EDITORIAL
(by
Mike Combs)
THE REAL BATCOMPUTER (PART 2)
The Batcomputer has access to vast amounts of
information. Every crime, every criminal, every clue is
cataloged. Public and private information about people and places is also available. The Batcomputer has a rich encyclopedia of information,
"just in case". In the first episode of Batman: The Animated Series,
"On Leather Wings", Batman plays an audio recording into the Batcomputer. It effortlessly compares the sounds to every known bird
to prove to Batman that he's being lied to, and that he's up against
something new.
My project is to create a Real Batcomputer, and put all of
that power on your desktop. Actually, most of the work has already been
done. That's the web.
So the challenge in building a Real Batcomputer is actually to
narrow the information available to just the Batman stories. There's
no point in cataloging what a starling sounds like in the DC Universe.
Instead, each Batman episode, movie and comic must be captured and organized so that they can be quickly used to compare to clues.
With historical case information, search functions within the
Real Batcomputer will be able answer questions like "Which cases involved
cats?" and "Which people were involved in those cases"?
By limiting the Batcomputer to animated Batman, it only needs
to have detailed information on about 100 cases (episodes). Add in the
comics (Batman Aventures, Batman and Robin Adventures, and Gotham
Adventures) and you've got another 100 cases. Within those 200 or so
cases, I'm going to estimate that we've been introduced to about 50 villains
and 50 other citizens. Thus, the size of the Real Batcomputer's
database is about 300 records, for starters. As the information
becomes more detailed, for example by tracking equipment used in each case, the database will grow. And every month, with luck, there will be another
comic and another four new episodes.
300 records is a small number, and a large number. Small
as databases go, large if you've got to write and key it all in
yourself. Here's where the web comes to the rescue, again.
Want to know everything about Harley Quinn? Type her
name into the search engine at www.google.com and you'll find over 7500 web
matches with information about her. There are an army of experts on
almost every aspect of Batman's universe. And the amazing thing is that they've all voluntarily contributed their information to the web, where you
can access it for free.
When I launched the Batcomputer, the profile on Harley Quinn
had a few mistakes in it. No problem - within days, Phil, the
webmaster at Harley Quinn's Heaven (http://www.angelfire.com/tv/harleyquinn)
happened by, spotted the mistakes and sent me an email with the
corrections. I didn't even tell him I'd posted the info in the first
place!
(For the record, HQ's Heaven is one of my favorite
sites.)
The first trick to building the Batcomputer is providing a way
for all of the experts to be able to easily contribute information.
For this, I created a web interface to allow people to create and edit the
Batcomputer's database directly. Over time, I expect the Real Batcomputer to become an in-depth store of information because of this
feature.
I've begun building the Real Batcomputer on my web site.
It has a partial list of case files and villains (no equipment or locations
at all yet). It's crude, but maybe you can see its potential.
The next article will be about building the Real Batcomputer so information can
be quickly located.
With the dismissal of Summer Gleason last issue - though her
body has yet to be found - we here at "No Man's Island" are stumbling to
find a suitable correspondant still trapped on the island of Gotham City.
Gordon, Pennyworth, and Cobblepot all appear to be worthy candidates, but thus far we've been unable to contact them. Hopefully we'll have something for
you by next issue.
...A WALTZ DOWN MEMORY LANE...
A WORD FROM THE CAST-AWAYS:
LESLIE THOMPKINS: Nothing.
She's dead. A bottle washed up on the west side of Gotham River last
night; a note was inside. Apparently Quinn, feeling guilty for Thompkins' death,
brought her back to the Batsquad where they would later deal with
her.
SUMMER GLEASON: "AAAAAIIIIEEEEEEE!!!!!"
* * * * * * * * * *
AND WHAT'S HAPPENED SINCE:
We've been analyzing little drips of information that have
been trickling through to us on the outside. Harley Quinn's note about the
death of Thompkins further explained what happened:
"Dear B-man,
I didn't mean to do it! I didn't! Mistah J did it. I didn't
wanna killer her, really! I've never killed anyone before, why would I
start with her? She healed my puddin'! Please don't hurt me - just go kick
his chalky white ass for me and the old lady.
*SNIFFLE* :*-(
I'm leavin him for good now. Red's tons nicer than he is, and
is heaps more cuddly.
