So basically it starts with the villains mocking Batman, as they should. Amongst other things he looks fucking ridiculous in this book. The ears...
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Anyway, moving along. So Batsy brought Robin to the asylum to show him the ugly face of crime after Crowe made crime too sexy. I'm sure the kid who watched his parents get brutally murdered needs to be reminded that crime can be painful.
So we move on and Robin who hopped on the back of a bus to flee the darkness that Batman is bringing him ends up exactly where Evangeline is staying.
Lazarus goes out to talk about how Izaak is trying to tear down the evil entertainment industry that's ruined his music.
And now back into Crowe's dementia, and I'm stuck being anal but one of the more obvious rocker ghosts is Jimi Hendrix, I'm a big fan so little things will stand out to me.
He has a right handed guitar and is playing it right handed. He also intones "Mama, just killed a man" okay one of Jimi's first songs to hit it big was Hey Joe. The song is about someone who just shot some one, but it doesn't include mothers or the line "mama just killed a man." that's from Queen. You guys need to see this
◊ because it did just confirm that Black Face Janis is actually Janis Joplin when she sings out "Just another word for nothing left to lose" I took the liberty to label the people myself, a few of which were confirmed in story.
◊ I didn't notice till I uploaded that I spelled Jerry Lee Lewis as Jerry Lee Louis, I'd fix it but I don't feel like re-uploading over that.
And Jimi is quoting Queen again. Dude kinda has a distinct look especially with the guitar, and the fact that they break out a bit of purple haze too. I'll try to get off of this but it does illustrate one of the problems, the writer pretty clearly doesn't know a ton about rock and rock history. Which would be fine if Rock and roll wasn't so prominent in the story.
So here's a great moment, the girlfriend is a fit young african american woman who can apparently play bass like no other. The generic looking white guy is the sex appeal that gets them on TV. WTF
She loves him "with a fire that would turn most women into ashes!"
She claims that the song burnt him out, that he wasn't enough to contain it. This happens to all rockers that's why they're all at their best early on. There's evidence about the age thing both ways, Flaming Lips have a ton more fans now that they're older. It took The Who a while to find their niche. Many prefer Rubber Soul over Please Please me, very few bands can stay around for a long time. This is probably not due to metaphysics but due to a bunch of other factors, trying to move with the times can be destructive for a band. Imagine if Hendrix had survived till the 80s and ditched his soulful emotive guitar style to shred like Van Halen? Often it costs someone's distinctive voice and sound, the other factor is that with success the adversity level decreases and there's protection from the editors. Also feedback loops on aspects of a style that can become destructive to a performer. Not to mention the cumulative effect of drugs. Needless to say I'm not a huge believer in music as a metaphysical force burning through performers and possessing them.
Izaak just ran over a blonde Elvis. Was there no editor on this book? I know Gerard Jones won an Eisner but I gotta imagine someone checked for internal art continuity.
Okay I'm going to give some credit to an awful scene, Izaak is talking to stamps of Blonde Elvis and asked why he did it, why he settled for living. Elvis basically said: I was having fun the fuck you think? Izaak goes on his musical purity emoness and Elvis calls him a damn commie. That was kinda funny, there's also the part where Izaak turns the stamp around to lick it and elvis says: hey don't turn my back on you. If you're going to do that scene that's probably the best it will turn out.
It gets stupid again. B Elvis says: "I MADE YOU!" which is stupid enough, unless he's the personification of rock and roll, still stupid though. Then Izaak responds: No, I made you.
There is no context in which that makes the least sense. Unless he meant he made that stamp... Maybe he had a job on the side..?
I just checked, there was no editor assigned this book, just Editor in chief etc but no one credited for this book. That explains A LOT.
So the hallucinations were actually actors hired to fuel his insanity. So then is the stamp the first actual hallucination? This makes less sense since half the time we've seen Elvis and not B Elvis, so why hire a blonde guy to impersonate him?
Bad taste really. The faux rockers take off in a private jet one of them singing American Pie. Guess what? the plane crashes.
I just realized glasses is Buddy Holly and I'm ashamed for not realizing it sooner. But that's really stupid at best, tasteless at worse to kill them again in a plane crash. So here's the Roster updated
◊ In my defense they should have included the iconic glasses for Holly and Lennon.
So anyway back at the plot: Rock fans are rioting in LA, we've found out that the fake B Elvis was a plant by Lazarus and the Bass player to drive Crowe insane so he, I assume burns out in a blaze of glory to make his name more valuable.
So LA is about to burn, and we see a dead ringer for Batman's past nemesis. Batman arrives on scene to prevent the city wide riot. Elton john takes aim at him with another cannon.
◊ A cowboy takes aim at Izaak, Robin and Evangeline arrive on scene to save the day, and Robin realizes he can't save them both. Evangeline tells him to save his hero, and guess what? he saves Batman!
Just kidding he saves the terrorist. I need a break and a drink but I'll get the conclusion up before the end of the night and try to give some final thoughts on it.
