Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2) Issue #6 – “Beneath the Glass”! This issue marks the final part of the Court of Owls storyline! In the previous installment, Batman cavorts happily around some crazy death maze where he slowly loses his mind over the course of the entire issue before getting unceremoniously stabbed by Talon himself! So he’s dead! At the same time, the Bat-Signal explodes because Commissioner Gordon left it on for nine days straight! So that’s dead too! A scrappy little kid dressed up as Robin (maybe it’s Robin?) pops in to tell the Commissioner to get another Bat-Signal immediately. Is all hope lost? Is Batman really dead? Is this story going to ACTUALLY be concluded in Issue #6 or is it going to spill over into the Night of Owls storyline that crosses over into a dozen other Batman family comic series (most likely!)? Read on, bitches!

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #6 [April, 2012]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“Beneath the Glass”

The cover is mighty creepy! Are we to expect that Mr. Batman is going to turn into some feral woodland beast-type creature, lacking pupils in his eyeballs as he claws endlessly in front of him? I hope so! That would make for an interesting shift in Batman’s mythos, all tearin’ up all the Robins, just one Robin after another with his merciless fangs. One can dream…

“Batman, the Court of Owls has sentenced you to die!” Talon seductively speaks into Batman’s ear as he impales him with a dang knife. He continues to taunt him as Batman twitches and strains on the floor, letting him know that the Court will send his bones down into the labyrinth to be displayed as some sort of high school science class presentation for education purposes! Talon holds up Batman’s still-alive, frail, trembling, frankly rather disgusting looking body to show the Court for their vote on his manner of death. “Break his neck!” says one member. “No! Bleed him!” says another. “Take his feet” says the fetishist of the gang. The Court eventually decides to let the youngest member of their cute little death organization, a little girl in an owl mask clutching a doll, settle Batman’s fate. “Let him go!” she says. Haha! No she doesn’t! She actually says “Hurt him…more.” What the fuck!

We gotta do what little Wednesday Addams demands, guys. Our hands are tied!

We are treated to the comic book equivalent of a snuff film as Talon ruthlessly pummels Batman around the face area, mostly; blood spurting everywhere like a spoon digging into grapefruit. Worth noting at this point is that, from Batman’s point of view, all these regular human beings in owl face masks look like a group of unkempt, smelly-looking bird creatures. As they descend upon his broken body, Batman laments his dwindling strength and gives in to certain death like some sort of ninny.

Looks like this is it.

This is the end.

No more Batman.

I’m sure all the comic book artists are writers are pissed now that they’re out of a job and-

WAIT A MINUTE! With a burst of sudden strength, Batman POPS up on his feet screaming “ENOUGH!” and boy does he look a little irked! The horde of bird creatures are scared and they run away! Talon chuckles to himself like a real comic book bad guy and continues to taunt Batman, who looks deranged as shit right now. Batman announces that he’s tired of owls now and starts kicking Talon’s ass. They seem to be evenly matched for a couple of pages: Talon shoves a pointy piece of metal against Batman’s chest, Batman breaks one of the lenses of Talon’s super cool-looking night-vision owl goggles, stuff like that. Batman’s getting pretty annoyed now, starts telling Talon how he’s sick of this guy following him all around town, making him play his game, not knowing who he is and why, so he wants to turn the tables! Does Batman have a secret labyrinth that he can throw Talon in for a few days? That would be neat.

RAAWWWWRR! BATMAN POWER ACTIVATE!

But no, Batman just starts taunting him back while continuing to beat him up and Talon basically starts crying about it. “You’re nothing but a common criminal!” Batman says, really hitting him where it hurts. With a finishing blow, Talon crumbles through a wall, and Batman yells to the Court to come out and face him. He begins another “MY CITY! MINE!”-type diatribe, which really tells me that Batman’s main weakness is knowing that any entity knows Gotham better than he does. I know people like that in real life too, it’s not an attractive trait.

Now sit tight, because he’s had a convoluted plan this whole time that he’s going to start talking to Talon about while Talon is unable to do anything about it: Batman noticed that the labyrinth is made of construction marble, but the base of the fountain near the river is made of white marble. White marble is softer and more prone to explosions, so it’s a good thing he filched some filament plates from Talon’s camera flash mechanism. Now, what white marble has to do with potassium chlorate I haven’t a clue, and the source of potassium chlorate is completely unclear, but nevertheless Batman makes a big thing go boom and here we are.

You’re not special! I am! I’m the special one! Mom said I’M the special boy!

Now that Batman has seemingly eradicated the enemy, he attempts to scramble his way back above the ground. He ends up falling to the river leading into a below-ground waterfall. Oopsy-daisy! After falling down the waterfall, he discovers that the river is ceilinged by glass, preventing his further escape! Whoopsy-doodle! We see him sink below the water…dying yet again…for the 50th time during this story arc… oopsy-doopsy…

The scene returns to the room in the labyrinth where Batman finished Talon. A mysterious owl-masked feeb in a wheelchair and a Hugh Hefner smoking jacket praises the entertainment he has just witnessed. When his equally owl-masked cohorts ask him what to do with Talon’s body, Hefner instructs them to merely dispose of it as there’s plenty more where that came from! We see the room with the coffins from the previous issue (one was empty, as one recalls). THE END!

Final Thoughts

HOOOOOO-BOY, what a thrilling roller coaster ride this was, much like Batman: The Ride at your local neighborhood Six Flags amusement park…without the occasional reported accidental decapitation! So ends the Court of Owls story arc. Clearly, we’ve only just scratched the surface of this Gotham Owl infestation!

Unfortunately, Batman Vol. 2, #7 begins the Night of Owls storyline and I’m nowhere near the point yet where I should read it. Not even close! I need to read about eight issues of about eight other concurrent series first! I may never get to the Night of Owls storyline! I might die before then!

Until next time, Caped Crusaders! EXCELSIOR!