Na Na Na Na

Dreamed I was Robin last night – the original, Dick Grayson. The short pants, everything. Batman—sort of a cross between the modern comics Batman and Adam West—and I were pretending to work with some warlord in order to get to the real threat—a crime kingpin? An arms dealer? I don’t know.

One night, as we were waiting, Batman mentioned David Zavimbe, who fought crime for a while as Batwing. He’d since retired, and they’d lost touch. I asked how he was doing. “Fine, I guess,” Batman said. “He’s a good man, but we’re not really friends.”

“You should call him,” I said. Batman agreed.

Later, we found one of the warlord’s shopping lists. It read “1 loaf bread, crackers, jar peanut butter.” I asked Batman if he thought the peanut butter was for himself or for his boa constrictor. Batman shrugged. “Either way, I’ve already stirred sleeping powder into it.”

The warlord saw us looking at the list. To cover up our intentions, I doodled some boobs on the page. Batman knew better, and before he handed it over, changed the boobs I drew into a map. “What’s this ridge?” he asked the warlord, pointing to a finely shaded underboob.

Later, we were making our way to a meeting, when a teenager drove up in his car. He told us the warlord told him to show us what all the buttons in the car did. He pressed one before we could stop him, and all the airbags deployed. We knew the next one would be a self-destruct button, so we told him to come out and walk with us. I asked his name, and he gave his gang nickname. Flippity something, I think it was. I can’t remember. But looking at him, with his button nose and wavy brown hair, I had a feeling his mom had named him Marvin.

Later on, we passed by a girl who was crying, sitting on some stairs. I tried to cheer her up. She was named Darla, like from the Our Gang movies, and the other kids were teasing her. Nancy and Sluggo were also there. I told them all they shouldn’t tease, and Darla dried her eyes, and was suddenly a little older, and it was right before her wedding. The other kids were older too, and all dressed up. I helped Darla to her feet and she moved on toward the ceremony. 

Batman cleared his throat. “Robin,” he said. “Her corsage is still on the stairs.” I grabbed it and got it to her before she reached the aisle.

Batman knows how to make a wedding perfect.

Rob

A Close Shave in Gotham City

Dreamed about Batman last night, so that’s a win.

Of course, the context of that dream was pretty unusual. It started out normal enough: a crime scene, and Batman was checking out the body of the murder victim. He’d been scalped, and part of his scalp was on the floor of the warehouse next to his body. Batman could tell—and therefore, as the audience, I could tell as well—that the murderer was no ordinary hair-thief, scalping innocent victims and wearing their hair on his head. Instead, from the position and condition of the leftover scalp piece, Batman knew that the murderer was using the dead man’s hair as pubic hair.

I recall thinking, “Of course, they can’t say that outright, because kids might read this. But it’s pretty clear to a grown-up.” Ah, the magic of sequential art.

Cut to the office storage closet that Batman operates out of. (Editor’s note: This story takes place in the days before the Batcave!) As he’s analyzing clues on the Bat-computer, he notices that there’s one less fine red felt-tip pen on the shelf than he expected... and there were red dotted lines at the edge of the incision point on the victim’s head! Which meant the killer was inside the office!

My alarm woke me up before Batman could do a company-wide pube inspection at Wayne Enterprises, so I’ll never know who the killer was. But giving it some thought this morning, I wondered what his (or her) supervillain name would be. And then it hit me: The Merkin Psycho.

The only problem is, which one will Christian Bale play in the movie?

Rob

The Reflex is a Lonely Child Whose Parents Were Murdered in Front of Him So He Devoted His Life to Fighting Crime

I just found a new reflex I didn't know I had. I saw a link for "Hot Chicks in Batman Shirts" and I clicked it automatically. Didn't even think for even a nanosecond. No consideration, no mental process whatsoever -- I just clicked it. And then it's loading up on the screen and I'm thinking, "What did I just do? Did I really just do that?"

And no, I'm not adding the link. If you want to find them, you'll have to do a little detective work to show you're worthy.

Rob

Bat-Call-Of-Duty-4 Must Look AWESOME.

Okay, we know Batman is big on the Bat-bling. He pimps out his car, his motorcycle, his helicopter (a whirlybat!), his plane... when these things are comin' at ya, you know who's behind the wheel. It's all part of the "strike fear into the hears of criminals" motif he's got going. Ever since his parents died, this is the shit he lives for.

I understand. It's a big deal, and a guy's gotta have hobbies. But as I was looking through this month's Batman 700, I finally got around to looking at the four pages of Batcave schematics -- the sort of thing that bores me to tears, usually. And I noticed this inset picture, of the Bat-Computer.

It's shaped like a bat.

I love this. It's like, after all those other things, he just couldn't help himself. He just had to spring for the Bat-monitors. "I know know one will see it but me, Robin and Alfred, but... can't I just want something nice? Is that so wrong? I'm rich, I can afford it. A guy can only have so many batarangs, right? Besides, if it's not bat-shaped... I mean, no one will know, but I'll know. I just... I don't want some normal, square-shaped computer nagging me in the back of my head, throwing me off my game. No, I've gotta go with the bat-shape." Batman has become as obsessive-compulsive as Little Dot.


