#brooding bats

Ok, so if you’ve never read Impulse, first of all, I highly recommend it. It’s a delight. Anyways. In this issue, Bart finds out what April Fool’s Day is, which is... no one should have told him. So he runs off to Gotham to prank Robin. But he ends up in the middle of a hostage situation involving the Joker. Batman tells him to go home, but Bart kind of really wants to help. Again, Jason isn’t mentioned directly here, but he’s clearly on Bruce’s mind.

“I can’t work with someone with your reputation for not following directions and being... impulsive. I won’t allow you to help because I refuse to put anyone - not the hostages, not you - at risk. Especially around that maniac. You’re untried, untrained. If anything were to happen to you... believe me... it would be on my conscience for the rest of my life!”

Joker ends up saying that he’s going to kill everyone if Impulse doesn’t run him a bunch of errands, so Batman reluctantly lets him help. If he doesn’t talk to Joker and doesn’t go within 20 feet of him. Bart agrees, and does his best to follow Batman’s rules. Joker notices and starts taunting Bart and Batman (who is outside disabling one of Joker’s traps). Which is where the next Jason mention comes in. Joker tells Bart that he blew the last Robin up, which is why Batman didn’t want Bart helping.

But Bart ends up running circles around the Joker, he and Batman save the hostages, everything ends well. Batman even tells Bart that his grandfather Barry would be proud of him.

Reckless Robin: 10

Symbolic Memorial: 7

I will be including flashbacks, mentions of his name and symbolically important inclusions of his memorial case.

In this issue, Batman encounters Max Kelly, a woman who is trying to solve a seven year old kidnapping cold case. A three year old boy boy named Josh was taken at a Fourth of July celebration. His mother is in poor health, and Kelly promised that she would find him.

It turns out that Josh was taken by a woman whose son recently died. Josh looked exactly like him, so no one noticed the switch. Josh was reunited with his biological mother, but didn’t remember who she was. She died a few hours later, happy. The issue doesn’t tell us what happened to the woman who kidnapped Josh, but it does close out with this image: 

Brooding Bats: 3

Let’s get started.

In this issue, a sniper is shooting down random civilians during rush hour. Batman arrives on scene, Gordon gives him the low down, and then asks him where Robin is.

This is immediately after Jason’s death. Clearly, the wound is still fresh, and Batman doesn’t want to talk about it at all. He denies anything being wrong, and then immediately goes back into action to take his mind off of Jason.

The issue also includes a not so good memory of Bruce and his parents. Bruce wanted to play ball with his father, but Thomas was having some trouble with business and didn’t have time. Bruce kept pressing and Thomas backhanded him. Once business was doing better, Thomas decided to make up for it by taking his family to see Zorro, leading to the eternally repeated death of the Waynes.

Batman engages the sniper, but his punches are off.

Unfortunately, the memories mentioned here are not related to Jason, but to the aforementioned memory of the Waynes.

The sniper ends up near the edge of the roof during the scuffle, and a police sniper takes him out.

Brooding Bats: 1

Avoiding the Robin in the Room: 1

Care Not Taken: 1

To the surprise of no one, the mystery person from last issue is Tim. His meeting with Dick happened in New Titans, which I’ll get to at some point probably. In this issue, he’s at the manor with Dick and Alfred, where he marvels at their art and introduces himself. Then he voices the same concerns literally everyone has been having since Jason died. Bruce is going off the deep end.

Tim tells his story about how he figured out Robin’s secret identity, and from there Batman’s. Which brings him full circle to being worried about Batman, and trying to convince Dick to be Robin again.

Meanwhile Batman and Two Face try and out think each other. They each set up a trap for the other and lie in wait, but then they both leave because the other’s trap was too enticing. Two Face goes to Club Gemini to steal 22 million dollars, Batman ends up at a suspension bridge, trying to save the Wright twins, Alan and Richard.

