The Day it Took Batman and Robin Both to Take Down a One Percenter Trust Fund Baby who Dressed Up as a Mime

I've taken a looksee at the Black Friday sales, and I always said that three hundred bucks was the sweet spot, price-wise.  But there are many PS3 games I wish to play, so I just don't think I'm ready to pull the figurative trigger.  Probably next year.

I realize I digressed, but I've been holding off as long as possible to spare you this:

Now everyone knows that I loves me some Dave Cockrum.

Most of the time.  This is not one of those times.  As you might have guessed by the fact that this comic introduces... the Mime.

But first...

Indeed.  Shut up, Jason Todd. (tm!)

Seriously, SHUT UP, JASON TODD! (tm!)

Anyway, this is the Mime:

Okay, she just shot at someone.  Batman is aware of this.  What does he do?

See?  It's not just that Jason Todd is so annoying, it's how ineffectual his presence in the comic seems to have made Batman.  He failed to apprehend The Mime.

Yes.  It happened.  We can all wish it didn't, but it did.

What was her origin?  Oh, get ready for this:

Yes... fireworks are noisy and she had daddy issues, so... well, the story pretty much wrote itself, didn't it?

Shut up, Ja... oh, wait.  No, he's right this time.

As you might imagine, she hated noisy things... like hair metal:

So, the electricity is pretty much her thing.  I'm not sure what that has to do with being a mime, and it was never really explained.  Or it was explained, and I had just lost interest by then.  Anyway, that made her pretty easy to take down.  Thusly:

Okay, she had a gun, and Batman quickly disarmed her.  Check.

At least he hadn't forgotten how to disarm someone.  I was starting to get worried that he had abandoned his training altogether.

Anyway, with that in mind:

Okay, to review:  You just took a firearm away from her.  She is now threatening you with a big, clunky guitar.  You could just disarm her again, but...

Yeah, we had to give Robin something to do, otherwise there's no point to him.  Which means that, since he was doing something completely unnecessary, there was no point to him.

And then Batman gets all critical of the kids and their loud music:

Shut up, Batman. (tm!)

I just had to tell the freakin' Batman to shut up.  Do you see what this run of Batman comics is doing to all of us?

I read an interview with writer Max Collins and he said (after he mysteriously confessed to having created the Mime) that this was the issue that caused him to quit because his scripts weren't being followed and that was what made the title so terrible at the time. I can understand that frustration, but dude... you created the Mime. On purpose.  And as we shall see, it didn't matter what talent you brought into the mix, there was no salvaging Jason Todd as Robin.  So... yeah, there's probably a legitimate gripe to be griped, but still... YOU CREATED THE MIME!

See you tomorrow!

Robin vs. a Giant Ball... Because It's Batman in the Jason Todd Years, THAT'S Why!

I didn't realize it until I read the letters pages in subsequent issues, but a lot of people hated Batman: Year One when it came out.  I think I read it once in the early 1990's.  The library had it and I didn't not like it but I don't recall loving it so much that I wanted my own copy.  It's just funny because you'd think that in the era it was first published, Batman: Year One would have stood out.

You know who stands out with me?  People who work counters in Gotham.  Check out this guy:

That bank teller has ice water in his veins.  Did you see how unaffected he was by having Two-Face waltz up to his window?  It wasn't until the guy had a gun pointed at him that he gave him a (dare I say it?) second look.

Anyway, Jason Todd is still stinking up Batman.  This is from issue #411.  It's not like Batman had been going through a Golden Age of Storytelling over the past several years, but this is the direction we're taking now:

Yes... we're devoting time to concerns over Jason's mood.

I'd better see another Gotham City counter worker:

I'm starting to wonder if the Gotham City workers are an exceptionally brave bunch, or whether Two-Face has just lost a lot of street cred over the years.  Check it out:

See?  I notice that people don't seem to trust Batman to handle the situation, either.  Maybe they're just fed up with all the nonsense and property damage.

Anyway, this is what we're reduced to:

Yeah.  That happened.

And, lest we forget, Jason's Mood! (tm!)