Sorry B-man...I didn't mean to.
XXXOOO
Squiggles and snores,
HQ"
Yeah. Apparently this note didn't sit well with Batman - he
gave it back to Quinn and just left with Thompkins' body in his arms. It's
presumed that Thompkins' long time friend, Alfred Pennyworth, is now running
her makeshift clinic.
So, what does this note mean? This analyst can deduce many
outcomes. Let's look at this Supa-Freakz gang: Two-Face is leader, Scarecrow
is the deputy, Harley Quinn has cut ties with her man, Poison Ivy is all but
disbanded, and they all agree on wanting to kick the Joker out, because he
just causes one problem after the next. Knowing the Joker, he's likely to break
out on his own, with no one to keep him in check or rat him out or
whatnot.
Still no clues on what Poison Ivy is up to, and whether Harley
is going to be an active participant or not. (I guess it all depends
on whether Isely has a headache, hehe.)
A small little top hat washed ashore a few hours after the
bottle. We immediately assumed it was one of the Mad Hatter's hats, and grew
somewhat concerned after looking at its tattered, torn, burnt, bullet-ridden
shape. On the back of a "10/6" card, hidden deep inside a secret compartment in the hat, Tetch scrabbled down the following in what looked
like really goopy red ink:
"To anyone that may care,
I am not pleased with this recent turn of events. Ever since
Wesker and that dummy impaled on his digits permitted these freaks to join
our group, things have grown pathetically AWFUL. Ed and I are feeling
more and more outmuscled and TREMENDOUSLY underappreciated. We are the brains of this operation, and we've been reduced to the peanut
gallery.
Quite frankly, Croc, Firefly, and Man-Bat frighten me. Wesker
isn't that compatible, either. Firefly can't speak of anything without
mentioning wanting to, ahem, "fry someone's ass" (I'm making his language
much cleaner here), and the fact that they find more use in the alligator bag than myself is quite hurtful.
They would NOT appreciate my attempts at using the rats in our
camp to act as our servants. My bedtime stories - straight from the works of
Carroll - were only booed and hissed. And they made light of - nay,
downright INSULTED - my apparent "rodent-like appearance." Who are they to talk? One's a reptile, one's a FLYING rat!
I swear by the Queen of Hearts, if I had more mind-control at
my disposal...
Ed and I really should break out on our own. Or join the
"Supa-Freakz"; apparently Two-Face is a competent leader, and hell, I've
already worked with Scarecrow a number of times, so Ed and I would fit right
in.
Speaking of which...I have a scoop. Scarface is sending
Firefly out to assault the Supa-Freakz tomorrow night. Pass the word along
to Gordon, Batman, whoever...there's nothing I'd like to see more than that
man's devastating destruction.
Signed,
the truly intelligent but
underappreciated
Jervis Tetch."
Clearly, we can only hypothesize what this can result in...it
looks like whatever happens, one of the groups will either disband or be
annihilated.
Oh, let's just hope that we'll get some radio transmissions
from the island...it's getting only over here.
* * * * * * * * * *
AND AFTER A FIFTH ROUND OF VOTING...
We across the river here saw the city aglow at about 2 am this
morning - I mean, everywhere. Commissioner James Gordon was able to radio us
with the details: "A woman I've never seen before came to our doorstep this
evening - woke me up, scared the crap out of Bullock - fearing for her life.
She claimed that some man in a metal mask was chasing her about town, but she
was able to hide by blending in with her surroundings. She asked to seek refuge
with us, so we let her."
"Montoya decided to stay back to mend this woman's frail soul
- she said her name was Anne...Annie...Anita...I don't recall. She could
hardly speak. Bullock and I headed into town towards City Hall, and saw what
she was talking about. City Hall was untouched, but the surrounding area was
sparadically in flames. Firefly was sailing about through the morning sky and Poison Ivy, Harley Quinn, and Two-Face were each trying to stop
him. Ivy was particularly upset that Firefly had incinerated their
fresh fruit rashions."
So that's why the city was ablaze overnight.
