#murder machine

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

[avayarising]

Dick in the Murder Machine

(Part of the Batfam Death Project)

Forever Evil 6–7, 2014

In Forever Evil, the main universe was invaded by the Crime Syndicate: Earth-3 villains who are counterparts of Earth-0 heroes. They captured Nightwing and exposed his identity as Dick Grayson on live TV, then kept him captive at the behest of Owlman (Earth-3 Thomas Wayne Jr, in his universe the elder brother of a dead Bruce Wayne), who seemed to be feeling parental/avuncular urges, although The Outsider (Earth-3 Alfred) kept reminding him that Dick was not his own Richard.

Grid, Cyborg’s Earth-3 counterpart, put Dick in an inescapable ‘murder machine’ with a bomb connected to his heart, such that it would only be disabled if Dick’s heart stopped. Grid apparently built the machine from Apokoliptian blueprints he found in S.T.A.R. Labs.

You’d think that this whole arrangement was a trolley problem aimed specifically at Batman, but in fact it seems to have been an actual accident. It looks like Grid intended only to hold Dick securely: Grid didn’t much care if Dick died, but he was following Owlman’s instructions to keep him alive along with Ultraman’s (evil Superman’s) instructions to keep him secure. But when Batman and allies (including Catwoman, Bizarro, and Lex Luthor) invaded in search of Dick, a failsafe was triggered on the device and the bomb started counting down on a five-minute timer.

The only way to disarm the bomb was to kill Dick.

And you’d expect Bruce to come up with the temporary death plan. But Dick’s death is apparently something Bruce can’t handle, and he just kept trying to unplug him. No planning, no solution, just desperation. Being Apokoliptian technology it was semi-sentient and kept working around his attempts.

So Lex Luthor attacked Bruce, with Bizarro holding Bruce off for long enough for Lex to force Dick to swallow a pill to stop his heart. Which, pills and the digestive system being what they are, shouldn’t have worked or at least not worked that quickly, but comics I guess.

(I think Dick could have held the pill under his tongue instead of swallowing it if he’d wanted to, so it’s possible that Dick deliberately swallowed the pill. But his eyes here show pure panic, not acceptance of death.)

Bruce of course attacks Lex and starts beating him up, threatening to kill him, till Lex says he can bring Dick back, whereupon Bruce allows Lex to proceed:

And it works, and Dick is brought back to life, and the bomb doesn’t go off. Good thing Lex Luthor routinely carries around both cardioplegia pills and adrenaline shots!

(Does he often need to temporarily kill people?)

Bonus: here’s Dick making light of his trauma:

Batfam Death Project Masterpost

[why-its-kai]

Wolfwood meets Vash and immediately breaks his neck.

Trigun (1998) episode 9 "MURDER MACHINE"

[comicchannel]

Funko Pop Comic Covers DC Batman Murder Machine - 23

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[unidentifiedwhistlingobject]

vash eye

[lady-silver-ice]

It’s a cat.

[intexda]

The cybertruck is the most murder machine a truck has ever been. It has no crumple zones, a massive frontal blind spot, tesla turbo, "self driving",

And now he wants all the panel lines welded. This thing is going to get people killed if it makes it to the streets.

[emma-d-klutz]

We keep finding alternate universes with way darker and murder-happier Bruce Waynes. Over and over again - every time! For probabilities sake, they gotta start finding some universes where he’s the most lighthearted and optimistic hero. The next Metal Batman type thing should be an Earth where Batman is the plucky comic relief one of The Justice League. That world’s running joke about his sidekicks is that Batman is so childish he only gets along with kids. Bruce Wayne should unironically state that he doesn’t trust adults. He giggles over Roadrunner cartoons. He is STILL the smartest one, I want to stress this part. A different member entirely is the dark, mysterious one, and I won’t make a hard stance on which, because the possibilities are too fun to decide before going through all of them carefully. The Batfam leave that universe after each getting a too-long, too-tight goodbye hug from that Bruce Wayne who also hugs his canon counterpart and tells him to please be nicer to his family because family is precious and rare and he of all people should know that better than anyone, and they all go home like, “The fuck was that. That was the worst one. The fuck was that.”