Mindless Ones

Mustn’t let like the finest issue of Batman in years come out and not do a bit about it. Maybe some annotations, but honestly there’s a few good people doing that so I’m a bit annotated-out.

So we’re just going to have the big question and answer it, right before your eyes, with perfect accuracy. How this works is, we’re going to run through my favouriite suspects and ask the I-Ching who The Black Glove is, and then we’ll know. A couple of posts back Savage reminded me of the same Storm Shadow 6 page story story Morrison wrote for Marvel UK’s Action Force Monthly about twenty years ago, which was my earliest memory of anything at all I-Chingy. Genuine comics knowledge, one of those genuine four-colour epiphanies – that pedagogic element they always talk about. That was how I learnt of the I-Ching. The man himself has appeared in Morrison’s Batman’s run too, remember, so it all somehow seems appropriate. I don’t do the I-Ching much (going to call it Yijing from now on, I think that’s more proper nowadays), because Yijing is never wrong, and always eerily accurate. That’s a bit freaky, and raises a few questions I rarely have time to mull over these days, so I tend to leave it alone. But in all my experience of using it, it’s never wrong, and that means it’s sometimes been often useful, like now.

Hold tight!

Suspect 1: The Joker
I kind of think it should be The Joker. In any given Batman story, when you up and ask ‘Who is this ultimate villain?’ The answer to that has to be: ‘The Joker’ – there’s no badder or scarier villain than that, no matter how you big them up. But there’s too many issues still to go, and a sense the revelations coming are bigger even than Mr. J’s latest stab. I think he’s a good candidate though: Le Bossu deliberattely called him ‘master’, right at athe end of the last issue, so you’re probably supposed to think he’s The Black Glove at this stage. Got to count against him really. That’s just what I think – what do you think, O Book of Changes, Wilhelm Baynes 1989 edition? Is the Joker the Black Glove?*

Hexagram 50. Ting. The Ca[u]ldron.
Supreme good fortune. Success.

Fire over wood,
The image of the Caldron.
Thus the superior man consolidates his fate
By making his position correct.

That looks pretty clear – seems the Joker’s our man… The Fire over wood, black-and-red thing is too close. But wait. I had moving lines in rows 3 and 4, which gives:

Nine in the fourth palace means:
The legs of the ting [caldron] are broken,
The prince’s meal is spilled.
And his person is soiled.
Misfortune.

By referring to the Clown Prince of Crime by name, I think it’s pretty clear that after all, old whit-hands, as nobody calls him, is not also The Black Glove. And it looks like his person is going to get soiled.

Suspect 2: Thomas Wayne.
I think, following what Alfred says to him in 679, that TBG is not going to be Bruce’s dad (or rather, that Dr. Hurt bloke who’s running around currently claiming to be Bruce’s dad).

However, I like the theory here, that the killer could be Bruce’s long-lost brother, Thomas Wayne Jr. This theory has to get food points from me because it that it came to blogger Tim Callahan in a dream. That’s well Morrison. This theory is also helped enormously by the Earth-2 connection – going on the JLA graphic novel he did with Frank Quitely way back when, Morrison obviously likes bad, maybe mad Thomas Wayne Jr., and he’s a good type of character to have around, a Rico to Bruce’s Dredd. TWJr could be Dr Hurt, or he could be the real, final, nasty TBG, who’s been shucking fit up behind the scenes for yonks but not actually appeared on-screen yet. This is an iffy one, no doubt, but there’s a lot that make it good. So let’s see what the old book’s got to say about it:

Hexagram 56. Lu. The Wanderer.
Success through smallness.
Perseverance brings good fortune
To the wanderer.

Fire on the mountain:
The image of THE WANDERER.
Thus the superior man
Is clear-minded and cautious
In imposing penalties,
And protracts no lawsuits.

I think TWJr. is The Wanderer – one of the various aliases he’s gone by over the years is the Boomerang Killer – but that doesn’t make him TBG. ‘Protracts no lawsuits’ is the one here – I mean, what would his vengeance against his sexier brother be if not a protracted reckoning? ‘Law suit’ obviously here = superhero costume, so he’s not Dr. Hurt, who is as I type wearing Daddy Waynebucks’ prototype Batman outfit.

There’s two moving lines again, so I also get:

Nine at the top means:
The bird’s nest burns up.
The wanderer laughs at first,
Then must needs lament and weep.
Through carelessness he loses his cow.
Misfortune.

Reckon this bit is saying that the idea ‘TWJr might be our guy is a burning bird’s nest’ (his Earth2 villain name is Owlman, remember, so that’s where the bird bit comes in), and that although the notion is initially appealing, there’s just too little groundwork in place for it to be him. I really don’t want to lose my cow.

Two pretty unequivocal NOs there. Lots of good suspects left to go, who we’ll have to look at next time as it’s getting very late. Come back soon for more cosmic universal wisdom, knowledge and insight.

Next: Alfred – The Butler; Bruce Wayne – The Batman; Satan – The Devil; Prometheus – Not The Greek One; and anyone else you’d like me to try.

*Warning Mindless Ones Dot Com is a Yijing expert-free zone. I am as ever haphazardly following the instructions here, which are the clearest I’ve ever read on this tricky topic. For each TBG suspect I asked the book to perform an ‘Oracle for the identity of xx being TBG’. Not the best kind of question to ask, but well, hardly the most idiotic thing that’s happened lately. Call me stupid in the comments.