Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman and Robin (Vol. 2), Issue #4 – “Matter of Trust”! In the previous installment, Robin starts gallivanting alone around Gotham City during nighttime, against Daddy Bruce’s wishes of course. During a routine mugging in which Robin brutally beats the assailants (and I’m just not saying that–it’s pretty fucked up), Morgan pops in with an air of admiration about the boy’s psychotic, sociopathic behavior! However, Batman swoops in to ruin the fun. It doesn’t work very well, since now both Batman and Robin are caught and now they’re going to see Morgan’s movie Clockwork Orange-style at an abandoned drive-in theater.

That’s about all I have to say about that! I hope it’s a good movie. Methinks something from the ‘90s, perhaps, starring George Clooney and Chris O’Donnell??…

Batman and Robin (Vol. 2), Issue #4 [February, 2012]
Written by: Peter J. Tomasi
“Matter of Trust”

Bah, not the movie I suggested! That would’ve been way more torturous! Oh well. Morgan instead shows them a montage of Gotham City’s favorite villains that we all know and love: Joker, Two-Face, uhhh, red-haired lady…masked person…

Morgan asks why bother with this song-and-dance of sending these maniacs to jail instead of just murdering them on the spot? What’s the point? They’re just going to come out and be bad again! Doesn’t Bruce read comic books? There have been about 40 million issues of some sort of Batman-related villain plot and not ONCE has Batman decided to pull out his giant Batman Gun and shoot someone in the fucking throat? I agree with Morgan here, shoot some of these fuckers into the sun! TEXAS JUSTICE! YEE-HAW!

“There’ll always be monsters, but I don’t have to become one to fight them.” Batman retorts, pointing out that there is clearly more to this than just “monster hunting” on Morgan’s part. Morgan disagrees, claiming that the other “actual” villains give themselves colorful names “Batman” (he actually puts quotes around Batman like a real boomer, implying that “Batman” himself is also a villain. See, I’m paying attention!), and Morgan is simply Nobody. Or rather, NoBody, which has more flair than Nobody so, therefore, it’s more colorful. But, hey, a man is no one! Someone joined the Faceless Men of Braavos lately!

Do you want your kid to be a psychotic, unempathetic mass killer? Or do you want him to be some sort of FAILURE?

At this point there’s a lot of back-and-forth with Morgan going “you’re an idiot” and Batman going “I won’t stoop to your level” and Morgan going “but your son!” and Batman going “but my son!”. I’m predicting at this point that Morgan may attempt to lure Damian into being his son so he can nurture his psychopathic side, which I think would be better for everyone! But Batman doesn’t want that for some reason. Morgan NoBody is simply crestfallen that his effort to talk some sense into Batman has fallen short of success. He drops the name Ducard, who sounded like some sort of mentor to the both of them back in the day.

Ducard was big into murdering and killing, and since Bruce wasn’t a big fan at all of the murdering or the killing, he tried walking away. And Morgan started targeting him. And, all these years later, it’s still happening because Morgan doesn’t have a Netflix subscription or anything so that he can stay home and hang out on a weekday night instead. So now Morgan wants to kill Batman before he can taint Robin with his shitty parenting. Robin seems slightly sad about this. “Don’t worry,” Morgan says, “in time he’ll also become a nobody.” Too late! He’s way ahead of you there. Just wait until puberty, he’ll be too busy jerking off to do anything.

“Any last words, Bruce?” asks Morgan NoBody. “Yeah. Lock and load, Alfred.” And then Morgan NoBody gets conveniently gunned down by a giant remote-controlled toy airplane shooting rubber bullets. Alfred is controlling the thing from the Batcave, playing Galaga with his five-monitor setup. Nerd alert!

Alfred had to drop out of Butler University for playing too much World of Warcraft.

Morgan NoBody scoffs that even now Batman can’t kill anyone, and he scurries away avoiding more bullets. Batman and Robin pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and grapple onto the Batplane. They are whisked away just as NoBody accidentally fires bullets into gas tanks of the abandoned cars in the theater, blowing everything the fuck up. Robin thinks he’s dead, but Batman knows that he’s likely already plotting his next move…

Back at the Batcave, Alfred the Butler / Chessmaster / Fighter Pilot / and now Health Professional, is tending to Bruce’s many wounds. Bruce is finding it hard not to scold the little pissant, but reminds him of the main things he expects of him: 1) eat your vegetables, 2) do good in school, 3) listen to everything Bruce says, 4) prance around in your sexy uniform once in a while for daddy, 5) prance around for Alfred too. I’m serious, those last two are in there, I just, uh, I don’t need to prove anything to you.

Face it, pops, you’re a shitty father. I’m too smart for you. I wanna go live with the Turpin family, they seem nicer.

The two argue about respect and trust, with Damian making some pretty salient points about Bruce’s lack of trust and respect on his end. Bruce argues that Damian has two dead bodies on his hands because he went out alone, and he could have easily been the third. Damian snipes back with “FUCK YOU, DAD! EVERYTHING WAS FUCKING FINE UNTIL YOU SHOWED UP, BITCH! I DEMAND EMANCIPATION! RAWR!” Bruce insists that Damian can’t leave the house without his explicit permission. Damian, like most children, was trained by the League of Assassins when he was three years old and should be able to leave the house wherever he wants!

Mother Alfred has had his fill and tells the two of them to stop fighting. Damian wants to know why this NoBody fellow knows who the both of them are, and Bruce launches into some juicy backstory! Oh boy, grab the popcorn! Wait, this is boring! I want to see more father and son relationship drama! Oh well! NoBody is Morgan Ducard, son of Henri Ducard, one of Bruce Wayne’s six (!) trainers. Henri Ducard was really good at finding really bad criminals, and he was world renowned for his ability to find really bad criminals who didn’t want to be found. This stuff sure is boring, but an arms-akimbo Damian literally says “I’m all ears.” while Bruce relays all this information.

Funnily enough, at the first sign that Damian shows interest, Bruce shoots him down! “When did he turn into NoBody?” the kid asks. “It’s NOT a story I can share with you right now.” Bruce says, as if there weren’t plenty of pages left in this issue to answer Damian’s fucking question. Understandably, the child is pissed off again and storms off in a haughty huff. “It’s like I said before, even your secrets have secrets, and if leading by example’s part of your plan, then good luck.”

Alfred “Mother Goose” Butlerman tells Bruce that, maybe, he should just start answering the kid’s questions. “It may confuse him more, Alfred.” Bruce sure has an excuse for everything. Alfred, of course, disagrees, and tells Bruce that his own son saw him get his ass kicked today. That shit sticks with a 10-year-old!

Damian is at the graveyard visiting Bruce’s dead parents. “Your son’s an ass.” he tells the headstones. looool

Damian crushes a firefly between his fingers and decides to start bonding with his new dog, whom he names Titus. NoBody emerges from the shadows and tells Damian that he intends to teach him everything that he knows, he promises not to hold back, as long as Damian does the same.

Red pill, blue pill, blah blah blah.

Sounds like Damian’s got a new dad!

Final Thoughts

Sounds like Damian’s got a new dad! Whoops, I already said that. Looks like Damian’s going to the dark side for an issue or two, he’ll learn the error of his ways, he’ll come crawling right back to Bruce crying about how wrong he was, Bruce will jab him with an I-Told-You-So before they decide to team up as a real team and fight this villain. Respect will be earned both ways.

Or not. Who knows. Maybe the X-Men will crawl out of the ground and start stabbing people instead!