Comics

Ok so I read an article about what went down with the wedding, and it pointed out that there were hints of Selina's decision to leave Batman sprinkled throughout the earlier issues. One of them featured Bruce and Selina seeing an alternate universe, basically, where Bruce Wayne was happy and not Batman. And the whole world was in chaos, and the villains were like succeeding, because there was no Batman to stop them. So that was hint one that a happy Bruce Wayne would be a bad thing.

And the other one, which I just reread, is exclusively Joker vs Catwoman. Joker wants to kill Selina, and they fight and monologue to each other, blah blah blah. But the reason Joker wants to kill her is because she makes Bruce happy, and a happy Bruce (ALLEGEDLY) cannot be Batman. And Joker wants there to be Batman, because he's crazy and they have their weird co-dependent relationship going on. And he says some shit I originally thought nothing of.




But now I realize this was obviously planting the seeds for what would go down later. She sees a vision of a world that's all fucked up because Batman doesn't exist, Joker tells her that she's gonna ruin Batman, and then her own best friend tells her basically the same thing. The internal conflict is still dumb IMO, but not as random as I originally thought. But there is still more to see about this whole plot to manipulate Selina and drive a wedge between her and Bruce, so hopefully that will get cleared up.

Ok so they concluded the whole Mr. Freeze/jury duty story by Bruce basically going on a rant about how Batman is not infallible. He tells his own story (leaving out the fact that he's Batman) and how he has suffered in life. And they show him making allusions to Selina, too.



Anyways the jury agrees with him and thinks Batman made a mistake so they vote Mr. Freeze not guilty. Bruce goes home and it's revealed that he bribed someone to get onto jury duty (so it wasn't a corny coincidence like I originally said upthread) so he could rectify the mistakes he made handling Mr. Freeze.

He tells Alfred to get rid of his Batsuit and bringing him the old one, because he doesn't wanna wear the one that reminds him of Selina. And basically he's going back to his roots. And he's wearing underwear over his pants again.

yeah that artgerm guy is doing a variant for every catwoman cover. here's the other ones he's put out so far.

so the batman series is mostly back to a villain of the week thing, so i'm not following it as closely. the whole bane conspiracy hasn't really been addressed since the wedding, so i'm kind of waiting for that to come back up because that was some good shit.

i know the next step in that storyline is actually involving nightwing. the guy who writes the nightwing series revealed for some reason that bane's next step in his plan to ruin batman is to go after nightwing. so bane puts a hit out on nightwing and he gets shot in the head. he survives, but doesn't know who he is or anything like that. idk why he would just casually reveal such a massive spoiler like that but whatever. that sounds dope, and i like how bane is pretty much systematically fucking with everyone batman cares about.

i'm still reading catowman as of now just bc i like this storyline, but i might give up on it if they keep her in the holding pattern she's currently in. the new issue is mostly flashback, in the form of her talking to her sister in the mental hospital. so the backstory is that they were sisters and somehow they ended up alone. she already has a backstory, but this i guess is meant to fill in the holes (or at least that's what i'm telling myself bc they're kind of contradictory). selina and maggie are sisters and selina's the badass one and maggie is the nice one. there's flashbacks to a halloween when selina dresses up like a cat (subtle) and gets into a fight with some guys and pulls a gun



and then, based on the *other* but still *the same* backstory, they get split up and selina gets sent to an orphanage on her own. maggie becomes a nun and selina becomes catwoman.



maggie i guess leaves the church because she gets married, and selina's clownery with Black Mask puts maggie and her husband in his crosshairs. and just like i said in my last post, he tortures her and her husband and makes her eat her husbands eyes. it's implied selina saves them and maggie ends up catatonic in a mental hospital.

selina's monologue about her and her sister's past is interrupted in the present day by doctors, so selina hides. the doctor says he was sent by the crazy governor bitch to do something to maggie. selina is all spider-man crouched in the ceiling and the doctor gives her a shot and that's the end of the issue.



i think i'm gonna stop paying for this book and just start ~acquiring~ it via alternative methods because honestly it's only okay and 4 dollars is a lot of money for 15 pages of ok story.

