Monday, September 28, 2015

Picking Up The Feathers

"Robin: The Boy Wonder"
In the wake of "Deadliest Shadow", Gotham remains in need of repair. Tim Drake is gearing up in The Batcave as we-the viewers-learn that Cassandra Kane (Batgirl) has left the country with Barbara Gordon (Oracle) on a mission, this leaves Bruce Wayne recovering under Alfred's watch while Gotham's safety is the priority of Robin. In his new costume, Robin dives into the city, swinging past construction crews. Among these construction crews is a group of convicts who volunteered to help in the city's repair as a part of The Gotham Restoration Comity's plans. One of these convicts escapes with the help of a crooked cop. Robin stops a mugging and can't help but see the resemblance between the woman in danger and his mother, who was assassinated in the last film. Trying to avoid the thoughts of his dead parents, Robin turns to the mugger, but lets him go. He's just a kid, after all. He didn't know any better. It's at this point in his superhero career that Tim questions if he knew any better. If taking the Robin mantle caused his parents to die, the same way the Robins before him suffered. He gets a notification from Alfred about a hostage situation and heads off.
The criminal who got away from the construction job goes to his old apartment, but his wife won't let him in. Listening through her door, the criminal's daughter overhears her mother refusing to let the criminal ruin their lives anymore. The criminal-Arthur Brown-claims he'll be back with enough money to change her mind. The girl's mother comes in and talks with the girl-Stephanie Brown-and reminds her that her father is just misunderstood. Once the mother goes to sleep, Steph digs out an old costume from under her bed and prepares for a night out.
The GCPD surrounds a building where a man is holding a group of children hostage. Robin meets with Commissioner Gordon and Detective Bullock outside the building and attempts to sneak in. As he sneaks into the building, Robin takes mental notes-presented via red color tints-off certain aspects of the building. He jams several batarangs into the upward staircase to act as spikes, uses a grapple rope to make a tripwire and places the hallway's fire extinguisher between the line and the window. He opens the door and walks in peacefully, when he gets the man to drop his gun Robin uses a glove-mounted device to disable the electricity in the apartment, leaving the room dark. He sneaks behind the man and scares him, causing the man to run away. When the man runs out he avoids the spiked stairs and trips on the setup wire, his outward stretched foot lands on the fire extinguisher and causes the man to roll into the open window and land in a trash dumpster below. Robin brings the kids out safety and passes them all "R" buttons to cheer them up.
Arthur Brown goes to a house in the upper estates of Gotham City, the now-empty home of The Drake Family. Waiting there are a group of criminals. Brown dresses in an outfit and refers to himself as The Cluemaster, taking inspiration from all of Gotham's costumed villains. Cluemaster looks around the Drake house and finds a safe in the basement, by researching the contents on the house Cluemaster is able to figure out the code combination and open the safe. The criminals start to take the money out of the safe, but they are fought by a masked girl calling herself The Spoiler. Cluemaster regards her as his old rival, always ruining his crimes by outing his exploits. He and Spoiler fight, but the other criminals outmatch Spoiler. She manages to escape, but Cluemaster burns down the Drake home and leaves with the money.
After a brutal interrogation, Robin and Gordon learn the gunman was hired to stage the hostage situation and that an escape of multiple construction convicts was staged at the same time, it was a distraction. Robin got a lead on who hired the man, but discovers one of his personal camera's was damaged. Relaying the footage, he finds out about the break-in at his former house and notices Spoiler in the mix.
Stephanie Brown (Spoiler) sneaks back into her room, beaten and charred. She is shocked to see Robin in her bedroom going through her photos. She pulls a gun on him, but Robin talks her down. They go to talk on the roof, but Spoiler attempts to fight Robin, which naturally ends with Robin simply using Spoiler's exhaustion to his advantage. They begin talking and Steph explains her case: Her father used to be a detective in L.A., a movie-star-kind of detective. He could solve any crime there were as long as there were clues to collect. It was like a puzzle to him. He was threatened off the force when he solved a crime that involved corrupt cops and the Brown family moved to Gotham. Arthur tried to be a cop here, but he found the police were just as corrupt. He was a crooked cop for a while until he became a professional thief, using his detective skills to pull off capers. Things started going downhill when one of Arthur's crook buddies sexually abused Steph's mother and Arthur killed him. Steph's mom went away for a year while Arthur juggled a temporary job and his crime job to get Steph through school. When Steph's mom came back, she pushed Arthur away and tried to be a successful single parent, but Arthur kept committing crimes. Inspired by Batman, Steph took up the alter ego of Spoiler, she dressed up and followed her father, reporting all his actions to Batman's ally, Oracle. When Robin asks about the gun, Steph makes it clear that Arthur didn't want anyone threatening Steph the same way her mother was threatened.
