Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Detective Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #7 – “The Snake and the Hawk”! In the previous installment, Charlotte tries to “stop” her one-eyed sister from committing hella crimes while Batman tries to track down who is responsible for…everything, really. Nicolas Pog, the weapons dealer, is dead. Raju is dead. Charlotte is dying. Looks like this Jack Houston Snakeskin guy is a red herring. All these victims keep getting ninja stars to the eyeballs, which would be a calling card from the one-eyed lady if I ever saw one.

Case closed, knuckleheads! We have one issue left in the storyline before I steer clear of the New 52 Detective Comics for a while, and it’s totally Charlotte Rivers’ sister who did it.

Let’s see just how correct I obviously am.

Detective Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #7 [May, 2012]
Written by: Tony S. Daniel
“The Snake and the Hawk”

Charlotte’s dead! She’s dead and she’s never coming back! Worm food! As far as her sister knows, at least. One-Eyed Jill is beating the piss out of Snakeskin in a laundry room, just fisticuffs. Here’s what she has to say about her dead sister: “Snakeskin, you rotten, filthy bum!” Ouch!

Snakeskin’s atrocious-looking face is all broken and bloody, but he’s laughing. “You’ll ruin the sensors in your paw, Kitty Cat,” he grins with a mouthful of ugly, rounded teeth. Hey, he did you a favor! What an annoying woman that was, now you don’t have to worry about her anymore!

“But that was my call to make! You’re just some bottom-feeder glomming onto me!” she shrieks, but Snakeskin starts up a little sweet-talkin’ and she changes her tune on a dime: “I-I’m sorry, Jack–I’m acting so weak. I need your strength to see that through.” Yeah, shit moves quick in this relationship.

He asks if she’s ready to do what she knows she has to do. She’s ready. They kiss. He gets all his damn blood all over her face. It’s gross.

Simply awful.

MEANWHILE, IN THE DREADED ICE GENERATOR THAT’S GETTING FILLED WITH ICE, Batman struggles through the ice! Ice is everywhere! Ice, ice, baby!

I guess they’re not trapped in a glass enclosure after all. They’re trapped above a giant swirling, ice-crushing blade that creates all the lovely ice for the casino’s various scotches, kitty cocktails, and Snoopy Sno-Cones! Batman hangs from a grapple, holding onto Charlotte’s limp, rather burdensome weight, and radioes Dearest Alfred to get him the Bat-Sub! What?! In the fucking casino?! YES! DO IT!

Alfred attempts one more time to disuade his master from calli– ALFRED! BRING ME THE BAT-SUB, YOU DUMB BUTLER! CAN YOU HEAR ME? HELLLOOOO? DUMMY? WHO’S THE DUMB ONE? YOU! JUST DO WHAT I ASK.

Ok then.

The Bat-Sub instantly crashes through the building, probably murdering droves of people in its path as it crunches its way to the ice generator. “KACHOOOOM!” How very heroic! Now you have a bunch of funerals to attend.

One-Eyed Jill and Snakey the Skin get their affairs in order for whatever ill-thought-out heist they’re going to attempt to pull off here. Jill gets her gun– plastic, so it can go through the metal detectors. It says Super Soaker on it, but hey, maybe no one will notice! Wait a minute…what was that rumble? Did some drunk 85-year-old billionaire just crash his yacht into the side of the building? No, wait, Snakeskin sees police boats. And police blimps! Maybe the jig is up!

Gladly! Good idea! It might take a few bullets, but putting you out of your misery will be the best for both of us.

Snakeskin’s face looks more and more disfigured by the minute. He has no control over it anymore. Perhaps Jill knocked him around with one too many blows to the head! No matter, they’ll get through this, even if they have to scare all the children in the casino’s daycare en route!

On the casino floor, Penguin’s misfit cronies confirm that the sound they heard was an explosion! Penguin’s like BAAAHHHH! My casino is an iceberg! Fire doesn’t hurt ice! HA HA HA!

