Detective Comics #38

[history79]

Comments

[captainbellman]

And of course, so that no cages'll be rattled, the kid is white.

DC comics: still "relevant".

[mrstatham]

Yes, 'Batman did it'. Batman shot that kid.

Are DC's citizens taking the same 'stupid dumbfuckery' pills as Marvel's citizens, these days?

Also, Anarky, your cute little V for Vendetta movie rip-off idea is stupidly flawed because you're telling people to be free from their societal shackles... And instead they'll all flock to your example and wear YOUR mask. Either you're entirely dumb, or that is the most obvious supervillain ploy ever.

[nyadnar17]

One of my favorite Marvel short stories comes from Original Sin. Some random Marvel Civilian dude got Dr.Doom's secrets and honestly thought he could get away with blackmailing Doom. Its suck a classic Marvel Civilian move I couldn't help but laugh.

[icon_uk]

Though I liked the backup story in a JLA Secret Files where a whistleblower for the DEO (The black ops group investigating metahumans run by Mr Bones) reveals that he's discovered all the dirty secrets the DEO have devised to take down the JLA (amongst others) should the get out of like, to the one person he is absolutely sure he can trust... the millionaire philanthropist... Lex Luthor.

You can probably imagine how it ends, but the idea that he implicitly trusts Luthor because Luthor's PR is just THAT good amused me.

[shadowpsykie]

hmmm not necissarily wearing his mask. he told them to decorate it their own way. i find that fascinating. but the jist of your thing is pretty true. even if they paint it with flowers rainbows unicorns and 9th circle demons, they will still be following his example

[mrstatham]

Exactly. That's totally my point. It's the exact same thing as the V For Vendetta movie. It isn't 'freedom', it's just being told what to do by someone else because you never really had the idea in the first place or ever would have had it. That isn't freedom, it's just listening to someone else.

[nyadnar17]

Does this incarnation of Anarchy actually believe his own hype about the playing field being level because everyone's history/cash has been erased? The biggest advantage people have in life is the culture/attitude they were raised with and the knowledge/skill set in their head.

You can move all the 1's and 0's you want and its not going to change that.

[icon_uk]

Though some people are constrained by that society/family structure etc; Like the wife who can now escape her abusive husband because there's no way he can trace her THIS time or the like.

[tugrul]

Is it society constraining her or her husband? Having bad people like that around is tragic and leaving someone like that is a risk and having someone like that finding you is a downside to identities but having identities is indispensable to any society.

[yap]

Hard to say at this point. We don't know if Anarky is Lonnie or the Councilman here. I certainly think Lonnie is going with faking his death here, just like he did prenew 52 though.

[cainofdreaming]

Any reason Lexcorp, or equivalent, didn't own Gotham a pikosecond after Anarchy's stunt? I mean, every company and organization in town basically went bankrupt and all.

[junipepper]

Their servers were down?

[icon_uk]

Property records are still manual I suspect.

[cainofdreaming]

They might have their property. but the loss of all liquid capital would make their stocks, for those who are listed, plummet like heck. They'd get bought out in an instant. And those that aren't in the stock market would still have to face the fact that they don't have the money to actually utilize that property - nothing to pay their workers with, so production would come to a halt. So they'd have to sell at least part of their holdings just to continue operating.

[junipepper]

And that's one reason you can't do property transactions in a pico second. But you can buy a lot of stock.

[grumman]

"The cops shot an unarmed kid"? Seriously? Did they not notice there was a masked fugitive firing a submachine gun as he ran into the crowd?

[reveen]

Ah yes, that's how cop shootings go down. Cops shooting white kids over a completely contrived case of mistaken identity.

Come ooooonn, this is so limp-wristed it's embarrassing.

Let me guess, next there's going to be a scene of a riot between white civilians and white cops where everyone disperses and goes on their way when we find out that the lady cop was one of Anarky's minions all this time?

[lego_joker]

You know things are bad when FRANK GODDAMN MILLER was more honest about race vs. the justice system back in the '80s.

[icon_uk]

Maybe not the cop, but I can imagine the bystander who instantly pins it on Batman might be.

[ekrolo2]

Anyone else notice that Batman's wearing his more cloth like Pre-N52 suit in this arc? His boots, gauntlets and most of his suit look a lot less armored this time around.

[mrstatham]

You can still see the lines in the armour, it's just Manapul's style and they're really faint. The gloves and boots look different, though.

[an_idol_mind]

So is this how they're going to restore Bruce Wayne's fortune, or has that already happened?

[silverhammerman]

I'm kinda surprised that it's taken DC this long to get around to using Anarky as a riff on Anonymous. It really does seem like a no-brainer.

