Batman Incorporated #4 Preview/Discussion

[DrSimonHurt]

Again, Scorpiana is a different person. Kathy is elsewhere, the head of Spyral.

She obviously faked the Hood's death so he could better assist Batman. This means Kathy is working with Batman INC through him. She lent him an agent and covered his trail by making everyone else think he died. Kathy is Matron.

[Retro315]

Again, Scorpiana is a different person. Kathy is elsewhere, the head of Spyral.

She obviously faked the Hood's death so he could better assist Batman. This means Kathy is working with Batman INC through him. She lent him an agent and covered his trail by making everyone else think he died. Kathy is Matron.

I'm eager to find out more about Kathy's role here; I presume you're right and she helped fake Hood's death for Batman, but I'm still curious with her comments about the death, whether she was referring to sending flowers for her father, or for The Hood. Otto Netz' grave isn't the black depths of a sunken ship, because Batman's robots salvaged it immediately.

My first guess was that Scorpiana was Kathy, but it seems pretty clear once all the facts are accounted that Scorpiana is Kathy's protege (no surprise then, why Gaucho's relationship with Scorpiana is the way it is), Kathy taught her everything she knows (rightly so that Batwoman 2.0 kicked her ass hard) and that Scorpiana (and probably the other three bug-themed assassin chicks, despite the three instructors not being intended to be them) was one of the first "graduating classes" of the St. Hadrian's girl assassin training program - since Scorpiana's portrait was hanging in the hallway there next to the Headmistress's office, along with a red-clad assassin lady.

My god how I long for more stories of the adventures of the daughter of a super-villain who is sent to villainy boarding school. Or at least for threads from that, which felt like one of the more important issues of the previous volume, to come back into play.

Batwoman 1. Batwoman 2. Batgirl (Steph). Insect-Theme Assassins. Son of Pyg. Major connective tissue.

[direction9]

Scorpiana is a different person. Batman and El Gaucho fought her in volume 1. He even danced with her in her civilian guise.

no i'm not a rookie. i'm aware of all this.
no one else picked up on this connection?

[direction9]

Again, Scorpiana is a different person. Kathy is elsewhere, the head of Spyral.

She obviously faked the Hood's death so he could better assist Batman. This means Kathy is working with Batman INC through him. She lent him an agent and covered his trail by making everyone else think he died. Kathy is Matron.

aha now we're talkin

[Choppa]

it just doesn't feel at all inconsistent that dick isn't batman anymore, because it always seemed temporary (and bruce was lost in time for most of it). so it never felt off when we saw him switch out of this role. similarly, since the plot point of bruce's disapproval of damian's methods, and damian constantly asserting that he didn't kill anyone, or that he was forced to, and bruce telling damian to stay at home......there has never been a moment that felt inconsistent there either. damian wasn't suddenly an approved sidekick and the two of them weren't just suddenly going out on adventures.

so please explain what inconsistency there is here, yknow?

Bruce told Dick to remain as Batman. Batman and Robin Volume 2 isn't part of Morrison's run.

[direction9]

Bruce told Dick to remain as Batman. Batman and Robin Volume 2 isn't part of Morrison's run.

you're discussing books you haven't read. i'm positive of it now.

[ElMacho]

Again, Scorpiana is a different person. Kathy is elsewhere, the head of Spyral.

She obviously faked the Hood's death so he could better assist Batman. This means Kathy is working with Batman INC through him. She lent him an agent and covered his trail by making everyone else think he died. Kathy is Matron.

Kathy Kane is not Matron, Matron was the man that triple crossed and "assassinated" the Hood back in Leviathan Strikes!, the same guy that Kathy herself addressed as "Matron" when speaking to him on the phone in that same issue (notice his "beady eyes" previously mentioned by the Hood in inc vol.1#5). Kathy is the Headmistress of St.Hadrians, where spy girls were trained and supplied for international clientele, their last contract was to supply teenage suicide commando's to Leviathan. There's a misprint in the original Leviathan Strikes! issue, where the Hood addresses Matron as "Headmistress", this was corrected to "Matron" in the deluxe edition of Inc vol.1 (along with another few mistakes).

I suspect that Matron may also have also been the Leviathan agent sent in to replace Man of Bats superior at the hospital in Inc. vol.1 #7, based purely on the physical similarities between the men, but that's a long-shot.

Kathy's (alleged) father, Otto Netz (agent zero) was the founder and head of Spyral back when he got Gaucho (agent 33) to recruit Kathy to Spyral. She may or may not be leading Spyral since Otto's death, assuming the organization still even exists. Spyral was (allegedly) disbanded some time ago, after the Falklands conflict when Netz went rouge and was "imprisoned" on one of the Falklands islands by the Victory V's. Gaucho and most of his fellow Spyral agents were told that Zero died (misinformation likely spread by Netz himself) when the department was "shut down" (see Inc vol.1 #5). Matron (another former Spyral agent) says that his true loyalty was always to Spyral and that he answers directly to the Headmistress herself (Kathy Kane) in Leviathan Strikes!, this could be interpreted as Spyral still existing with the headmistress in a position of power there, or, Matron could simply have been assisting his FORMER Spyral allies.

