Shortpacked! by David Willis
Toys are serious business.
Convention appearances:
Calgary Expo Calgary, AB: April 26-28
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Phoenix Comicon Phoenix, AZ: May 23-26, 2013
BotCon San Diego, CA: June 28-30
San Diego Comic-Con San Diego, CA: July 18-21
SPX Bethesda, MD: September 14-15
Multiplex
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
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So Far Apart
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Two Lumps
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Frumph.NET
Sorcery 101
Templar, AZ
The Transformers Wiki
Hail to the Slash
80 page GIANT
Axe Cop
The Book of Biff
Butt-Taco
Comics Curmudgeon
College Roomies from Hell!!!
Diesel Sweeties
Dinosaur Comics
Dr. McNinja
Dresden Codak
Fans!
Fleen
Gastrophobia
Girl Genius
Girls with Slingshots
Goats
Hark, a vagrant
Hijinks Ensue
Intrepid Girlbot
Legend of Bill
Medium Large
Not Invented Here
Octopus Pie
Overcompensating
Penny Arcade
PhDcomics
Power Nap
Questionable Content
Real Life
Rob and Elliot
Bad Machinery
Schlock Mercenary
Sheldon
So Far Apart
Something Positive
Two Lumps
Wapsi Square
Wonderella
Wondermark
Frumph.NET
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They raise a good point.
I’m batman.
Police must make more here than wherever y’all are. Studios? Sheeyit.
I’m pretty sure “studio” just means “doesn’t have interior walls”. These are not expensive apartments.
Exactly. A studio apartment is a box with no rooms.
Hey~ There’s at least a bathroom. A full one if you’re lucky. XD Studio apartments are basically like cheap hotel rooms, ‘specially if they’re furnished.
And let’s not forget, Gotham is NYC- even in the crapfest parts, rent is insane for tiny boxes….
If I were Bruce, I would have bought Arkham and made it a half-way decent prison.
Seriously. If half of your super-villains are serial killers, you aren’t doing your job right.
Ah,but if the serial killers he puts IN Gotham never escaped,Bats would be out of a job.I bet he finances the Gotham Asylum Secret Tunnel and Escape Plans society =p
He more or less tried that in the game Arkham Asylum. Then Joker broke out and took over the prison.
Yeah, all the ultra-secure locks were developed and produced by Wayne Enterprises, created to be as unbreakable as possible. They’re a miracle of electronic and cryptographic art. Which is why it sucks when the Joker locks you behind them.
And this is why hiding in plain sight is not always the best idea.
This being Shortpacked, I’m more amazed no one pointed out one obvious reason Bruce gives Bats toys.
Because he’s Batman?
Okay, no I HAVE to read this series.
Bruce can be open about “financing” Batman now that Dick is Batman. They can be in the room at the same time. *lol* But it’s still stupid he came “open” like that.
Thing is, everyone’s aware that the current Batman is different than the original. He smiles, and everyone in the police force likes him better now. Dick’s a people person.
So that doesn’t give Bruce an alibi.
If anything it would make people more suspicious about Bruce Wayne being the first Batman. Since they know Dick Grayson is a really good acrobat and he is Bruce’s ward. And I’m sure that lots of people are at least partially aware that Dick Grayson was a people person as well. And it’s obvious to the casual observer that there is a new Batman, unless the old one got shorter and a lot more acrobatic…
I think Bruce gets to cite “financing a JLA member who saves the world” to justify his expenditures.
Frankly, the whole hush!Bruce and spastic!Tim thing make an at least halfway-decent cover… “Sure, it COULD be them, but that’s a coincidence, soo much stuff doesn’t fit.” …and then there’s Damian screwing everything. Bruce’s out-of-nowhere love child the same age as the new Robin who likes to proclaim his real name at the top of his lungs all the time.
I would like to compliment Walky on his decent emulation of the coloring in that scene.
Bruce could just claim he is paying for the whole JLA (which he is for a great part) if we was looking for tax cuts which would greatly drop the risk of somebody discovering he is Batman. Yet allow him to spend money on stuff related to crime fighting.
