InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "Wut r u, loco or somethin'?"

Kitsune Sniper (foxhack) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-08-19 14:55:00

Current mood:	annoyed
Entry tags:	char: batman/bruce wayne, char: great white shark/warren white, char: jane doe, creator: dan slott, creator: ryan sook, publisher: dc comics, title: arkham asylum: living hell

The Mysterious Case Of Jane Doe
xdoop posted some scans from Batman: Streets of Gotham's Manhunter stories a few hours ago. They featured Jane Doe, who was... quite different from the last time I'd seen her in comics. The first time I'd seen her was in Arkham Asylum: Living Hell, where she was one of the three or four parallel stories featured in the six issue miniseries. This post contains a summary and several spoilers for the book.

All books were written by Dan Slott, illustrated by Ryan Sook, and colored by Lee Loughridge. The artwork has a very Hellboy, Mike Mignola vibe to it which works well in this context.

Arkham Asylum: Living Hell #1: Jane Doe killed and impersonated Doctor Anne Carver. She then tricked Warren White (a large-scale con artist who by the end of this series becomes Great White Shark) into giving her money so she could transfer him out of Arkham. And well, she seduces him, but Batman intervened. A scuffle happens, White discovers Dr. Carver's head stuffed in a mask ornament, and... well, this happens. (Two and a half pages out of twenty-three.)

In issue #2, one of the guards (who had a thing for Dr. Carver) confronts her and asks her what she did with her body.

In issue #3, she speaks to a not-quite-very-honest guard...

She impersonates him afterwards, and starts a breakout by leaving some cells open.

In issue #4, she sets more inmates free, and kidnaps Warren White. (No scans, she was barely in the issue.)

And in issue #5... she explains her plan to Warren.

(The skin she was working on had no scars, but since White got beat up so often, she had to make some adjustments to it...)

Issue #6 only features her trying to escape from the ghosts of people she's killed, and after the demonic event that cause them to happen is over, she almost gets out, but Batman stops her at the door.

So what have we learned here? Whoever this is, it's not the same Jane Doe from this miniseries, unless some weird retcon happened while we weren't looking... The Jane Doe featured here has some very good crafting skills, can create fake skins with facial features and fake hair with materials (I'm guessing she made the Fish skin while she was still impersonating Dr. Carver) but nowhere is it mentioned that she's a metahuman. Nowhere is it mentioned that she doesn't have any skin, or that her skins have "expiration dates" (but I wouldn't have a problem buying the idea that they wear out, because the fake skin that Jane is wearing in these scans ripped easily when other people tugged on it). Unless someone did this to make Jane Doe different from ~~that guy featured a while back... the one that superglued his face to a mask and his father ripped it from his face, taking the face itself with it~~ No-Face. (Thanks,

suzene!)

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	foxhack 2009-08-19 10:23 pm UTC (link)
	She left him to die in a freezer - Mr. Freeze's cell. He didn't die, but did get some nasty hypothermia that cost him his ears, nose, and several fingers. (Sorry for the triple comment!) (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	fungo_squiggly 2009-08-19 10:42 pm UTC (link)
	Thus completing his transformation as the Great White Shark. Ah, yes. I really ought to buy this story arch sometime. It's always looked very interesting. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	aaron_bourque 2009-08-20 12:12 am UTC (link)
	Why does Mr. Freeze have a cell at Arkham? He's not insane. He may be depressed, but they can treat that at normal prisons, right? (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	foxhack 2009-08-20 12:30 am UTC (link)
	Criminally insane. He does crimes, and he's killed people, but he can't be considered sane by any means so they stick him in there. :p (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	aaron_bourque 2009-08-20 12:43 am UTC (link)
	I would like to see a pathology report, then. "does crimes, and he's killed people" doesn't make someone criminally insane. Well, I guess it does. That doesn't stop people like that from being thrown in jail rather than committed. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	foxhack 2009-08-20 12:56 am UTC (link)
	Does crimes. Christ. Why's my English going to shit lately. -.- (Reply to this) (Parent)

	xlineartx 2009-08-20 05:48 am UTC (link)
	Are the local prisons equipped to deal with metahumans? It's possible that could sway a Gotham judge into sending him to Arkham if he had a good lawyer who wanted him sent there. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

aaron_bourque
2009-08-20 06:41 am UTC (link)

There are other prisons in other cities, Metropolis can't be that far . . . although I don't know enough about the criminal justice system, is it wrong to jail someone out of state for non-federal crimes? If so, how is The Slab, which is the meta-metacrime prison (meaning it's supposedly for criminals from those places that aren't set up for metacriminals), justified?

Or are all metacrimes federal.

Aaron "The Mad Whitaker" Bourque; sometimes I hate when the fans think things through more thoroughly than the creators.

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	foxhack 2009-08-20 06:47 am UTC (link)
	If we didn't discuss this stuff, we'd never get our No-Prizes. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	icon_uk 2009-08-20 07:13 am UTC (link)
	None of Batman's "criminally insane" supervillains satisfy the legal definition of insane for a defence. Even the Joker is perfectly aware of the consequences of his actions, he just doesn't care. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	daningram 2009-08-20 01:56 pm UTC (link)
	True, though the legal defination of insane is pretty ass backwards, thanks to a rich boy shooting a president. (Reply to this) (Parent)

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