#mirror master

Injustice (2021)

Director - Matt Peters

“I won’t be held back by ideals that don’t protect the innocent.”

At long last, I have finally gotten around to actually reviewing this issue! (It actually arrived in the mail a couple weeks ago, I just never got around to doing this post until now.) Today we’re looking at Batman #388: “The Round-Trip Looking Glass”. It was published in 1985, written by Doug Moench, and drawn by Tom Mandrake. 

• The art in this issue is much, much better than the art in Detective Comics #555, which is the second half of the two-part story. 
• After the splash page, which features Batman, Captain Boomerang, and the original Mirror Master (Sam Scudder) fighting one another, the issue begins with Mirror Master breaking into a Gotham City museum to steal the Tien Hsu Jade Necklace through its side door. He does this by using his solar pistol, amplified by a“mirror-amplification device”, to melt the door’s lock and fuse the alarm wires. 
• Meanwhile, Captain Boomerang knocks out the night guard with a boomerang. 
• Mirror Master is about to remove the necklace from its display case when Captain Boomerang uses another one of his boomerangs to break the glass and swipe the necklace.
• Sam has an amazing facial expression as Digger calls him a fool for not noticing the night guard. It is the first of many, many hilarious facial expressions to be found in this issue. 
• Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang discuss the fact that they both decided to come to Gotham City at the same time, with Mirror Master saying that he did so explicitly because Gotham is “the one place without a superhero like Flash, Superman, Green Lantern..”, to which Captain Boomerang replies by saying that “superpowers or not, the Batman is just as fierce as any of the others.”
• Digger knows this because he’s come to Gotham and fought Batman before. (This occurred in Batman #321, another issue that I own and have previously reviewed.) Sam, who has a fantastic confused face, asks Digger why he came to Gotham if Batman is so threatening, to which Digger explains that he wants to get revenge on Batman.
• Sam suggests that he and Digger should team up against Batman (with yet another terrific facial expression). He also refers to Digger “the same old hard case from Down Under” while making this suggestion. 
• Digger, who already has the necklace, isn’t particularly interested in teaming up with Sam, since he thinks that Sam only suggested the alliance because Digger’s currently the one holding the necklace. And while he tells Sam this, he spins the incredibly valuable jade necklace around his finger like an idiot. 
• Mirror Master is not happy to hear this. “Just because you scooped me here–by a sneak attack–you think you’re better than me? Well, forget it! Back in Central City, I was always the Flash’s number one foe!” I would have to agree with Sam on this point. In the Pre-Crisis era, Sam really was the undisputed king of the Rogues. Also, his angry facial expression is great. 
• Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master proceed to get into a hilariously petty argument. 
• Digger: “Maybe things are different here in Gotham. Maybe your gimmicky mirrors can’t cut it here.” (He has an amazingly smug face as he says this, and Sam is pointing a finger angrily at him. It’s great.) 
• Sam: “My gimmicky mirrors? What about your boomerangs?” 
• Digger: “Listen, ace! This boomerang was good enough to-” (And during this bit, Digger is waving his fist right at Sam’s nose. Seriously, they’re both living cartoons in this comic, and it’s amazing.)
• This incredible ego competition is interrupted by Batman using his Batarang to swipe the jade necklace out of Digger’s hand. He then tells both of them that Gotham is off-limits. 
• Sam and Digger react to this in this most courageous manner possible: by freaking out and running away (complete with amazing facial expressions.) 
• Digger: “So long, mate! I’m not ready for for revenge yet!” 
• Sam: “Wait for me! I’m not even mad at him!” 
• As they bravely run away, the two supervillans duck behind a pillar in Dinosaur Hall, and when Batman follows them in, Mirror Master uses one of his mirrors to blind him. Digger then uses one of his explosive boomerangs, which collapses a T. rex statue onto Batman and allows them to escape. 
• The two then promptly return to their petty argument from before.  
• Sam: “You missed, idiot!’ 
• Digger: “At least I stopped him! What did your mirror do? Make him see stars for a bit?” 
• Sam: “That does it! The team-up’s off!” 
• Digger: “It was never on!” 
• Sam: “Then mark my words, Boomerang,’cause I’m gonna make you eat yours! I’m the best criminal in Gotham, and I can prove it!” 
• Digger: “Yeah? Have fun looking in your mirrors, chump–after I’ve humiliated you!” 
• Meanwhile, Batman gets out from under the T. rex statue and goes to the Batcave, where he and Robin (Jason Todd) use the Batcomputer to view the files on Mirror Master and Captain Boomerang (after Jason notes that they still haven’t rounded up all the members of Black Mask’s False Face Society).
• The files are basically just recaps of the pair’s Silver/Bronze Age origins, with two slight differences. The first is that, rather than calling himself Aussie Green as he did in the original story, Digger apparently went in for the interview as Digger Harkness. The second, and more hilarious, is that Batman’s files say that the Mirror Master’s name is Joe Scudder. Moench must have used a Cary Bates issue as reference for Mirror Master’s name. 
• After reviewing the files, Batman and Robin get some sleep, since Batman doesn’t think the two Rogues will be trying anything else that night. 
• Meanwhile, at the docks of Gotham Bay, “Joe” Scudder is trying to think up a crime when he’s approached by three men. One is wearing a skull mask, one is wearing a devil mask, and one is…wearing a Heathcliff cat mask. (Did that last guy miss the “scary masks” memo?) They demand to know if he’s “Joe Scudder”, the “Master of Mirrors guy”, to which “Joe” responds in the affirmative. He’s also clearly really, REALLY freaked out by them, which is hilarious. Apparently, he thought that he was getting jumped and/or mugged by some Gotham goons and actually thought they were a threat to him. His facial expression in the first panel where they show up is amazing.
• The three masked dudes explain that they want Mirror Master to be their new boss, since Black Mask got arrested. “Joe” responds to this by putting on his mirrored sunglasses and using them to hypnotize the thugs. He tells them to go find Digger and put him in the hospital. 
• Once the now-hypnotized thugs leave, “Joe” comes up with the most zero-effort crime imaginable.
• “There’s always that bank across the street…Yeah, what the hell? When in doubt, or just plain bored, fall back on old faithful.” A+ creativity, “Joe”.  
  