I agree with the compliment on the coloring of this. Very reminiscent of the original.
Still, linking himself with the Batman in any way defeats the point of the secret identity- want to get at the Batman? Kidnap his financer’s butler!
An no one ever notices that Robin, who joined Batman immediately after Dick Grayson became Bruce Wayne’s ward, wore the exact same outfit the Flying Grayons wore, despite all the posh people going to see them the night they died.
The DC ‘verse is filled with morons.
Its the superman glasses effect.
Its like this. The DC verse is filld with morons. The Marvel universe is filled with assholes.
Bruce and the rest of the bat-family do this a lot. Anytime someone gets suspicious, they appear in the room with a different member of the bat-family in their costume to make it clear they aren’t a superhero. Tim Drake(Red Robin) recently tricked a famous assassin into shooting a shapeshifter disguised as his civilian identity so he ‘has to’ spend a year in physical therapy while Red Robin remains active.
Wasn’t the whole point of Batman’s secret identity – if not the secret identity thing in general – is that it stops his enemies from targeting him, his family and the resources that lets him be Batman? So yeah, it’s an interesting twist, but you’re right, doesn’t really make a whole lot of sense.
Actually, no. Batman is one of the few heroes who wears a costume for several other reasons. Yeah, protecting loved ones could be a possible excuse… if he didn’t dedicate to shove all his loved ones full of weapons and dropped them in some alley in the middle of the night to fight criminals.
But the rent is too damn high!
If it weren’t for the fact that some friends were showing me something awesome the other night, I wouldn’t get the reference. Give me a minute to find it, you sir win at the internet.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/you-win-the-internet
Anywhere but Gotham, they’d have a point. But we’re talking about one of DC’s most corrupt police forces here.
Yeah, this is the GCPD – they wouldn’t be paying *rent* with those funds…
The one counterpoint to that would be that the reason for the corruption, whenever a reason is given, is that the police force isn’t paid well enough in general. Thus, the bribe-taking.
But that brings us back to Batman’s primary flaw: Given a choice between solving problems and meting out justice, he metes out justice.
Batman did not get into what he does to be famous or popular he is in it for vengance. So what does he care about the fact that Gothem PD can’t pay rent…
Both you and Karishi are right. Gotham is filled with corruption, but in many cases, they’ve explained that the reason a majority of the regular police force end up becoming corrupt is because they aren’t paid enough, and they end up turning to the mob and stuff to have enough money to survive.
But that doesn’t include the higher-ups like the ex-commissioner Loeb or Atkins, both of who turned out to be corrupt. Why they turned out to be corrupt… probably because they’re just douches.
See, I wouldn’t be questioning it. Up until about Batsy’s third year or so working in Gotham, GCPD was more corrupt than…something really corrupt. I don’t know where I was going with that. Would you really given millions of dollars to people who worked for the mob?
My first question would be how did you find this one person you could trust to fight crime. My second would be where were you when you were 20-25. Picking daisies?
The great thing abotu being a billionare playboy is the fact that you don’t really need a good account of your life. He could be like “Oh yea I was flying around the world doing hot chicks” and people would belive him…
Until it’s revealed that you’re associated with the guy who’s been protecting Gotham for who knows how many years. That, and the logistics of paying for a man’s room&board, medical, grocery costs on top of all those neat and awesome gadgets. You’d think the IRS would like to know who this guy is that is breaking the law, and probably put away Bruce Wayne for a little bit now that they know he’s aiding a vigilante. Surely that can’t go over well.
Right, because rich celebrities never get away with breaking the law… And this is Gotham we’re talking about.
This is a case of Reed Richards is Useless. In comic books, superheroes are comprised of supergeniuses and olympic athletes, but these can’t be used to seriously alter the world.
Why? Whyyyy? I have an exam tomorrow!
“The Authority” is a good counter-point to that one to some extent. But it is certainly rare in comics to find the superheroes actually trying to make a difference rather then just balancing the evils and maintaining the status quo.