After forming some chemistry with the girl, Robin leaves Steph and swears to help put Arthur behind bars. He leaves a banquet of roses at the alley where his parents were shot and collects some things from his burnt down house. As Tim brings boxes of belongings through the halls of Wayne Manor, Alfred takes them into his room because Bruce wants to talk to Tim. Bruce is recovering in bed, all tied up and weak, but able to speak. Tim regards how one week of bed rest seems to be helping fast, but all Bruce wants to talk about is the case Tim's working on. As much as Tim appreciates the help, he feels the need to take this one on his own.
The next morning, Robin sneaks outside a bar named "Snoot's", using sonar tech to listen to the conversation inside. Cluemaster is speaking with four men: One seems to be rather heavy-breathed, one is light-voiced, one is stammering and nervous, and the other is commanding. Robin hears something else, the sound of a gun being cocked. This wouldn't surprise him, but it's coming in from across the building. Robin scurries into the opposite alleyway and tosses a batarang at the would-be shooter, who runs into the alley. Robin stops her and finds out it was Spoiler preparing to shoot Cluemaster. Before she can explain herself, Cluemaster and the other men trap them. Joining Cluemaster is a large man named Rhino, a slim man named Mugsy, and an old and mundane man named Arnold Wesker. In Wesker's arms there is a thug-like ventriloquist dummy calling himself Scarface. Scarface refers to Wesker as "The Dummy" and brags about how Cluemaster is going to help him create a new criminal empire. Cluemaster, Scarface and Wesker escape while Rhino and Mugsy fight Robin and Spoiler. The heroes are overpowered, but Robin tricks the criminals into running by using a shadow-projector to make an illusion of Batman.
Spoiler believes the only way of ridding her father of his criminal life is by ending it, this prompts Robin into taking the gun apart piece-by-piece, handcuffing Spoiler to a fire escape ladder and beginning to leave. But Spoiler insists its the only choice, this annoys Robin and he scolds Spoiler on how hard it was not to let her shoot Cluemaster. Robin explains that he has wanted to kill Cluemaster for defiling his parent's home, he's wanted to kill a man for taking his parent's lives, but he hasn't crossed that line. Robin believes that letting himself stoop to their level, to allow their influence to deface the ideals his fights for, would be an injustice to the people he's trying to avenge. Killing them might remove one problem, but it would only spawn new ones.
Mugsy and Rhino meet back up at the underground bunker of a collapsed building. In the bunker, Cluemaster and Scarface have gathered a ton of petty criminals. Cluemaster easily detects a tracer on Rhino and plans on using it to their advantage. Robin and Spoiler follow the tracer to the docks and find it inside a shed, Robin notices a ticking sound inside the shed and pushed Spoiler out with him. The explosion hits them hard and they face plant into one of the warehouses' windows. As they lay in the dark warehouse, Robin has a hallucination of The Joker walking towards him with a crowbar, but he sees it's actually Cluemaster with a gun walking towards Spoiler. With her masked burned off, Cluemaster discovers Spoiler is his own daughter and he runs away, telling her to stay out of this. Robin can hear Steph crying, so he holds her in his arms.
Cluemaster goes back to the bunker where Scarface is outfitting all the petty criminals with weapons stolen during the "Justice League: Godfall" raids. Cluemaster reveals that Spoiler is his daughter and Wesker tries to sympathize with him, but Scarface berates Wesker and orders Cluemaster to kill her if he needs her dead. Cluemaster strikes against Scarface and when he's held back by Rhino, he uses his deduction abilities to solve Wesker's multiple personality issues. He claims Wesker couldn't hack it as anything more than a timid, frail man so he cooked up Scarface as the bad-boy mockup he craved to become, but was never brave enough to try to be. Scarface puts a little knife to Cluemaster's throat and swears if he doesn't do his part, Scarface will bury him and his family in the ground. Revealing Scarface has Arthur's wife as "leverage".
Robin takes Spoiler to the Batcave and helps tend her wounds. The two of them express romantic feelings for each other before Robin uses a sedative to knock Steph out. She wakes up locked in a cage in the cave, Robin apologizes and says it's for her protection. She swears up and down as Robin goes to Bruce one more time. Bruce is asleep so Robin speaks quietly about how he was feeling insecure. The mantle of Robin has been a great gift to Tim, but has dealt a heavy price. But when Tim sees people like Stephanie, he believes in what he's doing, he believes no life costed was without purpose. Tim knows he can accept this kind of life and that he won't let the darkness surrounding his symbol ruin his life. As Tim leaves, he tells Alfred to tend to Steph while she's locked up.
After Robin leaves on his motorcycle, Alfred brings food to Steph, but notices that she is missing. He opens the cage and looks in, but Steph appears clinging to the ceiling and she locks Alfred in the cage. Steph uses materials and weapons around the cave to rebuild her Spoiler outfit and takes Batman's Batmobile. Alfred remarks on how "Master Grayson" will never let this one down.
