Batman: The Grant Morrison Odyssey - Level 8, Part 2

Part 1: Batman & Son
Part 2: Club of Heroes/Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
Part 2.1: Devil-Bats & The Bridge to RIP
Part 3: RIP
Part 4: The Missing Chapter/Last Rites/Final Crisis
Part 5: Batman Reborn
Part 6:Blackest Knight/Batman vs. Robin
Part 7: Batman & Robin Must Die!!!
Part 8: Return of Bruce Wayne Part 1

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"

Batman: The Grant Morrison Odyssey - Number 6

Part 1: Batman & Son
Part 2: Club of Heroes/Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
Part 2.1: Devil-Bats & The Bridge to RIP
Part 3: RIP
Part 4: The Missing Chapter/Last Rites/Final Crisis
Part 5: Batman Reborn

So we left off in Part 5 with Morrison using Red Hood/Jason Todd (literally now the red-headed stepchild former Robin) to question how Dick could NOT use a Lazarus Pit to bring Bruce Wayne...the "real" Batman...back from the dead. So what do we get to kick off this 2nd HC Volume?  That "whoah!" image pasted up above.  Dick, carrying the corpse of Bruce Wayne, presumably headed for a pit...

BLACKEST NIGHT INTERUPPTION!!!

Some quick background information before we get deep into this story and it all centers around that zombie looking Batman above.  For those who may not have cared to read it, and as a refresher for those who did, the Green Lantern opus "Blackest Night" that took over the DCU for several months featured a villain by the name of Black Hand walking around with the skull of Batman for several issues after committing some serious grave robbing.  Eventually, as a way to sucker other formerly dead heroes onto the dark side (Supes, Flash, GL, for example) he resurrected Batman into the Black Lantern Bats you see above.  It was a quick resurrection compared to all the rest, and one that didn't feel quite like the rest (more on that later), but following the close of the "BN" story, in some unseen story beat, Dick Grayson presumable reclaimed the skull and moved it from a graveyard to the safer containment unit we saw at the close of the last volume & the start of this one.

All caught up now? Good...

So we jump head first from that initial page into Batman, now in England, jumping from an exploding ferris wheel, carrying a child, and immediately heading off to avert the next disaster, this time in the form of dirty bombs planted by a King Coal, while being directed by Squire.  What a way to throw the reader straight into chaos! It's an awesome action sequence following Dick as he uses every means possible to cover as much ground as conceivable through London while Squire does the same just in time for the two to meet in mid-air as she crashes out a window on her motorcyle!  Cameron Stewart's awesome...

So they stop the bombs, saving a villain named Smooth Eddie English in the process (whose black & white get-up looks like reversed dominoes to me) then head over to Basement 101 which is described by The Beefeater (the Basement's jailer & one-time member of the Global Guardians) as "her majesty's extra-secure facility for so-called para-criminals".  So something like Iron Heights rather than Arkham I suppose...

Anyway, once there Dick meets up with The Pearly King of Crime (Eddie's pop whose clothes also looks like a reverse domino) and we learn the truth behind the misadventures that opened this story.  It looks like there's an abandoned coal mine in England being contested over between The Pearly Court & The Coals From Newcastle, and Dick's got a sneaking suspicion of just what is in that pit.  Oh, and Pearly just so happens to be playing a game of dominoes...

...specifically a variation called The Mexican Train according to Dick.  Kind of humerous how Pearly remarks that "You're a young man than what I thought" before espousing all his reasons for not revealing just what is in this abandoned mine, yet somehow seeming to state a lot.  Squire inquires as to just what the hell is going on as Bats had her send Knight a diagram, mentioned a Shipment X, and informed her that "my regular partner's out of commission", referring to Damian who was riddled with bullets courtesy of Flamingo when we last saw him.

This scene immediately made me flashback to the initial "Batman & Son" HC where...

 

Talia is quite pissed off at Damian's decision to remain in Gotham with Bruce dead, chalking it up to a phase he's going through before he accepts "his destiny as the heir of Al Ghul".

Back to Bats & Squire who are flying around on nifty little personal Bat-Copters which remind me of something from an older Bat-Time, and they converge on the abandoned mine, which is also a convergence of ley lines (theoretical lines of spiritual power), and this all is going down at Mid-Winter/Winter Solstice/Longest Night of the year. 

Obviously from their conversation Squire is aware of just who stepped into the shoes of Batman, likening Dick to The Knight (who took over the role from his father), but Dick quickly retorts that if all works out "I'll be back in my pixie boots by New Year's".  Once in the mine Dick shows his hand to Squire, so to speak, revealing that Pearly gave him the layout of the mines via the shape of the dominoes.  They are assaulted by King Coal's men, all glowing yellow for whatever reason, perhaps to look like ghosts, and they are quickly subdued by Bats, Squire, and The Knight who is already down in the cavernous maze. 

Coal's men were carrying a coffin and "chanting about the twice-daughter of something" according to The Knight.  Long-time Bat readers will immediately recognize the identity of the person that references, but Morrison doesn't force you to wait long as the coffin explodes and...

