Honestly...how do you even talk about an issue that has a cover such as this one or an opening page like this:
Bruce, Dick, Tim, and Alfred...the pallbearers. One grave, a contrast to how we kicked off this adventure. Here's a visual reminder if you don't remember:
There were two graves back in Batman Incorporated #1 (which was tagged as one month earlier), and here there is just the one. So there is still the question of who's body fills in that second grave?
We kick back into the current situation with Bruce being confronted with the monster who killed his son, a monster who (unbeknownst to Bruce) is his son's clone. Just like Damian, the Heretic is arrogant and boasts how he killed "your son" with his sword. Just as he did with Damian (who I believe could have beat him if not for the random bullets & arrows) Heretic seems to underestimate Bruce (his "father") during this fight. He assumes (as most do) that since he beat him before he could do so again, he even calls Bruce "weak and slow" before eating the Batman's fingers into his eyeballs.
Heretic, as Dick "Nightwing" Grayson struggles with Damian's death, even pulls a Bane-moment on Batman and threatens Bruce that he will "break your back". It hearkens back to the fight-montage of not only the previous issue in which Heretic actually did pull Bane's backbreaking maneuver out on Damian (to no success), but also to Batman #497:
Nightwing jumps to the aid of Batman (as he once did waaaaay back in KnightsEnd):
...and the comic begins to meld flash-forwards in with the "NOW" of the book as we see the four pallbearers standing graveside in one panel while the next panel depicts Dick's battle with his "brother".
On one page we have Bruce eulogizing his son while on the next it is juxtaposed with the death of another member of Batman Incorporated, The Knight (Cyril Sheldrake):
There are several intriguing things about the Beryl sequence here. First up, she takes on the identity of The Knight and the fact that she does so in front of Night Ranger further enhances the sequence by playing into the legacy idea behind Batman. Batman first begot the Dick Grayson/Robin creature and eventually Grayson took on the Batman mantle. Theoretically, and if issues like Batman #666 and the recent Son of Batman mini-series are to be accepted as canon, Damian Wayne would have ultimately done the same.
Second, this Night Ranger (Johnny Riley) is another representation of a sidekick (formerly known as Scout) who took on the identity of his mentor.
Third, based on the final two panels of this page...
...there is something out there as far as Lazarus Pits go. Last time we saw a Pit was during Batman & Robin (Vol. 1) #7-9 story arc but, based on this conversation and the fact that we saw some empty grave(s) before, there is a great deal of mileage in this topic.
As we previously saw, Alfred "let" Damian run out into the chaos that let to his death and Bruce, based on this amazing first panel from Burnham as well as his previous page, shows us just how much Bruce is mourning Damian/blaming Alfred. Is it Bruce protecting his life-long ally or is it blame falling on the wrong shoulders? I suppose we will find out down the line...
It certainly comes off like Bruce protecting Alfred and given that the next two pages lay out how Leviathan aims to decimate the Wayne name, it certainly plays out that Bruce is looking to shield his ally. Gotham, WayneCorp, it all comes under fire from Leviathan as they begin to broadcast their version of the "truth" city-wide. It is public knowledge that the Wayne name is affiliated with Batman Incorporated and it is now public perception that Bruce's son has died AND that he has CLOSE connections to the terrorist organization. It doesn't matter what level of truth these rumors hold, all that matters is that the rumors are out there; our 24/7 media cycle will do the damage itself...
The main reason for using this page is because of the 3rd panel and how it further illustrates the FUCKING AWFUL maternal nature of Talia Al Ghul. What kind of parent tells their child, even if it is the clone of their child, to address them by their first name AND essentially says "I'm not your mother"? A seriously damaged terrible human being of a mother...
And as she berates the Heretic for killing Damian, not on her order mind you, he actually stands up for himself and says "I watch. I listen. I learn. I am Batman now." This is what Talia has introduced to the world, a version of Batman that she seems to have even less control over than the real thing...
Bruce is in the process of getting his arse handed to him as Heretic continues to lecture him, in an almost son-to-father fashion, about how he is younger/stronger/faster/bigger than his father/Batman. We are looking at the battle of generations playing out before us. This is the Hulk-Batman decimating Batman-Classic before our eyes...a version of Batman, sans morals and restrictions, aiming to kill his predecessor right in front of we the reader!
There is a difference though. Our Batman-Classic has a family and that family saves him from death at the hands of his bastard child. Unfortunately, simultaneously, his alter-ego is being decimated through political means; Leviathan's hands are everywhere:
Batman is illegal...as he was way back in Batman: Year One and again in the aftermath of Batman: War Games...and we see Jim Gordon having to hide his allegiances as a result. Leviathan has turned Gotham against The Bat, at least to save its own skin, and men like Commissioner James Gordon are now having to conceal their connection as warrants are issued for men like Bruce Wayne.
Thankfully we have men & women like the members of Batman Inc who will battle on despite the odds in front of them. We have people like Nightwing, Dark Ranger, the new Knight, and Red Robin who maintain contact with the rest of the organization and keep things under control. Despite Wingman/Red Hood/Jason Todd being captured by the All-Girls School of Death from Leviathan Strikes!, the unit (shown to be consisting of El Gaucho/Man of Bats/Red Raven/Nightrunner/The Batman of Japan) persists on "finishing it" as Dick Grayson says.