The Hood never directly worked for Spyral, he worked for "the agency" or "T.H.E.Y", his boss Matron asked him to infiltrate Batman Inc. (possibly under orders form Kathy Kane). The Hood did infiltrate Inc. back in vol.1#5, but he claims to have become a triple agent for Batman since then ("I was triple crossed").

Much of this stuff is outlined in "Talia's web" in Inc vol.2 #3, (the former Spyral agents, Kathy's position as the Headmistress ect..)where there is no direct direct connection (at least to Batman's knowledge) between Kathy and the Hood.

If Kathy is working with Inc., then so is Matron, who has to know whether the Hood died or not, he was the one that "shot" him. The Hood is still very much an unknown quantity here, I'm still not 100% convinced that he's working with Batman. I believe the Hood in vol.2 is the same man from the end of vol.1, because he knew about his promised "re-match" with Gaucho, but I'm still not certain where his true loyalties lie. It's still impossible to know what's really going on at this point.

Retro, the flowers were for Netz, who Kathy did not like ("he hated flowers"), presumably since he blackmailed her into leaving Batman in Inc vol.1#4. Netz blamed Batman for killing "my daughters love for me!", and harbored a deep grudge against him that led to an audacious plan to destroy Batman, years in the making. Netz may be dead but I very much doubt his master plan is, Oroboro is a circle after all.....

[T Hedge Coke]

Matron has to be a guy. it's a riff on Mother (Father and Grandmother) of the Avengers.

[Choppa]

you're discussing books you haven't read. i'm positive of it now.

What are you talking about? When Bruce returns he tells Dick to remain as Batman. In The Return he tells Damian he wants him to continue working with Dick. All of Bruce's criticisms of Damian as Robin happened in B&R volume 2 which is not part of Morrison's run. I said all this already a few times so I didn't feel like typing it all out again.

[Prisoner 6655321]

Has it ever been officially stated anywhere how Batman Inc fits into the post-reboot reality? I'm fine with pretty much any answer really, but has DC or Grant given any?

[T Hedge Coke]

Morrison and Burnham have admitted to having to avoid some things/characters being at the fore, but that all the neglected elements and characters "still exist" as far as they're concerned, even if they won't be prominent on-panel. They also both said that, optimally, you can read straight through from volume one to volume two without it seeming as if there's been a huge shift, which I think, so far at least, has been true.

[Retro315]

Morrison and Burnham have admitted to having to avoid some things/characters being at the fore, but that all the neglected elements and characters "still exist" as far as they're concerned, even if they won't be prominent on-panel. They also both said that, optimally, you can read straight through from volume one to volume two without it seeming as if there's been a huge shift, which I think, so far at least, has been true.

Yeah it was always naturally going to shift toward being very Bruce/Damian-centric anyway, so it hasn't felt jarring. We all pine for more Nightwing, but that's been the case since Batman and Robin # 16 ended.

[B. Kuwanger]

on the other hand, I haven't read Return #3 to Leviathan Strikes, and this new volume of Inc. works just fine for me.

[ElMacho]

Matron has to be a guy. it's a riff on Mother (Father and Grandmother) of the Avengers.

That's absolutely right, but again, Matron IS a guy, the hood said so when he referred to "his" beady eye in Inc vol.1#5, and then we flat out saw the man in Inc vol.1#10 a.k.a the second half of Leviathan Strikes!.

[ElMacho]

All of Bruce's criticisms of Damian as Robin happened in B&R volume 2 which is not part of Morrison's run.

"The chances of our working on a regular basis as Batman and Robin are zero, Damian." *Bruce Wayne, Batman: The Return.


You are mostly right though, Choppa, one thing I'll say however, is that Bruce let Dick and Damian remain as B&R while he was off globetrotting in Inc vol.1. Bruce made one very brief appearance in Gotham in Inc vol.1#6 (not counting the flashbacks in issue 4), but other than that he was in Tokyo, Argentina, the Falklands, Africa, Paris, Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, ect....Dick filled in for Batman in Gotham (and Snyder had that great Black Mirror arc), because Batman needed to be "everywhere" to combat Leviathan.


In Inc vol.2, Bruce knows that Talia is behind Leviathan from the get-go (as per the events of Leviathan Strikes!), he has been fighting Leviathan in Gotham exclusively thus far, Talia knows there is only one true Batman, so it could easily be argued that Batman no longer felt it necessary to have Dick dress as Batman in Gotham (aside from that one occasion where he trying to boost Matches credibility while investigating Leviathan and luring them into the "Kill Box").

Personally I prefer the idea of multiple men in Batman costumes in Inc, but we all know DC wouldn't allow it. I suspect that Jiro would have remained as the Batman of Tokyo (how did he not get his own series btw?!), in his bat-costume, were it not for DC's interference. It's hard to say if Nightwing would have kept the bat-costume.....

None of this stuff affects the main plot, or the entertainment of the comic anyway, IMO.