Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #1 – “Knife Trick”! I know jack shit about Batman. OK, that’s not true, I know there’s Michael Keaton and Heath Ledger and Jim Carrey dressed up like the Question Mark Guy on TV who tells you how to get free money from the government. Also, something about the pencil trick! But this isn’t about the pencil trick. It’s about the knife trick!

Batman (Vol. 2) is part of a complete DC reboot that started in 2011 called “The New 52”. I’ve heard that there were polarizing opinions of this particular reboot from longtime fans, but since I’m absolutely NOT a longtime fan and since 2011 was the first time that every series simultaneously starts again with Issue #1 since 1938, I consider it a perfect launching point for my fruitful DC Comics reading career. I’m not reading Golden Age shit where Superman spends half the issue selling Fig Newtons! Hell no!

And so we begin Batman, Volume 2, Issue #1, “Knife Trick”! This better be worth it or someone’s getting smacked! Again, if you have access to this issue, feel free to read along for the best shitty experience of a lifetime.

Batman (Vol. 2), Issue #1 [November, 2011]
Written by: Scott Snyder
“Knife Trick”

I don’t know what the FUCK is going on. We start with some sort of soliloquy from Mr. Batman himself about how residents of Gotham can submit their own three-words-or-less description for the “Gotham is…” section of the local paper. Mostly stuff like “Gotham is shit” or “Gotham is really shitty” or “Gotham is shit fuck shit”. Meanwhile, he appears to be fighting bad guys when, suddenly, the JOKER HIMSELF pops in to help! The Joker! Helping Batman! Even I know that’s crazy! What is going on?!

Next, we see Batman talking to Commissioner Gordon about Arkham Asylum, which is a video game for the Xbox 360! Actually, it appears that Batman has been snooping around the nuthouse looking for a guard named Dan Matthews. They say the name enough times that I filed it away in my IMPORTANT brain bin, but I already forgot it! Give the guy a less non-descript name. Like Chuck Fuckerman, or Spiro Agnew.

–shit! Turncoat piece of shit! The Joker is a turncoat piece of shit. Of FUCKING shit!

Now we cut to Bruce Wayne hanging out in his, uh, lab? Does Bruce Wayne have a lab? The Joker is with him, it seems, and these two knuckleheads are discussing Wayne’s fancy new contact lenses that let him access his nerd computers remotely. It is then revealed that the Joker is Dick in disguise, which EXPLAINS WHY JOKER WAS HELPING HIM AT THE ASYLUM! OHHHHH! Dick is Robin, right? Man, this is gonna be tough for me. Bear with me here.

In the next scene we’re at Wayne Manor where Bruce Wayne is hosting a fancy-ass party and giving a fancy-ass speech about how the people of Gotham shouldn’t be worrying about what Gotham City “is”, but rather what it “can be” or “will be” or “it depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is”. Ha! Bill Clinton. Anyway, Wayne’s speech is incredibly inspiring, and I can tell that this is the case from the various facial expressions of his inspired party attendees. Bruce Wayne promises to fund efforts to restore the city to a less Detroit-like state, which we all know is futile. Throwing money at a problem doesn’t always make that problem go away, Brucey. He also ends up encountering some guy named Lincoln March during the event, who is drawn identically to Bruce Wayne except with better-combed hair. March intends to run for mayor. I’m guessing he’ll be dead by Issue #3. After eavesdropping on a Commish Gordon phone call about a murder, Wayne puts on his Batman pants and heads out.

Apparently every new Bruce Wayne clone takes turns playing Robin.

CRIME TIME! There’s a murdered guy in his underwear pinned to an apartment wall with a bunch of knives stuck in him. The knives have owl symbols on them, and since the first six issues of this series follow a storyline called The Court of Owls, I’m guessing these owl symbols are just as important, IF NOT MORE SO, than this Dan Whosits fella.

This crime is a bad crime, as it turns out. It’s even more crime-y than meets the eye, because written on the walls with paint thinner was the message “Bruce Wayne Will Die Tomorrow” that Batman discovered by lighting the wall on fire, which is a cool thing to do to an apartment building that probably has other people besides the dead guy in it. Has Bruce Wayne learned NOTHING from the Surfside condo collapse??

During the scene, Batman took some skin discovered under the victim’s fingernails and sent it to his lab through the back of his hand somehow (?). Alfred (or, as I call him, MR. BUTLER) ran some tests and the results were already in: BATMAN IS NOT THE FATHER! But he is, I guess, to Dick Grayson, and that’s who the DNA matches with. Dick Grayson is Robin! I think that’s true. This is how the issue ends, complete with the tagline “Because above everything, Gotham is… a mystery.” Ooooohhhh, chills!

The Bruce Wayne clone is trying to get the other Bruce Wayne clone to help the Bruce Wayne clone to satisfy the agenda of the Bruce Wayne clone.

Final Thoughts

I don’t know what’s going on yet! I don’t like how the artist made ten other people in the comic look like Bruce Wayne. I think Commissioner Gordon needs to shave off his Sex Offender Registry mustache. Why does somebody want to kill Bruce Wayne? Not just Batman, but Bruce Wayne! Do they not want Gotham restored to some fictional former glory? How is Dick Grayson aka Maybe-Robin tied into this? Did he kill the guy with owl knives? Why didn’t he use his robin knives? Ha! OK, and why doesn’t Commissioner Gordon know that Bruce Wayne is Batman yet? Is he a stupid man?

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

Or maybe not.