Another powerful Chris Burnham image for the cover of this issue and one that features a variation on arguably THE most important quote in the history of Batman, "...He Shall Become A Bat!". Here is the original source of that line from Detective Comics #33 by Bill Finger and Bob Kane:
And here is another version of this scene from the seminal Year One story by Frank Miller & David Mazzucchelli:
It is THE defining line of dialogue in Batman history, the one that set up the future of Bruce Wayne's life and here, for this issue nearly 75 years after his debut, it is borrowed for the cover. That is putting some serious weight on the contents if you ask me (which you kind of did just by reading this blog).
The weight of Batman's history is again brought to bear as soon as you open up the cover and look at the first page. The very first text boxes you read also harken back to that historic 'Tec story from 1939:
In this case though, the disguise pictured is not the cape & cowl of Batman but rather the Suit of Sorrows worn by the Michael Lane version of Azrael. There is a lot of history wrapped up in these elements of the story so I will try to keep it as concise as possible.
The Suit of Sorrows was an armor gifted to Batman from Talia Al Ghul circa Detective Comics #838 that charts its origins to the 12th Century and The Crusades. It bestowed its wearer tremendous power but apparently also drove its original owner insane. The Order of Purity, a splinter sect of The Order of St. Dumas that spawned the Jean Paul Valley Azrael, retrieved the suit at some point and it would eventually fall into the hands of the Al Ghul's. Batman attempted to use it but felt the same pull as its original wearer so he sealed it up in the Batcave where it remained until its disappearance/theft during the chaos of the Batman:R.I.P section of this saga.
Michael Lane, the flagellated man spouting Nostradamus quotes, was one of the "3 Ghosts of Batman" (the one I referred to as Devil Bats in earlier blogs) but prior to that was a GCPD cop who was experimented on by Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne. Prior to the experiments though he suffered tremendous loss leading to a mental breakdown as his son died, his wife committed suicide, and his siblings were murdered in a satanic ritual. All this set him up to ultimately be picked by The Order of Purity to become their Azrael which led down a confusing path in which Lane at some point told he is a descendant of Christ and tries to burn down Gotham City. He discovers he's been manipulated by Ra's Al Ghul and goes off into hiding. That bring us to now...
Batman looks to Lane for assistance and finds the man, obviously
engaging in some flagellation looking at that back, and spewing a
reference to St. John and The Dark Night of the Soul
(in short a "spiritual crisis in a journey towards union with God").
Lane makes reference to his destiny to be the Devil's herald on Earth, a
potential future for Lane as told in Batman #666 that also included the now deceased Damian as Batman, his walls plastered with a series of pictures that are mostly nondescript except for one:
That image in the first panel is another allusion to Lane's potential future as Devil-Bats but for Bruce it serves as a reminder of his vision, the one that spawned the creation of Batman Incorporated in the first place. It calls back, presumably, to the end of Final Crisis and the beginning of Return of Bruce Wayne with Bruce's talk of dying in a cave. Saying that in that moment Bruce witnessed the end of the world at his son's hands could be interpreted as issue #666 being a look at that vision, of the reader seeing some of Bruce's experience post-FC many months before the story was even written.
Despite his own loose grasp on reality/sanity, Michael Lane's statement that "We're all your sons" is a dead-on perspective of the entire concept of Batman Incorporated (even though Bruce claims it's been liquidated). Whether it's Robin and Nightwing or Man-of-Bats and Red Raven, they are all spawned from the ideals that Batman put into play when he first donned the cape & cowl. He is father to them all but sadly it was only his genetic offspring that paid the ultimate price in this crusade...
Lane, in his quasi-religious ramblings, again nails some points home as he brings up the Number of the Beast (666), drops the assorted names which Damian's clone has been referred to (Heretic, Unborn, Fatherless), and caps it all off with the big bad of this piece: Leviathan. Now, in Lane's perspective, Leviathan is a sea monster from The Old Testament with a big reference point being "Job 41:1–34" but as we know, for Batman, it is the organization ran by Talia Al Ghul.
Speaking of the she-devil...
...as Bruce takes the Suit of Sorrows off Lane's hand, Talia is shown in the Swiss Alps, with a specific reference to the Jungfrau summit (which apparently translates from German as virgin). The most interesting aspect of this page, aside from the wonderful landscape by Burnham, is the usage of the red/black chessboard. The color scheme calls back to aspects of R.I.P while the chessboard not only represents the "game" being played by Talia now but also make me think specifically to the panel from Batman & Son below, the panel that represents the true start of this entire Inc arc:
Although he isn't shown in full, it must be noted that (I believe) this issue of Batman Inc marks the New 52 debut of Ra's Al Ghul.
Visually, I love the addition of the black veil over Talia and from a story perspective, it is also important to note that Damian's death was NOT her intent but rather, in her mind, Batman's fault because he "refused to make a choice". The sequence on the above page also serves to illustrate that this "game" for Talia is about both of the primary men in her life: Batman and Ra's. It's like she is looking to make a point to both of them and, in the case of Ra's here, she is infuriated when it is implied she's overlooking something. The Knight taking The Queen, combined with the almost Joker-like "HAHAHAHAHAHA", serves a perfect close to this interaction...
Yet with the following page, in contrast to Ra's mockery of his daughter's quest, we see how much Leviathan has infiltrated Gotham City. The GCPD and National Guard are overwhelmed, Bruce Wayne and his Batman Incorporated are in the middle of a political nightmare, and Gotham's Mayor Hady has effectively outlawed Batman in the city. That ban provided this image, the top panel reminiscent of the end of The Dark Knight film if you ask me:
And in the vein of Dark Knight, to my eyes, Burnham's take on Lucius Fox is reminiscent of Morgan Freeman:
In the Lucius sequence, we are taken from a press conference in which Fox somewhat addresses the Batman Inc connections to Wayne Enterprises, we see the photonic crystals first introduced in Leviathan Strikes!, Bruce mentions how he needs to turn himself in (ish #1 of this volume), tells Lucius Damian is out of the country, and we get a moment purely in the vein of Lucius' movie role in the above page's unveiling of the massive prototype.
We then jump back to Talia, as if we are following our two leads in the steps to their inevitable confrontation, as she punishes the men responsible for opening fire on Damian during his battle with The Heretic by having her "son" murder them all. Her words, if taken at face value, speak to how highly she actually thought of Damian which stands in stark contrast to how she treated him once he picked Dad over Mom. We also see how Leviathan has its hooks in Mayor Hady and how it can manipulate the very basic necessities of the GCPD.
We join Nightwing & Red Robin as they meet up with The Knight (the former Squire) and Ranger as they track down Wingman/Jason Todd/Red Hood who was nabbed by The Hood and turned over to the Headmistress from Leviathan Strikes! all girls school. What we learn in this sequence though, likely to the surprise of the reader, is that this group is actually in opposition to Talia & Leviathan. In fact, they are attempting to remove a bug Talia has placed on JT.
