War Games for Dummies

[Damo]

With the talk about WG in the Batgirl thread, I thought I'd share.

Already posted this on the Birds of Prey (all hail Gail!) board.

War Games for Dummies.

(With apologies to Dedman Walkin, who wrote most of this):

BATMAN: I'm a dick.
SPOILER: I want to be Robin since Tim isn't.
BATMAN: Okay. You're Robin.
SPOILER: Yay!
BATMAN: You violated my direct orders in order to save my life. You are no longer Robin.
SPOILER: >_<

SPOILER: I'll show him! I will!
BATGIRL: ...

GOTHAM CRIMELORDS: Thanks for showing up to our summit meeting which will no doubt go extremely smoothly.
PENGUIN: But of course.
DEADSHOT: You know, I can actually tell just by looking at this crowd who's about to die.
GOTHAM CRIMELORDS: ARRGH A DOUBLECROSS
GUNS: Bang!


GOTHAM CITY: ...is it summer already? Better explode, then.

BATMAN: We will get out of this if everyone in Gotham does exactly what I say. Always. Forever. Including the cops and my allies. Yep, I'm still a total dick.
ORACLE, CATWOMAN: We noticed.
NIGHTWING: Dude, did you see what you got me out of in my book? You're my best friend.
TARANTULA: ...you're totally gay. Gay for him.
ROBIN: Well, mobsters attacked my high school, so it's back into the tights for me.
BATGIRL: ...

ORPHEUS: I'm a pretty cool character who'll eventually wind up the king of the Gotham underworld if everything goes according to plan.
SPOILER: I know! I started all this after reading the plan in Batman's computer, in that folder marked "WAR GAMES -- DO NOT EVER ACTUALLY USE".
ORPHEUS: ...wow, you're pretty stupid.
SPOILER: Yeah? Look who let ****in' Black Mask sneak up on him.
ORPHEUS: What? Ack! [dies]
BLACK MASK: So... I'm a villain, you're a girl hero, it's DC, it's 2004... how about some torture?
SPOILER: ...sure, I guess.

BATGIRL: I make punchy.
CATWOMAN: I also make punchy but with a lot more erect nipplage. Thanks, Paul Gulacy!
PAUL GULACY: No! Thank ~you~!

BATMAN: This all seems familiar for some reason. I wonder...
ORACLE: Hey, Bruce, you know how I do most of the heavy intellectual lifting around here? Listen to me.
BATMAN: No time. I have to fall for a really obvious trick.
BLACK MASK: I'm so Orpheus.
BATMAN: So you are. Not Black Mask at all. I'm the World's Greatest Detective, BTW.
BLACK MASK: What's the plan?
BATMAN: Well, first I tell all the cops what to do, then I herd all the gangs together in one place...

GOTHAM CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT: You know, we think that this time, Batman's finally gone too far. Let's arrest him.
HARVEY BULLOCK: ...I hate my life.

SPOILER: I don't get it. Batman's files said some guy named Matches Malone would make this all work if I followed this plan, but he hasn't even shown up yet! What went wrong?
BATMAN: I wonder if I should've told more of my friends that I'm Matches Malone.... nah.

SURVIVING GOTHAM CRIMINALS: Let's erupt into violence!
BATMAN: I actually miss Orca...
BLACK MASK: You're all under my control now, criminals! I'm making a power grab!
SURVIVING GOTHAM CRIMINALS: ...um, okay.

SPOILER: ...must... survive... long enough... to fix everything...
BATMAN: Spoiler, I found you! Don't worry, I know about everything that happened and I made sure to make the situation as bad as I possibly could.
SPOILER: ...dude, seriously. **** you. [comas]

HUSH: So, Masky, wanna know where the Batcave is?
BLACK MASK: But of course.
HUSH: It's in the clock tower in downtown Gotham.
BLACK MASK: That is not a cave in any way, shape, or form.
HUSH: "Batcave" is a metaphor.
BLACK MASK: ...well, okay then.

ORACLE: Bruce, you suck.
BATMAN: Busy right now.
ORACLE: Yeah? So am I. I've got supervillains attacking my base of operations.
BATMAN: Busy right now. Also, could you do something, you know, computery for me?
ORACLE: ...you're not even listening, are you?
BATMAN: Busy right now.
ORACLE: ****er.
BLACK MASK: Well, I think I'll torture you now... on network news!
BATMAN: ...well crap.
BLACK MASK: Look, everyone, it's the Batcave! And this here's the Bat-cripple!