Penguin’s security team is not as confident, and they offer their services to escort this 4’2” tall man to his bunker Adolf Hitler-style. I mean, someone tipped off the Fuzz. The Heat is coming, sir. Ice, uh, can be hurt by fire. And heat. Hello?

Penguin frowns profusely! That pesky Charlotte-Ass-Rivers had something to do with this, didn’t she? Grrr! That bitch! That casino-ruining bitch!

The scarf-wearing hypno-goggles guy asks Penguin if they can be invited to the cozy bunker as well. Nein! Das ist MEIN bunker!!! “Our deal is for me to keep the money safe. You can handle yourselves just fine,” Penguin spits, then takes his leave with his buxom security lady. Understandably, this makes his distinguished guests a little bit saltier.

Hey, Charlotte’s not dead! She looks tipsy, though. Lots of blood loss, a dash of deliberate hypothermia, otherwise she looks pretty darn…uh…

So Batman and Alfred cover this lady in crushed ice to help save her life! Very cool; pun intended. Another takeaway from Butler University (lol). Batman’s gonna get his ass back in the casino to play the slots…er, save some more lives.

Not so fast, Bat Boy! Alfred crunched some computer numbers and One-Eyed Jill has connections to crime sprees in Russia and China. She also knows Kung Fu! So watch out, because she’s the one who keeps throwing ninja stars in eyeballs. Ok, bye.

(I called it, woop woop)

So Jill’s packing a lot of C-4, the kind of C-4 that blows shit up. The kind of C-4 that blows shit up really bad. So that’s pretty nutso! Batman wonders, though, what she was doing with Snakeskin in the first place? Gettin’ a little ugly on the side, eh? A woman has needs, you know.

HERE’S WHAT I’M FUCKING WONDERING? Where’s this Joker who ain’t got no face? Dollmaker? What happened with that shit? Why are we chasing around eyepatch blondes and Penguin Men?

I’ve got a lot of beauty rest to catch up on! Move it!

Coast Guard comin’. Get your rich socialite asses out of the building.

Penguin declares free admission to everyone who has been inconvenienced. Yeah, to his butthole.

Whoever called in this bomb threat is gonna get a taste of Penguin’s umbrella! WE the audience know it was Batman! HE doesn’t know that though. He doesn’t even know Batman’s even around! Tee hee.

Elsewhere, the Fantastic Eyepatch is opening a large vault. “It’s showtime.” says Melty Face Snakeskin. He pulls out a gun: “MOVE OUT OF THE WAY. I’VE GOT A BULLET WITH COBBLEPOT’S NAME ON IT!”

Snakity Skin pulls the trigger and the gun explodes into a fiery torrent of shrapnel in his hands. He becomes a dead pile of stinky guts on the floor. Penguin is miffed that this Elephant Man Face tried to murder him in front of all his honored guests. “Someone get me a handkerchief,” he crabs.

Security informs Penguin that this dumb slump of meat on the floor has an accomplice, and she’s accessing the vaults as we speak. NOW, finally, Penguin is concerned. So are his very rich guests of honor freaks. “Tonight has left us a far cry from impressed, Cobblepot. We’re backing out,” declares Hypno Goggles, who obviously speaks for the rest of them because he’s the only human. Supposedly.

Jill’s just hangin’ out in the vaults. She knows Batman’s been following her, and she goads him to come out of whatever hidey hole he’s been hidey-holin’ up in. “Your sister might live, Jill. No thanks to you and Snakeskin,” Batman announces his presence with a disapproving scowl. But, pffft, she was asking for it. She’s been asking for it since 2nd grade!

“I’ve made a promise long ago, Batman. I will never be anyone’s victim,” she starts doing cartwheels around him, possibly to disorient him, I don’t know. This is the kind of shit you only see in comic books. It doesn’t work.

And then Batman throws down some knowledge out of nowhere:

Yes. Uh-huh. Right… Uhhh, what?

