Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #934 – “The Young and the Brave”!

Preamble not necessary. Continue with the DC Rebirth era!

Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #934 [August, 2016]
Written by: James Tynion IV
“The Young and the Brave”

GOTHAM CITY. TWO DAYS AGO. A red man clad in a red hood with a tattered red cape is standing quite redly on a window ledge at the top of a skyscraper. “Azrael,” says a voice from above, perhaps God or Reverse Satan. “It’s over.”

“Do you expect me to run?” sneers Azrael.

“No,” sneers the voice from above. It belongs to Batman. It’s Batman. Batman is speaking now.

Something busts through the window from the inside, blasting Azrael off the ledge and into the river below. Then he’s suddenly in some sort of smoky void. “I cannot do what you ask of me,” Azrael gripes. “I will not. To answer to a higher power.”

Batman looks menacing in the smoke with his beady cowled eyes and the bat ears that look like devil horns. “Then let’s send you on your way to meet him.”

Azrael tries to take out one of those Darth Maul double-ended lightsabers, but he gets thrown back by a bolt of electricity. “Heaven help me,” he says. I’ll tell you this much: this issue sucks ass so far. Especially the next page where I get a leaping, full-page Batman crotch shot complete with lumps and everything. I don’t like it!

“Batman! We’re all out of granola!” “HH.”

So he doesn’t get to know right away who exploded the top of the skyscraper. Big fuckin’ whoop. There are other things at stake right now, like that drone over there that was left behind to watch Batman. *throws Batarang at it*

“Whoever this is, they wanted me to see what they were capable of,” Batman says. Azrael tries to hoist himself up in the rubble while a big crucifix hangs on a cathedral wall behind him. “Azrael… who did this to you?”

“You did.”

Well, fuck me sideways! What a reveal! If I had any idea what the fuck was happening in this issue, I’d be floored! Floored!

Fast forward two days, which would make it the very real present. Batwoman is swinging around town while talking to her dad on the ol’ cellular phone. They talk about their rough patch with enough exposition dialogue to choke a horse. He asks her what she has accomplished in the past few months. Batwoman tells him that she’s got a third date with a woman named Rachele! Dad does not like this flippant answer, and he’s ready to send Batwoman to her room. “You’re too good at what you do to be wasted picking up Batman’s second-hand scraps.”

Kate “Batwoman” “Sloppy Seconds” Kane.

She was a cadet in the army, and she’d be leading her own squadron now if she didn’t feel like swinging around in a costume instead. If she’s not going to be in the military anymore, then at least let Dear Ol’ Dad help you, kiddo? Please? He’ll give you a crisp dollar bill!

The world’s pointiest cockring?

Kate Kane shimmies out of her Batwoman jammies and enters her apartment, where she is mortified to find Batman waiting for her to show her the bat-shaped drone camera thing. “You may have heard about the destruction at St. Michael’s two nights ago. What you didn’t hear about was the young man who was beaten within an inch of his life.”

BORING! Who cares, Batman? There’s a Salisbury steak in the freezer with Kate’s name on it and she’s not about to let you ruin her stacked night.

Azrael is Jean-Paul Valley, and I already know that! Good for me! “I’ve read his journals. He believed himself hunted. The journals read like paranoia, talk of great conspiracy that threatened Gotham…”

Kate is impressed by the drone, which Batman claims is constructed of technology ten years ahead. So, basically, it’s like the iPhone 18 coming out in 2026 with the clearer camera and not much else. It wasn’t the only drone, either. Batman cracked into it’s mainframe and downloaded an internet that told him that it’s just one in a swarm. Kate asks why he’s telling her all this. It’s because they’re watching everyone. Batman, Batwoman, Robin, John Waters. “Someone has plans for Gotham’s vigilantes…”

Batman wants to take the clan in for training, but since Kate has a 5th-degree black belt in army-ology she resents the notion that she needs any training at all. But, she misunderstood. He doesn’t want to train her! He wants her to help train the others! Doy!

If you reference this elaborate family tree I made out of construction paper, glue, and glitter, I believe you’ll find everything is in order her.