Jump over to the man behind Talia's Ninja Man-Bat army, Kirk Langstrom, as members of the GCPD bust in on him in search of Batman. Kirk protests Batman's presence there but as we see in this amazing Burnham page...
...Bats was indeed there (I just love the depiction of the bullets on that page), as Kirk insists he was only producing an aerosol antidote to the Man-Bat serum.
We then jump back to Talia & Heretic in a sequence that gives us a look at just how much of a child this clone-monster truly is at heart:
He wants what he wants and he wants it now and will do whatever he has to in order to get it, even hurt his own mother apparently. Yet much like the way in which she wired up Damian in Batman & Robin Vol. 1 to be remote controlled by Deathstroke, she also has her clone-son wired up to prevent him from even engaging in the "disobedience" that Damian did. Talia herself must be disgusted with this creature she has created though because being called "mother" by the clone-beast only agitates her further while being called "Lady Talia" seems to be what draws the electroshock to an end.
Here, as in the Year One version of the "I shall become a Bat" story (which Morrison also used in other parts of his opus), we have a bruised and battered Bruce seated in a chair, only now he is already Batman. So what does this mean? It means its time to step-up his game with an altered Suit of Sorrows and a needle of the Man-Bat serum jabbed into his neck.
Back to Talia as she prepares for the endgame at 11pm:
On top of the roof with the very pool in which she trapped her "beloved" while her son died, this daughter of Al Ghul continues to play her part in this drama, even going so far as to once again don the Leviathan skull mask. It completes her transformation into a stereotypical villain for Batman to fight. Unfortunately for her, this Batman barreling at her is far from typical!
Right off the bat we are dropped into a murderous situation with a dead dog, a man being hung, and a woman being dragged by her hair out of a house. One of the thugs seems intent on rapping the blond woman but one of his compatriots stops him while a third man comes out of the house with another red headed woman in his grasp and a now-familiar Bat Casket in his hands. The possession of said casket would mark this family as the Van Derm's whom were seen with it last issue when Jack Valor gave them certain papers after his encounter with Pirate Bruce.
The thugs, who I presume are the ones seen hiring Hex at the end of last issue, making these story beats take place BEFORE that scene, kill the young son, kidnap the blond daughter, and leave the redheaded woman clutching her dead child's body wishing for an angel of retribution (akin to what Annie in #2 claimed she did). She gets her answer in a similar form too:
Briefly we are given a piece of a journal entry from some heretofore unseen narrator and we are dropped now from The Old West to Gotham with our thugs & Jonah Hex. They reference the "ghost" who attacked them as they lead Hex to "Monsewer Sauvage" as they call him, or Vandal Savage, the once & former leader of The Blood Tribe, as we know him.
Savage is apparently the money here, the one looking to hire Hex to stop the "cowboy in black", as he chugs on laudanum & laments how "that dwarf Bonaparte" betrayed him; "They all betray me.." Savage says, obviously in reference to The Blood Tribe as well.
A Native American (Midnight Horse) comes out of a room, smoke coming off his body, talking about Bat-People and how opening the box (the Bat-Casket presumably) will be the end of the world. Hex wants more money which is readily given with more to come "...just as soon as you lay our DEMON to rest"; there are lots of references to ghosts, demons, gods, throughout "Return"...
Cowboy-Bats hits the scene, engages in a little gun-fighting, using makeshift batarangs rather than guns to stop his foes (always non-lethal even without a memory), and Midnight Horse begins to freak out, thinking Bruce has come for the box, something Savage agrees with, so he wants Midnight to open the box immediately despite his end-of-the-world warnings. Savage even says "The end of the world could only come as a relief", having lived for so many centuries already.
Savage, in the midst of ranting about immortality, tells Hex that the blond woman is with a "qualified doctor" and is Catherine Van Derm. That doctor, as it turns out, is named Thomas and it's safe to assume that this is none other than Thomas Wayne aka Dr. Simon Hurt, and he wants the box open for the "secret of life eternal". Catherine, in some sort of trance, begins to mutter out loud:
This isn't the first reference to bells in this story, last issue mentioned the "Bells of the All-Over", and for Thomas it equates to the "Bells of Barbatos" as he flashes back on the "Dark Knight,Dark City" ritual when he drank the "starry venom" of "batwinged Barbatos".
Catherine, a drooling mess with blackened eyes that look like an eclipse, rambles on about "a dark god opening his box and there's bells...but the bells at the end summon another...from the shadows...one who won't stop until the wicked are brought to account."
I think it's safe to say that the "dark god" is Darkseid, that the box he is opening is the hyper-adapter as seen in "Missing Chapter", and that the other "from the shadows" is Bruce himself.
Midnight attempts to draw on Thomas, calling him an "old gambler" which is cute in light of the Black Glove, but the doctor shoots firsts, killing "the only man who could translate anything at all of the lost language of the Miagani tribe" according to Savage. Vandal also confirms that Thomas is a Wayne when he calls him Doctor Wayne, meaning Thomas is still alive 100 years, or so, after the Barbatos ritual in "DKDC" (meaning he already kinda has the "life eternal" he's looking for).
Also, something I never noticed, something I honestly read elsewhere, something that could be given significance is how Savage mentions going to Mexico to build a new empire...which is exactly what Dr. Hurt did after the end of "RIP" with The Black Glove falling apart. Neat...
Bruce descends on the house, using some tried-and-true tricks to shake things up (gas pellets, darkness, fear), and ends up fighting inside a casino, smashing some thug (the one who shot the child I believe) into a roulette wheel (BLACK AND RED).
Swooping out of the sky onto Savage's carriage, the old caveman seems to recall how this happened to him before, issue 1 again. Bruce attacks, breaking Thomas' hold on Catherine in the process, freeing her to smash the Bat-Casket across his face. The journal entry narrative returns with references to Pinkney, the narrator's father, a Judge, and the revelation that this is all being written by another Wayne; Pinkney was commissioned by Judge Solomon Wayne to build the Gothic structures of Gotham AND the only child of Solomon's was Alan Wayne, our narrator.
Alan is apparently trying to off himself, ending the Wayne lineage ("Better a house unfinished than one forever haunted"), by standing in the path of the rampaging chariot upon which Bruce, Catherine Van Derm, Thomas Wayne, & Vandal Savage are engaged. The carriage overturns in the nick of time, bringing Alan & Catherine together for the first time, and allowing Bruce to give his great-great grandmother White Fawn's necklace which was apparently in the possession of Catherine's mom. So that means to me that at some point (especially considering Catherine refers to the necklace as being from "the olden days") the Miagani Tribe & The Van Derm family crossed paths, married, something like that, to bring that Prehistoric artifact into their possession.
Catherine hands Bruce the Bat-Casket, whistling it open in the Miagani language, quoting her grandfather Jerome Van Derm "All the days of the world is one day and he must be strong for us all"; all time is simultaneous being one of Morrison's favorite themes.