I guess it stems from the feeling of publishers that no mater how crazy things get, they can’t make it toooo different to our earth.
The biggest problem with ‘superheroes making a difference’ comes back to Oversight. The Authority is a good reference point, if a touch heavy handed. The Justice Lords arc on the DCAU’s Justice League was a different take on the same thing.
Whenever I see a superhero declaring “I’m tired of just being reactive — it’s time we become PROactive!” I get hives. If a superhero doesn’t have the legal authority to conduct surveillance, institute regulation and dispense judgement, they’re actually moving into the “taking over the world” side of the equation.
(Put another way — Frank Castle is proactive. He’s also a serial killer. For superheroes to be ‘proactive’ they either need to be dictators or serial killers. Not exactly why I read Batman.
)
True..ish
But the extremes; muggers and supervillians somehow seem “fair game”, superheroes can deal with them regardless of their legal authority. (“deal with” ranging from killing, to dropping on the police doorstop, to looking in crazy prison, or dumping in a probably worse-the-death-hell/past/world of some sort). Law’s are largely ignored when it comes to those sorts of things.
By comparison, it seems odd, for the most part, that “large crimes against humanity”, but
not of an earth-threatening or super villian nature are left alone. I’d argue that in many case’s superheroes could depose a dictator, or deal with the threat, with a lot less action then miltary action would. So maybe the “not murders” argument is somewhat ill-fitting as a lot of heroes (outside of wildstorm…) tend to deal with things in a non-bloody mater if they can.
Of course though, bringing real world politics to comics is hard to do well at all, and can easily turn of your readers if done wrongly. (or even if done right, you can still split your audience if you side with a different political stand then they do). You could, however, still have more world-changing events and influence without it being related to real world stuff.
Genocide going on in a country by ordinary humans and against ordinary humans? Just how would the avengers/justice league deal with that -without- taking over? The fighting is the easy part.
Likewise for large scale fraud or massive government money going missing with no papertrail. Theres lots of traditional crimes superheroes could help with without (necessarily) resorting to violence.
We’ve had an example of a billionaire funding the police department, giving them advanced technology as well as solid salaries. It’s just, when that happens they stop being the police department and they become private security.
So, you know. Bruce Wayne isn’t Lex Luthor.
If he were Cincinattus, I’d be happy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cincinnatus
Hey, he pays his taxes, and he usually gives generously to policemen benefits… What more could they want? Tax him heavier to spread his wealth around?
Though, it does make a case for him being almost as crazy as his opponents. He spends his time, money, and skills, to dress up in tights with fancy gadgets and fight a one man war on crime… What if he turned his resources, skills, and influence towards non-costumed endeavors? Like financing/training policemen, dedicated efforts at improving gothams enviroment. I know he does alot already, but if he didnt spend time as Batman, how much more could he do?
Then again, that makes a hilarous image of a city full of Bat-Policemen, with batarangs instead of guns, and carrying their own utility belts with grappling hooks. Police cars sporting batheads and bat symbols, and of course having rockets on the back.
But see, that would be awesome. The Bat Corps.
Once he gets his spine broken and has to wear a brace that looks suspiciously like Darth Vader’s neckpiece, he can build an army of flying Bat-Bots to terrorize Gotham’s low-rent street criminals.
…One of the best things about B:TAS was that they spent a lot of time talking up the Wayne Foundation and all the good it did for the Gotham community; based entirely on the work of Paul Dini and Bruce Timm, I would say that Bruce Wayne is way more awesome a hero than Batman. He’s like Milton Hershey with a secret cave full of crimefighting equipment and jet cars!
I always got the impression that Wayne was essentially funding the Gotham PD in addition to being Batman. Sort of a two-pronged approach – build up the police on one side while using Batman to strike fear into the hearts of the superstitious-and-cowardly-lot crowd.