• Bruce Wayne has a brief romantic interlude with Julia Pennyworth (she’s Alfred’s niece) before he notices the Batsignal and has to leave her in the lurch. Also, even before this happens, he’s not really paying attention to her or her desire to write a book about Black Mask, since he’s too preoccupied thinking about his OTHER love interest, Vicki Vale.  As a result, Julie is very upset by his sudden departure. Smooth, Bruce. Smooth.
• Batman and Jason get into the Batmobile to respond to the Batsignal, but on their way to police headquarters, they almost crash into Harvey Bullock. Bullock tells the pair that the Batsignal was sent out in response to a report of a “suspicious figure at Zindorf Jewelers” and that he himself was going out to respond to another alarm across the bay. 
• Batman, realizing that both Rogues have struck at once, sends Jason with Bullock while he goes to the Jewelers.
• Meanwhile, Captain Boomerang uses his “mini-rocket boomerang” to fly up to the building’s roof, then uses this same boomerang to break the padlock on the roof door. 
• Digger on finances: “The people who don’t steal are always finding ways to save it–which makes it so much easier for those of us who do steal.”
  
• Before he actually start stealing things, however, the alarm goes off as the three hypnotized goons bust into the store to attack him. 
• Digger’s reaction: “Yoicks.” (combined with another hilarious facial expression.) 
• Meanwhile, “Joe” has just “opened the vault with my mirror-amplified laser” when he gets taken out by Harvey Bullock and Jason Todd in the span of 4 panels. Yes, Mirror Master was defeated by an overweight cop and Jason Todd in 4 panels. Not his finest hour. 
• Back at the jewelry store, Digger is trying to buy off “Joe’s” hypnotized goons when Batman arrives. Digger uses the distraction to tie the goons together with a boomerang somehow. 
• Batman tries to go after Digger but is attacked by the goons, allowing Digger to escape. I guess “Joe’s” hypnotic command to kill Digger was overridden by the goons’ desire to kill Batman. 
• Digger then uses his flying boomerang to break into “Joe’s” Gotham apartment. 
• Digger on Sam “Joe”: “Scudder’s an arrogant fool, not caring if everyone in Gotham’s underworld knew he was in town…and not even bothering to keep his hideout a secret!” How did “Joe” set up this hideout so quickly, anyhow? 
• Digger steals the mirror that “Joe” used for his hypnotic sunglasses.
• Meanwhile, “Joe” escapes from Bullock’s police car by using a false front tooth (which he had previously captured Digger’s image on) to project an image of Captain Boomerang in the middle of the road. Bullock swerves and Mirror Master escapes. 
• After a brief conversation between Batman, Jason, Harvey, and Commissioner Gordon, we cut back to Mirror Master’s hideout, where “Joe” is using his solar pistol to free himself from his handcuffs. 
• This accomplished, he starts admiring himself in the truly astonishing number of mirrors he’s set up in his hideout. 
• “Joe” on himself: “Feels good enough to be back among my mirrors-where I’m still number one and look it.” 
• Suddenly, he realizes that his strobe mirror is missing and reacts in shock (and with another terrific facial expression). 
• “Someone robbed me while I was out–robbed me!!”Sam “Joe’s” repeated freakouts are easily the funniest part of this story. 
  
