Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman Confidential (Vol. 1), Issue #6 – “Rules of Engagement (Part 6)”! In the previous installment of this shithole storyline, nothing happens except Batman infiltrates Lex’s robot army base. That’s it. The whole issue you bought with your hard-earned $2.99 had very little anything going on and you could finish it in seven seconds.

On to the finale, then I’m moving on to bigger and better things! Maybe! DC has been disappointing almost all across the board! Gotta read Archie instead.

Batman Confidential (Vol. 1), Issue #6 [August, 2007]
Written by: Andy Diggle
“Rules of Engagement (Part 6)”

“MAN VS. MACHINES”! That’s not exciting at all. Men have been fighting robots since the Middle Ages, it’s a real snooze of a trope at this point.

Lex is not happy that Batman is very much not dead. And also in the base. And also ready to win by the end of the issue. Lex’s tan suit is the worst thing I’ve seen since Barack Obama’s tan suit! “Mechanized infantry reported an intruder in the main bay… three seconds later, we lost contact,” reports Lex’s current second-in-command, whoever he might be. Who cares, he’s going to probably die soon anyway. Alone, forgotten, and violently.

“God, I hate superheroes,” Lex grimaces, whining like a child.

Batman is traipsing along the air ducts. “Emergency lockdown protocol,” Lex demands, face craggy with lines and shadows, looking stupid and constipated. “Release nerve agent into the shafts.”

Whoops, nope! Security systems down! Main power down! Black Hawk Down! Third down! Hut hut hike!

Auxilary power kicks in. Since Batman seems to be fucking shit up in the generator room, they should send 100% of their units to the generator room so that they can twist Batman’s nipples and–

NO! STUPID STUPID STUPID! BATMAN IS MAKING FOOLS OF US ALL!

If I see one cunt hair wafting through the door, I will murder the entire population of Omaha!

Lex orders the units to the room, and they make an IMPENETRABLE PERIMETER of robot guards! “Now, if we’re done with the theatrics…” Lex smirks, “I was in the middle of seizing control of the United States of America.”

Bzzt! Wrong! Batman is already in the room, sir. I see him in the corner mooning us with his big white butt. There’s absolutely no explanation why he was able to just magically bypass everything and anything and then show up in the room ready to pound Luthor’s face with his genitalia, but here we are. “Clayton. Draw your sidearm and shoot this man in the face,” Lex commands Clayton. Clayton, with the sidearm.

“Leave it in the holster,” Batman commands Clayton, who doesn’t take orders from Batman. I really don’t know what’s stopping Clayton from just shooting Batman in the face. Batman has no backup. Clayton looks terrified. It’s truly a mystery for the ages.

Clayton decides to listen to Lex, but a batarang right into the hand makes the decision for him. Like, it goes an inch deep into his hand. It’s going to get infected and he’s going to die! That shit ain’t cool at all.

Next Lex commands the robots to “tear him apart”, but that doesn’t work very well either. There are about ninteen pages of the robots attempting to “tear him apart”, and I glazed over during most of it, but in the end Batman reigns supreme. As usual. Except for the part at the very end when a robot sneaks up behind Batman and lifts him up by the neck! I hope it squeezes the life out of him.

“You just walked into a room full of war machines that could rip your head off as a easily as popping a champagne cork,” Lex says smugly, hands in his fucking pockets. “What did you hope to achieve? Did you honestly think you could win this fight…?”

I had a plan all along, I swear. You can tell because of the namedropped an ancient Roman courtier!

Batman is like “not today” and initiates a sequence that causes all the robots to start murdering themselves. And they do. “Damn…” says Lex. This does suck! Very worthy of a muttered “damn”.

“I underestimated you,” Lex glares, showing off his striking overbite.

“You underestimated yourself,” Batman responds. “I used your own virus against you – with a few minor adjustments. You programmed my machines to kill. I programmed yours to kill themselves.”

Whoop-de-doo, bitch. Here’s a medal.

Lex Luthor is like “OK, THE JIG IS UP! TIME FOR ME TO GO!” then he explodes. lol.

“A– a robot…? Luthor was a robot…?” Batman gibbers. This is a really stupid story, by the way. Have I mentioned that yet? “A puppet, remote-operated by a neural relay system…” he growls. “…designed by Waynetech.”

Cut to Lex Luthor nudely removing himself from one of those tanks that can control robots from a remote-operated neural relay system. “Oh well… back to the drawing board.”

Th-th-th-th-th-th-that’s all, folks!

Ain’t I a stinker?

Batman meets up with Jimmy Jam James Gordon up on the rooftop. Apparently, Lex Luthor’s alibi is that he was staying at a hair loss clinic in the Swiss Alps this whole time! Pah! And witnesses to prove it? Double pah! Pah pah!

So what of Senator Crabtree who was framed for whore murder? They’re dropping the charges. Seems as though Crabtree didn’t murder this particular whore! Now, even though he had no ties whatsoever to the prostitute and her baby… eh, he adopted her for some reason. Batman grits his teeth so hard at this that there’s no way he didn’t chip about seventeen of them. “Is that so…”

Everything is wrapped up in a nice, neat, little package! Time to throw a party! Bruce Wayne has cordially invited all his most perfumed, oily guests for a special black tie charity event. He’s on a makeshift stage at a dais talking about good and evil and how good is good and how evil is evil.

“In recent weeks, we’ve all had to look evil in the eye… it’s been right here, inescapable – in our cities, our streets, our homes… arising from the belief that might makes right.”

Bruce’s guests look drunk as fuck.

“But if might makes right, does weakness make wrong? Are the weak unworthy of our care and protection? Of course not. It’s the duty of the mighty to protect the weak. To defend the defenseless.”

Speaking like a true liberal hippie treehugger. Lex has the right idea! Machine gun them all down for profit, dummies.

…just as soon as this woman stops sucking my dick under the podium.

Long story short, WayneTech is withdrawing from the defense sector! Protect the weak, my hiney! Instead, have the Wayne Foundation. Throw your money toward orphans and delinquent youngins instead.

And now here’s the newly appointed chairman of the, what was it now? I already forgot… Wayne Foundation. Pffft. Party on, Wayne. Party on, Garth. Anyway, it’s Senator “Scruff McGruff” Crabtree.

Hurf durf huff fluff huffity duff.

God bless Batman and god bless Bruce Wayne and good day bye.

Final Thoughts

*jerks off forever*

Listen. This was perhaps the most disposable Batman story I’ve ever read. DC has let me down again!

Looks like I’m going to need to start jumping straight to critically acclaimed series and stories instead of hitting what sounds interesting. What works for Marvel doesn’t work for DC, it seems. DC has a lot of catching up to do to maintain my interest, and that’s saying a lot considering Captain America is the worst superhero on the planet by a long shot.