Batwoman, who Stewart draws wonderfully just like he does with everything, fills in the blanks as she explains the tie between King Coal & The Religion of Crime. There's a prophecy stating "...the knight of the beast will rise right here, on the darkest night of the year."

Dick immediately straightens that out, telling her that it is Batman being resurrected, not a monster. She questions who she is talking to, Dick explains Batman's death, and how Superman verified the identity of the corpse via bone marrow DNA, just by looking.  Squire makes a comment in the background that The Pit is bubbling, a tell that Batman's corpse has already been dropped in the mire, presumably by The Knight, which he confirms a page later.  Dick approaches The Pit, trying to convince himself he's doing the right thing if you ask me (funny from the guy who talked Tim Drake out of doing the same in "Resurrection"), and prepares for the usual temporary insanity that takes hold post-Lazaraus by donning some serious looking electro-shock gloves.  Here we go...

Given those images at the bottom, this plan obviously goes awry...

But before we can get to that fun, we get the backstory of how Batwoman ended up in the mine tunnels.  It all started when she followed a Crime Coven (like "Mary Poppins with a satanic ninja twist" she says) from Gotham into the undergrounds of England.  Trailing right beind a legion of kids chanting for their Prophet Martyr Mannheim (a reference to crime boss from "52"), she sees Smooth Eddie get loaded into the train Bats saved him from last issue. 

Flashback to a panel of Batwoman telling Batman this story at the side of The Pit, elaborating on the Crime Bible prophecy about the rise of a black messiah at the dawn of the age of crime.  She think putting Batman in The Pit is indicative of the prophecy, Dick obviously refuses to buy into that one ("There is no God of Evil in there", is Darkseid that God?).  Bruce rises from The Pit, The Knight's simple statement of "look at his eyes" screams of something being wrong, and the first words from the resurrected Batman being "AAAAAA!" seconds that notion.  Dick punches him in the face with the shock-knucks, he basically laughs it off, prompting Dick to question, "What are you?"

And the answer is...

One of the clones, as seen in the "Last Rites" chapters of this story, that Darkseid had his minions attempting to create out of the hurt, pain, and memories of Bruce Wayne, the ones who started clawing their own eyes out from the sheer amount of trauma.  Apparently one survived, hence the reason why the DNA looked the exact same to Supes when he scanned it, but also why the resurrected BL Batman didn't react to the heroes around him in "Blackest Night" the same way all the other resurrected Black Lanterns did (so noted by Flash & GL in the last issue of that mini-series).  So what's it time for....

BATFIGHT!!!

This Bat-Clone is too strong, too deadly, and overcomes the combined onslaught of Dick, Knight, Squire, and Batwoman. Fighting to killing according to Dick, which is the giveaway that this is in fact NOT Bruce, prompting a little "told you so" from Batwoman just as King Coal triggers an explosion from up above.  The rubble comes down right on top of Batwoman, allows Bat-Clone to get free, and gives us a moment to flash to Gotham where Alfred goes to check on the vault where the Bat-Corpse was being kept.  To Alfie's shock the corpse is gone...obviously Dick didn't tell him what he was planning either.

Batwoman is dying, Alfred is gathering Damian and informs him that "...Master Richard has taken the taunts of The Red Hood to heart  & done something rather rash".  What I find really interesting here in this single panel is how Alfred calls him Red Hood, not Jason Todd, and definitely not Master Jason like he does the rest of the Wayne family.

Batwoman dies in the arms of Grayson but prior to she recognizes that this Batman is the same as the person (Nightwing) who gave her a Batarang at Christmas (another "52" moment).  Dick removes her wig at BW's request and she says she has an idea.  What that is must remain a secret for the moment as Knight & Squire tunnel to that Bats' location to find the female of the pair dead. Meanwhile, King Coal escapes, joyous that The Beast is loose and the new Age of Crime has come.

Using a stolen plane Bat-Clone returns home to Gotham, Damian discovers what Dick's plan was as Alfred gets tossed into the room by the Clone. Damian looks at the Bat-Clone and says, perhaps hopefully, perhaps questioning, "Father?"

Hold that thought cause we are back to the caverns and Batwoman's dead body.  What was her idea again? Oh yes, to have Dick overdose her on Morphine and toss her corpse into The Lazarus Pit! "I'd heard she was well hard..." as Squire says.

In the midst of digging through rocks & rubble, we get some nice character interaction between Bats, Knight, & Squire as Cyril (Knight) confesses he was terrified of Dick when he was Robin & Cyril was Squire. Dick takes a playful knock at Cyril, calling him "...a spoiled kid with a few boxing and jujitsu lessons who copied my act".  Dick, in another moment of insight, explains how it was all in the fighting style that he realized the Bat-Clone wasn't Batman, "...like a good song in the hands of a really bad singer..."

Back to a wheelchair-bound Damian & the Bat-Clone in Gotham.  Damian realizes it's a copy, "...smells of bleach and rancid flesh", while the combined efforts of he & a barely conscious Alfred do their best to survive.  The broken dialogue of Bat-Clone reveal his mental damage, speaking in single letters, broken words, looking like text messages from a teenager, as he stalks Damian (who has now abandoned his chair) through Wayne Tower.

