Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #942 – “Night of the Monster Men (Finale)!” In the previous installment of the Night of the Monster Men storyline, there’s a lot of fighting, sure, but Nightwing figures out that Strange cobbled together an elaborate plan where he turned four patients into monsters… but not just ANY patients. Ones that embody Batman’s insecurities. He wants to fight Batman in the flesh.

I mean, we knew this before the first issue of this storyline. You mean to tell me that we’ve been spinning out wheels for five issues? Dunk that nerd’s head in the toilet already!

There’s one last monster to fight: a culmination of all four facets of Batman’s deep, dark issues. Then there’s Strange himself! Then there’s Floyd Mayweather. Then it’s bed time.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #942 [December, 2016]
Written by: Steve Orland / James Tynion IV
“Night of the Monster Men (Part 3)”

“Nightwing. Spoiler. Orphan. You’ve got the 411. Four of us against a giant,” says Batwoman. That’s some nice 411 there, Sergeant. A veritable fountain of 411.

Batwoman tells Batman that they’re en route to the Watchtowers. Batman is looking for Hugo Strange so he can ride his boner to death, because a little hate-fucking is just what the doctor ordered.

This giant monster is so huge and destructive that I would just give up right now. That’s why I’m not a superhero. These actual superheroes, though, they’re all dumb for even trying.

Each member of Batwoman’s crew enters a Watchtower and boots up their Watchtower computer so they can play Watchtower Solitaire. “Let’s show this monster what happens when you come to Gotham,” Batwoman says as she fiddles around with joysticks.

Meanwhile, Batman skulks around Anders Tower looking for a little strange, so to speak. “Waller. Psycho-pirate. Gotham’s death. Your ‘monster men’. You’ve been desperate for my attention,” says Batman to the seemingly empty basement of the tower. “Well, you have it. What now?”

A man in the shadows flips a switch and a large, red image of the Batman logo appears on the wall behind him. He sits on the throne made of psychology textbooks probably from all the Psych 101 classes that he has failed over the last three decades. This man smells like Triscuits. The man is Hugo Strange, and he delights in Batman’s arrival. He’s wearing something called a “suicide suit”. “Any blow greater than a football and I die. You can’t touch me.”

I’ll show you a blow.

If this were anyone else, he’d punt a football right into Strange’s face. But this is Batman, and he’s a big pussy about killing people.

Strange tells Batman that Gotham needs Batman. But Gotham doesn’t need him, if you acquire his drift. You see, anyone can be Batman! All they need is a suit and a couple of dead parents.

Strange launches into a monologue about being the most capable of facing Gotham’s madness. “I am the one sane person in an insane city,” Strange claims. After tonight, he will become Batman. Just try and stop him. Football, remember?

The monster downtown is literally knocking down 100-story buildings. “If the Watchtowers fall, there’s nothing to stand in its way. We have to hold the line,” Batwoman says as if “holding the line” meant anything at all. Weapons are useless. Everything is useless. What they’re doing is useless. I say knock down the Watchtowers, raze Gotham to the ground, and all its evacuated citizens can start fresh in Hoboken.

Nightwing is trying to find the fifth element of Strange’s insecurity rundown. Childhood… grief… fear… manipulation… then he gets it: ego. Of course! (?)

“Dick — what’s your status? We need to move!” yells Batwoman while Nightwing drools over his preoccupations. Then he leaves the Watchtower like the biggest idiot in town and confronts the monster face-to-face. The other three Watchtower occupants are shooting what looks like rubber bands at the monster. “I’ve got this, Batwoman,” Nightwing says as he jumps right into the monster’s gaping mouth. “Trust me.”

The news is already on top of it: “Hero Dives into Mouth of Madness” says the scroll at the bottom of the TV. More like “Dumbshit Kills Self, Others”.

Strange watches the footage of Nightwing committing what looks like hella suicide and he snickers. “Batman is too much for you. The weight of him breaks you and everyone around you.” Batman grimaces and tells Strange to shut up, please. Please! Please stop talking! Wah!

Blue Plate Special: Knuckle Sandwich from Fist City, with a side of Foot Up Your Ass, on the house.

The monster goes “GRTHT” three times while, I’m guessing, Nightwing is pooping on its tongue. It’s definitely regurgitating some sort of pink fluid. It’s disgusting.

Strange smiles smugly at Batman, inches from his face. “You can’t hit me.” Batman punches the wall behind him.

Strange thinks he won, but get this: Clayface melts all over Anders Tower and Strange has trouble breathing. Then the giant monster explodes in a goopy mist of pink foam. “Nightwing! You did it!” yells Batwoman as he cradles an intact Nightwing on the roof of the tower. “Mission accomplished!”

If you think that paragraph is confusing and missing some key details, just imagine how I feel reading the damn thing. No explanation whatsoever. Six issues and this is how they win? This is how it ends?

“You thought projecting my faults as monsters would stop me? You don’t understand me at all, Strange. I don’t run from my monsters. I embrace them.”

*cue 45,000 different comic books where Batman cries in his bed about his dead parents*

*twirls hair* Is he single?

Batman held his breath for 45 seconds while Clayface asphyxiated Strange easily. Strange is now unconscious and cooing like a dying baby.

Here comes the denouement. The monster is dead. Strange is stopped forever. “And Dick?” says Batwoman. “He free dove into a mutated digestive tract. He’s fine. I’m not unimpressed.”

Batwoman asks Nightwing how he knew what to do, and it’s simple!: Fling flab groob glab. I mean, that’s basically what Nightwing says. We’re all dumber for it, too.

Days later, in the now free-from-monsters Gotham City, costumed dorks are working on fixing the city that has been basically demolished. You might as well just leave it alone and move the population five miles down the road.

Bruce and Kate look at the fresh graves of Strange’s four dead guinea pigs, who happen to be buried right next to one another. The city is safe once again. Strange has been thrown into a well. A government research team is studying the remnants of the final monster’s guts, which worries Bruce, but that’s a subject for another drab Batman story!

“There are always more monsters out there, Bruce,” Kate smiles. “Always will be. Let’s not give them a head start.”

Final Thoughts

Talk about anticlimactic! Wowza! Did Nightwing really jump down the throat of a 100-story monster and punch its intestines until it exploded all over town? What the fuck is that shit? I guess anyone can be a comic book writer nowadays, huh? Maybe I should apply.