Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #938 – “Enemy at the Gates”! In the previous installment, Batman confronts a tech whiz-kid named Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong who has spent half his life collecting information on Batman in order to help design a Robot-Batman army. Col. Kane confronts Batman personally and is affronted that he recruited his daughter to help stop his mission to use the Batmen to rid the city of the League of Shadows (which Batman claims is merely a children’s fairy tale).

Before Col. Kane can shoot Batman in the brain with a *checks notes* gun, Batwoman and the rest of her team shows up to fight! FIGHT! FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT!

So fighting will most likely happen for the duration of the entire issue. Hopefully not, but I’ve been proven right before.

Detective Comics (Vol. 1), Issue #938 [October, 2016]
Written by: James Tynion IV
“Enemy at the Gates”

Many years ago, let’s say… four… Col. Kane’s clearance level has been raised to about 400 and now he has more access to classified information than the president. “You will not be promoted in rank. None of your work from here on out will be recognized in any public capacity for the duration of your service. You will do nothing to jeopardize the confidential nature of this branch of our military.

“Understood.”

A horn-rimmed glasses man pushes a file across the table. Things beyond Col. Kane’s wildest imagination (and he has a pretty wild imagination – he once mixed lemonade with iced tea!) lurk in Gotham’s shadows, and it’s time to put a stop to it. They chose Col. Kane because he has what it takes to make the HARD DECISIONS.

Col. Kane gets paged and he has to leave. When asked what could possibly be more important than this, he says “My daughter. They found my daughter.” And he walks out.

It appears that Kate Kane walked all the way to Arlington Cemetary from home, which would be a two hour drive, to see her mother’s grave. She’s probably, what, 12 or 13? It’s been six months since her mother and sister died in what I can only surmise is a horrible La-Z-Boy accident. She asks how her dad can make it through the day every day. He tells her that’s one hell of a question.

They have a touching moment, the kind I’ve come to expect from DC Comics once in a while. Basically, there’s a daughter that needs him and that’s what keeps him going. It takes four panels to get to that, though. Let’s try cutting that down next time.

“So, what life do you want, Kate? Tell me, and I’ll make sure I can get it for you.”

“I want to be a solider. I want to fight with you.”

How very nice! What a beautiful—oh wait, it’s present day now and they’re fighting each other. How times have changed. How the tables have turned. How the goose has been cooked.

It is attempted by a Robot-Batman that may or may not actually be a robot – I haven’t decided yet – to drag Col. Kane away from the incoming threat, but he doesn’t want to budge. He needs to think of the larger mission at hand, but he doesn’t wanna. Then he is finally goaded against his will.

But, sir! Sir! We have good intel that your legs were blown off in the war, sir!

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way, Kate,” Col. Kane says sullenly. “It wasn’t supposed to be this way.”

Batwoman’s team fights Col. Kane’s team. “You shouldn’t have brought them here,” growls Batman. “With all due respect, sir… shut up,” responds Batwoman.

The plan is to escape, not to fight to win. Carve a path to the upper levels, everyone is currently 10 miles below ground 30 miles west of Gotham. That’s a lot of running! Hop to it!

Robo-Batmen (who may or may not actually be robots) flank the elevator on the upper levels, waiting for ne’er-do-wells to escape. When the elevator door opens, it’s just Orphan. They laugh and laugh! What’s this skinny little girl going to do to seven burly, beefy men? We don’t see it happening, but it’s going to be “a lot”.

Red Robin helms the computer and attempts to rewire the intel interactive motherboard mainframe DOS encoder module chip. Red Robin compliments the computer to nobody, then Ulysses What’s-His-Nuts Armstrong shows up to both thank him and attempt to kick his tender little delicious ass. Well, Red Robin throws the rope around him and constricts him nice and good. They exchange nerd power plays on each other for a while. “I’d love to run some of my programs by you, pick your brain a bit…” Armstrong tells Red Robin, then smiles devilishly. “…once our colony agents beat the crap out of you and throw you in a cell, obviously.”

After Armstrong tells Red Robin that there are a lot of bad guys that the government is after, and that Batwoman’s band of misfits just made the list, the floor below him drops and he escapes. OR, he falls 40 feet to his messy death. Either way, Armstrong is out of the picture for now and we can all now read our comic books in peace.

Red Robin is so naive. That’s all the U.S. military does is attack on their own soil. 9/11 was an inside job! And so forth.

As a team of Batmen advance on Red Robin, the grenades in their belts start beeping, then they explode all kablooie-like. Seems as though Stephanie “Spoiler” Brown rigged them to go off remotely! SPOILER ALERT (lol). Red Robin chides her for almost setting off every weapon in the whole place. Spoiler tells him to relax, guy.

Clayface is about 60 times bigger than the Batmen, so he’s holding his own all right. No notes.

The group catches up with Batman, who leads them to the upper levels. “The Colony has bought into a myth – the League of Shadows. One of Ra’s Al Ghul’s oldest lies,” he tells them. Ra’s even told Batman that it was bullshit and that anybody stupid enough to believe something so dumb deserves getting tricked! But now they’re all suffering for it, so that’s a D-.

“The Colony thinks they need to eliminate a series of sleeper cells in Gotham City, but the League doesn’t exist. Those people are innocent,” Batman says. Red Robin briefs him that the Colony is going rogue and intends to run missiles domestically without their superiors knowing. “Good,” replies Batman, who obviously wasn’t listening.

The group meets up with Orphan upstairs, who took out a team of Batmen without getting scraped up too badly. As expected. Batwoman is smug for about two seconds before her mask gets shot right off her face. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” Col. Kane says with about 60 Batmen behind him (and that Armstrong nerd, if we’re keeping track of Armstrong nerds). “It shouldn’t be like this. You need to listen.”

No listening here, sir! La la la la la la la! You lied to Kate her whole life! Just to make her compliant! La la la la la la la la la la!

Col. Kane gives Kate one more chance. Kate tells him to fuck his own butt. Col. Kane sighs and sadly asks his men to subdue Kate’s group. But then Red Robin smiles like he doesn’t know how to smile correctly. “I don’t think so,” he says. Someone cranked the volume up on the Batmen helmets, emitting piercing soundbites of Ed Sheeran singing. “They’re going deaf unless you shut their weapon systems down now.”

And indeed, the Batmen are trying to cover their ears. Armstrong, for once, looks angry. “No! How?! When did you do this?!” And, it’s like, when you were jerking it in the bathroom, dorkus.

Your cockamamie monkeyshines end here, Kane! No more malarkey!

The crew leaves Col. Kane and Armstrong with the knowledge that they’ll be shut down. When the council finds out, they will be dismantled. These Batmen suits, it’ll take hours to shut down the override for the loud noise. “Dammit,” Col. Kane says as he picks up his daughter’s mask. “All these years, and it just falls apart in my hands.”

Armstrong tells Kane that they can still achieve their objective using the rejected bat-eyes that Armstrong developed. You see, they make you blind as a bat! How is that useful? Well, uh…

No, he’s talking about the drones. Armstrong built them even after they were all rejected, and now they can use them! HA HA HAAA!

Whoops, I peed my pants!

Final Thoughts

So Col. Kane and his Colony is chasing a threat that Batman thinks doesn’t even exist, huh? Well, since Batman is always right I already know how this all ends: with a giant stack of pancakes in front of me. See you next time, losers.