Scarface and his criminal empire begin their invasion on Gotham. The GCPD try to stop the crimes of murder and theft, but their radios are being hacked and are projecting diversions to keep the police unorganized and away from the major crimes. Cluemaster is behind a radio chair using stolen tech to relay messages, Wesker had recorded multiple false crime reports in the voices of every officer on the GCPD and Cluemaster is using those recording to mess with the cops. Robin shows up and learns from Bullock about all the calls, but Robin picks up on the inconsistencies. He alters the radio to tune in on another cruiser and they here Bullock's voice, this confirms to Robin and Bullock that the radios are hacked. Robin overrides Cluemaster's control and insists all the officers ignore their radios and move in on one location. Wesker tries to use Robin's voice, but freezes up and is yelled at by Scarface. Cluemaster uses this chance to kill Mugsy and escape his hostage wife.
The GCPD are at war with the criminals while Robin chases Scarface and Wesker to the end of a cliff overlooking a crater in construction. Scarface reveals a trigger for a series of bombs he'd hidden throughout the city. Rhino attempts to grab Robin from behind, but The Batmobile's horn frightens Rhino and Robin knocks him away. Spoiler emerges from the Batmobile as the two fight more criminals. Scarface and Wesker take a cement truck to escape, but Robin and Spoiler are too busy arguing with each other and fighting as a team. Robin's radio goes off and it's Cluemaster over Gordon's police radio. Cluemaster claims the bombs are real, but he doesn't know where they are. He does-however-reveal a clue to find out their locations: Scarface is a master manipulator, but Wesker can't help making his mouth twitch when Scarface lies.
Robin and Spoiler take the Batmobile and chase Scarface down, using a needle gun to pop the cement truck's tires. The truck spills over along with a heap of cement and Wesker and Scarface hop out of the truck. Before Robin and Spoiler can confront them, Wesker pulls out a tommy gun and Scarface holds the bomb trigger. At a standstill, Robin tries to guess the locations of the bombs, but Scarface refuses to answer. Robin may not know what to do, but Spoiler has watched Scarface enough to know that he likes to hear himself talk. Spoiler tricks Scarface into bragging and he makes small hints as to what locations the bombs are placed, denying he'd place them in those places is indicated with Wesker twitching. After learning the locations of the four bomb spots over the radio, Gordon sends his squads to each location to defuse the bombs. Wesker tries to stop Scarface from talking, but Scarface yells at Wesker and he falls over into the puddle of cement. Wesker loses Scarface in the cement and Robin and Spoiler pull him back as Scarface becomes covered in cement and orders Wesker to pull the trigger, which is now in his hands. Robin reminds Wesker that without Scarface he is free, that he was only being manipulated by Scarface. He reminds him that Scarface is the dummy and he is the ventriloquist. Wesker gives Robin the trigger and begins crying as police show up.
Wesker is checked into Arkham Asylum, while the cemented block of Scarface is placed in the Batcave. Cluemaster goes back to Blackgate Prison, promising next time he'd come out he'd give up the crime gig. Steph's mother learns she is vigilante and allows her to stay in Gotham to help Batman and Robin while she is put into the witness protection program and moved elsewhere. Steph moves her things into Wayne Manor, along with the belongings stolen from Drake's home. Bruce is wheeled down in a chair by Alfred and talks with Tim, regarding Steph's need to train. Tim offers to teach her everything he know about deduction and combat, but Bruce gives Steph Oracle's contact number for further training. Bruce and Tim look at the glass case holding Jason Todd-the deceased Robin's-costume. When Tim asks if Bruce every thought of what could have been if Jason lived, Bruce responses by saying, "We don't live in a world of ifs. We live in a world of is and is not. If we don't remember that, we don't live to begin with". Bruce wheels off and Tim dons his Robin costume and goes out on patrol with Spoiler. They notice Poison Ivy using her plant powers to cover a reconstructed building with plant-life. Robin and Spoiler share a kiss and hop into action, with the images of Batman, Nightwing, Oracle, Batgirl, and Jason Todd behind them.
The after credits scene shows Wayne Industries representative Lucius Fox meeting with a young man named Ted Kord, owner of Kord Technologies and an uprising business man. Lucius remarks on how Kord Tech's "prior disasters" do not base his opinions and Ted agrees to make Kord Tech a partner company to Wayne Industries, meaning by advertising WI, KT will receive more funding. In exchange,  Kord gives Lucius a prototype exoskeleton he's been working on called The Thorax. Lucius claims Kord has a bright future. When Kord asks why Bruce Wayne needed the exoskeleton, Lucius simply states that Bruce works himself to hard.
Thanks for reading!
The future is now, "Booster Gold" is coming soon!

Facebook: The Panel Biter
Twitter: @ThePanelBiter
Podbean: Panelbiter.podbean.com

No comments:

Post a Comment