Thomas tries to claim the Casket, getting brained himself by Savage who then hallucinates Bruce as the giant Prehistoric bat only to eat a knee to his face. Thomas questions if Bruce is "one too?" (one being an immortal or perhaps a Wayne, not sure here) and threatens to get them all in the end. Hex, fulfilling his deal, shoot Bruce, sending him into the water as is the theme with each of his death/rebirth moments. Only difference this time is that there is no eclipse to accompany it...an art error perhaps?
The journal of Alan Wayne notes his wedding to Catherine, the birth of their son Kenneth that also caused Catherine's death, and how the rumors of Thomas swirled (150 years old?). The visuals show him boarding a S.S. Orion bound for Liverpool, perhaps establishing The Black Glove while in Europe, and making another connection to Orion as in the "B&R" issues during Dick & Damian's search of the mansion.
The journal also goes on to note how Alan & Catherine completed the construction of Wayne Mansion, how Catherine's final request was to keep the Bat-Casket safe, thus the building of the "Garden of Death" in which it was hidden until Dick & Damian recovered it in modern times. As for Bruce, his next stop on his magical history tour brings him to one most painful moments of his own life as he spins ever-closer to the present...
Before we check in on Bruce though, it's time for our visit to the JLA as they still try to figure out what to do about the Omega-Bomb that is Bruce. Being a Tim Drake fan, I am loving this stuff as he is essentially dictating to the big guns. I also appreciate how Morrison puts a little time-stamp on things, mentioning how Tim had been Robin longer than anyone else. We hear a little of the recording Bruce made in the "Missing Chapter" before stepping out into the prehistoric world, and Tim mentions how Bruce will essentially blow "a hole in time" if he gets back to the present. "A hole in time" makes me think of the "hole in things" as Dr. Hurt referred to himself, which is also indicative of the hole created by Darkseid's fall through time...
Now to Bruce, waking up in a hospital bed after arriving in a very noir scene, a dame walking into the scene, looking for help. This time the help is finding the murderer of Martha Wayne...
Yeah...he has to wear the costume his own father wore, the one that Dr. Hurt trashed in the present, the one that is inspirational for the Batman outfit, while solving his own parents murder. How twisted is all this!
The woman asking his help is Ms. Lamarr, one of the actresses from The Black Glove movie, and the only thing on Bruce's person when he was shot was his journal of notes. Yup, it's got a hole in it....another hole in things...
Bruce gets some clothes, begins reading through the book which was started by Mordecai, but in handwriting Bruce recognizes as his own. A group of guys seem to be harassing Ms. Lamarr, but Bruce dispatches them while cutely remarking "I don't much like jokers with guns".
Ms. Lamarr references John Mayhew and how he wants her to be in "The Black Glove" movie, they pay a visit to Martha Wayne's mother who essentially trashes Bruce's father to his face (thankfully he has no memory of his identity). She believes Thomas Wayne had her killed and that the pearls were a means of identifying her to the gunman. Betsy Kane also notes that they were a Van Derm heirloom, bringing the connection to White Fawn's necklace full circle, that necklace that is so symbolic in Batman's history ties into the dawn of time AND is only still in circulation because Bruce returned it to Catherine Van Derm last chapter.
Roderick Kane sits there, trapped in an iron lung or something, having suffered a stroke after selling Kane Chemicals to Ace Chemicals (where The Joker was presumably "born" years later), Betsy mentions the drugs & rape surrounding Thomas Wayne, charges leaked to the modern press by The Black Glove in "RIP", and how Patrick & Silas covered it up. Silas would by Bruce's great-uncle, & Patrick his grandfather. There's mention of a secret room (which we've seen several times over now) where Thomas was treated while Bruce was at boarding school (a reference to Morrison's "Gothic" story perhaps).
The crazy really kicks in when Betsy mentions how Thomas told her, AFTER his death, how he turned Martha into a drug addict. Betsy swears that it wasn't Thomas that was killed with Martha while Roderick grunts something that resembles "Hurt" from his iron lung-y thing. Betsy mentions him having a new face & a new name (Simon Hurt perhaps), and essentially hires Bruce to find him. Now, remember back to "RIP" where it was mentioned how The Kane's hired a PI to investigate Martha's death and he abruptly disappeared...
Bruce goes home, more or less, with Marsha at his side and she begins to explain to him the history of the manor; the underground caves, the bat-people, the Black Pirate, etc. Bruce finds the tomb of Catherine & Alan and the words "deep into the darkness, peering..." are carved into the mausoleum. Bruce notes that the door was opened recently despite Marsha's claim that the manor had been empty for months. She mentions the total eclipse coming that night then tells him they need to go to Willowood Military Psychiatric Hospital...last seen, in brief, during the "Missing Chapter".
There, a very familiar looking doctor talks to another man with a familiar name, Carter Nichols (ish #700) about his time hypnosis technique & its applications. The other doctor is quite obviously Dr. Hurt and he offers Nichols a deal, just as he did with Bruce & Damian in the present, and I think it's safe to say based on how Nichols was living in the present that he did not accept. Hurt also confirms my suspicion that he is responsible for the condition in which Roderick Kane now lives in.
A man in a wheelchair, very Metron-like, mumbling something about "Batman beware the hole in things", but Nichols enters the scene to inform Bruce that he can't speak since the war (Final Crisis?). Marsha officially introduces Bruce to Carter Nichols who asks what Bruce is reading, he responds that it's a story close to his heart but "The plot's got a few holes, but I think it's starting to make sense", some Morrison meta-commentary perhaps?
Loeb (from Year One) and some other people arrive for whatever the hell it is Marsha has planned to root out Martha's killer. Bruce puts on the Bat-costume, kisses Marsha in a scene very reminiscent of his kiss with Jezebel Jet, although in that one he was de-masked. She calls him her "dark knight", which seems to strike a chord in Bruce as he reflects on the content of his journal. Ever the detective, Bruce realizes that this is all a show, a "black mass under a black sun" as he calls it in light of the impending eclipse.
Yup, Marsha dolls up like Martha, while Bruce gets dolled up in the bat costume, feeling like he's done this before. Apparently he has, way back in 'Tec #235, where he used the costume to catch Lew Moxon.
At the Wayne tomb Carter Nichols, alongside several other robed men, one of them presumably Commissioner Loeb as his arrival was mentioned earlier, and including Dr. Hurt, enter the mausoleum where Hurt (or Brother Simon) insists Barbatos will lead them to the hidden casket of immortality & life eternal...the bat-casket. Hurt tells Brother John (Mayhew) to fetch his camera and the performance begins...
The eclipse is in full effect, thugs & Marsha attack Bruce, he realizes he was poisoned by her kiss (like Ivy) and comes to with Hurt explaining the situation, of how he tried to summon Barbatos 200 years prior with no understanding of what he was doing. They have arranged the scenario to look like Martha Wayne committing murder , the murder of the detective her parents hired, making this the footage leaked to the press in "RIP" AND the footage used in "The Black Glove" movie!
