You know, DC recently did this "Officer Down" storyline throughout their Batman titles, and all of the hype leading up to it led me to believe that they might actually kill off Commissioner Gordon. Secretly, part of me was hoping that they would, so that I could get pissed off enough to stop reading Batman and stop spending so much money on comics each month. Of course, they didn't, because unlike certain other comic companies who shall remain nameless, the fine folks at DC don't get their proverbial (or otherwise) rocks off by killing off beloved characters every time you turn around. Instead they turned out a really great, touching story, which just reminded me that, for the most part, these are some of the best mainstream books in the business (if you haven't checked in on Batman in a while, allow me to suggest that you pick up any of Greg Rucka's issues of Detective Comics, or any of Devin Grayson's Gotham Knights; these two writers are rockin' Batman's world, and mine too). Which means that if I had to stop reading them now, it would be dire indeed, which means that I'm going to have to figure out a way to keep my monthly comics budget intact. I can go without a lot of things, but I just can't go without my monthly Batman fix.