“If you listen to me, you’ll make it out alive. So don’t be a hero, okay? Just do as I say, Jason--” So here it begins. The first instance of blaming Jason for his own death. Jason disobeyed Batman, tried to be a hero and died because of it.

Anyways. Batman saves the two kids. Over at Club Gemini, Two Face flips a coin and leaves without the money. Nightwing leaves the cave, and Alfred gives Tim the idea of being Robin himself. The issue ends with Two Face’s radio giving him ideas for more plans, and Bruce brooding because he’d been too busy pushing people away to think about asking Gordon to stake out Club Gemini, or to save the twins. The last mention of Jason is during his brooding.

He’s finally acknowledging that he’s not doing great! Awesome!

For the most part, Tim was talking about Jason pretty neutrally. He didn’t really have an opinion, which makes sense because he doesn’t know anything about the situation. And Alfred and Dick are mostly trying to get answers from Tim. Bruce, however, is clearly projecting on the Wright twins, trying to save them like he couldn’t save Jason. He’s also trying to save himself from the blame if he fails though. If the Wrights die, it was because they didn’t listen to him. Like it was with Jason.

Reckless Robin: 1

His Own Fault: 1

Continuing from last time, the issue starts with Commissioner Gordon, the Joker and Batman all remembering various laughs. Jim is remembering his daughter’s laugh, her joy as she did gymnastics, Joker is remembering laughing when he first murdered someone and Batman is remembering the laughs of his Robins.

“Perhaps darker, colder, but still young and filled with life.”

The memories continue with Jim remembering Joker shooting Babs, with Joker remembering that he almost died, with Bruce remembering that Jason died.

The issue continues with the police figuring out that there’s a Joker impostor, there’s a Joker-on-Joker confrontation, which real Joker leaves with a bullet in his arm and another crisis of comedy. Then fake Joker sets up another confrontation at ACE Chemicals, and to prove that he’s better than the real Joker, he jumps into the same acid that real Joker fell into. Unfortunately, this vat contains a stronger concentration of acid than it did when real Joker fell in, and fake Joker dies horribly. Batman and the Commissioner both wrestle with their desire to see justice done, but also their desire to see the clown dead. Joker goes back to Arkham, comedy back and ready to face the world.

Reckless Robin: 3

Brooding Bats: 8

Death Scene: 4

So Jean Paul Valley is much more violent than Bruce was as Batman. So much so that Tim is worried that since Jean Paul is pushing him away, there won’t be a Robin to balance out Batman, like there was after Jason died and Tim stepped into the position.

He thinks about telling Bruce he made a mistake picking Jean Paul. Meanwhile, Bruce and Alfred fly off to Santa Prisca because apparently Bruce’s therapist and doctor and potential love interest Shondra Kinsolving and Tim’s dad Jack have been kidnapped by Bane’s men and that’s their most likely location. Also, I don’t think they bothered to tell Tim his dad has been kidnapped because when he gets home the next night, he finds a note from Alfred telling him not to worry because they will find his kidnapped dad. Great communication skills guys.

Jean Paul redesigns the Batsuit, starting with gauntlets with very sharp claws on it. The rest of the suit debutes next issue, which doesn't have any Jason in it, so if you haven’t seen the AzBats suit, I suggest Googling it. It’s so bad. 

This issue starts with Batman foiling a robbery while Tim and Alfred observe from the car. They head back to the manor so Bruce can provide Guidance and Wisdom, and then Alfred drives Tim home.

In the rest of the issue, Bruce stops a fur heist, investigates the doctor on the TV in that last panel there, and then some other dude goes to someone called the Crimesmith for help planning a heist. Which turns out to be the theft of one of those car-carrying trucks, which Batman crashes. Then during interrogation, the guy who wanted help planning the heist literally spontaneously combusts.

Since there isn’t a Jason mention in the next issue, I’m going to summarize it. To the surprise of no one, the Crimesmith was the doctor from the TV and his assistant. The assistant reveals herself to be the real mastermind and escapes while the doctor commits suicide for reasons. There’s also lots of Bruce teaching Tim how to detective.