About this Blog

I've found that I'm unable to keep track of what's going on from month to month in the various comics that I read. I've also been unable to find an online summary to help refresh my memory. So, this is an attempt to provide that summary, mostly for myself.

Friday, November 11, 2011

Batman Detective Comics #1

We open with Batman running across rooftops and narrating and cut to a scene of a naked Joker in a fight with another villain, who he stabs repeatedly and kills. Batman bursts in on the scene (somehow he's now no longer jumping rooftops, but jumps out of the Batjet and crashes through the window as the Joker flees out the opposite window (doll heads roll around the room). Before Batman can give chase, he hears a girl asking for help in the flaming room. Armored cops now burst in, intent on capturing Batman. Commissioner Gordon saves the girl as Batman flees just in time for a police chopper to open fire on him. Gordon chastises them and we learn that this is under the order of the Mayor.

Seems Batman escaped because he's now driving back into the Batcave and meeting Alfred's hologram. They discuss the Joker's kill and we learn that he's been on a murder spree, and they don't know why.

Cut to Commissioner Gordon on the roof by the Bat signal. We learn that the girl is 11-year-old Olivia Carr and the murder victim was her uncle. She was picked up by a family member already, but she told police that Joker said he was staying above Roscoe Pharmacy. Batman runs off, knowing it will be a trap. The police are already there when Batman sees through his binoculars that the Joker is in there, but realizes it is a fake (doll) with a pull string which makes him laugh. It explodes, killing loads of cops and throwing Batman out the window. He notes the one person in the crowd who flees to the train (Joker).

He follows and Joker throws down a paralyzing bomb of smoke which Batman shrugs off and after a brutal fight in which he gets stabbed twice and shocked, he subdues Joker.

Cutting to Arkham, a beaten Joker is chained and straight-jacketed in a chair. Dr. Arkham exits telling him that a doctor will be in to look at his injuries.

Final scene, the door opens to admit the "doctor" and we learn that Joker had staged things to get here and be seen by the Dollmaker. It had been Dollmakers relatives that Joker had been killing because he wanted only Dollmaker to do a procedure on him. The last kill, Olivia's uncle, was Dollmaker's son. (and so, perhaps Dollmaker was the relative who picked up Olivia?) The last page shows Joker's skinned face hanging on the wall, Joker commenting that it felt "fangasmic" and Dollmaker talking about them both celebrating their rebirth.

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