Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #0 – “Bright New Yesterday”

* Standalone Issue *

Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #0 – “Bright New Yesterday”! A fucking zeroth issue? Yes, bitch. A fucking zeroth issue!

Do we get to see a prelude to this whole Owl nonsense? What was Batman even doing before that whole debacle started? Jerking off? Because that would be an immensely good use of time, I always say!

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #0 [November, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“Bright New Yesterday”

Gotham City – Six Years Ago

A man named Sam holds a dedication ceremony for the New Gotham National Bank! And the crowd goes wild! A crowd of about 11 people. He cuts a cake shaped like a bank. It’s a pretty detailed cake! It would win on one of those, you know, cake shows.

Not twenty seconds after Sam christens the bank does a gaggle of bandits break in! All are wearing red masks except for the head honcho, who wears half of a giant red pill on his head. Time to make history repeat itself! It works like it did at the old bank: Get down on the ground and shut up while they rob the place blind! Make sense?

Sam grumbles about how they “have no right”, as if that mattered. Red Hood Five, as he’s called, knocks Sam in the head with the butt of his gun, breaking it with his skull. Sam bleeds out on the floor, and he didn’t even get to enjoy that cake!

Pill Head throws Red Hood Five a new gun and instructs him to take his mask off and shoot himself through the brain with it. Because not only does the real Red Hood five enjoy killing instead of butting, he’s also left-handed. “You, whoever you are, Mister Policeman… Five you are not.”

So here’s the deal, asshole. Blow your brains out, or they’ll take you back to their hideout to torture you and all that other fun stuff. We’re talking tickling with feathers. Brutal stuff.

The cop says okay, okay, but don’t hurt anyone else in the bank. Too bad he’s not using his fucking eyes to see or anything like that, because everyone else in the bank is foaming at the mouth.

There was too much laundry detergent in my piece!

Red Pill instructs Fake Five to stick that gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. Now. “…Come on, already, will you? This is getting old.”

In the splittest of seconds, Fake Five knocks Red Pill with the butt of his gun (as is his trademark). We learn that this fucker is just Bruce Wayne with a horrible goatee. “Stupid, Bruce. Stupid,” he chastises himself as he starts kicking the crap out of Red Pill. “Should have done your homework. Should have taken more time studying him and the whole gang. But no, you wanted to get into the Red Hood Gang before the robbery. See them in action. As Alfred would say… ‘be careful what you wish for, Bruce.’”

Red Pill starts shooting at Bruce as he hides behind a knocked-over table. Then Bruce hurls one of them Batman-style smoke bombs that Batman always has! As he hobbles his way to the front door, he gets caught by police who start shooting at him as well. This is all shaking out to be very funny indeed!

“HE’S GOT SOMETHING IN HIS HAND!” yells one cop. Bruce has nothing in his hand.

“IT’S A GUN! I THINK IT’S A GUN!” yells another cop. Again, Bruce has nothing in his hand.

The Red Hood Gang emerges from the smoky bank and start firing at the cops while Bruce covers his ears and ducks. Bruce throws himself under a cop car and through a manhole as the firing continues. He rips off his stupid goatee-faced mask and hops onto a Bat-Bike just waiting there for him in the sewer. The Red Hood Gang, who all happen to be suddenly waiting for him under an aqueduct, opens fire.

“Are those gunshots, sir?” asks Alfred from the comm. “Sir?” Bruce doesn’t answer his faithful butler, but instead speeds down the sewers at 450mph and directly into his brownstone (as Alfred calls it). That sure was exciting, wasn’t it kids? Consider me thoroughly excited.

This brownstone seems to be pre-Batcave. Even pre-Batman! This brownstone is forty feet from where Bruce’s parents were killed. “This is where my war begins,” he says. Alfred snidely asks how the war is going, and Bruce says it’s coming along swimmingly, thank you for asking. He has the technology. He has the weapons. He just needs to be clandestine about it all.

Perhaps this extra piece of Bank Cake will help stir the ol’ imagination.

Alfred hounds Bruce to get back to the manor; something there will help. Bruce needs to find Bruce again, or something to that effect. “Bruce Wayne isn’t important anymore,” says Bruce Wayne, who still stands there as Bruce Wayne. “He’s a mask. This is all I need to be. It’s who I am.”

Pardon Alfred’s French, but being a Wayne is the only important thing about you, sir. If you weren’t a Wayne, you’d be nothing. You’d be, like, a Jones. And until you recognize that, this isn’t going to work for shit.

Bruce doesn’t want to hear Alfred’s French! He’s got a fancy new boomerang that he’s going to try on the roof! Don’t wait up!

While Bruce boomerangs his butt off, the brownstone gets an unexpected visitor. Alfred brings the red-headed, mustachioed man up to the roof. Lieutenant Gordon, at your service. Bruce tries to excuse themselves from the roof, but Gordon wants to light one up. Fine. Make yourself at home, pig.

