Detective (The New 52!) # 3

By Mark Rodriguez

Batman finally tracks down the new villain, Dollmaker, the one who cut Joker's face off. Commissioner Gordon went inside first and got captured. Dollmaker tosses Gordon back to Batman, who now looks either dead, or all sliced up.

Issue 3 starts with 'Cold Blood' as Batman discovers that Commissioner Gordon was a fake. Surrounded by Dollmaker's goons, feeling numb on his left side due to an injection he received earlier, Batman still tells them to 'BRING IT ON!'

Dollmaker warns that soon all of him will be numb, and while Batman proves that this Gordon was a fake, he confirms he does have the real Gordon captive. He expects a lot of high bids on both Batman and Gordon. Batman fights his way through all the creeps and freaks. One of them, Jack-in-the-Box, is wrapped around Batman, and won’t let go, so Bats smashes through a window with him to escape. As the police arrive, Batman escapes with Jack-in-the-Box.

 Elsewhere, at an abandoned hospital, Gordon wakes up in a cage and finds out he had something surgically removed while he was out. He sees Olivia there, that tells him that Dollmaker wants to adopt her into his ‘family’ and has ‘people even he’s afraid of’. She asks for Batman’s help and Gordon tells her how she can send him a message.

Meanwhile Batman (who I assume took some kind of antidote or whatever to get rid of the effects of the numbing drug) beats the crap out of Jack-in-the-box for a while, hoping for some answers… until he finds out he can’t talk because he had his tongue ripped out. Batman considers this information ‘something to work with’ and runs off.

Outside the police station, Charlotte Rivers is grilling the cops for answers, especially if that fake Gordon found at the export building was really him or not. During all this, Olivia sneaks into the police station.

Back to the Batcave, Bruce figures out that Wesley Mathis was shot by Gordon, when he was younger, in front of his son Barton Mathis… who he now suspects might be the Dollmaker. Somehow Bruce came to this conclusion based on the fact that Jack-in-the-Box had his tongue removed, because of course.  Alfred informs Bruce that someone activated the bat-signal.

Back to the hospital, Dollmaker is ready for more twisted surgery, and calls Gordon the man who ruined his life. Gordon calls him deranged, not knowing what he’s talking about. Dollmaker tells him he doesn’t recognize his own dead victim’s face, even if he’s staring right into it.. So… Dollmaker has parts of his dead father’s flesh stitched onto his face….. ewww… What did he do… store his dead dad’s body somewhere for years?

At the police station, Batman finds Olivia, since she sent the bat-signal. She gives him the note Gordon gave her, which tells him about the abandoned Mercy Hospital. As Batman leaves, Alfred sent police to take her to safety… but she slashes him up and escapes saying ‘father would be disgusted by such a waste’ (reffering to the cop she just killed) . I assume by father she meant Dollmaker, which makes this girl seriously fucked up.

Batman arrives at the Mercy Hospital and is quickly knocked out by Bentley, the guy that looks kinda like Nemesis from Resident Evil. 

STAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARS!!!!

As he wakes up, Batman finds out he’s on live streaming video for all of Dollmaker’s bidders and buyers. And to prove that what he has is the real Batman, Dollmaker literally  has him like a puppet on strings, and is about to face a bunch of Jokers, also on strings.

Ohhhhh DC loves to troll.... Honestly though, it would have been creative to have each guy look like a different version of the Joker over the years, but the New 52 wants to imply everyone has always looked the way they do currently 

My Opinions

DC loves to troll and literally dangles the Joker in front of fans as if they were someone's father dangling their car keys in front of their child and telling them they can't drive. The fanbase was divided because they were more concerned about the Joker running around with his face cut off than anything the Dollmaker was doing. Some fans understood that you can't have a major event like Joker getting his face removed with the implications that now he can strike from anywhere at anytime as anyone, and cheapen it by having him appear right away. Others just didn't care and wanted the Joker now. 

The Dollmaker is a sick freak who likes to cut people up, most likely harvest and sell organs and also has pieces of his own father's flash stitched upon his face. It's the stuff that can make you borderline hurl if you think too much about it if this guy was a real and not just a drawing in a comic book. He basically follows the likes of modern day Batman villains which are more dark and disturbing than flashy and colorful, like Professor Pyg, and modern day mass murderer Joker. I mean, OK, Gordon shot his father when he was younger, that could traumatize anyone, but to the point of ending up like the Dollmaker?? 

Anyways stay tuned for the conclusion of this twisted tale.