• Then a boomerang made of mirror flies into the room, and starts smashing all of “Joe’s” mirrors. In hopes of stopping it, he grabs the boomerang, only for the mirror to start pulsing hypnotically. 
• Digger’s voice eminates from the mirror boomerang, telling Sam “Joe” that he must do anything Digger says, including murder. Seemingly hypnotized, Sam “Joe” responds by saying “Y-yes…including…murder”. (As the next issue will reveal, however, he’s actually only pretending to be hypnotized.) 
• The issue ends withe Digger happily thinking about how well things are going for him (complete with one last wonderful expression.)

This comics is amazing, and Sam “Joe” and Digger are comedy gold throughout. It’s too bad the second half of the story had such terrible art. 

Pets:

• When Mark Mardon was a kid, his brother, Clyde, had a dog named Thunder. In most families, the dog would have belonged to both children, but Mark’s parents made it pretty clear that the dog only belonged to their golden child. 
• Mick Rory’s family owned three cows, two Clydesdale horses, a donkey, a mule, two dogs (Spot and Rover), four cats (Fluffy, Stripey, Mouser, and Mr. Tuxedo), nine sheep, six goats, six to ten pigs (at any given time) and many, many chickens, ducks, and turkeys. They also raised bees. 
• Digger didn’t have any pets growing up, but his family did raise a LOT of sheep. His legal father (Ian Harkness) also had a dog named Fang, who liked Digger about as much as Ian did. Digger speculates that Fang was at least part dingo. 
• Roscoe Dillon’s mother, Rosa, owned a Persian named Priscilla (an anniversary gift from her wealthy husband). Unfortunately for Rosa, Priscilla was even less fond of being hugged than Roscoe was. Roscoe, by contrast, got along splendidly with the cat. Both hated crowds, loud noises, and being touched. Roscoe remembers Priscilla fondly as his most understanding family member. 
• Neither Sam nor Evan had any pets as kids. Sam’s apartment didn’t allow pets; Miss McCulloch would’ve loved for her kids to be able to have pets but didn’t have enough room for them in the orphanage. 
• Hartley’s parents owned a number of thoroughbred horses, several show dogs and show cats, and a wall-sized aquarium full of exotic fish. Most of these were more for show than anything else; Hartley wasn’t supposed to touch any of them without explicit permission. On the one and only occasion a rat made it inside the Rathaway estate, he befriended it…only for his mother to promptly have it killed when she discovered it. Now, of course, Hartley is the proud owner of at least six rats. 
• James Jesse didn’t exactly have pets growing up…but since he got to spend time with lions, tigers, elephants, camels, bears, monkeys, and horses in the circus, he didn’t really care all that much. Putting your head in a lion’s mouth is cooler than having a puppy any day. 
• Leonard and Lisa Snart once made the mistake of bringing home a kitten from a neighbor. Lisa named it Gabriela and was thrilled with her new pet….but when Larry Snart came home and saw the kitten, he promptly drowned it in front of his children. A few years later, Larry brought home a pit bull puppy…and predictably abused it until it was the nightmarish guard dog he wanted. The dog didn’t have a proper name (Larry just called it “you mutt”), but the neighborhood nicknamed it the Hellhound. It lived for a few years before Larry tripped over it whilst drunk and killed it in a rage (although not before the dog did a number on him). This dog is also the reason that both Leonard and Lisa are scared of large dogs. 
• Barry Allen owned a cat named Fluffernutter and a dog named Streak the Wonder Dog (after Green Lantern Alan Scott’s dog).

