Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Detective Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6 – “Kill Game”! In the previous installment, not much happens really. The issue was split into two stories, and not enough happened in either to necessitate a real recap! But here I got anyway:

Batman gets a lead and finds himself needing to hit up the Iceberg Casino. Charlotte Rivers is undercover there, but not undercover enough, because Penguin’s got creepy sex offender cameras in the changing rooms.

The backstory showed Prof. Hugo Strange’s strange estranged son, Eli, conning through a mobster poker game while Catwoman robs them all blind.

Issue #6 returns to the single-story format. Let’s see what that Batman nerd’s up to now, since he’s supposed to show up at the casino as both Batman and Bruce Wayne. Gonna be a Mrs. Doubtfire situation.

Detective Comics (Vol. 2), Issue #6 [April, 2012]
Written by: Tony S. Daniel
“Kill Game”

In a private residence overlooking the water, the glimmery Pink Floyd laser light show that is the Iceberg Casino can be seen from a very short distance. You could throw a rock at it. Legend has it that the Titanic Casino was completely destroyed by the Iceberg Casino. All 4.9 billion people perished. It was a sad day for Gotham City. You can read about it here —> www.iceberg.com.org

An unidentified couple discusses the casino. The dude needs to get into that casino, man. The Penguin’s just been hanging out there for too long, he needs to be flushed out. The lady presents to him a gold VIP pass, the same one that was stolen from Fatty Uncle Boil-Face. “You’re a helluva woman, Chase,” the man says with gratitude, slipping the card into his wallet. She’s revealed to be a blonde with an eyepatch. I don’t know who! So let’s move on.

“Just listen to me and we’ll be living like royalty in Costa Rica by Sunday,” Chase tells him while putting on a pair of stiletto heels. That’s right, honey, she’s got her…er, eye…on the big picture. She’s got it all figured out! It’s all gonna be fiiiiiine.

Gah! Get it out of here! I’m trying to eat lunch!

“First, that face of yours has to go. You know how I hate that one.” She punches him right in the mug, bluntly telling this fucker that he needs to look like he has even one measly ounce of class! So this guy goes into the bathroom and applies his concealer, looking all pretty now. Can’t take any chances on anyone recognizing this mope, the plan has to be pulled off without a hitch.

Jack Houston is the name, and being called “Snakeskin” is the game! And the other game is crime! Once upon a time, Houston volunteered his body for skeezy back-alley medical research and got disfigured to high heaven! He won a settlement, gambled it all away very quickly, and got himself five million dollars in the hole. Every single casino and loan shark is now after this guy, so he’s turning to criming around with crime activity to pay back his debts while looking like other people.

And now you know….the rest of the story.

Batman’s been doing some detective work in these comics! Snakeskin’s fingerprints match the ones found on the dropped $1000 Iceberg Casino chip. His last known residence is the Abbot Transient Motel, getting handy-Js from the female vending machine stockers. The motel room is decrepit as all get-out; a bathub is filled near the brim with blood. Human blood. Like, from a person and it’s that guy! You know! The guy with the thing! He was last seen in Issue #4 doing stuff! …uh. Raju! Raju’s dead.

Trusty Alfred the Wayne Manor Bitch positively identifies the body from Bat Cave Command and discovers phone records showing Raju calling Nicolas Pog, a weapons dealer, and Jill Hamilton, a…woman. BATMAN HEARS ALL HE NEEDS TO KNOW. TALLY HOOOOOOO!!!

Batman “speaks” to the desk clerk, a real Danny-DeVito-from-Taxi-looking piece of shit. And by “speaks” I mean “allows the guy to shoot off half his own foot”.

It’s Always Sunny in Gotham City, bitches! RAT-A-TAT TAT!

“I stand there and let his fear take over,” remarks Batman’s inner monologue as DeVito fills his pants with all the poop in the universe. When asked if a Jill Hamilton has checked into the motel, DeVito claims that “some chick with an eyepatch was here” and he only saw her in passing. He ain’t know no names!

“Hey–I’m bleeding out over here. Help me!” DeVito cries, but Batman walks away going la-la-la-la.

At the Iceberg Casino hotel, incognito as a cleaning maid, Charlotte Rivers paws through Eyepatch’s belongings. She finds some unseen thing she was looking for, but Eyepatch BAFFS her on the head from behind. “You picked the wrong room to pilfer, bimbo!” says Eyepatch, but they exchange knowing glances at each other.

Eypatch and Rivers are sisters. “We need to talk, now,” an angry floor-crawling Charlotte snarls.

“Make it fast and get out. I’m too busy for your drama.” says Eyepatch aka JILL HAMILTON eek!

“I’m investigating some bad people, Jill– and I’m about to expose a whole underground weapons operation,” Rivers declares triumphantly. “One that goes all the way to the top of Gotham. Guess who’s name popped up?

Don Henley? Erik Estrada? Dr. Joyce Brothers? Chaz Bono? John Astin? Frances McDormand? Jonathan Rhys Meyers? Corbin Bernsen? Amy Adams? Jimmie Walker? Dana Delany? Phil Donahue?

Ok! I’ll go first! Do you like boys???…. ♫♪♫♪♫♪

Anyway, tread lightly, Sweet Sister! Rivers has all the dirt fit to print. But she doesn’t scare Eyepatch, oh no sir! “I’d ruin both you and your privileged little life,” says Jill Hamilton as she calmly starts to pour herself a drink…

…and instead smashes the bottle.

Speaking of Danny DeVito…Penguin, elsewhere in the casino, he praises his council of weirdos and fuck-ups for coming together as a team and meeting diplomatically! “The challenges that await you in Gotham will be plentiful. They’ll come from friends, which will be few– and, of course, they’ll come from foes, which will be many.” Hey, nice speech, Shorty. Who wrote that nugget of great prose? Tony S. Daniel? Pffft.

