Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11 – “My Brother’s Keeper”! In the previous installment, Bruce Wayne has a long lost brother that he never knew he had, apparently. And he’s an Owl. An accident caused him to be born early and sickly and the Waynes hid him in the awful Willowwood Home for Children. If this sounds stupid, it’s because it is. It’s stupid and I hate everything about it.

Also, for some unfathomable reason, Bruce’s brother blames Bruce for the deaths of his parents, so now he seeks revenge! Wayne against Wayne! Brother against Brother! Owl against Bat!

*groan*

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #11 [August, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“My Brother’s Keeper”

There’s a full-page shot of Batman punching Owlman and barely connecting with it. “That all you got, brother?” Owlman asks in his best Hulk Hogan impression. “Or are you just playing nice?”

“You’re not my brother,” Batman growls, throwing another punch. “You’re a lunatic in a bird suit… and I was done playing nice… A LONG TIME AGO!”

Very poetic, Bruce. Your banter leaves a lot to be desired. A few more punches later and Owlman isn’t addled or hurt at all. “Is it my turn now?” he says, a fiery glint in his eyes. “Good.”

So Owlman bashes Batman against a wall and starts naming brothers. Romulus and Remus. Eteocles and Polynices. GOB and Buster. “But one brother always gets greedy and takes it all in those stories, doesn’t he? He takes the city for his own and forgets his kin. Leaves his fallen brother to rot. Just like you did.” Owlman shakes his poop-stained finger at Batman, who suddenly gets thrown the fuck through a brick wall, killing him instantaneously. Or, rather, making him fall 40 stories to the street below.

Batman launches his grappling hook and pulls Owlman down with him. Good thing Owlman has some sort of whiz-bang flying suit! With Batman hanging by a string below, Owlman decides to fly Batman around town to show him what he remembers from his view at Willowwood. There’s the Crowne Tower where all the starlets got murdered. Also, Owlman could see the reflection of Wayne Industries within its shiny, shiny windows.

Batman tries to let go of his grappling hook, but Owlman grapples him with his own hook. The tour shall continue!

Like a tour right in the side of the fucking building.

Seven years of bad luck. Congrats, you’re now a quadriplegic!

And the only thing that happens is maybe Batman is bleeding from his mouth a little bit. A big bowl of who cares? No stakes when the guy can’t get seriously hurt being flung into the side of a goddamned building. Comic books are stupid.

Owlman spouts off a ton of speech balloons filled with pointless lunacy that I will not repeat here. Just understand that the guy is loony toons and rather vindictive. Also, the Owls will help cleanse the city. Also, Bruce gets smashed right into the bell of a church tower. Like, we’re talking 190 broken bones. But no. Barely a scratch.

Then Owlman flies him up to an airplane cruising along the sky. “And so ends our tour, brother! I’ll watch the pieces of you come out the other side, scattered over the city you thought you knew so well… but didn’t know at all!”

And yes, Batman doesn’t so much as grimace as he’s inches away from being sucked into the jet engine. It’s so fucking stupid that I’m taking a shit on a glass table right now.

“It’s okay, Bruce! You can let go now!” screams Owlman as Batman less-than-desperately hangs on to the engine cover. “Your brother is watching over you. Just as he always has.”

I don’t know why Owlman keeps talking. Batman is dealing with a 180 dB engine right now, he can’t hear your loquacious ranting about brothers and the like. Luckily, Batman somehow at some point had placed a detonation device on Owlman’s back! And it blows him up to smithereens, scaring the everloving shit out of everyone on the plane.

A man watches as Batman pulls himself up from the engine cover and onto the wing. Then he just… lets go. He lets go from a flying airplane.

Uhhhh, ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. We’re going to proceed with an emergency landing because some clown is fucking around on my airplane.

Batman plummets to the ground at escape velocity and, at the last minute, latches onto a building with his high-velocity Bat-rope. He, again, crashes right through a brick wall and lands on a pile of nails and razor blades and exploding mines with nary a wound.

“You just won’t stay dead—will you, brother?” says the very much alive Owlman, who picks Batman up by the scruff and leads him to what will now be BATMAN’S TOMB! Ha! They’ll be brothers buried together for a wee bit of time before Owlman comes back from the dead due to that one thing that’s in their blood that they brought up, like, six issues ago. I don’t remember.

Owlman’s verbosity continues. When Bruce was traipsing around the world training, the Court had said he died somewhere in the Himalayas or the back alleys of Paris, since he disappeared and all. It was Brother Owlman’s time to shine at that point, but noOOOoooOOoOoOOOO, Bruce had to come back. Out of nowhere! And the Owls decided “meh, you can be Lincoln March or something instead”. Disrespect! He wanted the city! It was his time!