When Gordon took office, 4/5ths of Gotham’s police force was corrupt. Even now, 1 out of 12 is. Meanwhile, Batman just went up against the New God of Evil and won(twice). Dick-Batman just saved the city from a plague. Robin survived a fight against Supergirl. Batgirl held off an army of Zombies, and don’t even get me started on Oracle. The world’s best police force couldn’t pull any of that off.
I bet the any ordinary police force could do all sorts of awesome things if they had Batmobiles and Batgadgets and Batgrappling hooks.
I’d be very surprised if Oracle doesn’t already aid GCPD anonymously.
She does, in both an information gathering capacity and organising them in person when her dad is temporarily missing. Like during the Earthquake back in the Cataclysm storyline, where her dad was MIA so she organised the rescue effort.
A whole department of Bat Cops – fighting crime at a night time! – would oversee the safest city on EARTH. The Joker would get caught five seconds after every escape. They’d be like the Judges in Judge Dredd only without the whole “brutal fascist dictatorship” thing.
And they could totally hold off zombies. The S.W.B.A.T. teams would flatten them with Bat-Machine Guns and Bat-Chainsaws.
Think of the insurance costs of Bullock constantly falling off rooftops alone!
“I bet the any ordinary police force could do all sorts of awesome things if they had Batmobiles and Batgadgets and Batgrappling hooks.”
Ha ha aha ahaha! I know several cops. The three I know best:
#1′s recreations in high school included lobbing bullet shell bombs at Asians playing tennis, shooting bald eagles (amongst other random creatures), and setting fire to things (his bragging was unconfirmed about the black folks house). I met him on occasion since he became a (major city) cop, he seems tense now.
# 2 is an adrenalin junkie, always jumping off of things. Repelling, base jumping, etc. Nice guy otherwise. (county cop)
# 3 tended to use his position to, uhm, take advantage of ethical gray areas. Good guy to know.
I will admit that “awesome things ” would indeed occur if the cops I know had Bat Goodies… Awesome, terrible, frightening things.
Gotta love how being helpful can sound worse than doing nothing at all.
Bruce wayne does add funds to the local police department and gives their forensics department at the least to my recollection all kinds of crazy gadgets to my recollection of comics. This was something covered before bruce ever came out, they’ve name dropped Wayne Industries supporting in those ways a number of times Walky. I’m sorry, but I have to say…. you Did Not Do The Research this time.
He donates money to Arkham Asylum and is on their board of trustees, so he oversees who gets released on parole and stuff. The problem is that the staff at Arkham are just as corrupt as the policeforce, if not more so, so the money he gives them to, for example, improve the security system gets shared around in the form of bonuses for the management, while they fire a load of guards to balance it out.
Also Bruce donated the Batsignal, and gave the GCPD bulletproof vests.
Giving the police bullet-proof vests, was this issue. Can’t find the actual page to show, but he gave bests to the Bludhaven police (while Dick was an officer there). The other cops are asking Dick, “Hey, you’re from Gotham… what does this guy Wayne want?”.
Dick replies, “… I think he wants us to be safe.”
http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Batman:_Gotham_Knights_Vol_1_32
I miss when David made blog posts explaining his comic.
You miss a time that never existed!
Your thinking of the Willis of Earth-Three.
I declare this a Win.
Batman Incorporated reminds me of the old Kids Incorporated show…
And now I have the theme stuck in my head, only this time with Bats instead…
Psst! Willis! What comic is this in reference to? Please tell those of us who aren’t as splendidly caught up and want to read the source material! Thank you!
Batman, Inc. It apparently comes out tomorrow.
Batman and Robin #16
Well, in Huge Crazy Jerkwad’s defense, they’ve made it quite clear in the comics that there is still a lot of corruption in the police department… Plus, you know, he already donates tons of money to the police department and Arkham…
Hmm I was expecting a gay pun at the end considering Bruce was buying all these cool toys for one guy.
Batman is Bruce Waynes sweet baboo =D -now imagining Batman voiced by that Bernie guy from GTA IV-
You said sweet baboo and my mind immediately jumped to Sally from Peanuts.