Penguin prattles on about how he’s taking all these rejects under his wing, but they are all curmudgeonly about how much money they’re being asked to cough up for Penguin’s acts of altruistic good intentions! There’s an invisible guy wearing glasses, there’s a guy who looks like a red container of poisonous gas, there’s a guy wearing super cool x-ray specs, there’s a guy who looks like a dang lightbulb. A real dream team.

Penguin has a speech impediment that makes him end sentences with “WAH!” Like a penguin! Or a Waluigi. He calls this sorry bunch of losers a, well, a sorry bunch of losers! “What’s happening in the streets right now is exactly what I’m protecting you from… Another reason none of you have been targeted yet is that word has spread as to who’s holding your money.”

The Iceberg Casino is the most secure location this side of Switzerland! No worries! No men who masquerade as bats to worry about here! Heh heh. WAH!

One of Penguin’s female servants has a rather suspicious eyepatch, though..

Let’s turn our attention to Crime Alley, where Batman is chasing down Smitty, a lackey of that Nicolas Pog fella. I wonder what kind of weapons Pog’s been dealing lately???

Smitty looks rather ratty and twitchy. Apparently, Pog is extremely wealthy and has the means to hire all kinds of crooked lawyers…he’s even able to buy off crooked cops and judges. And yet he has Smitty, this ugly dumbass.

Oh no! Did I accidentally run down GHOST ALLEY by mistake??

Smitty is hardly a fraction of a match for Batman. It looks like he starts tickling him? “Where’s your boss, Smitty? Where’s Pog?” he growls as he continues moving his Uncle Touchy fingers all over Smitty. Batman had to go through a lot of people to get to him. Lots of punched-in faces, lots of broken teeth, lots of snapped bones and burned arms and missing kidneys. Smitty whimpers and gives up the goods.

Smitty directs Batman to a bomb-making facility.

!!!

But there are no bombs. Just plenty of materials for making bombs. Even Smitty is puzzled; he suspects the one-eyed lady had something to do with this. She and Pog have been cozying up a lot lately. Hanging out in an estate that’s, like, five feet away from the Iceberg Casino and all.

Batman finds a large ice cooler in the room. Inside is the hacked up body of Nicolas Pog with a ninja star sticking out of his left eyeball. So what is this, the killer wants to make her victims just as one-eyed as she is? Tee hee.

Ugghh, Charlotte’s at the casino. I guess he’ll have to show up there after all anyway. Boo.

Penguin steps his ugly butt out to the front of the casino and announces the grand opening to all the waiting patrons. During the diversion, One-Eye’s male face-changing partner in crime, Jack Houston, Snakeskin Magoo, motorboats on up to the loading dock and she sneaks him in under a serving cart. In the main lounge, Bruce Wayne calls up Charlotte and asks her to acknowledge his smiley, ruggedly disheveled and tuxedoed presence at the casino entrance. She leaves him hanging as she follows her sister, who passes through pushing the cart.

Brucey tells Alfie to put the yacht in neutral and give him five minutes. The tracking device he put on Charlotte’s dress (which she isn’t even wearing anymore, dummy) should help him find her and allow him take her back out in less than five minutes! Then they’ll be heading back to Wayne Manor where Bruce and Charlotte will fuck abusively while Alfred attempts to enjoy his can of Hormel chili (no beans) in the next room.

Man, I sure feel stupid wondering how Alfred is up to his neck in pussy. Who could resist?

But hold up, drive closer to that boat over there. That’s the same damn boat that the clown mask thug was driving when he got away from me! It’s a stolen boat! That’s it, back to Batman Time! Alfred, wait here for about six hours! I’m probably gonna get knocked unconscious and tied up. Feel free to help yourself to the snack bag, I brought beef jerky.

Alfred crabs and groans about how Batman already has him involved in the vampire case, which I can read all about in a series called I, Vampire, which I’m NOT going to read at all whatsoever…

…yet.

…but apparently there was a train and some missing passengers and a lot of blood, so Tony S. Daniel fulfilled his obligation to namedrop a concurrent New 52 series that no one was going to bother reading.

Back in the casino, Rivers keeps following One-Eyed Jill. Even if she knows Charlotte is here, even if she knows Charlotte’s on to her, even if she knows Charlotte is likely following her…she has to try and stop her, right? Thanksgiving is gonna be awkward, but it’s a small price to pay!

Charlottle walks into a dark room, where she stupidly calls for her sister to come out, come out, wherever you are. Then a guy with a knife stabs her a few times!

THAK THAK THAK THAK

Mr. Puts-On-a-Different-Face Guy hears a loud crash in the middle of his maniacal stabbing session. For a quick second, he thinks One-Eyed Jill is setting him up, but Batman makes his very loud, room-filling appearance by hammering this guy with his many (two) fists.

“WHY?!” *punch* “WHY?!” *other punch*

Charlotte’s bleeding out on the other side of the room. Batman runs to her and gets a glass door closed behind him. They’re both now stuck in a small elevator-sized enclosure.

“Hahaha! You lose! You lose, Batman!” the bloody face-changer laughs through the window pane.

“I did this. My feelings for Charlotte fogged my judgment for a split second– I did this. I killed us.” Batman struggles as Snakey Skin presses a few buttons, and the glass box starts filling up with snow and ice.

Final Thoughts

I hope Batman fucking dies, dude. Then Alfred can take over and actually get some shit done!

One more issue left in the storyline. Looking forward to wrapping this abortion up in a nice tidy package and then shipping it through the mail to Batman’s mom. Oh wait, she’s dead! Haha!