School headcanons: 

• Mark and Clyde Mardon both ended up being placed into a Spanish I class in their Freshman year of high school (one of Clyde’s classes was cancelled abruptly shortly before the start of the school year, and Mark hadn’t been able to decide what electives he wanted to take). This was the only high school course Mark ever earned an A in, mainly because, unbeknownst to the school, both he and Clyde were bilingual and could speak Spanish better than their Spanish teacher. The only downside was that both of them spent a lot of time being bored out of their minds. 
• The one and only time Barry Allen got detention was due entirely to the fact that he got a tardy slip every day for three months. Once the school caught on to the fact that Barry never missed out on any work, they eventually stopped giving him tardy slips at all, instead simply accepting that Barry being late to everything was a fact of nature. 
• Wally West once got detention for using his super speed to leave the school grounds in order to get Indian food…from India. 
• Leonard Snart never once passed a course (he slept through or outright skipped almost every class), but he was never held back a year. This was because most of the faculty wrote him off as a lost cause by the time he was seven years old. This is why Len can barely read and write and knows almost nothing about literature or history. That being said, Len doesn’t have any particular animosity towards the school system. It did give him and his sister free food, after all. (This free food also resulted in Len having a nearly perfect attendance record before he dropped out. He might not have learned anything, but he wasn’t going to miss out on lunch.) 
• If Sam Scudder had gone to a better school, he probably would’ve been put in either a gifted program of some sort or have been skipped a few grades ahead; he is and always has been extremely intelligent. As it was, he went through all of school (until he dropped out) believing that he was just reasonably clever and kind of a nerd; he still doesn’t really realize how intelligent he actually is. 
• Roscoe was likewise very intelligent, although the fact that he was on the autism spectrum before it was widely recognized meant that he often got himself into trouble at school. When he had teachers who liked him and were understanding of his quirks, he did very well in school, but most of his teachers were demanding and critical. As a result, he didn’t always perform as well as he would have been able to under optimal conditions. Also not helping matters was the fact that his father would denigrate his son for any grade less than an A (no matter the context). He still did well enough to graduate high school with a strong GPA and be accepted into college, but it wasn’t until college that he ever felt comfortable in school. He graduated college (a year early, due to his desire to please his father) with a B.S. in engineering…only for his father to criticize him for not having a high enough college GPA, for not graduating at the top of his class, and for having changed his major from business school (which he had hated) to engineering. Shortly afterwards, Roscoe fell into a particularly bad manic episode, which in turn was a major influence in his decision to become the Top. 

One of the more annoying trends that has appeared in the Flash franchise since the Flashpoint reboot is something that I will call hybridization: the merging of two characters into one character that contains aspects of both. These hybrid characters are invariably characters who share a legacy identity, and the merges often anger the fans of both characters. 

Interestingly, the earliest notable example of hybridization that I can think of in the Flash books actually happened shortly before Flashpoint. In 2004, the original Captain Boomerang, George “Digger” Harkness, was killed in my least favorite event comic in DC history, Identity Crisis. In the same comic, it was revealed that he had a son, Owen Mercer, who became the new Captain Boomerang shortly after his father’s death. From 2004 to 2009, Owen bounced around the DC universe, being at various points a member of the Rogues, a member of the Suicide Squad, and a member of the Outsiders. He also spent a lot of time with Supergirl and the two struck up a weird friendship. However, Geoff Johns eventually decided that he wanted to bring back the original Captain Boomerang, and so, in 2009′s Blackest Night event comic, he turned Owen into an idiotic child murderer and had him killed off so that Digger could be resurrected as a much younger and more attractive man. In effect, when Digger returned to life, he seemed to absorb his son’s appearance, general age, and fashion sense, and Owen was effectively forgotten for a very long time. (In fact, Owen wouldn’t reappear until 2018, and when he did, he was effectively written as an entirely different character…and then apparently forgotten again.) That being said, as Digger basically maintained his own personality without absorbing any of Owen’s personality, this is not the worst example of hybridization in the Flash mythos. 