The final pages, looking at them with no words, carried completely by the powerful images presented by Chris Burnham, the angst/anger/rage/sadness is carried across in totality by what is on the page. While that final page may not have any sort of screaming sound effect, it doesn't even need one. It is a page that demands the reader put the scream in there, it demands that Bruce Wayne be screaming loud enough to wake every damn bat in the cave. After all, he just erased his son from existence and had a bit of release via Bat-Cow...
This is it...the issue that DC comics elected to spoil in advance in the NY Post after rampant speculation that the story was building to this point. Hell even if they hadn't spoiled in in the Post, the cover alone was as spoilerific as it gets anyway. With an image like the one above emblazoned on the cover, THIS was an issue that should have been black polybagged, not Age of Ultron #10. I'll save my tangent on spoilers until after this overview though...ON TO THE STORY!!!
First up, the cover is a great homage from Chris Burnham to the Alex Ross painting for R.I.P:
Then we jump onto the very first page with this image that I just found incredibly cool:
It's the green tint, Damian's words as he sees Grayson, the visual of Dick and Commissioner Gordon battling an army of children, it just stands out to me as quite memorable. The following page's visual of Damian, in his Robin armor, blasting over the scene and knocking a kid out just adds to the punch of this scene. The choice of story title, The Boy Wonder Returns, is both sad and triumphant though. It is quite a logical choice given that Damian has been benched from being Robin since the first issue (hence the Redbird stint a couple issues back) and he's hopping back into his proper tights for this issue. Yet, because of the choice to go full-on spoiler for this one and knowing his ultimate fate, it is also a title packed with sorrow knowing it is a short term situation.
Damian rockets off towards Midtown where Wayne Tower is located and his father was left sinking to the bottom of a pool while locked inside a safe.
I can't help but use as much of Burnham's art as possible because I do love it so, particularly the last two panels and the way he depicts the raindrops hitting the pool water with the safe visible under the surface. That love for the art continues with the next page below with the fashion in which Batman is shown trapped inside the safe:
The pool water used as the background, the awkward paneling reflecting the uncomfortable position in which Bruce finds himself trapped, the raw and bloody knuckles, the close shot of his white lensed eyes and bared teeth, plus the safe sitting in the empty corner of the page...it creates a claustrophobic scene.
As for the trap itself, it is a positively "Bond villain" style situation but that is something in no way coincidental. Talia is taunting Bruce, putting him in a trap she knows he will escape eventually but doing so just to keep him occupied.
Jason Masters steps up for some fill-in work as Red Robin (Tim Drake) arrives at the Leviathan controlled Wayne Tower. It's Tim's attention to detail (noticing another woman is wearing Ellie's name tag), combined with Ellie screaming, that saves him from an assault but the save is short-lived. Turns out the entire upper balcony of the lobby is ringed with assassins of both the gun-toting as well as arrow-shooting variety and while some fancy footwork on the giant quarter takes some out of the equation, Tim still finds himself at the mercy of Leviathan's members until...
Once again Damian saves the day, gets away with the child abuse since it's kid-on-kid violence, and shows just why he quite the little badass as he takes down kids & adults alike with his fancy armored suit. Still, Dick gets the chance to throw Damian's opening line of this issue back in his face as he saves him from a volley of gunfire. This gets followed up with a page that, given the spoiler-context with which most everyone entered this issue, while the page is given an entirely different gravity than if it was being read without knowing how the story would end:
Dick Grayson, though generally known as Nightwing, was the Batman that Damian fought beside. He was the partner that allowed Damian to grow, not Bruce Wayne. In some ways, although they would probably think of themselves more like brothers, Dick Grayson was the true father to Damian Wayne. Well, both he and Alfred I suppose, since it was their joint efforts during Dick's run under the cape and cowl that allowed Damian to become something more than a child of the League of Assassins. Under the tutelage of Dick and Alfie, Damian became the hero we are seeing showcased in this specific issue. He is still a bit abrasive but the manner in which Damian talks to Dick is a far cry from what it was back in the Morrison's volume of Batman & Robin. There is respect there now, an admiration for fighting at each other's side, and dare I say it...a genuine love for his father/brother. Damian sums it up the best in the fifth panel, "So far I'd say you've been my favorite partner". Sadly, since we know how this story ends, we also know that the "so far" isn't really necessary...there isn't going to be anyone else added to that partner list.
Burnham, in his ever-growing awesomeness, even throws in a few visual callbacks to the Batman and Robin team with the next page:
Compare that first panel to Frank Quitely's work from Batman & Robin (Vol. 1) #1:
The only thing missing from the Burnham page of Batman '66 sound effects is the double punch that was used so frequently during Morrison's B&R work:
Guess I spoke to soon because enter The Heretic with Oroboros machine in hand:
Didn't quite work out and neither does Dick & Damian's attempt to battle his behemoth clone of Damian. Ellie though, she does her part and sneaks up to steal the Oroboro out from under Heretic as he's occupied with beating his brother/twin to death.