“How can I help you, Lieutenant?” Bruce asks with a wry look in his devilish eye.

“Frankly, Mr. Wayne, I’m not sure you can. From what I understand, you haven’t been very involved in the workings of Wayne Enterprises since you returned to Gotham three months ago, is that right?”

Bruce has an answer for everything, the sly dog! He’s been traipsing around Asia and the like for four years, he doesn’t know Thing One about running a Gotham business. So skedaddle, you rugged old so-and-so.

Gordon doesn’t like Bruce’s lack of involvement, because Wayne Enterprises (in the hands of Philip Kane) seems to be spitting and pissing on normal regulations. Illegal stuff, see? Felonies, see? Bruce asks for proof, but Gordon sighs and shrugs his limp little shoulders and tells Bruce he’s got absolutely nothing but hearsay.

ANYWAY, back to other business. There seems to be a vigilante in the neighborhood, sneaking around at night and stopping crimes. Stopping crimes with advanced tech, to boot. DOES THAT SOUND LIKE ANYONE YOU KNOW? Keep an eye out, would ya?

I dare you to look into my big, beautiful, blue eyes and refuse to kiss me, Lieutenant.

Gordon tells this punk that anyone who may know about this vigilante and is hiding the facts is going to prison. ALL BASED ON HEARSAY, MIND.

When asked what any of this has to do with Bruce, Gordon tells him that it’s a bit odd to plant a base in Crime Alley when he could be hanging out in his mansion… if he should cross paths with this vigilante, it might be… eye-opening…

Anyway, a spot of tea and a scoot off to bed! Lieutenant, it’s time for you to fuck off on out of here!

Later that night, the Red Hood Gang stake out Bruce’s HQ. They’re going to blow the whole thing sky high! And! And! TO BE CONTINUED? ARE YOU YANKIN’ ME? Sigh…

We are treated to a second story entitled “Tomorrow”. Barbara Gordon asks her father, Jimmy Jam Gordon, why he’s being crazy. All planning to turn the justice system upside-down. All trying to elevate Batman to hero status instead of menace status. It smacks of favoritism! And we all know what happens to Lieutenants who are guilty of favoritism? *guillotine*

“The people out there… they think he’s nothing but a myth… a bogeyman for criminals that the press came up with to sell papers. We have to change that, Barbara. Otherwise, there’s no hope for the future of this city.”

Meanwhile, a teenager named Timothy (Tim Drake?) is getting scolded by Principal Nutsack for tampering with Mr. Archer’s computer and using electronic devices that are specifically banned from the school. Expulsion is the medicine that the doctor ordered here, and you can take that to the bank!

Timothy is confident that he won’t be expelled, and Principal Fuckhead asks why not? “There’s a few reasons, actually…” Timothy smiles. “For one, you’re about to find out that I aced the latest aptitude test that you forced on me to prove that I’m cheating on my exams. (I’m not, by the way). And you’re not going to throw out the best student in the school.”

I hate this kid already. Someone throw a rock at his face.

This is the part where we find out that he planted a very elaborate car bomb, the little rascal.

This kid knows that Principal Assface has taken $1.6 million from the academy over the last decade. In fact, he has the whole money trail on his iPhone 4S! “I mean… how stupid does a man have to be to use his school e-mail to solicit money for academic projects that don’t exist?”

Very shrewd, young man! Sounds like a spanking is nigh!

A knock on the door signals that the police are here to take Principal Dipshit into custody and make him rot behind bars!

Meanwhile again, a couple of Red Hoods try sticking up a convenience store. They don’t look armed, so that’s already a dumb move. Then one of them introduces himself as Jason, which causes the other Red Hood to poke him in the eyes like Moe and Curly.

Oh, ok, the one that’s not dumb is armed, and he does a dumb move like shoot a woman right in the face. Whoops! Outside the store, Jason starts whaling on Red Hood #2 (Chris). He told him there were no bullets in the gun! He told him no one would get hurt! A cop comes to pull Jason off of Chris. That’s the end of this story. Jason is Jason Todd from Red Hood and the Outlaws, one of the worst comic series I’ve had the displeasure of reading! Let’s move on from this unpleasantness forever.

And finally, Dick Grayson is doing acrobatics in a circus tent until a patron steals a woman’s purse. “Let’s keep the clowning to the professionals!” he hollers as he leaps down from his tightrope and kicks the man in the face.

Then there’s a Batsignal in the sky. Grayson goes “Whoa.” Jason goes “…” Timothy goes “So freaking cool…” And then all these Robins proceed to have sex with each other.

Unveiling his Batsignal, Gordon calls the device a secret hope for justice in Gotham. For a better tomorrow. “Anyone who actually stands for what’s right in this wicked town… they need all the belief they can get.”

Barbara stares at the signal all like “buhhhhhhh”