I suppose what I love most about this is the fact that Bruce’s little trip through time and space has made him dumb enough to think this is a good idea. I wonder how many visits by The Joker and Two Face it will take before he starts to think that advertising himself as the guy who finances-and-therefore-has-close-contact-with the Batman may have not been his best move ever.
Dent and the Joker are after Wayne often enough as it is. hell, The Joker pranced around the manor for the past few months disguised as a European vigilante hero until one of the Batmen (can’t remember if it was Bruce or Dick) punched his block almost clean off! But yeah, they always figure a connection between Wayne and the Bat. The difference is, Wayne’s going to skip all over the world giving out ‘bat-badges’ to other schmucks who flout the law in favor of their own definition of justice, so long as it’s up to the Bat’s standards, and Dent and Joker love Gotham enough, I’d bet, to stick around and harass the former Boy Wonder turned AcroBatman.
So what happens if some criminal decides to attack the millionaire playboy who finances Batman? They’ll get the surprise of their life when Wayne kicks their ass six ways to Sunday. And unlike some other superheroes, he doesn’t really have to worry about someone striking at him through his family: his three sons are all capable of handling any threat that might come at them.
Shame Didio screwed over his daughter. Such a good character.
This question has been answered; Alfred beats them up
Because Alfred’s previous job was a feild surgion for the SAS.
So, basically, Alfred is aswsome, your argument is invalid.
People are just suddenly figuring this out?
Love the cityscape background in this one.
There’s only one good answer to Mr. Studio Apartment.
“Hey, it’s MY MONEY.”
You earn a billion dollars, and you get to give it to whoever YOU want.
Yes, and if you say it’s for one thing, but it’s actually better spent on another tactic for that thing, then it means you’re either stupid or an a-hole.
Who says? Who says his money is better spent ANYWHERE except him? Those studio apartment policemen have no right to his money, so if he doesn’t choose to give it to the police department, he is in noway an asshole. And ‘stupid’ is a debatable term, maybe its ‘ill spent’, but stupid takes it a bit far.
“Who says? Who says his money is better spent ANYWHERE except him?”
Objectively, a well-funded police force with Bat-gadgets would be better for Gotham City than one Batman.
That’s why Willis says!
Right, but the point is it’s bruce waynes money. To spend it where he wants. Him choosing to spend it all on batman instead of on the police (yes yes, he does donate to police. XD We’re just arguing on this point here about what he doesn’t spend), is in no way ‘stupid’ or ‘a-hole’ish. If he spent his money on advertisements that said ‘Batman does what the police can’t, neener neener’ that would be a-holeish way to spend his money.
He also could have taken all the Batman money and put it into cancer research. That would have saved millions of people.
Thanks Jerkwad!
Detective Comics #359
Who’s excited about white lantern batman? I AM! WOOT!
Before reading this eye-opening comic, I had no idea that Batman was unrealistic.
Thumbs up.
Batman isn’t unrealistic.
He’s Batman.
I thought it was pretty clearly stated that Wayne had been funding the majority of Gotham for many years. He made many of the buildings earthquake safe & they were the ones left standing after Cataclysm. All he is, seeing as how he doesn’t run the day to day at his company, is a philanthropist, & he poured the majority of his donations/charities/whathaveyou into Gotham. Isn’t the GCPD included in that?
It was my understanding that he had indeed flowed at least some money into GCPD over the years. I’ll have to look for text-specific examples, but I know they’re there somewhere. He didn’t give them all batmobiles, but I thought there was a panel somewhere of “Good thing we got these new Waynetech GPS systems” or some shit. Not to mention the charity galas he’s been to, where Gordon thanks him for all of his support, etc.
Batman keeps Gotham going in a fighting crime way, but I always thought it was accepted that Wayne & all his billions were keeping the city afloat in a communal, municipal kind of way. Bruce is ALWAYS helping Gotham in every way he can.
Shhh! How dare you try and point out logic!
That was my impression also.
See, Willis (*points to all previous comments*), THIS is why you need to make more Batman comics.
So… I’m guessing that any and all attempts at Batman being a mysterious urban legend has gone right out the window at this point. Thanks a lot Frank Miller… I rather liked the idea that Batman wasn’t another showboat character.
But in all honesty, this is a pretty inventive idea. It takes attention OFF Bruce Wayne, but he admits he’s associated with Batman, but never admits he IS Batman. People might be more inclined to not look deeper into him being Batman with the in mind. Or… he puts himself and his family as a target…
But because I’m a nerd, I kinda don’t think the press would bring this up. In the Batman books, Hush, who was posing as Bruce Wayne, was donating billions of dollars into Gotham City, as a means to destroy the Wayne Empire. So technically, “Bruce” has been giving money to the Police, along with all the other charities and groups.
Also, its not like Bruce could give money to the police itself. Too much bureaucratic red tape and city-wide corruption. Not to mention, the police could consider it a bribe or something which puts their objectivity regarding Wayne’s activity into question. The city itself has to distribute funds to the police, so technically, Bruce giving money to Batman would be easier wouldn’t it?
And lets not forget, Bruce isn’t just paying for Batman. His money also goes to Batman (Dick), Robin, Red Robin, Batgirl, Oracle, Cassandra Cain, the Birds of Prey, Justice League of America, Teen Titans, the Outsiders and other heroes associated with him and his allies.
“Batman as urban legend” went out the window a while back, though I couldn’t point to exactly when. It’s one of those concepts that would have worked better with a character who never appeared outside his own title, but was a lot harder to justify when he was also in the Justice League.
“Batman as urban legend” should’ve STARTED out the window. It was ridiculous.
Yeah, I don’t think it would be wise to just send cash to the PD. I remember in the Bruce Wayne Fugitive storyline, he sends a bunch of top of the line bulletproof vests to the Bludhaven PD. That seems more like what he probably does in Gotham as well. It’s not his job to pay the police’s salaries.
This kind of puts it in the situation Iron Man was in for a while, with IM as Stark’s “bodyguard”. Though in that case, IM was considered an official representative of Stark Industries. His status as bodyguard also gave a convenient alibi: “Where’s Stark?” “I just took him to safety. Now, to defeat you!”
Bruce is back from the dead and Dick is still Batman?
I tell you, it’s an ADVENTURE reading about comics storylines on the internet…
Haha, seems someone anticipated this: check out the preview for Detective Comics #871
Off topic, sort of:
There was a thread at WordForge about Spiderman vs. Darth Vader, and it turned to Batman vs. Darth Vader. One of the members wouldn’t take the explanation that ‘It’s Batman’ as enough why Batman would win, as Darth Vader would just Force choke him. I pointed out that Batman can breathe in space.
Two things about equipping out GCPD with Bat-Gear.
Wayne’s gear was either developed for or re-purposed to him based on his training and need. He also keeps up in several fields. It would take a lot for the GCPD to being to use his stuff.
And a good portion of why Batman is effective is, he’s not part of the government. Bunch of rules don’t apply in that scenario.
Ropes and armored cars exist in the real world and are not used by the police because they don’t work for the job police do. Police do have helicopters and motor cycles but Batman is still more effective. While it would seem cool if all the police had Batman’s stuff, It would not lower the crime rate or catch the Joker any faster. In the real world of Baltimore I helped install a citywide camera system for the police to use. The criminals figured my repair time and broke the cameras and came back the next day and killed people before I could fix them. Technology is not the answer to crime. It is that Batman works one case a month that makes him awesome.
Coming to this late, but I’ve just read the latest issue of Batman, and it actually addresses this. It was Tim’s idea that, after publically announcing he was funding Batman, Bruce should give something to the police department too, so Wayne Enterprises now has a state-of-the art forensic lab available to Gotham PD.
They refuse to use it, because it’s tainted with Bat-money.
I loved this comic when it came out, and the idea of Batman Incorperated in general. I just got this feeling of “Why has this not been done before?” which you don’t often get with comics.
That said… yeah there should have been more PR problems from this reveal than there were.