So in this early version of The Black Glove we have Hurt, Nichols, Mayhew, Loeb, Mayor Jessop, and the Kane's butler Groves as members...crazy that Morrison tied the Black Glove's foundations in Gotham all the way back here.
So this sacrifice of a "human bat" (i.e. Bruce in the costume) is designed to free Barbatos and grant them all eternal life. What makes this all really intriguing is that Hurt is reciting passages from The Crime Bible in this ceremony. Here's the short of it, The Crime Bible is the text for Intergang and The Religion of Crime. They worship Cain, Cain is Vandal Savage who has had roles in "Return", and their God is Darkseid. The Crime Bible played a role in "Final Crisis" too...
So what this all means to me is that Barbatos is Darkseid, or at least a form of Darkseid, in the same way that Boss Darkside & Turpin were avatars for him in "FC". I suppose that also makes Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne a vessel for Darkseid given the original Barbatos ceremony in "DKDC".
Marsha tosses a lit cigarette on the gasoline-soaked body of Bruce, Betsy & Roddy Kane are watching the eclipse and she hears bells ringing, Carter Nichols refuses to use his device to open the hole in time & summon Barbatos, and his box looks a lot like a Mother Box btw.
Bruce takes the box, hops into time with Barbatos riding shotgun it seems, Roderick dies, Carter Nichols actually wins the wager, and we jump to present day where Red Robin & the JLA have removed the cape & cowl from the caves under Wayne Manor. Remember the Miagani said if it was removed it would bring about the "All-Over"....
Bells are bad...
We start the next chapter back at Vanishing Point, last seen when Bruce, dolled up like an Archivist, stole a time bubble and left Super & The Time Masters crew behind:
So we're at the end of time, "everything that can ever happen has happened", and Bruce's story is the last to be archived, freezing his defining elements in time. The first, as seen above, is the pearls which we have now seen endured from the prehistoric times of The Deer People all the way through to Martha Wayne wearing them at the moment of her death at which time they were trashed.
Also archived are a bell (the sound heard several times over) and the gun while the Nichols engine is also secured for archive. I assume the Nichols Engine is either the Mother Box-like contraption Carter Nichols made in the last chapter, or it's Bruce himself, loaded up with chronal & Omega energy from his travels through time.
Upon his arrival to Vanishing Point he is dying, presumably from being burnt alive as his body still is smoldering & smoking, thus the Archivists shove him into some suit, a "lazarus transfusion" they call it, as the timeline counts down to its eventual fall into the black hole at the end of time. Another "hole in things"...
The archivists detect the infestation of hyperfauna that has followed Bruce through time, officially labeling it an Apokoliptian Hunter-Killer "Curse" Machine. Bruce acknowledges his curse being that the successive iterations of the Omega Sanction are bringing him closer to his present and closer to death, "the only escape".
And there's the bullet...
Bruce refers to the Archivists as "bush robots", as the archive being the entire history of the universe (important to "Batman Inc." I belive so remind me to bring it up there) thus the most precious thing ever. The Archivists refer to him as "the solution to one of history's greatest mysteries", and confirm that he is the Nichols Engine, another "hole in things", a "gap in the archive", and I imagine that these gaps are Bruce's own history which will be filled in in due time. One of the archivists acknowledges that Superman's search party, as seen in ish #2, hasn't arrived yet, putting this particualr moment in a chrono-context. Bruce realizes that if things proceed without his intervention than the Hyper-Adapter will be free to trash the archive and maybe even hitch a ride with Supes & crew. So he asks for a disguise (the one we saw when Supes & The Time Masters visited) and for his memory to be wiped.
The Archivist makes mention of Batman's "final adventure...and his new beginning" before transforming him, and while this happens another "infestation of hyperfauna has been detected" warning pops up.
Supes & the crew arrive, Rip leaves the keys in the time sphere, and the events of ish #2 happen in between panels. We also flashback to the moment of Batman's birth, as seen in "Last Rites" & "Year One", and there's that bell! The bell marks the moment of Batman's creation, when the bat crashed through the window and gave a bloody Bruce his inspiration.
We also "hear" the voice of Darkseid from just before Bruce's "death" uttering the words, "There you are", although it looks like a bat talking, which could be significant in that the Barbatos/Bat-Demon that Dr. Hurt summoned was seemingly an avatar of Darkseid.
We catch back up to the last page of ish #5 as Batman, looking like a cross between his costume & that of the Archivists, arrives in the present via time sphere, greeted by Red Robin & some version of the JLA (or maybe just a gathering of available heroes). Cyborg freaks out, of course causing the rest of the group to jump the gun and attack the Bat-God.
As for Supes, they are stuck in a time sphere watching the end of everything , trying to fight the bubble, with Skeets playing the lone voice of reason, "Batman did tell us to...trust him...". The group finally realizes Bruce left them inside a time sphere in mid-construction, the "ultimate time machine" according to Skeets, and their way home. Rip makes an off-handed comment about how Bruce "...could have known potentially knowing everything for awhile" due to his bond with the Archivist, which, as I said before, plays a part in Inc. So essentially the Time Hunters crew is there to witness the end & rebirth of time, a recursive loop, the big All-Over is finally happening.
So I'm calling him a Bat-God right now because he single-handedly decimates Cyborg, Jesse Quick, Congorilla, Starman, & Starfire in large part due to the awesome power of his Archivist get-up. Wonder Woman is watching the relic costume as you can see above, while Red Robin attempts to contact Dick & Damian but notes they are unreachable, Gotham City is on quarantine, and The Joker is on the loose. So essentially putting a time-stamp on these moments, telling us they're going down at about the same time as the events of "Batman & Robin #13-15".
Red Robin steps up to the plate to confront Bruce, this time without violence, talking him through the problems of, ya know, being a walking Omega Energy Bomb. Only problem is this Bruce asked the Archivists to take his memory so he's not quite remembering the names and events Tim Drake is schooling him on. He tells Bruce that Dick is now Batman, that Damian is Robin, and Damian's name seems to strike a chord of memory. He reminds Bat-God that he is Bruce Wayne to which he responds "...not yet...", reminding me of how Zur-En-Arrh Batman was also essentially a version of Bats without Bruce Wayne present.
Once again Morrison lets Tim shine in these scenes...just want to say how cool that is!
Wonder Woman confront Bruce as well and her mention of a box brings back memories of Ancestor Box and the hyper-adapter as well as those wierd words Annie spoke to "Mordecai" & the iconic WW & Supes emblems that hung in her room.
Diana uses the Lasso of Truth on Bruce which forces him to remember that he is Bruce Wayne but also give the hyper-adapter a foothold as well, something it apparently didn't have when Bruce had no memory of himself. WW points out some details about The New Gods that are pure Morrison concepts, describing them as "...self-aware ideas. They use concept weapons, anti-life equations, hunter-killer metaphors", she requests Bruce to let The Archivist speak and all hell breaks loose again!
