Batman and Robin: the re-Novelization
Part39
Last time: Our heroes investigated Freeze’s hideout and discovered the frozen corpse of his wife. Little did they realize that there were others on the scene…other characters from the story, that is. Other characters who have been previously seen and are popping up again. Characters of the planty persuasion. Green characters. These are clever hints.
Poisonous Ivyous characters.
Behind a slatted floor vent, a pair of eyes screwed in concentration as they watched Batman and Robin examine the container and its frozen contents.
Talking about a woman by first speaking about the container she’s in, then calling her “contents,” is not the way to curry favor with one Alison Bechdel and her famous test, the SAT.
Poison Ivy thanked her lucky stars she’d taken Freeze’s advice and entered via the ventilation system. Maybe he was right about other things, too. Maybe it WAS okay to just pat some baking soda under her arms instead of wearing deodorant. Maybe she wasn’t as smelly as she was when she was a teenager and everyone called her PepperPit Patty because of the combo of stench and stubble from her underarms.
Man, kids are mean. Maybe, Ivy thought, I should be killing kids from my elementary school instead of trying to kill this Batguy, who I don’t even know.
~
“Can Freeze save her?” Robin asked, and Batman shook his head. This was one of the most annoying things Robin did, always asking about things that Batman couldn’t possibly know. They’d be watching a movie, a brand new movie, together, and Robin would ask Batman something like, “Is she the bad guy?” They’d be 4 minutes and only half a bucket of popcorn in, barely any narrative information has been shared, and Robin asked Batman like he would have any fucking idea. Batman would tolerate a good half dozen questions before he said something like, “I’ve never seen this movie, either. I don’t know any answers to any of the questions about the plot, the characters, or the aesthetics of this film. We’ve seen the same 15 seconds of this movie, the unskippable part of the trailer on YouTube. You and I know all the same things in this context, and as I’m trying to tell you that I don’t know anything, we are missing the very information you’re asking about.”
Then Robin would get all hurt and kind of make Batman feel like shit.
“I don’t think he can save her,” Batman said. “Her case is too advanced. But maybe someday, with more research—”
He broke off, puzzled as several spirals of glittering fairy dust wafted from a wall vent. Batman did what anyone would do in this situation and maneuvered his head so that the dust went directly up his nose.
Dazed, almost zombielike, Batman and Robin bent to rip off the floor grate. Beyond it stretched a vast industrial basement that contained dozens of huge ice cream vats with labels of various celebrities. Apparently, the guy who started this business thought he’d make a mint (chocolate chip) off selling ice creams with just a little bit of celebrity semen in them. He got the idea from that KISS comic where the members of KISS put their blood in the ink. Somehow, though, this semen ice cream concept didn’t take off. Maybe because the idea of Brad Pitt jerking off into something you’re going to eat is a little different from metal musicians putting a drop of blood into something you’re just going to touch. And maybe because the image of Brad Pitt jerking off into an underground ice cream vat was made more of a problem because they couldn’t get Brad Pitt to do it, so you have to replace Brad Pitt with Ted Raimi. And maybe the commercial that showed Ted Raimi from the waist up while he pleasured himself and spoke about the delicious taste of ice cream, with vanilla ice cream smeared all around his mouth—maybe that was the wrong direction.
Bane stood close to the grille, at the top of a flight of steps.
“No beauty,” Batman said.
“Just the beast,” Robin added.
This is what we love about Batman and Robin. The quippy quips. Which are REALLY good, you guys. That’s a slam dunk line. I DARE you to try and write a line that good.
In fact, I issued that challenge by mail-in several weeks ago, let’s see what we’ve got.
“This guy is really becoming the BANE of my existence!” Okay, that’s pretty good.
“What a BANE in the neck!” Alright, again, not bad.
Rule of thirds, this last one should be the best while also deviating in some way…
“Robin, release Bat-Chimp, who will attack Bane with the strength of ten men, a strength belied by his relatively small body and wondering eyes, and Bat-Chimp’s attack will focus almost entirely on the genitals and the face, rendering Bane a non-threat while also giving Bat-Chimp an outlet for his growth into adulthood, which apparently involves uncontrollable rage for some reason. Kind of like that one guy, Pete, who writes novelizations.”
That’s a personal attack, and I won’t stand for it. There’s nothing funny about chimp attacks. Well, except for that one where the chimp’s name was “Travis.” What kind of name is that for a chimp? Bobo, Mr. Ponzi, these are chimp names. I bet that chimp tore that lady’s face off just because he had so much pent-up rage about not getting a chimp name.
Back in the story, Batman and Robin were already rushing the monster, whose chest and biceps bulged with the Venom he’d absorbed, and whose schlong bulged with some other drugs, and who was DEFINITELY feeling an uncomfortable amount of pressure on his eyeballs, which was an undocumented side effect, but as the scientist who developed Venom said, there really are no unexpected side effects in this case, just heretofore unseen side effects.