oop so i forgot to update all my faithful readers here on something that happened, bane had nightwing shot in the head, look



so batman chases down the shooter and beats the fuck out of him, but doesn't know what bane is up to. then fastforward to the penguin storyline again, he basically rats on bane running this whole secret operation out of arkham asylum, so batman goes there to confront him and beats him up, but bane plays harmless. gordon tries to stop batman from attacking him, but bruce is basically in a rage and punches gordon. gordon tells batman to get out of his sight, and bane smiles, successfully driving a wedge between batman and gordon.



selina is still doing shenanigans in california somewhere. she gets captured by the crazy governor lady. the only thing of note is that she gets the shit beaten out of her and passes out, and has this dream while she's out:



her series is getting old, and i want it to start connecting to batman again. but i know the penguin is gonna show up at some point so, so hopefully that'll start to bridge the gap.

lots of catching up to do

Now that Gordon and Batman are at odds, Batman is trying to get info on Bane, cause he still doesn't buy the act that Bane is reformed or whatever. Gordon is hating on Batman pretty hard and does this:



Since he ratted on Bane, Batman takes Penguin to the Batcave for his own safety, and he sits with a blindfold on and talks to Alfred about poetry until they get jumped. Flashpoint Batman (confusing, but basically Batman from another dimension, except it's Bruce's father Thomas behind the mask) shows up and beats up Alfred. Bruce comes home to find the power out and is reasonably shook. He kneels down next to Alfred, with the other Batman hiding in the shadows behind him.

So then the next couple issues, 2 of which are out, are basically a series of hallucinations that Bruce goes through. The first is that he's a kid and his parents get shot, but there's already a Batman who catches their killer (look at the pretty art)



and bruce goes crazy and visits his parents killer jail and stabs him to death, and then gets arrested and kills a bunch more people in jail, every time accusing them of killing his parents.

the second hallucination is bruce waking up, captured by professor pyg, the creepy serial killer. more pretty art.



bruce fights pyg and tries to remember wtf is going on and how he got there, and he thinks about selina and his parents and nightwing getting shot and all that. and then in a big mindfuck, this happens



damian is his son with talia la ghul who became robin and then died. so basically this is a big hallucination with a bunch of bad shit haunting him.

on the Catwoman side of things:

Catwoman busts into the Governor's Mansion and faces off with the crazy wife lady. She fights his sons and then the lady actually shoots one of her own sons and kills him. Then they fast forward and she's gone missing, and the cops are looking for Selina. The crazy lady Raina goes into hiding and starts trying to get more surgeries to fix her fucked up face, while Selina hangs out with her sister and does whatever it is Catwoman does. That is until the Penguin shows up in town, blows up a ferris wheel to get her attention, and then offers her a job. and that's where that leaves off.

We still gotta find out how Penguin ends up in Catwoman's new city, but we gotta get through the rest of the hallucinations Bruce goes through first. pretty interesting.

Batman shows his ass and the issue sells out. I show my ass and I'm asked to leave the planetarium.

so while bruce is hallucinating selina, the actual selina is up to some typical Catwoman shenanigans in Villa Hermosa.

Penguin shows up in town, despite last being seen in the Batcave when Bruce got attacked by FlashpointBatman, so there's definitely the question to be answered of how he got there. Or how he knew Selina was there. Regardless, he lures her to the Aquarium (cause he's the Penguin, ya know?) by way of blowing a bunch of shit up to catch her attention.



Selina beats up his men and she is shocked to see Penguin. She has been trying to put Gotham behind her, and of course, she can't.



Meanwhile, the crazy governor lady Raina Creel had disappeared after shooting her own son, but the series shows her still obsessing over her appearance and evading whatever disease she has. She first visits a plastic surgeon who refuses to help her, and then she gets more desperate and somehow seeks out this weird priestess lady. The priestess (who doesn't have a name) gives her some substance, and is shown to have this statue that produces the substance Raina buys.



Completely insane now, Raina has her son's body exhumed and summons her surviving son back to their Mansion. She plans to use the substance she bought from the priestess to resurrect her son. The other son is like "mom this is crazy" and she tells him to stfu and that she always liked him the least, before bringing the son she shot back to life.



