Detective (The New 52) # 4

By Mark Rodriguez

Batman is trying to stop the new mass murderer in Gotham, the Dollmaker, who cut off Joker's face. During this, Batman gets captured and is held up by strings like a puppet alongside a lot of fake Jokers. Dollmaker intends to sell Batman (or his organs) to potential buyers and wants to show off the merchandise.

 Issue 4 concludes this saga with ‘The Main Event’ and things get kinda sloppy here… We begin 72 minutes ago in Crime Alley, with Batman beating the crap out of a police informant named Raju for info on Dollmaker and his little auction.

At the station, lt. Forbes (same guy from Internal Affairs that is harassing Bruce and Gordon about Batman in Dark Knight) is asking about murdered cop, as well as who activated the bat-signal in Gordon’s absence, since they don’t know that Olivia did both. Bullock sees Olivia’s note on Mercy Hospital.

Back to the present, Batman fights the fake Jokers. Olivia shows up where Gordon is being held captive and tells him Dollmaker made her do all this to bring Batman here. Gordon knew it but it a risk he had to take. She then pulls a knife out and apologizes to Gordon. 

 Back to Batman, a messenger arrives, with a new buyer that will double the top offer so far and even return Batman’s body to Dollmaker after he’d done with it. Raju is revealed to be the messenger, and the buyer is hinted to be the Penguin. Dollmaker agrees as long as Batman is returned in 24 hours and within an hour after death.

As pure totally random sheer dumb luck would have it… the wires used on Batman are magnetically controlled and just so happen to be something he designed (since Dollmaker must have someone working for WayneCorp), so of course Batman has a counter-measure for it and escapes. Batman beats up Raju and tells him to warn the Penguin that he’ll be after him next.

The cops are on their way and a police chopper swoops overhead. Dollmaker makes his escape as Batman fights his way through all the fake Jokers. His cronies try to make off with as much of their stolen body parts as they can.

WTF THE MONKEY TALKS???

 Nemesis is sent to kill Gordon but Olivia stabs him in the back to save him. Gordon stops her from leaving, but Olivia says she’s not afraid of his gun, of Dollmaker, or Batman, or even dying…and then she breaks down in Gordon’s arms. You do have to feel sorry about the kid. She’s really fucked up after all the shit that happened to her. Batman finds them and sees a car pull away from the scene. Gordon stays with Olivia as Bats chases after Dollmaker.

The car explodes but it's revealed that Dollmaker and that weird nurse accomplice of his were just decoys. The hood of the car somehow shielded Batman from the explosion… I guess the same way the lead-lined fridge saved Indy from a nuclear explosion… It seems the real Dollmaker escaped in the helicopter. And um… that’s it..? Why doesn’t Batman continue the chase???

Later in Colorado, Bruce and Charlotte chill after all the weirdness they’ve been though. I assume Dollmaker left Gotham, but I would have liked some internal monologue of Batman searching for a few days until he was left empty-handed or something. Arkham’s lawyers had Olivia sent to Arkham Asylum, since her killing the cop made her too dangerous to be out on the streets. It’s no doubt she’s a disturbed child… but Arkham Asylum is only gonna make her worse… Gordon is mentioned to be recovering, since he lost a kidney in all this. Also the Joker face is considered a shrine of sorts and all sorts of crazies are posting up shrines for him outside the station, and even when Bullock takes them down, they put them back up. We end the story with the Joker’s face again, reminding us that he is still out there.

My Opinions

Overall, this was an interesting arc as Batman went after an all-new villain after a familiar encounter with the Joker to kick things off. There are some snags here and how convenient it was that Dollmaker was using Waynetech wires, so he had a counter measure to it, as if he used any other kind of wire, he'd be screwed, and of course, just letting Dollmaker getting away in the helicopter instead of catching him. Like a better ending would have been having Batman chase the chopper and find a fake Dollmaker inside or something. 

Olivia Carr is an interesting character. Don’t know if her reffering to Dollmaker as father is an example of Stockholm Syndrome or maybe she really is part of the twisted family. Either way, I hope she isn’t forgotten about and plays a part in the next time the Dollmaker returns. Reading back, I realize Dollmaker sent his son and Olivia to cut off Joker’s face originally, I guess she was to either help out or sit and watch… Perhaps the messed-up nurse with Dollmaker was also once an innocent Olivia before being dragged deep into his sick twisted world.

I do have to mention again that there were still complaints at the time for the lack of Joker. The next story dealt with Batman going after the Penguin since he was one of the guys bidding on him, which only drove the point home that people weren't going to find out about the faceless Joker any time soon. I did understand this was the Dollmaker's story, not the Joker's, so I was cool with this dark and twisted tale. The Detective comics didn't exactly get the best reception but it was still an interesting start as everyone was left wondering where or when the Joker would strike next.