[espanolbot]

Huh, didn't Lonnie have ASL or MND or something? Or did they keep the Moneyspider thing but dropped the neurological condition he ended up with?

[yap]

Well, that was prenew 52. I had thought Ulysses Armstrong had put him in that state, maybe killed his dog or something but the backstory was supposed to come out later on in Red Robin according to Fabian Nicieza. Here's what the new 52 Anarky timeline is, more or less: The first Anarky appeared during Zero Year and got away, giving little indication of who he or she was beyond being African American. Two years ago, Moneyspider got caught. I'm inclined to think the reference to him as "Greta's boy" means he was raised by his birth mother, making him Lonnie Mitchell rather than Machin.

[starwolf_oakley]

An issue of BEWARE THE BATMAN had a similar plot, where Anarky did something so every door in Gotham City would unlock at midnight.

[icon_uk]

I'm impressed at the efficiency of the delivery service Anarky must be using, EVERY home gets a mask(s)? Is it one per person, is it one per household, and I hope the poor delivery firm got paid in cash up front otherwise they've just been conned big time.

[thosefew]

I remember thinking something similar during the mask-and-hat delivery during V for Vendetta, "Man, he must have spent years just making hats!"

[night4345]

How does that work? Are all doors in Gotham digital and tied to one system or did he make a machine that does it and put one on every door in Gotham?

[junipepper]

Free iPad with every mask.

[night4345]

Yes, it had to Batman! Batman used his nonexistent guns to shoot the kid!

[junipepper]

That woman right behind him holding a gun in plain sight had nothing to do with it!

[sagrada]

As comic book art can be damned near impossible with keeping peoples' faces straight, is that policewoman supposed to be Montoya?

Also Anarky's plot is hella dumb. Does he think all that stuff just exists in the digital world? Because I have seen some bulging file cabinets that would beg to differ. And besides that, what's the good that's supposed to come out of this move? All the upheavel something like that would cause would be harshest on those with the most to lose, as they'd be most likely to have stored their money someplace local that his hacktivism would affect. What about people like the Penguin, who probably have money stashed overseas for just such occasions? He's sure not going hungry because he wasn't fast enough to reach the stores before they get cleared out. And with no money, that's what's going to happen to a bunch of folks thanks to him.

[wtfomfg2]

"Also Anarky's plot is hella dumb. Does he think all that stuff just exists in the digital world? Because I have seen some bulging file cabinets that would beg to differ."

MTE. I work in a court house, and we keep paper records of everything, down to even the smallest parking violations. Not to mention all the off-site electronic back-ups. Things like your police and dmv records don't just disappear because a hacker "erases" them.

[junipepper]

Didnt Luthor try to "buy" all the property in Gotham in No Man's Land? But he remembered to burned down the records building. It still didn't work, but, you know, it could have.

[wizardru]

Listen, I love me some superhero books. I don't much care about advanced science concepts being slightly bent for a story or simple contrivances for the sake of plot. I don't question how Anarky could make all those masks or deliver them unnoticed overnight all over the city or the minutiae not discussed here (how does he handle apartment buildings, condos, penthouses, hotels, etc.)

But I kind of draw the line at 'everything is wiped out, all records are destroyed'. Unless he means, 'for the next 4-24 hours until the couriers with backup tapes from the vault' or 'all records from the last 1-24 hours, MAYBE', then I can't really follow you, there. My tiny company has multiple physical and data backups stored in multiple locations...a company like Waynetech or even a large multi-city company is going to have multiple Disaster Recovery plans in place to prevent EXACTLY this scenario. It's just a bit of a bridge too far for me, conceptually.

[filthysize]

Weird scene. The writing seems to want to suggest that the cop mistakes one kid for another, but the art has her blindly firing into a crowd of silhouettes.

[jekylls_salvation]

So much eye roll. I can't even care one bit.

[dark_tzitzimine]

Aw man

I was so exicted to see Lonnie back (and in line to Grant's original depiction no less!) specially with the possibility of him becoming the heroic Anarky I loved back then...And the final page happens.

Notes from a fan who's got a Facebook group and a Wikipedia mention

[yap]

I'm not so sure. This issue is clearly informed by Lonnie's prenew 52 history. He appears to have been raised by the biological mother presented in his monthly book. He may actually be Lonnie Mitchell rather than Machin here. Then there's how he faked his death in SOTBat. I can see that determined look and forward pose being that he thought through his escape options. If he's not Anarky, I still think he set up a plan to get away with minimal risk. I know if I were in that situation, I wouldn't count on some rando new super villain's plan to work long term.