James Jesse, the original Trickster, and Axel Walker, the second Trickster, had a very odd dynamic pre-Flashpoint, mainly because Axel was the only legacy Rogue to take up the identity of a Rogue who was still alive. From 2002 to 2005, James was reformed, so Axel was effectively the main Trickster until James took up the Trickster identity again in Rogue War. In the course of that storyline, Geoff Johns retconned James’ character development so that his reformation was entirely due to the machinations of a brainwashed and crazy Roscoe, and then had Roscoe revert James back to his original, villainous state. Once he was no longer reformed, James promptly beat the crap out of Axel, too his gear back, and told the kid that if he ever caught Axel in the costume again, Axel would be in big trouble. James was thus the primary Trickster again from 2005 to 2008. Unfortunately, during this period, he only featured in really terrible comics, and, as a result, his characterization was derailed and driven straight off a cliff and into a bottomless pit. And then he died. Now that the original Trickster was dead, Axel took the identity once more. Despite being the only living Trickster from 2008 to 2011, Axel was still distinct from James until Flashpoint. However, once Flashpoint happened and the universe rebooted, James was seemingly erased from existence entirely. In the New 52, Axel was the only Trickster who had ever existed, and, as a result, his characterization started to be blended with James’. He got taller and older, he acted a bit more intelligently than he had before Flashpoint, and he started wearing James’ costumes. He stayed in this odd hybrid state until James returned in 2019. Axel got his original costume back and was firmly established as the younger, less experienced Trickster, while James was re-established as the original Trickster, who was older, more cunning, and more subtle than Axel. While James wasn’t quite the same character as he had been before Flashpoint, he and Axel had at least been differentiated from one another again.  Aaaand then Axel was reverted back to his hybrid Axel/James form as soon as Joshua Williamson left the book. Sigh.

Wally and Barry were also hybridized after Flashpoint. Since Wally had been erased from existence, and Barry had been de-aged, Barry started to take on a number of Wally’s traits. The fact that he was now a young, more inexperienced man made the comparisons to Wally pretty much inevitable, and the fact that some writers started giving him Wally’s cocky nature and sense of humor only made things worse. It was to the point that in team books, Barry effectively became Wally, but with Barry’s name, appearance, and job as a police scientist. Once Wally returned in 2016, Barry lost most of Wally’s traits, but his characterization still hasn’t fully returned to what it was before he was hybridized with his nephew. 

In outside media, hybidization of Barry and Wally had already been fairly common. The 1990s Flash show featured a Flash with Barry’s name, occupation, and general attitude, but Wally’s girlfriend and need to eat constantly, and the DCAU featured a Wally with Barry’s job as a police scientist. However, the New 52 caused the hybridization of Barry and Wally to be taken up to 11. The 2014 Flash TV show, the DC Animated Movie Universe, and the Flash of the DCEU all featured a Flash with the name, appearance, job, and love interests of Barry but with a demeanor that was more than a bit reminiscent of Wally…a problem that has yet to be fully solved. 

And then there’s Sam and Evan. Sam died during Crisis on Infinite Earths in 1986, and, after a brief vacancy, the mantle was taken by Evan McCulloch, who first appeared in 1989. Over the next twenty years, Evan solidified himself as the new Mirror Master, becoming more well-known and popular than his predecessor, and in 2011, he was not only the sole living Mirror Master but had been so for 22 years. But after Flashpoint, Evan was erased and Sam, after having been dead for 25 years, became the Mirror Master once more. This decision has always puzzled me. Barry, Axel, and Digger were the primary Flash, Trickster, and Captain Boomerang at the time Flashpoint happened. The other characters who had held the mantle were erased. So shouldn’t Evan have remained the Mirror Master? True, he wasn’t the first Mirror Master, but Axel wasn’t the first Trickster. Why didn’t they just erase Sam from existence in the way they did with James? Why bring back a character who had been dead for 25 years? It’s just such a weird choice.

Making the whole thing even more puzzling is the fact that when Sam was brought back, he was promptly hybridized with Evan anyway. While he didn’t pick up the Scottish accent, he did pick up the tooth gap, Evan’s almost supernatural talent with the Mirror Realm, and eventually Evan’s tendencies towards addiction and generally being a human disaster. He also lost his own incredible inventive talents, his showmanship, his cheeky smugness, and every other trait that made Pre-Crisis Sam so much fun. He’s so similar to Evan at this point that if they gave him the accent and called him Evan, he would actually be almost perfectly in-character! What was the point of bringing back Sam if they were just going to make him a less interesting Evan? ARRGH! 