It looks like our hunches were correct: the Lightweights sent Firefly to
annihilate their arch-rivals. Gordon then told us the following: "I knew
there was nothing we could do to calm these four down, so Bullock and I waited
in the shadows on the sidelines - we wouldn't have enough bullets. Two-Face
had shot Firefly a number of times anyway, but nothing seemed to get through
that metal suit of his. And then, all of a sudden, just as Firefly noticed
us and was heading in our direction full steam, I was knocked flat on my
face onto the concrete as someone ran up behind me - and he started blasting at Lynns, too. Little did I know that I just had my first face-to-face
encounter with Mr. Freeze."
"The Supa-Freakz all retreated when Freeze arrived, and then
just the two of them remained, left to destroy each other. Bullock and I
retreated - I think my trenchcoat got singed - and watched as Mr. Freeze
cornered Firefly in an alleyway across the square and encased him entirely
in a jagged chunk of ice."
The communication cut there; fortunately we were blessed with
another gift floating in the river this morning. We recieved Firefly
himself, on ice (of course), with a note attached (go figure how the ink
didn't run): "Don't worry, Freeze is with us. Signed, Batsquad" So Mr. Freeze is part of the Batsquad, eh? Very intriguing. I wonder what kind of
strings Batman had to pull to do that.
Batman came down extra hard on Thorne last night while Freeze
was across town. Word had relayed to the Dark Knight via the Penguin that
Summer Gleason had been captured; even though she's out of the game, Batman
took it upon himself to save her. He burst into Thorne Enterprises last night, demanding Thorne to hand her over. Before he even had a chance to
respond, Thorne's shadowy muscle-man crept up behind Batman and clobbered
him over the head; Batman spun around, dizzy, but through his haze he could
make out that Thorne's hired muscle was none other than Lock-Up.
A huge fight ensued - slowly making their way down to the
basement of Thorne's tower, where, after one well-placed fist on Lock-Up's
solar plexis, he busted through a padlocked door and exposed his personal
dungeon where the tattered body of Summer Gleason and decaying body of slain
Roland Dagget lay. Lock-Up apparently just kept going on about "his brand of
order"; Batman took this opportunity of vulnerability and landed one final
blow to Bolton, knocking him unconscious. Summer rose out of the shadows,
promptly spat on her captor and threw a brick on his head, and allowed
Batman to escort her back outside while dragging Bolton behind.
No words were exchanged between Thorne and Batman, but
apparently Batman gave him such a look that Rupert should seriously consider
dropping out of the game before he gets himself killed.
No official word on the Joker, Catwoman, or Ra's Al Ghul - no
one knows of their whereabouts or anything. Ditto for the Batsquad -
honestly, there's like, seven of them, and they can't keep the city in
peace? This columnist thinks that if they're the last seven left on the island, they're going to end up destroying each other - and that's not going to be
pretty.
* * * * * * * * * *
ROUND FIVE
Kicked Off:
FIREFLY (19.4%)
LOCK-UP (16.7%)
Those whom you DID vote for, but they're still hanging
around:
RUPERT THORNE (13.9%)
MAN-BAT (8.3%)
THE PHANTASM
(8.3%)
ZATANNA (5.6%)
TALIA (5.6%)
THE PENGUIN (5.6%)
HARVEY BULLOCK
(5.6%)
HUNTRESS (2.8%)
RA'S AL GHUL (2.8%)
BATMAN (2.8%)
POISON IVY
(2.8%)
And now, here's our up-to-date list of
contenders.
BATMAN
ROBIN
BATGIRL
NIGHTWING
ALFRED
COMMISSIONER
GORDON
DET. HARVEY BULLOCK
RENE MONTOYA
THE HUNTRESS
ZATANNA
THE
JOKER
THE PENGUIN
CATWOMAN
THE RIDDLER
TWO-FACE
POISON IVY
THE
SCARECROW
MR. FREEZE
THE MAD HATTER
BANE
KILLER CROC
THE
VENTRILOQUIST/SCARFACE
HARLEY QUINN
CLAYFACE
RA'S AL
GHUL
TALIA
THE PHANTASM
MAN-BAT
RUPERT THORNE
* * * * *
*
E-mail juno@dccnet.com with your votes of the TWO
you'd like to see cast off. Remember, we need TWO choices! (I stress that
again. TWO!)
PS - Voting for this issue closes at midnight on December 4,
2000.
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