Monday, December 19, 2011

LEVIATHAN STRIKES

It comes Wednesday. In honor of that, I'm doing a re-read and taking notes on everything Incorporated has given us so far and trying to piece a few things together, so starting from the beginning, here are some new observations:

- Bruce says "That's it!" (I shall become a Bat) when the bat flies into his window. Later when Kathy Kane realizes how to infiltrate Batman by becoming Batwoman, she too says "That's it!"
- Bruce tells Oracle she'll be able to "customize her avatar", and sure enough, Scott Clark's digital version of Batgirl-Oracle is nothing like David Finch's.
- Bruce mentions Internet 3.0, Batgirl going to England, and wanting 1000 G.I. Robot Bat-Knights by Spring. We've just had "Nightmares in Numberland, and are now going to School of Night, then Leviathan Strikes, where the robot army will come into play.
- The Heretic is possibly a "traitor" former member of the Super-Kollektiv.

- Sivana's lab is not necessarily in Tokyo. I just assumed it was because the rest of the issue is, and it features robots.
- Project X, still no idea what it's for, although if Oroboro is laser-based, I can see a use for a diamond-like prism.
- Batman is CONSISTENTLY not the first person to discover anything. Super-Kollektiv raids Farouk's gene-splice facility first. U.S. agents raid Sivana's lab. Death Man finds Mister Unknown first. The list goes on.
- Three John Does, Three Unknowns, Three Blind Assassins/Mice (Dr. No!), Three Orphans, Three Letters, Three Dead Snipers, Three sections of that one motif. Three Batmen. Three Kanes.
- Batman uses several gadgets and got out of several jams COMPLETELY UNEXPLAINED that seemed new to me as a comics reader. Once I played through and beat the Batman: Arkham Asylum and Arkham City games I no longer was confused that Batman had sonic batarangs capable of shattering glass windows (or explosive gel), or that he had a "device that could hack local security systems with less tech than a cell phone". I've used all those gadgets before. I know Batman has them.

- Dedalus's cloak, as we've learned from the Leviathan Strikes preview, is a memory-leech, and gives those exposed to it the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease. Holes in the memory. Time disorientation. This now explains KNIGHT's dizzying predicament in the Victory Vs flashback, as well as how he turned the "decoy Dedalus" into an amnesiac.
- The Hood refers to his boss, "Matron", as having one beady eye. Could it be Captain Carnation, survived?
- Scorpiana's blue scorpions actually kill ALL of El Papagayo's henchmen that Batman and Gaucho knocked out non-lethally. Oops!
- Oro is gold, yellow.
- Morrison cuts from "That's it!" to "I shall become a ..." except it's Sombrero, and instead of "Bat" he says "Monster of Villainy".
- It stands to reason that The Hood's spy organization, "T.H.E.Y.", led by "Matron", is the REPLACEMENT spy agency for Spyral, since Spyral turned out to be a problem.
- Hood really does stick to the "Robin Hood" namesake, giving all his earnings to the underprivileged. Spy for the rich, give to the poor? His mission is almost identical to the mission Dedalus sent Kathy Kane on - infiltrate Batman's operation.
- Batwoman vs. Scorpiana is still the best fight scene I've ever seen.
- NATO Marines were PSY-OPS, psychological warfare, which makes sense if the enemy they're dealing with has an "ULTIMATE WEAPON" that is actually rooted in "PSYCHOLOGICAL WARFARE", which is ultra-appropriate for Batman to deal with.

Jake Kane, and the Argentines, imply that "Oroboro" is WITH (or within) Doctor Dedalus.

If Doctor Dedalus' cloak of smoke has the power to exert Alzheimer's-like dementia on people on a huge scale ... that could easily be the ULTIMATE WEAPON. "Oroboro" has already been related, the snake eating its own tail, to Alzheimers and memory loss and the mind going in circles. Therefore, "Oroboro" could easily be the codeword for a weapon that erases the minds of billions of people. And "mind-erasing drugs" are already an epidemic in Morrison's Batman comics, whether it be the flashbacks to the 50's era mind-bending drugs and references to Hugo Strange, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter and Achilles Milo, Doctor Hurt's expertise in psychology, Professor Pyg's mind-altering drugs which we now learn are connected to Dedalus' Alzheimer's effects, and the brain-washing drugs Leviathan is using to create zombified terrorist soldiers out of children.

- "Leviathan" refers to Otto Netz as "HERR DOCTOR". The ONLY other person who called him that is ADOLF HITLER HIMSELF. Food for thought, Leviathan COULD be Hitler.