In short, Batman’s going to be a blip on Gotham’s radar while Owlman will be Gotham’s history!

Then Batman sticks his thumbs in Owlman’s eyeballs and runs away. “Run like you always have,” Owlman says, clearly barely addled by thumb-in-the-eye syndrome, “but when you feel the prickling on the back of your neck, know that I’m coming for you! Reaching for you from the other side of your reflection!”

All this time, the tower has been exploding and on fire and the like for reasons that are not at all discernable to me. Owlman is trapped inside while the building completely collapses 9/11-style, but Batman says that he found no evidence of a body when he later investigated the rubble…

You’re like the petulant son I may or may not have!

Back at home, Bruce sits in a wheelchair with a few broken-ass limbs. Dick Grayson comes into the room ready to kick Batman’s ass for punching him back in Issue #7. But now that he’s wheelchair-bound, I guess he gets a pass.

Bruce tells Grayson that the Owls have set up a real labyrinthian trail, and their resources are staggering. He can’t make heads or tails of this whole operation. All the Owls he has found are stuck in cryogenic chambers, and those who got away, well… he’ll find them soon enough. Mark his words with a pen, sir.

Now Grayson gets to hear all about Lincoln March from Bruce, a story no one asked for! Bruce found out that his mother was pregnant when Bruce was three years old, and a car accident that Bruce doesn’t remember caused a premature birth. He died in 12 hours. For one night, Bruce had a brother. BUT, is it possible that the child survived and the Waynes squirreled him away to Willowwood for treatment? And that the records were falsified? To what end? That sounds like a lot of work for literally no reason.

Grayson seems content with the conclusion that the records were not falsified, but Bruce isn’t fucking done you little shit. *punches Grayson again* According to records, Willowwood admitted a John Doe baby a week after his brother supposedly died. Now, what isn’t to say that the Court knew about this and used it to convince Bruce he has an alive brother? This is where DNA evidence comes in, and there’s not enough sperm splashed around during the fight to make any realizations. But Bruce will not rest until he gets the evidence he wants! The no-resting continues, as usual.

But what of Bruce’s parents? Why would they keep such a secret from him? They wouldn’t have! Anyway…

Bruce apologizes to Grayson for him finding out he should have been a Talon. Grayson decides that he can’t punch Bruce anymore. Leave it to me, then!

Grayson asks if Bruce will rebuild the tower. Taller! With plenty of windows! “Lately, right up until all this with the Court, I’d come to think of the city as mine. As Batman’s… but I see now that I was wrong. Because Gotham isn’t Batman. Gotham isn’t the Owls. Gotham is… Gotham is all of us.

*sheds a single, salty tear*

BUT, the city is still Batman’s and the Owls better watch their fucking backs. The end.

Continuing the Jarvis Pennyworth side story…

“Screeching metal, burning rubber,and fire… followed by perfect blackness.”

As you recall, Martha Wayne fucking crashed her car like an idiot with Bruce inside. So much blood, oh my god. It looked like a slaughterhouse. And that’s how Martha Wayne died! Wait.

The trauma of the accident caused Martha to lose her baby. Martha was beside herself with sadness and grief, so Thomas decided to whisk the family away for a summer out of the country. To get away from Wayne Manor. To get away from Gotham. To get away from stinky Jarvis, honestly.

When the phone rang earlier, it was some mope who wanted to kill Martha down by the docks. Well, the phone is ringing again and Jarvis has this “brrrrt!!” look in his eyes.

It’s starting to get ugly for the frothing, feral butler.

Jarvis does not succeed in escaping from the Owl. At the manor’s gates, the Owl drags his ass back to his flaming house where he apparently dies. His last dying thoughts and wishes are for Alfred to never, ever, not in a million years, visit Gotham City. Ever. Or he’ll be so haunted.

In the “present day”, a younger, mustachioed Alfred pays his respects at his father’s grave. Bruce approaches him with a “we’re going to fuck up these Owls” attitude, but Alfred isn’t so sure. “I remember the cloud of darkness when I first came to this place,” says Alfred. “At the time, I truly felt that the manor was cursed.” And Bruce agrees that it is cursed in some way, and oh well because it’s the only home he knows. Alfred poops on Bruce’s face and tells him that this is the first time he has ever visited his father’s grave. He, in fact, didn’t really even know him!

“And yet, in those early years, I felt him hovering over me. Like a force trying to impart something. But there was nothing I could to but try to live up to the man he wanted me to be.” Alfred looks vaguely into the distance.

Bruce and Alfred say a few more pleasantries that mean literally nothing, and the comic book is over.

Final Thoughts

This was one of the most boring issues of a comic book that I’ve ever read! It took me, like, three hours to get through. Fuck this Batman story, man. I want to see Bruce Wayne wrestle a polar bear or something.