The hyper-adapter has infested the Archivist which we got a hint of when Bruce was transformed in the first place, and all those images seem to be scattered memories. The pearls, an eclipse, a bullet, a rose, the WW & Supes sigils, "HAHAHA", the horse, Martha's murder, Orion's belt, and a bat of course. The symbols that have repeated themselves throughout this book as well as in "Batman & Robin". Tim wonders if this is what time looks like...
The Hyper-Adapter is trying to turn Bruce into Darkseid's weapon, he in turn uses his memories to fight back at the H-A....wait H-A...HAHA....Hyper Adapter...am I just seeing things there?
Supes & the Gang show up in the present as the H-A points out that only in death can he & Bruce be separated. So GL takes the first step to do just that with assistance from Supes, WW , and Bruce himself. Bruce orders Supes & WW to toss the H-A into the time sphere which he has set to turn back on itself. Still, the H-A adapts as it is designed to do, becoming a giant bat, the very same bat that scared the crap out of Dick during his search of Wayne Manor during "Batman vs. Robin" AND ultimately becomes the giant bat that Vandal Savage had on a stake back in the first part of "Return".
Wow...so perhaps it was also the H-A Bat that Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne encountered during the "DKDC" Barbatos ritual in the 18th century.
I wish I could have just found the first image by itself because it's the main reason I used this image. The "gotcha" is a reference to what Bruce said just before the Omega Effect made contact in "Final Crisis", it's what was on the note inside the Bat-Casket when Dr. Hurt opened it, and as Bruce learns us in this image, it's what Jack Valor contributed to it a century earlier.
Supes makes reference to time distortions, which is what I assume the Tetris symbols on this page represent, and a dying Bruce essentially verifes that Darkseid was/is trying to incarnate inside Hurt just like he did with Boss Darkside & Turpin in "FC" (think I said that already).
Wonder Woman's statement of "Batman Must Die!" makes me think of the "Batman and Robin Will Never Die" that closed out "RIP"...
Such an awesome spread there depicting everything from Bruce's experiences in "52", the Isolation experiements, Nanda Parbat & the Thogal, and Metron...basically confiriming that he was the wheelchair-dude at Willowood Hospital and is kind of controlling this whole thing. "The 5th World is my experiment..."
Bruce summons the All-Over by ringing the bell, conceptualizing the Batman, but that moment was also Bruce reaching out for Alfred's help, which agains makes me think of how "Batman Inc" was conceptualized in Bruce's mind. More on that next blog...and maybe bells aren't so bad.
Bruce is dying, rather dead for two minutes, again making me think of a moment from earlier in the series, just prior to "RIP" when he died at the hands of Devil-Bats for a few minutes, but Red Robin, every the loyal partner knows just how to bring him back: show him the cape & tell Bruce Gotham needs him.
A flash to the help Bruce had over his time travels from Valor, a casebook-type entry covering what I stated earlier, how 250 years ago the H-A infected a human being...Thomas Wayne. The entry also goes on to point out "The first truth of Batman...the saving grace...I was never alone. I had help."
Bells are still ringing and now "Return" meets "B&R" for the final part of Phase 2 of Morrison's Bat-Saga!
But first, a flashback to the "Dark Knight, Dark City" Barbatos ritual definitively binding Morrison's first two phases to this story due to Thomas Wayne/Dr. Hurt's involvement in it. These pages are both an interpretation of the pre-existing material as well as a fresh take on it, the take that binds the original Thomas Wayne to the Omega Adapter, the product of Darkseid, the H-A we just saw Bruce & company toss into time. Thomas Wayne, obviously ignorant to the words "Barbatos" is saying to him believes he's being called "Omega Adeptus" which Wiki tells me is essentially the most adept magician. Wayne also takes on the name Simon at this moment in reference to Simon Magus who was a biblical figure, a powerful magician, and may have buried himself alive to be resurrected like Jesus. Thanks Wiki and David Uzumeri!
So homeboy eats the bat, taking the Hyper Adapter into himself essentially, and gaining the immortality he has always been searching for (and was still searching for at the time of Bruce's parents murder). Wasn't the fact that he was 200 years old and still breathing a sign? WIth the history lesson completed, Bruce officially reenters the scene:
So cool....out from the fireplace, right at the secret room where Thomas Wayne/Dr. Hurt was treated (I think) by Bruce's father Thomas. The 99 Fiends attack, Bruce has Dick & Damian at his back, leading to another awesome multi-panel fight sequence as well as some catch-up dialogue like Bruce reminding Dick how he told him not to wear the costume (I believe this was in "Battle for the Cowl" or the Nightwing "Last Rites" issues) followed by Dick's retort of how Jason Todd would be wearing it otherwise. Oh yeah, and a little reminder of how Hurt shot him in the skull.
With some of the 99 beaten there's a little catch-up, Dick reciting to Bruce what he figured out about Hurt, Thomas Wayne, El Penitente, and what not. More of the 99 wander in but burst into laughter, presumably induced by The Joker who is still down in the Bat-Bunker with a nuke in hand. The moment of Dick having to tell Bruce that The Joker is "...on our side, kinda" is painful and funny. Bruce finding the desecrated portrait of his parents is just painful. Bruce instructs Damian to get Dick home safe while Damian, in a rare moment of showing his true feelings, tells his father "...we can entrust the rescue of Pennyworth to you, I hope". He does care about Alfred after all...and Grayson as well given that he saved his arse from a gunshot during the fight montage.
Hurt, speaking to Bruce via speakers in the Bat-Cave perhaps, informs him that he has Alfred captured and while Alfie begs Bruce to not come looking for him until he's done. Bruce, in light of his "first truth of Batman", totally ignores that request while Hurt, reverting to his gambling motif, drops a "place your bets" comment. Bruce searches the cave, Hurt mentions a "truth chamber" which I have no idea about so I looked that one up...
Wierd shiz huh? And the return of Morrison's love for the old no longer canon Bat-stories...
Hurt continues to taunt Bruce via speaker, "That's how it feels to be the devil in hell", "I am the hole in things! I bring hell on earth and to the world debasement". He references the isolation experiments, makes his own version of Batman R.I.P, this time meaning "Rot in Purgatory" as he leaves Bruce trapped in the mirrored Truth Chamber:
Meanwhile in Gotham, Pyg has gone completely nuts, Dick & Damian have arrived to save the day, turning his drug-addled Dollotrons on him before Dick collapses again, sending Robin after Joker. Oh yeah, and Pyg is still the creepiest villain in a loooong time: "I made you to love me but remember I'M NOT WEARING PROTECTION, MY DARLINGS!"
Bruce breaks out of his "trap", it's a trap he created so if he couldn't it would be kinda sad now wouldn't it? He also tries to explain to Dr. Hurt who he really is, what happened to him with the H-A, how Bruce's father Thomas tried to treat him in that hidden room, but Hurt refuses to accept that, still spouting that he is Bruce's father, that he "...built this endless puzzle for you, my poor, insane son!"