BATMAN: RAR I am suicidal for some reason
BLACK MASK: Ow! My supervillain parts!
ORACLE: My god! For some reason Batman the expert martial artist is actually having a hard time with a lame-ass B-list villain that Catwoman killed in three panels! I'd better blow up the whole clock tower so I can play the victim and get Batman to save me!
BATMAN: Good plan.
ORACLE: I know.
BLACK MASK: I survived! No idea how.

ROBIN: I lied to the cops so they wouldn't arrest us. Now we're all persona non grata in Gotham.
NIGHTWING: I'm suicidal.
TARANTULA: I'm hot.
NIGHTWING'S MALE FANS: Nightwing... you dumbass.
ORACLE'S FANS: Die Tarantula Die!
BATGIRL: ...

BATMAN: What's that? Spoiler's dying? Better not tell anyone. Especially not her boyfriend, Robin.
SPOILER: ...I was Robin, right?
BATMAN: Yeah, for like five minutes.
SPOILER: I could not hope for a better way to go out: as a meaningless death to top off a particularly idiotic crossover event. [dies]
BATMAN: I know, Stephanie. I know.

GOTHAM CITY PD: ...okay, screw this whole "Bat" thing. We're just going to do what we should've done in the first place and start shooting anything we see with a mask.
BLACK MASK: Yeah, good luck with that.

BATMAN: We'll be here for the next gang war, and the one after that.

LESLIE THOMPKINS, ORACLE, CATWOMAN, SPOILER FANS: Bruce, you suck.

BATMAN: I'm fairly sure I got Spoiler to Leslie in time to save her life. Let me check what meds Leslie gave her.
ALFRED: Didn't she have internal injuries or something? I think surgery was what she needed, not medication.
BATMAN: GASP, Leslie deliberately didn't give Spoiler magic surgery-doing medicines that could have saved her!
LESLIE THOMPKINS: I did? Oh. Um... I guess it was to teach you... something. Well, off abroad in fear for my life!
YEARS OF CONTINUITY: Huh?
MAXWELL LORD: Tell me about it.

[Maleficentogre]

that about sums it up.

[Starba]

Funny. In the like-All-Star-Batman-and-Robin-making-fun-of-War-Games-is-enjoyable-because-it-makes-the-pain-of-reading-it-go-away sort of way.

[Young Avenger]

I don't get it.

[ShaggyB]

does anyone acctually like batman anymore, cause it seems like every arc that comes gets destroyed like the above here, meanwhile war games started good and ended ruff would have been a good summary

[Starba]

My personal theory? They want us to hate Bruce Wayne-as-Batman so that we don't complain as much when they introduce the new Batman One Year Later. Sure, he gets a little redemption in Infinite Crisis, but I doubt we're going to be made to care as much as pre-War Games whether he sticks around or not.

[Violently Apathetic]

BATMAN: Spoiler, I found you! Don't worry, I know about everything that happened and I made sure to make the situation as bad as I possibly could.

Ehehehe, that and Batgirl's 'Punchy' line made me laugh. I'm going to have to link this to my sis, since I actually forced her to read War Games.

[Strider119]

I thought that was hilarious


War Games was total crap





the bad guy:
strider119

[OverMaster]

does anyone acctually like batman anymore, cause it seems like every arc that comes gets destroyed like the above here, meanwhile war games started good and ended ruff would have been a good summary

Wait for Robinson, Morrison and Dini.

And have faith.

[UniqueFrequency]

just read Batman: War Games - Act 1

picked this up at the library. i've read lots of bad stuff about it from the boards, so i didn't want to buy it

so far, it's been pretty decent. i really liked the Bat-team's work at Tim's school. the bit about Spoiler and Matches Malone didn't work for me, neither did Batman being caught in the open.

however i always like watching the Bat-family working together, so this was fun

[soda]

the robinson run has been great, so far. I'm really, really, really looking forward to Morrison/Dini.