Yeah.  We have a broadly smiling Batman.  If Denny O'Neil had known that Jason was going to get killed, then this would be a great set-up for Batman's dark turn.  After all, he was sooooo happy with Jason around so losing him would have brought about all that dark moodiness that he had through the 90's and early aughts.  But no one had any idea.  There was a certain brilliance and credibility to having the character get all gloomy if he was this giddy, but this was after the fact.  At the time, this was how things were expected to go for the foreseeable future.

And just in case they weren't borrowing enough from the Silver Age, it's time for the return of the Oversized Gotham City Prop:

And since Robin was given a talking-to, he has now completely changed his attitude and goes out of his way to save Two-Face's life.  Because that's how teenagers operate:

Ha ha!  Two-Face murdered my father, but he's all nauseated so I'm going to stand here and just laugh because I'm all over that now!

Shut up, Jason Todd (tm!)

See you Monday!

With Jason Todd... as the Beaver!

So, you non-comic nerdlingers may think that I was overselling what a disaster the introduction of Jason Todd was.  Challenge accepted.

In 1985, the DC Universe was basically re-booted again with a year-long maxi-series called Crisis on Infinite Earths.  This gave writers a chance to tweak characters in a new direction and gave them license to alter what wasn't working.  It was also hoped that this would be a good chance for new readers to jump on board from a new beginning.  These days, the big publishers just go full-blast on that idea and start new volumes of titles as their way of saying, "You don't have to know anything about the past 40-70 years of character backstory!  Please pay $3.99 for a comic book!"

So, the Jason Todd you saw yesterday was very briefly removed from the Batman universe.  And by "very briefly," I mean for the first few pages of Batman #408.  In that story, Dick Grayson was still Robin, Batman fired Dick when he was wounded in combat by the Joker (but gave him his blessings to still be a costumed hero... yeah, I didn't get the logic either), went off on his own...

and then this happened....

Yeah.  That's Batman laughing.  Welcome to the 80's, kids.

Yup.  That's Jason Todd now, impressing Batman with his larceny skills. Just go with it.

And take a moment to chuckle at the lofty ambition of writer Denny O'Neil from the letters page:

Yeah.  Jason Todd if firmly in the Batman mythos as the Robin, much like New Coke replaced Classic Coke.  Google that reference if you're less than 30 years old.

Anyhoo, let's begin watching this idea implode, shall we?  Here's his re-introduction as Robin from Batman #410.

You are waaaaaay overselling it, Bruce.

Here's the "tougher" Robin, post first-mission:

This is the new, tougher Robin?  He's more of suck-up than Dick Grayson was, and I'm including the Burt Ward version from the Batman TV series in 1966.  But keep in mind what a Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver clone this kid is as we go through future issues.

And no, we're not giving up on Superman.  I just came upon this run of Batman and I can't turn away from this train wreck.

See you tomorrow!

New Meme Time! Watch in Horror with Me!

Let's take a brief break from Superman to introduce a little segment we should call:

If I Could Turn Back Time (tm!)

And we all know there's no way I'm not going to set it up with this, so let's get it out of the way now:

There we go.

So, we're going to use this meme whenever I come across a moment in comics history where I, in my admittedly subjective yet it's my blog so my vote is the only one that really counts way, would totally intervene and change the course of comics for the better.

I give you Batman #368:

Yes.  That is Jason Todd.

And here is the moment things go horribly wrong for the beloved character of Robin:

YAY!  Short pants!  The fashions for boys 40 years ago are just as cool today!

For the next 40 issues, Jason Todd would basically be Robin 1.5 with no personality of his own, but then things actually get worse after the Crisis on Infinite Earths, where he became so obnoxious that people paid cash money to have him killed off within two years. Jason Todd would return 15 years later (in 2003) for reasons I still don't understand.

So, at this critical moment in comics history, I can only say

.... If I Could Turn Back Time (tm!)

See you tomorrow!

Kodiak Bears, Super Sneezes, and I Reveal I Secretly Wish Harm Upon Jimmy Olsen for No Reason

Superman #218 had some awesome moments:

And then there was the time that Superman sneezed an entire solar system into oblivion:

And finally...

I like Mxyzptlk.  I just do.  Yeah, Jimmy Olsen's probably going to suffocate.  It sure sucks to be him.

Good stuff.  See you tomorrow!