Another Brick in the (Punched Out) Wall?
In “Batman” #644, the conclusion to the “War Crimes” story-arc reveals that Doctor Leslie Thompkins could’ve saved the life of Spoiler, who died during the much lambasted mini-series “Wargames.” Instead, Dr. Thompkins let Spoiler die on the slab, hoping that her death would make Batman give up his war on crime, finally seeing that the human loss is too great on both sides. What’d Batman think of that? Take a look left! I mean below! That’s a big image!
After telling her off, Bruce tells her that she’s no longer welcome in the United States, and if he ever hears about her practicing medicine again, he’ll put an end to it. The scene is very emotional, expertly written and drawn by some guys who’s names don’t matter to me. It got me excited, at least. The idea, obviously, was to make Batman lose another person, in addition to Spoiler, only it had to be a person without a mask. There aren’t very many of those left in his life, leaving the responsibility up to Alfred and Jim Gordon. I was always hoping that Leslie would return with MIA fanboy-hated Azrael, for a double redemption storyline, but alas.
With this week’s release of “Batman” #659, Doctor Leslie Thompkins is back in Gotham City, running her clinic with no mention of what happened inbetween. I got angry, naturally. So, after throwing my desk chair through the nearest window, I took a few deep breaths and tried to figure out what happened.
Then, the obvious answer dropped down to me as heavily as that chair dropped down to careless passersby on the streets below. It’s the whole convoluted catch-all of Superboy-Prime punching on the walls of reality. Make sense? Well, it didn’t make much sense back when it was first explained, but I was willing to accept it, since it brought about some ancient and heavy continuity corrections. But, Leslie Thompkins? That just happened fifteen issues ago!
I’m sure I’m the only person on the entire Internets that thinks this way, so I’ll stop now, but, seriously, it was a risky move, making her a killer by proxy, and I’m disappointed they reneged so quickly.
Isn’t Batman spending a year traveling around the world during 52? Perhaps he runs into Thompkins at some point.
On a slight tangent, that issue sucked. Probably the worst Batman story I’ve read in five years or more. Just terrible. The villain was leatherface meets the hunchback of Notre Dame! What the freak?
Yeah, it sucked. I’m not going to buy another issue until that crazy bastard Grant Morrison comes back.
Hopefully Batman finds Leslie during “52.” Otherwise, it’s a big mistake.
They mentioned that bit about the doctor letting Spoiler die in the last issue of Robin (which is very good, BTW). That seems crazy that anyone thinks they can teach Batman a lesson. He’s like the George Bluth of the DC Universe.
Also, the only thing I could think of when I saw Grotesk was Robert DeNiro as Frankenstein.
another problem in an issue full of them. OK, the MEDIA are the ones who refer to the killer as “Grotesk,” which is such a dumb and implausible name that nobody in the media would use it. Further, that’s not how the media really works anymore, dreaming up nicknames that colorful.
Making it worse, the killer then refers to himself as “Grotesk.” But why would he call himself by the name the media came up with? Or maybe he used the name somewhere and it carried back to the media? But then, they wouldn’t know he’d said it with retarded spelling. Ugh, this is by so far the worst comic book I’ve purchased in a long time (except anything written by Reggie Hudlin).
Dr. Leslie Thompkins doesn’t even appear in the comic. A couple of scenes are set at the clinic, but she’s not actually shown. The clicnic can still continue to run even without it’s founder/owner.
You’re right, but, wouldn’t you say it’s heavily implied? When Batman cast her out, so to speak, the fans were none too happy, so maybe DC used IC to fix it. Or somebody forgot.