Hurt puts some distance between he and Bruce, hoping into the water in the cave, reminiscent of both "RIP" and every "rebirth" scene in "Return of Bruce" (minus the eclipse)...or wait, scratch that, there is any eclipse going on during this fight as scene in the window during this DOUBLE PUNCH scene:
Bruce elects to save Alfred, trapped in what I assume are the remains of the helicopter from RIP OR the remains of the spaceship from "Return" #1 that was launced in "FC". While Bruce saves his life-long friend & surrogate father, his life-long enemy & faux-father escapes only to stumble upon a trail of dominoes. So remember that banana peel Joker discarded so haphazardly....
The "devil", the personification of evil, the "hole in things" gets undone by the oldest trick in the book, a freakin' banana peel. That's actually amazing and leaves Hurt in the position to get Jokerized & buried alive (like his namesake Simon Magus), and just like happened to Damian at the hands of The Joker and to Batman at the hands of The Black Glove. Full circle I suppose...but there's still that pesky old nuke.
Damian is on that one while Bruce tracks down Joker, catching him just before he escapes Wayne Manor grounds, just as he caught him right before he escaped Arkham Asylum in "The Clown at Midnight" prose ish. What I dig about Joker's ramblings here is this: "The Joker fights crime! When there's no Batman...the gravediggin' clown gets to be the good guy...what could be funnier than that?"
So in the moment, thinking that HIS Batman is dead & gone, Joker actually wants to become a hero? Amazing...and possibly the inevitable conclusion of his Super-MPD. Alas we will never see that world as Bruce decks him...
The world settles, so we think, as we learn the quarantine has been lifted after three days, the Mayor whom Gordon thought dead still lives, Pyg has been locked up in Arkham, and the corruption in City Hall & the plot to smear The Waynes are under investigation.
So with Bruce back Dick naturally assumes he will revert to being Nightwing now that he's recovered from his gunshot wound. Bruce, in a somewhat surprisingly compassionate move, orders him to take 2 months off. Damian worries that he will be forced out of his Robin role, Bruce busts out the "Batman and Robin will never die" line, and tells him to get ready to meet the public.
A press conference, the half-truth revelation that Bruce Wayne has been financing Batman in secret for years, and then the whole world changes as Morrison's Phase Two ends & Phase Three begins:
The Era of The Black Glove is over! Dr. Hurt was 18th Century Thomas Wayne kept alive by blood & contact with Darkseid's H-A (who he thought was the demon Barbatos) for 250 years! Bruce Wayne created his own inspiration and Barbatos' inspiration, by tossing the H-A, then in the form of a bat, into the time sphere! Darkseid essentially started it all by tossing Batman into time in the first place! Batman, only the 2nd man to survive the Omega Sanction, can escape any trap! Hurt paid to have The Wayne's killed! DOUBLE PUNCH!!!
Thanks to whomever created this piece I found in a Google image search, I think it's only missing the Knight & Squire one...
So now we venture into the territory of "Batman Inc" where Bruce Wayne's support of Batman is public knowledge and his experiences lost in time have shaped his outlook on the mission. Most importantly, always remember the first truth of Batman: "I was never alone. I always had help"
So that big murky Batman-lookin' shadow has arrived at Wayne Manor!!! But how they hell did he get there you may ask? Well look no further than this blog to answer that question and, ideally, fill in the last of the gaps that have been lingering since "RIP" ended. Who is Dr. Hurt really? What did the Omega Effect do to Bruce? What is the story with that Bat-Coffin? And where does Darkseid fit into all of this? Theoretically all those questions, and more, will be covered in this latest edition of my long-running Grant Morrison/Batman series. So let's get this bad boy started!
When we last left Bruce in "Final Crisis/RIP:Missing Chapter", he had arrived inside a cave with a dying old man inside, his memory rapidly fading away, using his last instincts to record a message across time for Superman, laying out some cave paintings of his bat-symbol, Wonder Woman's symbol, & the Supes-Shield.
The beginning of "Return" drops us into a prehistoric landscape where a rocket ship has crash landed amongst the people of the time. Besides the odd visual of a rocket in prehistory, the other thing that's immediately noticeable is that the skies are red a la "Final Crisis". Check it out:
So what I'm thinking is that the events of "FC", as pointed out in ish #6, are bleeding through time and this is part of that ripple effect. One of the things that always bugged me though is just what that rocket was since, ya know, it was the Omega Beams that transported Bats through time. And while I now know the answer to that query, with the help of some other annotations I've perused, I will leave it lie for a minute.
So the cavemen are obviously not speaking perfect English, their language a broken version I suppose would be most accurate description, but they are easy enough to understand. There's an "Old Man", a "Da-Man", they are discussing the "shining-cart" which is "same as brought down the fire in Old Man's Story". I suppose that is a reference to Metron delivering fire to a young Anthro at the beginning of "FC" and also teaching him the symbol that was used to prevent Anti-Life. Anthro would then be the old man Bruce sees die at the end of "FC/Missing Chapters", the same Old Man the cave people (Deer People?) are referring to. They also seem to be scared of the Blood Mob, their Blood Chief being a man they refer to as a devil.
The Deer People find tracks leading to a cave that is filled with bats and...
The cave people, obviously in shock from his strange man's arrival, respond rather calmly even with Bruce's garbled (at least to them) speech. "Wayrameye" translates to "Where am I?" for example...
So we learn the names of the other men in the tribe besides Old Man and Da-Man; there is also Giant, Boy, Surly, Giant, and...how apropos...Joker, who laughs, drawing a "RRRR" from Bruce in response. Cute...
Man smells death in the cave from whence Bruce came, while Bruce heads off to investigate the rocket ship. Man finds the body of Old Anthro while Bruce discovers a shattered Bat-Signal, a pile of dust, and a wholly intact Superman cape. Why I didn't make this connection months ago I will never know, but I'm glad I found someone to steer me in the right direction to answer the question of the rocket, right back to "FC":
Yup...that rocket, sent out by Lois, Jimmy Olsen, Captain Marvel, & Supergirl was loaded up with memorabilia from Bruce's present, and likely due to the hole Darkseid's fall let in time & space, the rocket went through time during all the chaos and ended up here.
Man emerges from the cave with Anthro as well as a necklace belonging to a White Fawn (looks a lot like a certain white pearl necklace from Bruce's personal history) and the tribe proceeds to bury Old Man under stones. Giant is annoyed that the stranger doesn't teach them something like "shining ones are supposed to", Joker (I think) labels him "Man of Bats" due to the bats who preceded Bruce's emergence from the cave I imagine...
There's some insight into the tradition of the tribe as Man now is in the position of Old Man and must pass on the oral history of the tribe to Boy (who is in the process of trying to become Young Man), but before anything of that sort can happen, Blood Mob attacks!