Batman doesn't suck, but bat-dick does suck (obvious sexual inneundo aside). I hated post-Hush batman, if I were running the planet, retconning those years of batman stories would be the first thing I'd do. "War games" is the single worst comic book story I've ever read in my lifetime, and I read quite a few really crappy 90s stories before I quit comics for awhile, so that's saying something. I hated the fact that Batman was a jerk. I hated the fact that Doctor Thompkins was a murderer. I hated the fact that Spoiler died an utterly pointless, tacked-on death (I'm not a huge spoiler fan, but I like her a bit, I think she's pretty cool, and I certainly didn't want to see her die the most pointless death in comic book history, and be killed just to make the event artificially "bigger"). War games reads like a five year old, a retarded five year old, wrote the whole thing. What were the bat-writers thinking?!?

[xnef1025]

The Bat-Offices near the end of War Games:

Editor: I need you to kill Robin.
Writer: What for!?
Editor: Jason Todd's return is in the works, so in a couple years that costume in the
case is gonna have to refer to someone else.
Writer: WTF!? I'm not killing Tim!
Editor: Spoiler was Robin for a while a few months ago. Kill her. No one will miss her.
Writer: But that could totally screw up long term plans for Batgirl and BoP and there's
tons of stories that could be done with Stephanie!
Editor: Meh.

[Indefatigable]

I think you'll be hard pressed to find War Games trades in five years. Meanwhile we'll still have many, many copies of KnightSaga, NML and Fugitive/Murder.

Also, they really wasted Stephanie as Robin. It should've been a longer story that explained why Batman would take her in, and her tenure should've been long enough for a couple of arcs, but nope, "Hi you're Robin, bye you're not Robin anymore."

[Kid Kyoto]

Very nicely done.

[UniqueFrequency]

Very nicely done.

what was? War Games?

[fuaak]

just read Batman: War Games - Act 1

picked this up at the library. i've read lots of bad stuff about it from the boards, so i didn't want to buy it

so far, it's been pretty decent. i really liked the Bat-team's work at Tim's school. the bit about Spoiler and Matches Malone didn't work for me, neither did Batman being caught in the open.

however i always like watching the Bat-family working together, so this was fun
War Games is garbage through and through. There's always the brief period in the beginning where you think it's going to be okay, because you still imagine it's going somewhere and there will be a non-retarded answer to all the questions popping into your mind, like "why is Batman such a total asshole again" and "why'd he give Spoiler access to potentially city-destroying plans, especially if he was going to fire her". Identity Crisis looked good in the first two issues too.

Then you read through all the 25 issues and realize that the whole thing had maybe four issues' worth of a plot riddled with ridiculous holes, a lot of inconsequential namedropping and basically made Batman a villain in his own book. Batman was personally responsible for hundreds of deaths there, and nothing came out of it.

They even blew its potential as a sales stunt, because the War Games issues used the old creative teams or fill-in ones for the satellite Bat titles, not the ones that came aboard after it.


Still, it's better than its mini-sequel War Crimes. "Hello, Leslie. You killed my sidekick for no reason. No, I'm not going to arrest you or anything, she doesn't deserve justice."

[UniqueFrequency]

War Games is garbage through and through. There's always the brief period in the beginning where you think it's going to be okay, because you still imagine it's going somewhere and there will be a non-retarded answer to all the questions popping into your mind, like "why is Batman such a total asshole again" and "why'd he give Spoiler access to potentially city-destroying plans, especially if he was going to fire her". Identity Crisis looked good in the first two issues too.

Then you read through all the 25 issues and realize that the whole thing had maybe four issues' worth of a plot riddled with ridiculous holes, a lot of inconsequential namedropping and basically made Batman a villain in his own book. Batman was personally responsible for hundreds of deaths there, and nothing came out of it.

They even blew its potential as a sales stunt, because the War Games issues used the old creative teams or fill-in ones for the satellite Bat titles, not the ones that came aboard after it.


Still, it's better than its mini-sequel War Crimes. "Hello, Leslie. You killed my sidekick for no reason. No, I'm not going to arrest you or anything, she doesn't deserve justice."

i think saying it could fit into 4 issues of plot is stretching it, but i do know what you're driving at.

i wondered that part about Batman as well. giving her the plans but not telling her who Matches Malone is... perhaps he just didn't think she would be fired so early

[Brack360]

i wondered that part about Batman as well. giving her the plans but not telling her who Matches Malone is... perhaps he just didn't think she would be fired so early

Well, he didn't give her the plans. She hacked into his computer after he fired her when he gave her access to retrieve her personal files. Batman never intend to implement the war game plan but had it as a worst-case scenario. Steph didn't know that and thought that it was on his "to do" list.