Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: Rebirth! I’m going to see what the 2016 DC Rebirth reboot version of Batman is made of. I trust that he is taut with sexy, rippling muscles and is ready, willing, and able to bone every chick on this side of the stinky Gotham River.

Will I finally get to see one of Alfred’s famous orgies? God, I hope not!

Batman: Rebirth, Issue #1 [August, 2016]
Written by: Scott Snyder / Tom King
“Batman: Rebirth”

Speaking of Alfred, my dude is picking bumpy green fruit in the backyard when his cellphone from 2002 rings, indicating that someone just rang the doorbell. Technology!

“Hi. I’m here about the offer?” says a somewhat meek individual of the Black persuasion. This is on a Monday. It is spring. Why these two things matter, I do not know yet, but the scene suddenly shifts to Batman fighting a guy wielding two giant machine guns. He looks like a crash test dummy with Roman numerals tattooed around the circumference of his ugly, bald head. It’s Calendar Man, whom I was introduced to back in Batman: The Long Halloween. There’s something about spores and how the calendar keeps cycling and cycling. Batman knocks Calendar Man out cold and focuses on the spores. The damnable spores.

“Alfred. Max charge. If the spores get out, everyone dies! Max charge! Do it!”

A little lightning bolt forms between Batman’s bat ears. He screams and electricity flows and pulses around him in a blue haze.

Now it’s Tuesday. It’s summer. We see those taut, sexy, rippling Bruce Wayne muscles while Lucius Fox tries to talk to him on the helipad. “Mister Wayne, when it’s 137 degrees in Gotham without a hint of a breeze… tradition usually holds that one schedules meetings inside.”

Tradition?! Pah!

But sir, your fear of heights!

Lucius Fox, sweating in his $5,000 suit, pulls some papers out of a briefcase. “Through some very traditional accounting and legal maneuvers, I have managed to uncouple the Wayne family funds from the government’s lien,” he says, which sounds like some billionaire-gaming-the-system shit to me. “I’ll just need you to sign some papers, and your fortune and your company are yours again.”

Bruce swings around like some fool diseased monkey and asks Lucius exactly how many times he has lost his company only to have it saved. How many times? 2? 10? “Too many, Mister Wayne,” Lucius responds looking quite sweaty and gross. Then he launches into a thing about Bruce’s dad being a doctor and thinking that it’s crazy that someone who gets driven crazy by being a doctor is a doctor. Here’s what Bruce’s dad said, and it stuck with Lucius: “Sonny boy, just wear a sombrero and laugh your problems away!”

Actually, he said this: “You’re right, Lucius. I am crazy. But the sick need someone crazy enough to believe they can be better. So what else could I be?”

*dons sombrero*

It’s Wednesday. It’s fall. Calendar Man is behind this weird daily season change. “He’s speeding up the seasons by some hidden mechanism,” Bruce surmises as he puts on his cowl. “Tomorrow the temperature will drop. Then rise. He must have hidden spores around the city. They’ll hatch on Thursday with the coming of Spring. He’ll never talk, either. We need to go.”

This all sounds very sane. The young Black man who rang the doorbell earlier asks Bruce what the hell he’s doing here in his elaborate technological nightmare of a Batcave. “That’s up to you,” Bruce answers enigmatically. The young man wonders if he should stay until his parents are better. Bruce is like “yeah, whatever”. This kid thinks he’s going to be the new Robin, but Batman has other plans for him.

The yellow will really bring out your eyes.

At least he doesn’t have to run around looking like stupid Robin. The young man is intrigued…

It’s Thursday. It’s winter. “I need you to count. Oxygen tank’s useless in water this temperature. Freezes the main valve. With lots of cold and no air, I should have about four minutes before my heart gives out. If I can’t find and disable Calendar’s machine in those four minutes, the machine’ll turn the city back to spring again. All those spores will activate. And Gotham dies. So I need you to count.”

Will do, Mr. Batman, sir! One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Montana. LOL! Sorry, boss. Where was I? Oh yeah? Uh…

I forgot to set the scene! Batman is diving deep into frigid waters. Down, down, down. It takes five minutes and forty-one seconds to get to the giant underwater machine, which causes New-Robin to flip the fuck out. “Your body can’t take this!” he screams through Batman’s earpiece. “You need to come up! Forget the spores! Forget the damn weather machine! YOU’RE GOING TO DIE!”

Yeah, die like a fox. Batman takes a bomb out of his pocket and secures it to the machine. New-Robin calls the whole situation insane as the blast from the bomb blows Batman out of the water and right into the helicopter waiting for him 400 feet in the air. “It’s done,” he says without a hint of damage to his lungs or rectum.

It’s Friday. It’s spring. A dried-up dead husk of a Calendar Man lies on the ground like a puckered prune. Then a hand suddenly emerges from the mouth. Then an arm. Then a whole dang nude body. A new Calendar Man, shedding his skin like a snake. Ladies and gentlemen, can we share a big “WTF”?

Bruce Wayne and New-Robin are spending their afternoon kicking trees. “He’s back,” New Robin reports. “Right about now, he’s… hatching. I was looking at the file on him.”

This sounds very made up, New-Robin. You’re making all this up. Go to bed without dinner.

Bruce smiles as New-Robin explains this horrific Calendar Man ritual.

“He comes back better every time,” exclaims New-Robin. “How are we supposed to combat that?”

“Easy,” says Bruce. “We come back better each time, too.”

Alfred drops two avocado halves down a hole. The bats eat it. The issue ends.

Final Thoughts

IT IS UNCLEAR TO ME THE NATURE OF THE SPORES. Why spores? What do spores have to do with killing the entire city? What does Calendar Man have against the fine citizens of Gotham anyway? Maybe I should read through the issue again.

…

Nah, fuck it. The spores are evil and dangerous. I’ll take the issue’s word for it.