Batman by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones Vol. 1 by Doug Moench
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Kinda lame, but kinda awesome.
This is definitely from the period before Batgod, the time when Batman became not the ultimate man, not a masked crimefighter, but basically the most capable being in the universe.
On the one hand, it’s kinda goofy. It’s got this weird, very emo feel to it where Batman seems to be constantly shaking his fist at the sky and saying things about the darkness.
On the other hand, it’s kinda goofy in a different way. Alfred leaves, and Bruce and Tim fuck up the laundry!
Kelley Jones’ artwork is really interesting. It features that crazy Batman cape that’s like a goddamn circus tent, but it still sort of works. It’s a different take on the Batman, and there are times when his lips are pulled back and it looks like he’s rocking a huge crap, but he’s just sort of talking. My theory: Jones was a little bored here and there and decided to make his own fun.
My favorite moment from this volume, far and away, goes like this:
Batman sneaks his way into some mobster’s house, as he’s known to do, and is trying to intimidate the guy while he’s in the shower. He succeeds, gets the information he needs, and then, on the way out of the bathroom, flushes the toilet and the guy says, “YAHHH! Freezing!”
This totally tickled me for two reasons.
One, I thought the shower was supposed to be hot when you flushed the toilet. This is based on some experiments I performed on my brother as a kid. I have one distinct memory of doing this on accident, where I had to piss while he showered because I couldn’t wait, and he said, “Don’t flush.” I pissed, and on instinct, flushed. He came flying out of the shower, screaming, and it took all I had in me not to laugh my ass off before I got out of the bathroom.
It turns out that this CAN happen, the water can go cold when the toilet is flushed. It’s actually a bit of a raging debate online. The best answer I can find, it depends on the plumbing. There’s a thing called a Thermostatic Mixing Valve, and some are designed to keep the water pressure constant while others are designed to keep the proportion of hot and cold the same. So, if you have one that kept the proportions the same, when the toilet flushed, there’d be less cold water, and the amount of hot water would be reduced as well, resulting in a lower pressure and the same temperature. If you had the other kind, the type that keeps pressure constant, it would bump the temperature hotter when the toilet flushed because more hot water would flow to compensate for the lack of cold water, which is rushing to fill the toilet tank.
So why is this mobster’s shower suddenly cold when Batman flushes? Looks like he’s got a Thermostatic Mixing Valve installed, which he should as a man of means, but it’s not functioning correctly.
Mystery solved.
But the second thing I loved about this toilet flushing incident was it was a real dick move on Batman’s part. It wasn’t like a bold move or anything, not like a sweet “Hasta La Vista, baby” or something like that. It was just a tiny fuck you.
Which made me think of a new character I call DickBatMan
This is a Batman who, instead of beating criminals unconscious, goes around and is kind of an asshole to them.
The advantage to this type of vigilantism is that you could do it in everyday life. There’s no one to stop you from, say, following a criminal in your car, then when he parks, you pull into the spot next to him and park SUPER CLOSE. Or when he’s on the treadmill, you stand next to him and time his treadmill use, demanding he gets off at the 30 minute mark because you want to use that specific treadmill. And then you walk your dog, let it crap on the monster’s lawn, and you pick it up with a bag and everything, except you leave just a tiny nugget behind. Whoops!
It had never occurred to me, before reading this, that I could be a vigilante too. Fear, criminals! I am minor vengeance! I am the earlier part of the night!
I
am
BatDickMan!