Now I'm dying to see what the Batcave toilets look like.

Rob

Separated at Birth?

I'm astonished I hadn't heard about this before: Indiana Pacer Danny Granger is building his own Batcave.

Which, as far as rich people doing crazy stuff with their money goes, is flat-out awesome. I'd like my own Batcave, too, but since there really can be only one, I'll have to settle for a skyscraper shaped like a big S. Not just for Staeger... also for "structurally sound," which I have no doubt it will be. Nothing like balancing tons of steel, concrete and glass on a curved foundation.

Anyway, Granger's Batcave plans have come up against the dastardly state of New Mexico, which has ensnared him with regulations and building codes. For one thing, they've nixed the underground tunnel he was planning.

It's not all bad news, however. As Granger explains, "I've got cars and things that turn my cars and I even got sort of like a moat thing going on so it will be interesting to see." Cars and things that turn my cars. Next up: a 20-foot-tall Bat-computer with the M.O., known associates, shot tendencies and play styles of every member of the Gotham underworld and the NBA.

Will our hero get out alive? Will he be able to complete the underground lair of his dreams before getting strangled with red tape? Tune in next time: Same Bat-time, same Bat-Channel.


Rob

The Recession Hits Batman

I saw this about a week ago... and then realized you might want to see it, too.

Batman Garage Sale with Adam West from Adam West

Rob

Batclock R.I.P.

We lost power for a little while on Friday afternoon. I know this, because when I got home from a career seminar, all of the clocks in the house were blinking.

Generally, this is an inconvenience, nothing more. But there's one clock that has become increasingly difficult to set: the Bat-clock my brother and sister-in-law gave me as a present a few years ago. While the time and bat-signal can still be projected onto the ceiling (the clock's coolest feature, which would have been even cooler if my eyes were good enough to read it without glasses), the time-set controls have gotten ornerier over the years.

Re-setting the current time always takes a little finessing, but getting the alarm right is so much of a pain that I've considered just keeping it at midnight and adjusting the time setting so that "midnight" is at 7-something in the morning. And this latest power outage, coupled with the fact that where the hell do I have to go in the morning, anyway?, has kept me from messing with it all weekend. And I think it may be time to retire the clock to the attic. Or maybe the basement-slash-Batcave. In any event, I'm certain to put it in a glass case downstairs, as I do the plastic shells of all the clocks who have served me over the years. Because that's what heroes do: We decorate with our dead.

Rest in peace, Batclock. Gotham mornings won't be the same without you.

Rob

In the City of the Mountain King

I had some time to watch a movie last night, and pulled Fritz Lang's M from the shelf. It's the story of a child-killer in 1930s Germany, starring Peter Lorre in his breakout role. But really, Lorre's character, Hans Beckert, is almost incidental throughout most of the film. He's a man in shadows, or signified only by his own cast shadow and the playful tune he whistles (perhaps nervously, or perhaps in barely contained delight) as he stalks his young victims: "In the Hall of the Mountain King," from Peer Gynt. The real story is going on in the city in the grip of the fear the murders create.

Parents are terrified. Cops are baffled. Criminals are angry; the killings are bringing the cops down harder on every other type of crime as they try to uncover the murderer. People are desperate; eventually the crooks band together to find the murderer themselves, just to get the heat off their other crimes.

At one point, an old man is accosted on the street because he dared to tell a little girl the time when she asked him for it. Everyone is suspect, and a mob can form in an instant.

It's this feeling of fear that permeates the movie. People are scared, and they have to do something, even if there's no sensible basis for their actions.

The Dark Knight has a similar baseline of public dread. Heath Ledger's Joker terrorizes Gotham City with seemingly motiveless crimes of great violence. He pits people against each other, and uses their own better instincts against them. He actively tries to make them complicit in his crimes. At one point, after killing a mob boss, he breaks a pool cue in half. He tells the dead men's bodyguards that he's got room in his organization, but only room for one of them. Then he drops the sharp end of the cue on the ground between them.

It's the Joker's unpredictability that makes him terrifying, and he uses it ruthlessly. And Gotham responds by turning on Batman, demanding he unmask on the chance that the Joker would keep his promise to end things once he did. Or they try to assassinate someone because the Joker brutally makes it doing so seem for the greater good. Cops betray their duty, and their friends. All from fear.

It's important to remember, as the days of heightened terror alerts return like swallows to Capistrano, that we tend not to make the best decisions when we're afraid. President Roosevelt said something to that effect. Do not fear. In the end, when we confront it, the monster that terrified us becomes a weak, craven man pleading for his life.

Do not fear. There is no Mountain King.

Rob

Now THAT's Commitment!

I'm posting this at the insistence of some friends: