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Batman The Dark Knight (The New 52) # 3

By Mark Rodriguez

Batman went to stop an Arkham breakout and faced a giant muscular version of Two Face. He soon collapses and his eyes bleed, which is a side effect to a new kind of Venom (the drug that makes Bane so big). Several Arkham inmates escaped with similar powers, and while the rest of the BatFamily deals with it, Batman now ran into a musclebound version of the Joker, alongside the new rabbit woman that's been running around.


“Catch me if you can” continues the fight, as Batman says he thought the Joker retired, I guess after getting his face cut off. After a short fight we see that Joker was merely Clayface impersonating him, which Batman figured  out beforehand since the Joker was left-handed and Clayface was not. Clayface then suffers the same ‘bleeding eyes’ thing Two Face did before (can his eyes bleed?).  Clayface collapses on Batman and the White Rabbit tries to inject him with this new toxin.


However she spots the Flash and runs off instead… Apparently Batman called him ten minutes ago, though I'm not sure why he would think he'd need the help. Lt. Forbes shows up, pissed that there is no sign of Batman or Clayface, until Bats shows up and drops the huge clay monster on his car. He then basically tells Forbes to STFU OR ELSE and to back off his buddies. “If you compromise my work, I’ll knock you down so quickly you’ll think you travelled backwards in time.” No Batman… you’re not Darkseid…
Later on, Bruce has dinner with Jaina, and while she delivers some subtle White Rabbit-ish dialogue… a text from Alfred reveals the bunny was seen elsewhere around the same time. This might put Jaina in the clear, but I still call shenanigans and say she is somehow involved.


Back to the Batcave, Batman discovers that another compound in the new poison is from a rare plant, so Poison Ivy must be involved. Apparently, Ivy is a good girl now, working with the Birds of Prey… so I can only assume she’s in the new series since I haven’t read it personally. Batman goes off with the Flash (again… why??) to find Ivy. At her hideout Flash accidentally pricks his thumb on a thorn from a plant infected with the toxin… Batman tells Flash he’s poisoned so he must run as fast as he can so his heart rate can speed up fast enough to not let the toxin metabolize in his body… in other words… Flash, you had your cameo-time, not get back to your own comic book series.  And so Batman enters Ivy’s lair alone…


Back to the Batcave, Batman discovers that another compound in the new poison is from a rare plant, so Poison Ivy must be involved. Apparently, Ivy is a good girl now, working with the Birds of Prey… so I can only assume she’s in the new series since I haven’t read it personally. Batman goes off with the Flash to find Ivy. At her hideout, Flash accidentally pricks his thumb on a thorn from a plant infected with the toxin… Batman tells Flash he’s poisoned so he must run as fast as he can so his heart rate can speed up fast enough to not let the toxin metabolize in his body… in other words… Flash, you had your cameo-time, not get back to your own comic book series.  And so Batman enters Ivy’s lair alone…

My opinions-

The story continues as Batman tries to solve the mystery behind the musclebound bad guys. Here we get our first random cameo, as this story will be full of them, in form of the Flash. The Flash randomly busts in to scare White Rabbit off, which I think he never even got to see, then the dumbass gets his finger pricked by one of Ivy's plants, and is told to outrun the effects. And that was basically it.... I mean, he will be returning later, several issues later, but if you just bought this issue now, you're thinking 'what was the point of his random cameo?' To make it weirder, Batman called him because he thought he might need help, and this was before he knew he'd be attacked by Clayface, which I assume he could have handled on his own anyway. It was just weird.

We also get a bit of a red herring with Alfred telling Bruce that the White Rabbit has been seeing running around at the same time that he's out on a date with Jaina, but is she really in the clear? The White Rabbit is behind the bad guys getting toxin, but we have yet to find out what her end goal is.

The art is cool as always with David Finch, but man, the huge panels make the comic fly by. It's a quick read. In this issue, that Flash cameo just had me scratching my head.

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