Final Thought and Rants on Batman #644

September 8th, 2005

Filed under: Comics, Medicine

Spoiler Warning!

Let’s get this out of the way early: the very idea that Dr. Tompkins would let Stephanie Brown die just to make a point to Batman is ludricous and demeans what had been an outstanding character until that time. There’s simply no way that she would have let anyone die, let alone a patient she knw personally. Plus she knew that the death of a Robin just makes Batman more intense, not less.

Then she “burns her medical license” and runs off to staff an aid station in Africa, but not before setting up a trust fund for Stephanie’s child. In today’s electronic society, burning a license doesn’t accomplish anything. Her license will still be easy to obtain online. And what good is it to set up a trust fund for Stephanie’s child? The baby was given up for adoption years ago and never knew Stephanie. To be brutally honest, Stephanie’s death will have exactly zero effect on the child.

Then Batman tells her Leslie he knows what she did and if she ever practices medicine again anywhere in the world, he’ll turn her in for murder. So someone kills one of Batman’s associates — and admits it — and Batman just lets her go as long as she never practices medicine again? How is justice served in that? It’s a lose/lose scenario.

And what about the medicine? We are told that Stephanie died because medication was withheld. Stephanie was beaten and tortured by the Black Mask. She suffered internal bleeding and several fractures. Those are surgical emergencies, not strictly “medical” ones. No medication is going to fix those problems so I’m not sure what medicine Leslie could have withheld that would have killed Stephanie.

Speaking of Black Mask, since when did it become a race among Bat-villains to see who can get the highest bodycount? It’s sickening. I can understand Joker being a mass murderer — he is psychotic after all. I get disgusted when writers feel they have to develop “street cred” for their villains by having them kill everyone they can get their hands on. First Hush gratutiously killed a boatload of fishermen in Gotham Knights and now Black Mask kills “two armed guards, three civilian bystanders and the presiding arraignment judge.” This was also a stupid move on Black Mask’s part — recent events have shown how upset people get when judges and policeman are killed and he just murdered three of them. He may be a “super villain”, but I find it hard to believe the police wouldn’t start cracking down on all his businesses and business associates in revenge.

6 Responses to “ Final Thought and Rants on Batman #644 ”

  1. Marionette
    September 8th, 2005 at 11:54 pm

    Not to mention that in the old days the Joker didn’t just kill people for the sake of killing, he was a true psychotic artist. I want the Joker back whose idea of a cunning plan was to trademark fish.

    All I can say about the current run of Batman is that I’m glad there are still plenty of silver age Bats stories I haven’t read yet.

  2. DrObvious
    September 9th, 2005 at 9:55 am

    I agree. War Crime, and especially this ish, was a real let down after the stage was set as well as it was with War Games.

  3. Scott Harris
    September 9th, 2005 at 10:35 am

    Cracking down on Black Mask’s business, heck – he’s going to be shot while resisting arrest.

    In fact, that would probably be one of the best ways to end this era of Gotham’s history –
    have a storyline in Gotham Central where cops shoot down Black Mask, Joker, and Hush, and are quickly cleared of any charges of malfeasance or excessive force despite each body having about 50 bullets in it, since th ejudge and/or administrators rule that each perpetrator had demonstrated that *anything* short of immediately lying down on the ground with hands on head constituted resisting arrest and possibly assault on a police officer.

  4. Tim O'Neil
    September 10th, 2005 at 12:02 am

    Yeah, this is why I don’t read Batman anymore, or really ,and comic that posits that mass-murderers wouldn’t just be shot and killed on sight. Especially – jeez – how many times do we have to see Batman save the Joker’s life? Yawn.

  5. Erich
    September 10th, 2005 at 10:16 pm

    “This was also a stupid move on Black Mask’s part — recent events have shown how upset people get when judges and policeman are killed and he just murdered three of them.” I think it was obvious that Black Mask’s escape was in fact inspired by those “recent events” (the Georgia courtroom shootings), right down to the fact that it was a female officer whose gun was taken. (Although the real-life deputy, unlike her comic-book counterpart, survived the attack.) However, while this scene was “ripped from the headlines,” Willingham seems to be disregarding the massive manhunt and recapture that followed. The capture of Black Mask would be top priority for the Gotham PD after these shootings, but the way it came across in the book was “Oh well, he got away, and we’ll never find him because he’s a criminal genius. Better luck next time.”

    I wonder whether they’re setting up Black Mask to be killed by a Gotham cop. Obviously, the Joker is too big a cash cow for DC to kill off, but Black Mask could easily be used to answer that perennial question “Why don’t the police make sure this psycho dies ‘resisting arrest’?”

  6. Ratbat
    September 13th, 2005 at 1:43 am

    Increasingly, my theory is that Black Mask is nowhere near as hard or smart as he thinks he is. And then he overcompensates, possibly doing something silly in the process as well.

    As for Leslie…yeh. This is someone who in recent years has been shown to be so anti-violence that she won’t even defend herself when directly attacked. So she lets someone die to make a point? And what’s the point? That spandex heroes die? I think Batman knows that by now. He’s even lost a Robin before. Not to mention that this Robin was working completely off her own, er, bat. Against Bruce’s wishes.

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