak genetic conditions. *dramatic sigh*

[karthzon.livejournal.com]

I will not argue about the feminism part because you're absolutely correct, but about the hole-in-the-head part: falling into a vat of acid doesn't work like that either. Neither does being a steroid junkie. Batman villains always required a certain amount of willing suspension of disbelief in favour of the macabre and in that sense, Absence works perfectly. She just has a horribly insulting backstory.

[gtrout]

I just can't get past her name: Una Nemo. It pretty much screams "HEY LOOK CLEVER WORDPLAY." (see also: Nigma, Edward.)

Is it an anagram of something? I don't think so, unless the point is "A Menu No" or "A Emo Nun." So... what? Anyone?

[mistersandman]

Nemo = Nobody

A (female) nobody. Her name foretells her lasting appeal and I guess the emptiness she is supposed to represent?

[ravenous_raven]

Question: who is she looking at that's lying in the casket? It's not an out-of-body experience, it's clearly meant to be her funeral, so who is the random dead woman standing in for her?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Given the high crime rate in Gotham, I'm sure any number of dummies can be used for the sake of a funeral following a mysterious/tragic/Joker disappearance.

[curlyjo1]

The Dominators called. They want their look back.

[icon_uk]

They have caste-spots, SHE has a hole.

[darkknightjrk]

Yeah, not the BEST origin for a Batman villain ever, but I don't really hate her. If anything, I don't think McDaniel should have drawn her. She's clearly meant to be a more horror villain, but under McDaniel's style, she looks more cartoony than scary.

Though to be fair, he did amp up the horror value in his own unique way on the final page, with her holding a comically large pair of scissors, a bag named "girlfriend body parts" and coming straight for Vikki Vale's eyes.

[thandrak]

Just to make sure it's not buried. This is... sort of... a real condition.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hydrocephalus#Exceptional_case

Dandy-Walker syndrome. But the man with it had an IQ of 75... but a reasonably active life despite that. Still, a hole that big would prrrrobably do something bad to even that sort of brain. Not to mention, of course, the septic issues of having a hole that big.

[icon_uk]

Hence the mention of the chemicals in the river having some impact on her state too.

[red_menace]

She had me up until "mansplain."

[bluefall]

You know for a while, I tried to keep a running tally of which franchise was more hostile to women, Green Lantern or the Batverse. Around the time of the Star Sapphires Green Lantern pulled decisively ahead and I stopped reading.

Batverse is working really hard to catch back up, aren't they?

[superfangirl1]

They must of feel they been slacking off lately.

[calvision]

In my head (admittedly not the best place to be), I always liked exploring possibilities with minor characters encountered by either Batman or Bruce Wayne, and the many socialite women he callously dated was always something that I thought about again and again. I mean, they always depict scores and scores of fawning, giggly women hanging around Bruce Wayne, but I was always sure those types were not the only ones he'd attracted, even if they never got some spotlight. So her origin is in theory really interesting, exploring a really minor character.

I think they completely ruin it by going with 'freak value straw feminist'. It's like, hey, we should make her one of those annoying feminist types! AND THEN WE'LL PUT A HOLE INTO HER HEAD, so it's even harder to take her seriously.

[protogarrett]

Wouldn't it be a scream if this was to be the villain in the next Batman film?

[icon_uk]

For those interested in such things, Scott McDaniel has put up some samples of the various stages of his drawing process on this issue on his website.

http://www.scottmcdaniel.net/previews/BnR18/BnR18.html

[sleepymax]

Awesome stuff! I love McDaniel's style so I'll have to check this out more in-depth when I have time. Thanks for the link.

[jlbarnett]

I figured out how she survived.

She's not really human. Maybe she's an alien shapeshifter. Maybe she's a Tomorrow Woman type android. Whatever she is she was supposed to get close to Bruce Wayne to take control of all the resources he's got at his fingertips. Then she got a hole blown in her head. If she was a shapeshifter she wasn't able to shift all of her brain out of the way in time. If she's an android then her programming was shot all to hell.

[thokstar]

I can't decide if I want to go for an "Absence doesn't make the heart grow fonder" joke or a "Your idea of a donut-shaped villain intrigues me; I may have to steal it" joke.

[tacobob]

Geez. At least put something in that hole! Maybe a clock..Or a small pizza...mmmm.

[big_daddy_d]

Grotesque hole in the head. Mansplaining. Woman whose issues originate at the fact that she only dated a playboy.. i mean seriously..were they even in love? That'd have made more sense but if all they did was just date and it was nothing even remotely serious..the fuck is the point of shifting the problem to him? What about family, friends?

This is not a villain I can get behind. There are villainess' who are done well and this isn't one of them. Whose writing this shit?

[jaybee3]

This story would have made a ton more sense and had much more power if the villain had been a somehow revived not dead hole-in-the-head Vesper Fairchild - aka a woman Bruce actually cared about (as opposed to one just invented) whose death (and its repercussions) had a big impact on both him and the whole Bat-Crew including Dick and Alfred.

[perletwo]

I thought trepanning wasn't supposed to work that way; isn't it supposed to induce calm, mellow openness to the wholeness of the universe or some such hooey?