Bruce leaps to the defense of his new "family" on instinct but the odds are too great, Man dies, Bruce gets a hand up on the Blood Chief, but the numbers again prove too much and the Chief, whose grasp of language is far better than the other cavemen for some reason, takes the white necklace, and prisoners, while Boy watches from the bushes.
The Blood chief, with a giant bat mounted on a pike, announces to his tribe that he has brought them gifts AND labels himself "Chief Savage", solidifying the notion that he is indeed Vandal Savage, the Cro-Magnon who gained immortality & enhanced intellect from radiation, leading the Blood Tribe. He's got Bruce, he's got the rocket, and is going to kill the former at sun rise. Why not now? Who knows...maybe he thinks the Man-God/Sky Man is weaker in the daylight.
Bruce is restrained, hands and feet bound, and left laying out in the elements with some hungry dogs and the freaky Giant bat looking over him. The bat seems to come to life, Bruce experiences some visions:
And awakes to find a prehistoric version of Robin in "Boy", his face painted like a domino mask & rocking the utility belt, as you can see above, as well as a shield painted with a bat logo. Bruce & Boy escape, with Wayne instinctively finding/taking penicillin from his belt, and leaving the scene until morning. Savage emerges from his tent in the AM, ready to "kill a god and eat his heart", only to find his dogs dead, the giant Bat gone and...
Bruce leaps into action against Savage, decked out in Bat-regalia, while Boy, declaring that The Deer People are now The Bat people (the eventual Miagani tribe presumably), also joins the fray. Bruce uses all the tools at his disposal in the utility belt to defeat Vandal, reclaims the white necklace as Boy makes note that something is happening to the sun (thinking that Savage had angered it). Bruce heads towards the sun, in mid-eclipse, Boy following behind with Blood Mob in pursuit...
They leap, hit the water, but only Boy emerges from the falls. The Blood Tribe turns on Savage, thinking he made the sun go away, and as he retreats, Superman, Green Lantern, & Booster Gold appear in the sky, aware of Bruce's situation as we know from "Missing Chapter", tracking the Omega Radiation through time. Supes doesn't hear Batman's heartbeat in this time, but what we do know is that "...if Batman makes it back to the 21st century on his own...everyone dies", at least that's what Supes says.
Cut to Bruce underwater, pulled from the depths by a woman as he says "Where's the boy", she calls Bruce "Master Demon" which he fails to notice it seems because something else has their attention:
Bruce fends off this octopus-thing with a sword (note the dead body at his feet) but wakes up to this woman reciting gibberish with a ferret/familiar on one shoulder, and dangling over the other shoulder, the Wonder Woman & Superman sigils. Now I suppose that means there is some potential connection between this woman and the Miagani tribe upon whose caves Bruce initially drew those symbols. Crazy to think that they persisted from prehistoric times until this time frame that hasn't been quite identified yet.
Morrison has always had a thing for sigils and the power they could potentially represent and I suppose the idea that these symbols, the ones of DC's Trinity, persisting through time for centuries gives them a power unlike any other.
As for the story, Bruce can't remember his name again...only able to recall a "W"...and this women seems to be a little more aware than your average bear because she senses that "...a great dark god as set his hand upon (Bruce)".
The Time Masters team (a loosely tied in mini-series that seemed to be more "Flashpoint" build that "Return of Bruce Wayne" connected) hit Vanishing Point in their continued trace of Omega energy. VP is essentially located at the last moment of time before universal heat death and essentially contains all known history in its archives, which are managed by a Bio-organic Archivist, apparently something common in the 64th Century.
The archivist lays out one concept of how time works, something familiar to anyone who knows Morrison's work with it's multiple timelines, time happening simultaneously, hypercube time, things living in that time with "scale and depth and dimensions we can only begin to imagine", so sayeth Rip Hunter. The archivist shows a projection of a "hyperfauna infestation" that looks suspiciously like the creature Bruce fought in the beginning of this chapter. Supers sets his keen eyes on the timelines, looking for the Omega trail, needle in a haystack.
Something that could be major, or minor, the Archivist mentions Space A & Space B....Bat-Might from "RIP" claimed to be form Space B & there was mention of Space B in Morrison's "Animal Man" run too...just a lil' side note. Actually now that I'm looking it up, it's a much bigger theme in Morrison's work as the Sun-Eater from "All Star Superman" travels through Space B, Rip Hunter fought Mr. Mind in Space B in "52" which Morrison had a hand in, so it's safe to say Grant loves Space B. I guess it's just all part of this Hypertime thing...
Back to Brucie, or whomever he may be, right now still acting as a detective of sorts in a very Puritanical looking setting, pulling impaled bats off the doors of churches, looking for the culprit. It seems the local women are trying to frame the woman who helped Bruce out earlier...oh and by the way it seems he has taken on the name Mordecai. Sound familiar? That's one of the people from the Wayne family portrait collection a few blogs back, the one that Damian pointed out looked a lot like his father. What a perceptive lad...and we also met a man named Malleus, and a Flemish painter named Van Derm is also mentioned. He was the guy who painted Mordecai's portrait that hangs in Wayne Manor in the present day...
So remember how I said note the dead body? Well I'd say it's safe to say that amnesiac Bruce has assumed the identity of said corpse, who just so happened to be his own relative Mordecai, and is finding a common bond in the woman, named Annie, as they are both lost & alone.
So we see Martin Van Derm making that portrait of Mordecai, noting Wayne's heavy scarring from his "...defense of God's creatures", to which Mordecai simply states his memory is hazy after being waylaid en route to Gotham (the first time it's referred to as such). He insists that Van Derm draws the book into the sketch so Bruce can remember it and what it contains. They are interrupted by Malleus who mentions a Bristol Bay (another Gotham name that persists to present day) and a dragon sighting in the area. Mordecai leaves his book with Van Derm & heads off to investigate...
A witness says he saw the 7 headed, 10 horned dragon feasting on men until the bats came out and ran it off. Bruce rocks his detective skills some more when they find a dead body, Malleus makes note of a coming eclipse which sets some gears spinning in Bruce's head. Safe to say that the dragon is the hyperfauna from the beginning of this chapter...
Bruce seems to be getting some memory back, remembering that Annie decked him out in dead man's clothes, she leads him to the caves of the people who were there before, the Miagani, the Bat-people. Bruce recollects that he's been in the caves before, deduces that Annie is responsible for the death of the real Mordecai via her summoning of the "dragon", the dragon that bursts forth out of the water in the cave. She talks about her gods being "gods of the wheel of time and the never-ending world", "old lords of the land and the sky"....making me wonder if she wasn't connected, either consciously or un-, to the New Gods, Darkseid, etc.
Annie flees only to get nabbed by Malleus & his crew who find the WW & Supes sigils (perhaps burying their existence?), and he also mentions that it is "Gotham Town" at that moment in time to give you an idea of the size. Malleus crew set fire to everything while Bruce battles the "dragon", realizing something is wrong.