Where the hell did that all come from out of left field? Mayor Hady? Twins separated at birth? Come again? Have you been hitting the hooch a little too hard lately, Batty?

Batman throws her down the hallway. He picks up the spare! The sudden arrival of Penguin’s Freak Bunch stops any more Eyepatch Bowling. “Leave her to us, Batman! She has plenty to answer for. Starting with why she thought she could steal from us and live to spend it!” This is Hypno-Goggles talking.

Batman doesn’t argue. He just leaps forward and starts bashing freaks.

Batman punches people wearing glasses now. Look out, Stevie Wonder!

This goes on for a bit of time. They all take turns trying to strongarm the Bat, but do you think Batman’s just gonna DIE in Detective Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #7? Hell no! He makes short work of all these stupid bastards while trying to point out that the Penguin conned all of them into giving him their money. Idiots. He’s the bad guy!

Lightbulb Head senses the presence of explosives in this corridor. But it’s too late. Explosives go boom.

Are you ready for this big twist?? One-Eyed Jill was working for the Penguin! She lured both Batman and the Freaks to the chamber, set off the explosives, and now Penguin gets to keep all their money! Penguin isn’t satisfied, though, because none of those people died. At all. Does that sound like a success, lady?

Jill argues that Snakeskin’s assassination attempt should be enough to convince them that Penguin wasn’t involved. “It’s me they’ll be after. And with my share of the stash, I’ll be able to hide really well,” she grits her teeth triumphantly.

Not so fast! A double cross! One of Penguin’s soft-butch security guards pulls back the hammer on a pistol behind Jill’s head! Penguin fulfilled a promise to Mayor Hady, Jill’s father, that his re-election campaign will go off without a single hitch. One promise at a time, though, honey.

So Mayor Hady’s daughters are named Jill Chase and Charlotte Rivers? Maybe Charlotte is a bastard after all!

Comic book onomatopoeia writers make $86 per hour.

OH MY GOD, PLANS ARE NOT WORKING AT ALL! Batman pops in to break some bad news: “TOO LATE, PENGUIN! You big night ends with a whimper.”

He kicks the security guard in the head. The sound of his foot connecting with her noggin’ goes “KRUNK”.

It looks like Batman is dragging the unconscious Charlotte behind him like he clubbed her over the head Caveman-style.

Another explosion goes off. Batman pushes Jill out of the way. Penguin blocks it with his umbrella and gets knocked to the ground. He’s down for the count.

Batman’s gonna take Jill into custody even though he’s not even a police! “That hasn’t stopped me yet,” Batman says with a rapey looking grin. This is where Jill starts bargaining. She’ll do anything! She’ll do nice things to your dick! You like that, right, Batman? What do you say! REALLY nice things! COME ON!

Nope!

Later, in prison, we see Jill talking to Mr. Mosaic (the boil-faced gangster from whom Jill stole his VIP casino pass and his whip). She’s gotta lotta nerve asking for help after what she did to him! But, let’s let bygones be bygones, eh? If I had a boil for every time I let myself be a doormat…

Mr. Boils puts on his 1920s pimpy gangster hat and walks away. “And I hired you a good attorney. The best.”

The attorney walks in. Here’s the finale!

“I’m George Weaver, criminal defense attorney. Hired by your pops. Okay, that’s not really true. I’m not really some big-wig attorney. And, well, okay– Lie Number Two. I wasn’t hired by your pops. The Penguin says hello.”

George Weaver wastes no time revealing his secret identity: A Not-Dead-At-All-Snakeskin! Eek!

Final Thoughts

Dumb dumb dumb! A triple cross?? A double triple cross on rye bread and hold the mayo? What the fuck is even going on here? Did you follow ANY of what I just wrote? ANY of it? Looks like you’ll definitely have to read this one yourself. And even then it won’t matter.

What could possibly happen next? Who even knows? Why do all these stories wrap up with a concrete block on the gas pedal?? BOO!

I love comics! See you next time!