Detective Comics #555 was published in 1985, shortly before Crisis on Infinite Earths, and features two stories. The first story, “Returning Reflections”, was written by “Jason Todd” (actually Doug Moench), drawn by Gene Colan, and inked by Bob Smith. It’s the second part of a two-part story where the original Mirror Master (Sam Scudder) and Captain Boomerang arrive in Gotham and get into a fight over who’s the better criminal (I’ll review the first half when it arrives in the mail). 

Here’s what goes down. 

• The cover, which unfortunately has much better art than the story inside, was drawn by Paris Cullins, Dick Giordano, and Anthony Tollin. It features Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master fighting one another while a giant Batman looms over both them and the city. “Captain Boomerang battles the Mirror Master to the death!” Unsurprisingly, neither Captain Boomerang nor Mirror Master actually dies in this issue. In fact, nobody dies in this issue at all. 
• The whole story is narrated in the form of Jason Todd, the second Robin, writing down the events of the case in his journal. (That’s why he’s credited as the issue’s writer.) As such, the story begins with Jason explaining the events of last issue. Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master both arrived in Gotham City to rob a museum. After being scared off by Batman before they could get any loot, they decided to have a contest to prove who was the better criminal. In order to win the contest, Captain Boomerang stole a mirror from Mirror Master’s hideout, shaped it into a boomerang (because of course he did), and then used it to hypnotize the Mirror Master into becoming his slave. 
• Batman, Jason, Commissioner Gordon, and Harvey Bullock meet on the roof of police headquarters to discuss their plan to capture the two criminals. After commenting on the fact that the sky is red even at night (as a result of the upcoming crisis), Batman explains that he’s going to have Harvey Bullock carry a valuable jade necklace out of its exhibit in the hopes that Boomerang and Mirror Master will both try to steal it. Once they are out in the open, Batman will be able to defeat and capture them. 
• Bullock is so excited about getting to play a part in the case that he swings his arm widely and accidentally breaks the Batsignal, much to Jason’s annoyance. 
• Batman then dresses up as Matches Malone (much to Alfred’s distaste) and goes to “spread the word” about the necklace “in one Gotham sleaze-pit after another”. As Matches, he gives the phony story about the police being so scared about the potential of Captain Boomerang and Mirror Master potentially stealing the necklace that they’re going to move the necklace out of the museum before the exhibit closes. He claims that, to avoid attention, Bullock will be handling the transition alone in plainclothes, but that there will be plenty of back-up out of sight. “I’ll tell ya…if I had me any fancy mirrors or trick boomerangs, I wouldn’t hesitate a second”. Captain Boomerang, who is at one of the bars, overhears this and decides to send the hypnotized Mirror Master to steal the necklace from Bullock for him. 
• “I’ll use my puppet Mirror Master, and if it works, I’ll have pulled off the perfect crime…for which I’ll later make Mirror Master confess–while I abscond Down Under with the loot. And if it fails, Mirror Master will be immediately carted off to prison. There’ll be no loot, but at least I’ll still be free–having obviously proven I’m the better criminal.” Oh, Digger….
  
• Also, Digger’s hair is super-extra-poofy in this issue, and his face is craggy even for him. 
• Digger uses a radio to tell Sam (and Sam’s horribly-drawn, semi-featureless face) to meet him at the museum so that they can steal the necklace. Once Mirror Master actually arrives the next night, however, Digger tells Sam that he’ll need to commit his caper on his own, then tells him to attack Bullock once he arrives to retrieve the necklace. Unbeknownst to Digger, Batman and Robin are watching the whole scene. However, because Digger didn’t show up, they have to alter their plans and allow Mirror Master to take the necklace in the hopes that this will, in turn, lure out or lead them to Digger. 
• Also, while he’s retrieving the necklace, Harvey Bullock references the movie Maltese Falcon, a movie which I know solely because there was a Transfomers comic from the original 80s Marvel run that took its plot almost wholesale from that movie. 
• “Me, I sure am glad Mirror Master an’ Captain Boomerang ain’t murderers!” An interesting comment from Harvey Bullock that serves to reflect the differences between Gotham Rogues and Flash Rogues even at this relatively early stage. 
  