Damian, as he said to Dick before their leap into battle, continues to push that if he can see his mother than he can settle this situation. He firmly believes, even with this monster in front of him, that if he can just talk to her then the problems can be resolved. That is the BOY aspect of this Boy Wonder I suppose...a surprising fout of hope is Damian. Even as the onslaught continues, he pleads for her to stop this. It's truly heartbreaking to see this child essentially begging for his life to his own mother. After everything she put him through, after raising him in the League of Assassins, after nearly becoming a vessel for his grandfather Ra's Al Ghul, after using technology to take over his body, even after all of that, Damian somehow still believes his mother loves him. Maybe she does somewhere inside, but as she allows Heretic to assault her true son, with violence like this...
...it is hard to believe that there is one ounce of love left in her heart. Her desire for vengeance against Damian's father has utterly consumed her, more completely than even Bruce's desire that caused him to become Batman in the first and continue to push him to don the cape & cowl each night.
The detail in the above page is also brilliant. Whether it be artist's choice or script, any backbreaking image used in a Batman comic holds resonance for long-term readers (or anyone who watched Dark Knight Rises I suppose) but the beauty of that scene is that, unlike his father, it doesn't stop Damian. Why not? Likely because of that same surgically repaired spine that Talia and Deathstroke used to co-opt Damian's body back in Batman & Robin.
I also get the sense that, if not for the involvement of the gun & arrow wielding assassins, Damian would have had a fair chance of taking down his clone brother. Even as he is riddled with arrows and bullets, the only biological son of Bruce Wayne remains defiant to his killer, spitting blood in the face (his own face really since this is a clone) of Heretic, but sadly...weakly...begging for his mother to call it off.
The violence and blood of the page are almost uncomfortable, something at a level we rarely see in a Batman comic but one that has been the norm for this leg of the journey. Right from the get-go, with the fight through the slaughterhouse in the first issue, this has been a particularly violent and blood-soaked run.
This is why Talia kept Bruce occupied, this is why she figured out how long it would take him to escape the trap, so that Bruce would know he was absolutely powerless to get their in time and save their son from being murdered. I suppose the same way he was absolutely powerless to save his parents from being executed by Joe Chill (or whoever in the New 52) or to save Jason Todd from his death at The Joker's hands. I suppose the torture of the moment goes two ways as it's also so Damian dies knowing that NEITHER of his parents helped him. His father was not there to stop it and the only way his mother could have been more responsible was if she was the one holding the sword.
Visually speaking this is another impressive page from Burnham, somewhat like the shattered glass page from a couple issues back. It's extra disturbing to me that Talia is just a mouth and words in this entire sequence but those words are as painful, in their own way, as the stab wound. Damian has a physical sword through his heart while Talia is driving verbal daggers into that of his father. The fact that she still refers to this as a game is just so...horrid.
If I recall correctly, that image of Damian's death drew heavy criticism for it's level of gore, violence, and I know some were disturbed by how absent Damian's face was from the scene. Well, after some searching, I tracked down the original image on Bleeding Cool:
Picture that image colored and tell me it wouldn't have been far more disturbing. The sword has penetrated THROUGH Damian and we see his face, his little terrified face, as life slowly slips away and Damian dies knowing his parents were not there for him. That is horror...
...and in the midst of the horror, as this stage of her plan finally comes to fruition, Talia shatters like the glass framing the last two pages. For one brief second she allows herself to feel something for her son's death but it is, as she states, just "..a moment of weakness..."; she really is dead inside isn't she?
And poor Ellie, the former prostitute now Wayne Tower receptionist, the girl that Batman saved from near-certain death on the streets, she sits as observer to the entire tableau. It's not the first Robin we have seen die but given the condition of Damian's body versus that of Jason Todd's...
or Stephanie Brown...
...it's a violently powerful image of death, brutal. I think it is a moment that, had I not had it spoiled, would have made me cry. It brought tears to my eyes, that's no lie, but nothing flowing down my face as was the case with Nightcrawler or Magik when they died in the X-Books. Another fashion in which the NY Post article, and the comic book media blitz that followed, may have ruined some of the experience for this humble reader.
Now in the midst of that heartbreaking image to close the issue there is also fear. Fear of what's to come as represented by the fade-to-black panels of Batman's face. Does that represent the death? Does it represent Bruce losing himself to the darkness within? We only know by picking up the next part of Batman Incorporated!
In the meantime, you can check out my Damian Wayne memorial blog entry here! Or check out my work on Sequart right here!
As for that spoilery stuff, my quick take is that, as I understand the comic book market, while ruining such a monumental plot point as Damian's death will boost your publicity in the moment, it wouldn't do ANYTHING for sales of that issue. By the time they spoiled it, orders had long been placed by the shops so they've already got the money from the first printing. I suppose then the desire is to generate revenue from the inevitable reprints? I truly don't know. Perhaps publicity is the only goal in doing such a thing, such is the world of the corporation...
