Friday Night Fights presents: Taking out the Trash!
Your BatZen for the weekend of 7/26/07

Friday Night Fights coutesy of Bahlactus
Detective Comics 613
Grant - Writer
Breyfogle - Pencils
As a Batman comic this issue lacks the detective, crazy villains, and elaborate evil scheme. Instead it is replaced by a story with a heavy analogy between trash and the way in which we treat our world.
A stand alone Batman comic, and a good one with a moral. This issue starts with a clumsy thirteen year old who is writing a paper for school. His paper has to do with trash in Gotham city, from the people who create it, to the landfills, and those who collect it. For research the young boy decides to tag along with his father at work for a day because he collects the trash of Gotham City. The whole issue is filled with interesting facts and commentary from the young man’s paper.
Batman is not present until later in the story. His presence is necessary in this story but since his name is in the title of the book he has to show up. There is one scene where you know that Batman is not the focus of the story as the boy writes about the homeless and “how the city throws away people like trash.”
Moving on… Along the route the boy continues to write his paper while his father gets roughed up by the competition over territorial issues. Out of fear for his son’s wellbeing the father takes his son home. Later in the evening he then leaves home to dump the trash he collected in the landfill. leaving his son at home for safety reasons, at least he thinks he’s at home. At the land fill a confrontation occurs and the mob boss is about to kill the trash collector, but instead accidentally shots the boy.
This is where the Batman comes into play taking out the mob one by one, unable to save the boy. Batman calls the boys death a “bloody waste”, waste as in trash. The story ends with the final lines of the boys paper delivering a powerful message: “We can’t go on like this. The whole world will turn into a giant trash dump! We have to do something before it is too late!”
Since I was clownin on MC Hammer yesterday, I decided to post some videos of Oakland hip-hop artists who still rock it today… also they are my favorite artists.
Souls of Mischief - ‘93 til infinity
[youtube 1ZSZ6RvKE70 nolink]
I graduated in 93 and this was that summers theme song!
Hieroglyphics - Soweto
[youtube -0mB59n0zBA nolink]
Del “The granddaddy of Hieroglyphics” - Wrong Place
[youtube 1BTZ8wSjmeY nolink]
Check out other posts here about Del, Souls, and Hieroglyphics
Ok in about an hour we will be getting back to our scheduled comic book banter with Friday Night Fights!
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