• Mirror Master attacks and ends up stealing both the necklace and Bullock’s car. He also kidnaps Bullock himself. It’s also worth noting that the art in this sequence is really bad, almost to the point where you can’t really tell what’s going on. 
• Jason Todd is upset over the fact that Bullock was kidnapped, but tries to hide this fact by pretending to be annoyed with Bullock’s incompetence. Batman isn’t fooled and Jason has to admit his affection for the old cop. 
• Mirror Master takes Bullock and the necklace with him to his meeting with Captain Boomerang, who flies in on one of his flying boomerangs. Yes, he has flying boomerangs that can support his weight. Digger Harkness can do anything with boomerangs. 
• Mirror Master reveals to Captain Boomerang that he was never hypnotized. “Fool! You can’t hypnotize me with my own strobe mirror! When the mirror boomerang first pulsed in my hand, I simply closed my eyes!” Mirror Master played along and pretended to be hypnotized in the hopes that he would be able to double-cross Boomerang and use him as a scapegoat for the theft. When he didn’t show up, Mirror Master had to think on his feet and ended up kidnapping Bullock to ensure his getaway. 
• We also get more of Mirror Master’s horribly-drawn, semi-featureless face here. It’s really unnerving, but not in a way that I think was intentional. 
• Mirror Master then hypnotizes Bullock with the strobe mirror and orders him to “commit my first murder for me–shoot the Australian Rogue!” This is another interesting comment that seems to confirm that he, at least, had no body count at this point. This, combined with Bullock’s early comment, also highlights the fact that the Flash Rogues took much longer to become murderous than did most other supervillains.
• Bullock tries to resist, but the hypnotism is too strong for him to shake on his own. Luckily for both him and Digger, Batman and Robin bust through the window (in a horribly-drawn panel), and Robin kicks Bullock’s arm so his shot goes wild and doesn’t hurt anybody. 
• Batman, Bullock, Robin, Mirror Master, and Captain Boomerang get into a fight that ends with both villains being knocked out and captured. We also learn that the “necklace” Bullock was carrying was actually just some of the broken shards from the Batsignal, so that there was no danger of the priceless neckace being damaged in all of the chaos. The issue ends with Jason noting that his journal entry describing all this “couldn’t even pass for a comic book”, which is really meta. 
• Also, the art for the final fight scene is pretty terrible. The action is really hard to follow and most of the individual figures are badly drawn. 
• Overall, this is an entertaining story with really, really terrible art. It’s too bad the art is so bad, because with a better artist (or maybe inker) this could’ve been a great Flash Rogues vs Batman story, in the way that the first part was. 

The second story in the issue is a Green Arrow tale called “The Case of the Runaway Shoebox!” It was written by Elliot S! Maggin and drawn by Dick Dillin and Dick Giordano. It’s a fun little story with much, much better art than “Returning Reflections”. 

Tune in next time for the review of the first half of this story, Batman #388! 

This story is fictional. Please don’t worry. 

My beloved husband is dying. He’s twenty-four years old. Neither of us knows what happened. He seemed perfectly healthy one day, and the next he started complaining of an intense headache. Since he had never been prone to migraines, this seemed odd, but he insisted that we ignore it. We don’t have much money, and with a baby on the way (I was three months pregnant), he said that we shouldn’t waste money on something that would probably go away on its own after a few days. But it didn’t go away. 

For the next three months, his headaches grew more and more intense, and his eyesight started to intermittently blur. While he tried to ignore them and keep working, they eventually became so intense that they were interfering with his work as an electrician. And then he had a seizure at work, one so intense that he had to go to the hospital. 

The doctor told us that he had stage 4 brain cancer. 

“He’s only had symptoms for two weeks!” I cried. The doctor said that some forms of brain cancer don’t cause symptoms right away; that the tumor in my husband’s brain had been growing for several months and had only now grown in such a way that it was causing noticeable symptoms.

A week later, my husband started chemotherapy. It was difficult for both of us. My husband hated feeling sick and weak, and I hated watching him lose his beautiful, curly brown hair. I hated watching him vomit, and I hated that he blamed himself for being unable to provide for me and the baby while he was sick. Worse, all of the drugs seemed to be having no benefits. The tumor wasn’t shrinking, and the cancer wasn’t going into remission. 

As my husband grew sicker and sicker, our medical bills started to climb. Since my husband is self-employed, and I work as a seamstress and am currently between employers, we had very minimal health insurance, and, as a result, we found ourselves paying upwards of $10,000 dollars a month for the chemotherapy. Our relatives and friends chipped in as much as they could to help us pay for the medical costs, but the payments still wiped out almost all of our savings. 

About two and a half months after starting treatment, my husband told me that he wanted to stop the treatments. When he said this, I burst into tears, begging him to not give up. I said that I couldn’t bear to lose him and that we had to keep trying, but he refused. He said that he knew that he wasn’t going to survive. 