Meanwhile at Vanishing Point, The Archivist says "Annie" as he encases the Time Masters crew in a bubble...
In the panel that follows that I couldn't find an image of The Archivist drops his mask to reveal that it's been Bruce all along, telling the group "You'll all just have to trust me" as he takes the time sphere and leaves them behind while Supes attempts to explain how Bruce is now a walking Doomsday weapon.
Malleus has Annie hung but as the noose is placed around her neck she cries that "...I know your name, Malleus" followed by...
So Malleus was another Wayne all along...and Annie is the 2nd person to curse a Wayne as Vandal Savage did the same while being exiled from the Blood Tribe. Bruce enters the water once again while Annie casts her curse "until the end of time", and the text becomes experts from the journal...presumably the one Mordecai left with the Van Derm's, but the writing is likely that of Martin's. Included in these closing moments is a panel of an old man handing over a book while seated in front of the portrait of Mordecai. Much like the way Man was to pass down the Deer Tribe's stories to Boy, Martin is likely doing the same to his offspring.
As for Bruce...
PIRATE TIME!!!
Chapter 3 opens with a flash to the "gotcha!" moment of "FC" just as Bruce get blasted with the Omega Sanction only to wake up on the beaches (the accompanying journal entry by Jack Valor states 1734 but Blackbeard died in 1718 so this writing must be a recollection), to find Blackbeard standing over him, accusing Bruce of being The Black Pirate.
As someone who hadn't read James Robinson's "Starman" before this, I had no frame of reference but now I can point out that the original Black Pirate was Jon Valor and he was hung for the supposed murder of his own son Justin, and cast a curse on the town that would become Opal City to haunt it until his innocence is proven. That's a story in Robinson's excellent "Starman" series if you're curious...
Blackbeard wants the Black Pirate's treasure hoard hidden in Gotham COUNTY catacombs and wants Bruce to show him the way, the way only a ghost knows according to 'Beard. Almost forgot to mention that Bruce has a little flash to his rebirth as Mordecai with Annie...
A cowl is found in the drink, assumed to be Bruce's Black Pirate disguise (which would be an appropriate cape & cowl analog), forcing 'Beard to threatening death on a Jack Loggins who was crew on the ship as well. Loggins offers to lead 'Beard to the treasure, obviously this kid is more than he lets on, further evidenced as he details the history of Bristol Bay where they currently travel. It seems the last of the Deer Tribe joined the Bat-People in the caves, becoming the Ghost-People. Bruce, for his part, busts out some detective skills on Jack's appearance to put his social status in place.
As the group enters the cave, you can see the paintings of the WW, Bats, Supes, and New Gods sigils on the wall, the ones that prehistoric Bruce slapped on there as a marker of his presence back in #1. Something prompts Bruce to whistle, something in the depths of memory perhaps, and some bat-fletched arrows fly out of the walls, and in the walls around them..
The Bat-People are indeed living like bats. Loggins references Jon Valor's death a hundred years prior, Bruce drops some more science on how the methane from the bat-droppings killed people so everyone need douse their torches. A random boot (Bruce's?) sets off a spark though and the pirate's all catch fire right near the underground waterfall (the same water from Bruce's Puritan encounter with Hyperfauna?).
In present day, Dick & Damian search Command-D where Bruce was held captive by Darkseid while Red Robin debriefs the Justice League in a moment that I, as a huge Tim Drake fan, find to be awesome. He lays out how they followed the traces Bruce left in time (I like how he grudgingly calls Damian "Robin") via Bat-symbols in various forms that all tracked back to the cape/cowl/antlers relic Dick found during their search of the manor as covered back in Part 6 of this blog. And for some context as to when this takes place relative to Grant's story in "Batman & Robin", Damian makes a comment about getting back to The Joker, putting this moment somewhere before Dick's hotel room confrontation with "Oberon Sexton" I imagine.
Back to Pirateville as Jack Loggins confesses his true identity as The Black Pirate, Jack Valor, to Bruce while conversely Bruce tells him how he remembers it being 1640 only yesterday, that he thinks he's racing through time for some reason. 'Beard lights his...beard...on fire, presumably to scare off ghosts in the cave while Valor passes the cowl to Bruce. The pirates, thinking there's some conspiring going on, approach Bruce who "falls" off a cliff into the water only to return looking like a badass:
The fight with 'Beard breaks out, Bruce is repeatedly referred to as a ghost by him during it, and the outcome is never in doubt as Bruce defeats 'Beard soundly. Valor references the Miagani language being that of the whistle, hence Bruce's whistle that triggered the trap earlier, and then they force the pirate crew to go jump in a lake...seriously.
Valor introduces Bruce to the last of the Miagani tribe living in the caves, stating they claim direct descent from The First Boy (Boy from Chapter 1) and it seems they have learned to communicate via whistle to herd the bats.
So it seems that, inadvertently, Bruce is the inspiration for the Man-Bat stalactite statue that Dick finds in his searches of the Wayne Manor catacombs in present-day, Bruce IS Barbatos, but that's not the only secret waiting in the caves. There's still something that, if removed, will bring the "all-over" upon us. The "all-over" was mentioned in chapter 1 by the Deer People and I took it to mean a crisis event, and as for what that sacred item is:
The very same thing Tim Drake was talking about a few pages earlier...the cape, cowl, boots, and utility belt with an eclipsing sun painted over them. As for Bruce, he seems to again be experiencing some residual memories as he realizes he wore this clothing, mutters to himself about Miagani, Annie, and Man of Bats.
He & Valor leave the cave, Bruce telling him everything he can remember in the process, entrusting Valor with some important task, almost making him Robin-like in his own rite, before Bruce again disappears into the water under an eclipsing sun. Elsewhere 'Beard makes the joke about Gotham being "born under a black sun"...
Valor tells of his ensuing years pirating and how it was the meeting of a girl that finally settled him down and allowed him to complete his journey on behalf of "the ghost" as he refers to Bruce. He meets the Van Derm brother & sister in Gotham Town who instruct him to place his papers within the Bat-Casket we know from the last few ishs of "B&R" which he say also contained an old book and "something more of which (he) cannot speak". And as his story closes, he speaks of hearing bells tolling, "the bells of the All-Over"...
It's another time jump, this time to two men referencing Judge Solomon Wayne & his deceased brother Joshua as they stare upon his mansion, the one purchased from the Van Derm's, where they are set to meet someone. The panel as they walk in features a familiar card hand:
The 8's & Aces, the Dead Man's Hand, the hand The Joker was dealing in "RIP", except his was red and black, not straight black. And the man dealing the hand...
None other than DC's Wild West bounty hunter, dealing himself a Joker card of course, Jonah Hex. Looks like it's time for Bruce Wayne to visit the old west...
So I was looking to put this all in one post but as I reached this point I realized it was going to be a really long read that way thus I am breaking it up into two parts. The second half will cover the remained of the "Return" mini as well as Morrison's final issue of "Batman & Robin".
