Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #2 – “Trust Fall”! In the previous installment, a mysterious mystery murder mystery is in full swing. Batman lit a wall on fire and a message in flames said “Bruce Wayne Will Die Tomorrow”. Dick Grayson is a murder suspect! What’s going to happen next?! Read on, gentle reader. Read on.

Issue #2 already! My, my, my, how time flies! So many nostalgic memories of this series already. Remember when they found that dead guy with all the knives stuck in him? Remember when Dick Grayson was a murder suspect? Ah, we were so young.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #2 [December, 2011]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“Trust Fall”

We begin with another soliloquy, this time it’s about the history of WAYNE TOWER, how and when and why it was built and all that. Bruce’s great, great grandfather Alan Wayne oversaw the project, and he intended the tall structure to be a warm, protective symbol to let all the citizens of shitty, turdy Gotham City know that they are all safe and in good hands. We see Bruce being kicked through one of the “unbreakable” windows at the top of the tower by a hired assassin, subsequently plummeting to his certain death! And so ends the entire Batman saga! The End!

We, the humble readers, are taken to a scene 24 hours earlier where Batman is chasing down some real nogoodniks who stole some museum statues. He drives his bike through their helicopter windshield, which sounds pretty easy to me but I hear that kind of thing takes finesse. Batman gets a call from Commissioner Gordon about the victim’s body and our caped crusader extraordinaire is on his waaaayyy!! DOOT DOOT DOO-DOO-DOOOOO!

Next, Batman basically does a Zoom conference call with Commissioner Gordon, who is spending time alone at the morgue peering longingly into the vagina-shaped autopsy hole torn into the murder victim. After doing some expert analysis in a way that only a business tycoon and a senior police official can, they determine that the victim was some sort of trainer for strong fighters, and one of his back teeth bears a symbol of an owl. REMEMBER THIS, OWLS ARE IMPORTANT! It is at this point that Gordon and Batman discuss a rumored Court of Owls secret organization. Gordon’s all like “That shit is REAL”, but Batman is all “No it ain’t, girlfriend.”

Batman ends his Zoom meeting and starts talking to Robin, who is actually called Nightwing now for reasons that I’ll probably discover in one of the other 64 million Batman series. Batman asks him why his DNA was found on the victim’s body, and Nightwing is all like “Uhhh, oh yeah, uh, when you were doing your speech thing at the party…like, uh, this guy grabbed me there. Yeah. He grabbed me hard and I have the scratch marks to prove it. I’ll show you if you want…but you don’t have to look if you don’t want to.” Batman is satisfied with this, and is like “Sorry bud, I actually already know that happened because I checked the cameras, dogg.” Nightwing also says the man had a message: “They’re real. They’re everywhere. And they’re sending him for you—all of you.”

Next, we cut to Bruce Wayne meeting mayoral hopeful Lincoln March at Wayne Tower, bringing us right back to the scene at the beginning of this issue. March talks to Wayne about wanting his vote, finding him to be a kindred spirit because they both lost their parents while young and they both have a giant boner for Gotham. Probably because they’re goddamned twin brothers or something, geez. If that doesn’t end up happening I’ll eat my hat, and I’ve already eaten many hats.

Suddenly a wild, rogue assassin appears! He throws one of those owl knives into March and kicks Bruce Wayne through the window, where he subsequently plummets to his certain death! And so ends the entire Batman saga! The End! Oh wait, ok, so this happens: The assassin jumps out after him to deliver a final blow (dumb), and Wayne grabs onto a hidden gargoyle (also dumb) installed by his great grandfather, Henry Wayne, Alan Wayne’s son (duuuuuumb). The assassin crashes down on top of a car and is presumably dead. EMTs load him into an ambulance, where eventually the assassin wakes up, kills the EMTs, and drives off into the darkness with his big, creepy, glowing yellow eyes.

Final Thoughts

Somebody wants to kill Bruce Wayne, but why? Do they know his secret, that he is actually Batman, and they don’t like Batman, so they want to get at him when he’s not wearing his utility belt because that would be easier? What’s going on with the owl knives? Is the Court of Owls a really real thing that’s real? How can Batman think that the Court of Owls isn’t real when owls are popping up everywhere on people and things that are trying to murder him to death?

All will be revealed in the next exciting chapter of the saga!

But, yeah, probably not.