Almost casually, Bane sideswiped Robin, a heavy blow that sent him thudding to the floor. Then Bane and Batman faced each other for the first time. Batman looked at his easily-dispatched partner on the floor, then kind of laughed a little. Bane giggled a bit as well. Batman said, “That was awesome.” Bane made the “OK” sign.
Then Batman moved into the attack, unleashing a fluid combination of blows and fluids that would have felled and disgusted any man, killed while simultaneously impregnating any woman. But, buoyed by the powerful drugs, Bane hardly seemed to notice Batman’s attack, almost as though Bane was a 405 lb. professional wrestler and Batman was a 5’10”, 165 lb. untrained individual in his later 30s, really better suited to play an ER doctor on TV than he was for fighting superpowered, sentient blocks of beef.
Bane’s fists lashed out in brutal rhythm, and Batman had no choice but to fall back. A punch caught him, stunning him momentarily, long enough for Bane to follow through, hard, also hitting Batman hard, and Batman fell to the floor like a grandma in the background of a TikTok tumbling down the goddamn stairs and screaming for her life because she knows this is probably how it ends. Ah, we’ve all had a good laugh at what was almost certainly that grandma’s undignified demise!
Holy shit, if you want to have the best 5 minutes of your life, just search “Grandma falls down stairs stock images.” Amazing stuff.
As Robin picked himself up, Ivy showed herself, moving out from behind the vats. Before Robin could react, she’d blown a handful of her Love Dust right in his face. This description, “love dust right in the face,” is usually the top comment on one of those videos where a really old guy is banging a young woman and finishes in the woman’s eyes, which, little known fact, old man semen not only smells of death, it will burn the skin of the young.
“Polly want a kiss?” Ivy leaned close, smiling at Robin, and her beauty made his heart ache. At least, he thought it made his heart ache. Robin did not have exceptional sensory information from most of his torso due to a training accident in the Danger Room (Batman has one of those, right?), so an aching heart and a throbbing dong were kind of a grey mist of sensations.
Robin had to fight against her power. Batman needed help!
“I must be losing my touch,” Ivy pouted, as Robin ignored her and rushed to his partner’s aid.
As Batma—
INTERLUDE
We made it to the point in this novel where we get a few pages of still images from the movie!
This is a big opportunity for the makers of the movie to entice people to come and see it, and/or to remind them of the sumptuous visuals that they were treated to in the theater, keeping the love of this film alive during the dark time between the movie’s release and its home video availability.
Let’s take a look!
First we have this image of Batman just sort of smiling. It’s like you can see Clooney thinking about how he’s going to need to buy A LOTTA booze to help ease the pain on this one.
Weirdly, this Batsuit doesn’t have nipples. Were they photoshopped out for the novelization? Was someone like, “You know, we shouldn’t show the nipples here?” and if so, where was that guy during the entire filming of the movie? How did he have more sense than the filmmakers, and his only responsibility was selecting the images to be used for the novelization!?
Well, here, I fixed it:
Next we’ve got Robin:
Which is a definite improvement, at least there’s an action shot happening here. But…wait…what’s that happening in the lower right?
Ah, I see. We were using plastic sheeting to represent “ice.” And that’s super obvious when we’re looking at a still as opposed to a movie with lots of cuts and movement and where we probably weren’t meant to see the floor like this. God, that just looks like shit.
Then we’ve got Batgirl. This is what counted as “WAAAAAAY too fat” in the late 90s. This was the problem right here. I can see it. It was a better time. We had something called STANDARDS. I mean, look at her…um, left cheek? Or, wait, is that just page warping?
Seriously, you have Uma Thurman, age 27, running around in skintight green suits for 2 hours, and THIS is the image you put in the novelization? How am I supposed to engage with the narrative with that? “Engage with the narrative” is the euphemism I use for jacking off, by the way.
Then we’ve got Bane. Just a fuck it photo of him standing in front of a barn in broad daylight. Maybe so we can make sure and get a good look at that codpiece, which doesn’t really look like it would cover his cod. Or his piece. Is the cod the schlong or is the piece the schlong?
Then just basically a George Clooney headshot. Because that’s what everyone reading a novelization wants: Bruce Wayne, NO Batman accoutrements in sight. Couldn’t he have at least worn a bat tie or something?
Ignore the fangs. I did the bowtie and then saw how Dracula it all was and just went for it.
There are a couple other images, but I’m nearing the length limit for this newsletter, and putting them in would require me to go back and reduce the file size of these other images. This re-novelization is already a ridiculous effort that I should be ashamed of. I can’t be spending time doing crap like that.
Just know there’s a shitty Batmobile and a shitty Mr. Freeze, just standing there doing nothing.
Whatever animal put these images together for this novel, you are just really bad at your job. I know Batman and Robin isn’t exactly rich with stunning imagery, but, c’mon, you couldn’t do better than Bane getting ready to muck out horse stalls?