After Bruce admits that he needs her help, Kate warms up to the idea. “So where are the recruits?” she smiles. Bingo bango! Let’s get these pussies to boot camp, baby!

At the Bay Street Seaport, a group of Penguin’s men attempt to steal $18,000,000 from a beached baby whale, but they are stopped by Stephanie Brown dressed as the Cluemaster! Whoever that is. Sounds like Riddler’s archenemy to me, all hell of givin’ clues to people for his riddles. “She’s been trained by Catwoman,” says the narration; probably Batman. Sounds like the Cluemaster has all the tools she needs to suck really hard, then, “and raised two veritable geniuses. I’ve made the mistake of underestimating her, and I won’t do it again. She’s unrefined, but determined.”

Then Robin comes out to smack a goon with a bo staff. Red Robin, rather. Tim Drake himself will be operating as Cluemaster’s lieutenant. And he’s not happy with Cluemaster right now. “I thought we agreed you would tell me when you started targeting A-List villains,” he scolds. She’s not having it. They fight like an old married couple and fuck like an old married couple also. I’m assuming. I know nothing of their history. Red Robin, you say? I used to like that restaurant!

After beating off Penguin’s cronies, Red Robin tells Cluemaster that “he got the letter”. They’re about ready to make celebration plans until Batman and Batwoman show up to draft them into the Butthead Army.

At a place called the Cauldron, we have Cassandra Cain stopping what looks like child trafficking. “She was engineered by her father away from other children to be a human weapon. Her first language was violence,” Batman says DRAMATICALLY. She goes by “Orphan” and she’s good at beat-’em-ups and we hope to have her on the team if we ask really nicely. She’s in the middle of slaughtering some bad guys and saving some children when Batman’s crew tells her to stop. Stop fighting crime! Stop fighting crime and come with us!

From the Theater District we find Clayface, a lumbering ogre who busted out of Arkham just to scare people out of the theater so he could have the place to himself.

“I used to be a piece of ass, if you can believe it!

Clayface wants to see a movie starring himself, Basil Karlo, before he turned into Jabba the Hutt. He was going to win an Oscar for his performance in Double Fisted Ass Sluts 3 but then the accident happened. “It’s not a long movie,” he says, begging Batman to let him watch his handsome, non-busted face smile on the big screen. “84 minutes, with credits. Just let me be that person for a bit longer. I won’t even put up a fight…”

No deal. Get in the fucking van.

Batman tells Clayface that he can give him is life back as long as he does everything Batman and Batwoman say. And that includes chores and a litany of sexual favors.

Now that the dream team has assembled, Batman and Batwoman addresses them all in front of the Batsignal. Time to get trained! “You have earned Batman’s trust. You have not earned mine,” Batwoman says like she’s King Cunt of Shitfuck Mountain. “I will be hard on you, because if I am not, you will die.” She’s going to take these nerds to boot camp and stomp their faces in the mud. “Do you want to save Gotham City? Do you want to save the world? Then you are going to follow orders, is that understood?”

First order of business. Red Robin, you get on top and put your mouth here. Orphan, you get on the side and put your hand there. Ooo, that tickles.

The two Bats have their army swinging around ropes connected to nothing. Batwoman has got Batman’s number about all this, says she knows that he’s afraid of something or else he wouldn’t be doing all this. This means that he knows more than he’s letting on. So what is it? Batwoman’s your partner. Spill.

The last shot is a large army of Robot Batmen facing a figure standing behind a rail, who is facing away from the reading audience (you and me!) This thus-far-unknown figure is building an army. An army of Batmen. Batmen to stop the Batman. And he looks like he’s already ready to fuck shit up.

lol!

Final Thoughts

I love it when a team of superheroes I’ve never heard of before gets assembled. It really adds to my investment in the characters when some no-name like Ratfuck the Destroyer gets hurt and/or doesn’t get hurt.

Someone should shove Red Robin’s head in the toilet and kick him in the butt. He didn’t even do anything yet and already I want him gone.