“Martha, the doctors have told me that the cancer has metastasized. Even with treatment, I won’t live for much longer. There’s no point in spending all of our money on drugs that won’t save my life. I don’t want you and our son to have to live in poverty after I’m gone.” 

Half a month after my husband came home from the hospital, I gave birth to my son at home. There was no money for another hospital visit. For a first pregnancy, it was an easy birth, at least physically. Emotionally, it was another story.  I couldn’t stop thinking about how we were going to take care of our son with us both out of work; how I was going to raise my son without a father; how I was going to survive without my husband.

My husband cheered when our son was born. I couldn’t stop crying. Seeing my husband hold his son only reminded me of the fact that he wouldn’t get to see his newborn son grow up. He would miss his first steps, his first words, everything. It wasn’t fair. There were so many terrible fathers who would be able to ruin their children’s lives well into adulthood. Why wouldn’t my husband, who loved his son so much, be able to see his child grow? 

Our son is seven months old now; strong, healthy, and getting into everything. We named him after both of our grandfathers. His father can no longer play with him; no longer even seems to recognize him. My husband is too weak to get out of bed. He barely eats, and his memory is deteriorating rapidly. Since the cancer spread to his lungs a few weeks ago, he’s started coughing up blood, and he vomits up much of the little he does eat. He’s not even thirty years old, and he looks like an emaciated old man. The doctors say he probably won’t live for more than a week. And I don’t know what to do with that information. 

Right now, I’m sitting by his bedside. He’s sleeping, albeit restlessly, and as I look at my husband’s disease-racked body, I can hardly recognize the man I married only three years ago. 

We met, in all places, at a roller rink. I was there celebrating the birthday party of my roommate and best friend, Lorraine O’Reilly, and my husband was there on military leave with one of his unit buddies. Both of us were twenty years old, and we were introduced to one another when he lost control of his skates and quite literally crashed into me. Luckily, neither of us was hurt, and we soon struck up a conversation that lasted throughout the night and ended with us exchanging phone numbers. We had our first official date a week later, and, after a six-month whirlwind romance, we were married just before he went back on duty. The only guests at the wedding were our parents, Lorraine, and my husband’s unit buddy, Jackson Thomas. My husband finished his tour of active duty two years later, and promptly set up shop as an electrician, having served in that capacity during his time in the army. 

I almost regret that I love him so much; that he’s so kind and charming and good. Maybe if he wasn’t so wonderful, it would be easier to lose him. 

“Martha?” My husband is awake, and he looks more lucid than he’s been in weeks. 

“Yes, Percy?” 

“I love you and our son so much. You’ve made my life worth living. If I had lived to be a hundred without meeting you, I don’t think that I could-” My husband starts coughing violently; spits up crimson blood. 

“Percy, please. Save your strength.” 

“No. Martha, dear, I don’t have much time. I’m just glad that I was given the chance to tell you how much you mean to me before I go. You’ve made me the happiest man in the world, Martha. If I could go back and live my life all over again, I wouldn’t change a thing. I love you, and I love our son. I just wish…I just wish that I could be there to help him grow up.”

“I…I love you, too! Please, don’t go! Your son needs you…I need you!” 

“I’m sorry to leave you like this…I love you.” His grip loosens, and his eyes close. For a minute, his chest rises and falls…and then it stills. There is a sound like the crack of doom. 

It takes me a moment to realize that the noise is me.

My husband is dead. I was supposed to grow old with him, and he’s dead at twenty-four! What will I do now? How can I go on? 

Time seems frozen as I sob, and sob, and sob.

Then I hear another noise…the cry of my son. My husband’s son. Half-dazed, I leave my husband’s side, go to my son’s room and lift him out of his cradle. After a few minutes of rocking, he smiles at me, and I realize how I will go on. 

It won’t be easy. I don’t know how I will do it. But I will go on, for the sake of my Percy’s son.

Samuel Joseph Scudder.

mirror master ✨
That’s us!
Mirror Master and…
Evan.

CONSTANTINE
more like mirror Muppets. You are both a pair of morons.

mirror master ✨
Which muppets.
Beaker and Bunsen? Statler and Wardolf?

CONSTANTINE
dick and balls.

mirror master ✨
Muppets are serious business, Constantine.