Letters to Batman: City of Crime #3 (of 5)

Really enjoyed it, especially the three-legged dog simile. I also appreciated the WKRP in Cincinnati reference.

Careful, Bruce, your various identities are stepping on eachother.

I like the style of this story, as I've said before, I think. Liked Fox knowing that Bruce was more than he seemed, and our "hero" seeing it a bit too. Then the Clark Kent cameo. Max Maddox looking guilty. And finally.....

HE'S REAL.

I'll agree with HoM on that one.

Thanks guys! I know this one was a bit on the short side, but that seemed the best moment to end this issue.

I am glad you guys picked up on the WKRP reference. I loved that show as a kid, and I've always thought it would be the kind of thing that Bruce Wayne would say to try and disarm people and make them think he is stupid.

I also enjoyed poking at the concept of superhero stories that the hero's secret idea cannot be figured out, when in reality it would be pretty easy to figure out. So it's not that Fynn and Fox know Bruce is Batman, but they don't buy his playboy goofball routine either.

I was tempted to have the villain of the story try to destroy Gotham by dropping turkeys on the city, but that would make Fynn play the role of Les Nessmen, and I couldn't do that to the guy. Besides, I don't think Mickey has an obession with hogs. LOL.

As for Fynn's name, this is from the first issue's prolouge:

Marvin is his given name, usually shortened to "Marv," but only used by a few people - Vicki because they dated and Bruce because, well, he knows more about Fynn than Fynn does really. You'll notice that even Fynn, in his own thoughts, usually calls himself "Mickey". Curious, I suppose, that in a way Vicki feels more intimate with him and calls him Marv (or when she is pissed at him "Marvin") than Fynn does with himself...Fynn is not quite comfortable in his own skin and perfers to call himself "Mickey."

"Mickey" is his nickname, an allusion to Mickey Finn, a 19th century bartender and crook from Chicago. It from that Mickey Finn that, according to myth, we get our phrase "slipping a mickey" into someone's drink. It was a knockout drug that was used to knock out a patron, rob him and dump him in an alley. When the victim woke up, he remembered nothing.

I choose the name specifically to link Fynn, in a tongue and cheek way, to the original Mickey Finn. Not that our Mickey would drug a guy...ok, he probably would now that I think about it...but it was a way to link him to a kind of alcohol soaked urban subculture where ethics don't mean much...which is exactly where Marvin "Mickey" Fynn starts in City of Crime. Beyond the fact that he is an unrepentant alcoholic, we've already seen the some of lengths he is willing to go to in order to achieve what he wants.....and his hands are only going to get dirtier as time goes on.