Anyways, back to Catwoman. She asks Penguin wtf he wants, and he tells her to steal something for him. In return, he'll give her a letter from Holly Robinson. I was glad to see this, because I felt like Catwoman was becoming really isolated from the Batman storyline, so bringing the wedding and the Bane plot back into the fold is a welcome development. As it turns out, the item Penguin wants her to steal is the same statue Raina was looking at with the Priestess earlier in the issue. Since the statue is used to bring people back from the dead, Selina is attacked by half-dead zombie things guarding it, before fighting with the Priestess herself.



They fight and Selina beats her into submission. The Priestess warns her the statue only brings pain and blah blah blah, Selina says yeah whatever, takes it and leaves. However, whens he leaves, the Penguin's guys swarm her with their guns out and take both her and the statue. While the Penguin tells her that he wouldn't leave Villa Hermosa without a souvenir. So clearly it was some sort of set up, and whatever else he wants from Selina remains to be seen.



The next issue cuts to a completely different story than the Penguin cliffhanger. Since Selina left Gotham, she had been staying above a pawn shop (appropriate cause she loves stealing). The pawnshop gets robbed, and one of the guys who owned the store, who Selina has taken a liking to, is upset because a special bracelet he had been holding on to got stolen. Being that Selina is the best thief in the world, she plans to steal everything back. She makes a couple calls to some people and gets a plan together.

A cop stops her and tells her he knows she's Catwoman, but doesn't care as long as she stays out of his way. The stolen goods were taken by a guy called The Broker (a recurring Batman villain) that the top Dean has been tracking. He says not to fuck with his plans, or else he'll come after her. He says this:



I appreciated this because it ties back to the storyline with Raina framing Catwoman for those cop murders, and reminds us that she's still out there. Anyways, Selina steals the cop's wallet, before meeting up with her contacts to plot to rob the Broker. They find where he plays poker, and go in. They stage a fight between Selina and her ally Jimmy, which ends in Jimmy "shooting" Selina.



Hanley, staking out the poker place, storms in at the sound of gunshots. The Broker tells them to get rid of Selina's "body", which allows her to slip away and hit the safe upstairs as Catwoman.



Hanley confronts her, and Selina throws herself and him out a window.


While that's going on upstairs, Selina's allies tie up the Broker and leave him for the cops along with most of his stolen goods. However, Selina keeps her friend's bracelet to give back to him. The Broker gets arrested and most of his stuff is recovered by police. Selina returns the bracelet to her friend, who uses it to propose to his boyfriend. Hanley confronts Selina and asks her why she let them keep Broker and all his stuff.



Selina references her own failed engagement but she wanted to help her friend. And that's the end of that.

I'm glad they're having Selina back to stealing and also reincorporating her back into the whole Batman story arc. I don't know why they had this filler issue in the middle of the Penguin storyline, but whatever. It was cool, I guess. I am curious to know what that letter from Holly contains.

i just typed so much omg

Anyways back to the main Batman and Catwoman titles.

In Batman, he's still hallucinating. This hallucination (the second to last one, thank god) is Bruce and Clark aka Superman hanging out while Selina hangs out with Lois Lane. Bruce and Clark have awkward hang out time while Selina and Lois get drunk in the Fortress of Solitude and play with all his alien shit.


However, things get intense when Clark (again, just a manifestation of Bruce's subconscious) points out that everything we see in the issue: a wife, hanging out with friends, just general domesticity, is something he hates. Kicking back and relaxing and being happy, he can't do it. And then Bruce tries to say that that's not true, and yes he is capable of happiness and a quiet life, and Clark says no you aren't. So it's basically Bruce arguing with himself in his head.


Finally, they go and pick up Selina and Lois and everything is fine and dandy. And then we finally finally get our first glimpse of the real world again, and see Bruce strapped up to the aformentioned machine being pumped full of Scarecrow's nightmare gas. This knightmare storyline has really dragged on. I mean, I'm enjoying the deep dive into his pysche and seeing all the ways he's trying to make sense of the traumas of his life, but still. Could have gone a little quicker. Anyways he's being tied to a chair being tortured.