That page gives us a look at the fractured thoughts & memories that were dumped into the clone body by Darkseid's minions. Stewart makes this look just as painful as described when they were being filtered through The Lump during "Last Rites".  It's great work...

Clone-Bat, in his broken fashion, referes to Damian as a mistake, his replacement, sent to taint the bloodline for all time. Damian, whilst tossing a live eletrical wire at Bat-Clone, retorts with "Stepping in gasoline was your biggest mistake".

Back to the tunnels where Batwoman is reborn from The Lazarus Pit, albeit with none of the psychotic side effects, and her father (she calls him her Military P.O.C in front of the others) finally gets into the caves as well to offer Dick a return ticket to Gotham.

Bat-Clone emerges from the fire Damian started, grabs the boy by the throat, and, with Alfred watching on, tosses the kid off the side of Wayne Tower. 

Nick of time and all that...

The Bat-Clone recounts the death of Martha Wayne in it's own broken fashion, "See hur...hur purls spill down broadway in the rain", while Alfred prepares to fight if necessary.  The Bat-Clone actually asks Alfred to "puh-puh-patch me up", showing that even the bond to Alfred seeped into the clone, while Batwoman & Dick enter the scene for another awesome Stewart fight sequence...

The next page, as has become customary in 2-person fight sequences in this book, end with a DOUBLE PUNCH on Bat-Clone.  Dick hits on Batwoman, citing his love of crimefighting redheads, and questioning whether or not this means the dawn of a new age of crime.  Back in England, Knight & Squire get after King Coal and that scene, of course, end with a DOUBLE PUNCH courtesy of England's version of Batman & Robin!

Dick explains and apologizes (how unlike Bruce) to Damian (who is already on his feet training) & Alfred how he likes to work without a net, possibly ironic considering how it contributed to the death of his parents. Alfie points out Dick's own warnings to Tim about using a Lazarus Pit on loved ones, which brings his train of thought ultimately to the conclusion that Tim Drake was right all along...

Another quick backstory for those who didn't ever pick up "Red Robin"...essentially, from day one, Tim Drake thought that Bruce was still alive, took on the identity of Red Robin once used by Jason Todd after Dick gave Robin to Damian, went on a worldwide quest that brought him into alliegiance with Ra's Al Ghul, before eventually finding evidence of that bat logo on a cave wall (as seen in "Final Crisis" & "Lost Chapter"). There's a lot more to Tim's story but Grant didn't write it so that's just the part that's relevent to Dick's...um....revelation....

So with the next part of our story we've got a new direction, trying to figure out just what the hell is the story with Bruce Wayne?  But first, time to address an issue that has been lingering in the background for the entire run of this series: Wayne Industries.  Several times over, whether it be from Alfred or from Lucius Fox, it was been pushed that Dick Grayson needed to get involved in the family business to which he generally retorted that it wasn't his area of expertise.  Well the littlest Wayne promised to look in the family biz...

Damian, actually standing in front of the board, points out the financial irregularities he's found, primarily a steadily increasing amount of money pooled into the Thomas Wayne fund for victims of railroad accidents.  Lucius states that they are under strict orders to honor that memory but suspicions have been aroused while Damian implies that a member of the board may be guilty of these irregularities.

Meanwhile Bats  meets up with the returning Oberon Sexton to discuss the Domino killer issue that has been floating around since the first issue.  Sexton has amassed a map of the victims thus far, all members of The Black Glove, including the dead Cardinal that was first mentioned/noted in that Le Bossu moment that overlapped into "RIP" & "Batman & Robin".  Also mentioned by Sexton is the missing-presumed-dead Jezebel Jet as well as Bruce Wayne being the next likely target, hence why Sexton is in Gotham City.  He puts it out there that perhaps, in light of the accusations against the Wayne Family (put out by The BG), perhaps Bruce is tied up in The BG as well.  Batman states that the evidence is a joke, but heads off after receiving a call before continuing on with that line of conversation.  What rushed Dick away in such a hurry?

The decision to search Wayne Manor (first time we've seen it since RIP) for clues to just where/when Bruce Wayne may be.  Before the search truly gets underway Dick mentions to Alfred how familiar Sexton seems and that something big is going down.  BTW, it's also nice...in a rather damaged way...to see Alfred make note of the booby traps El Sombrero placed in the mansion.

Dick notes how the JLA believe the Omega Effect displaced Bruce in time and how Tim believes Bruce has left clues in the past to allow those in the present to track him. As Dick puts it, "We can't talk to the past, but the past can talk to the future."

Which brings us to the scene above...a chronologically hung series of portraits of the Wayne family patriarchs beginning with a Mordecai Wayne up through Bruce's father Thomas with one missing gap. Another Thomas Wayne, this one from the 1760s, who apparently led a sect of devil worshippers...our story unites with the story told in "The Missing Chapter" & to a degree in "Dark Knight, Dark City".

The story goes that Thomas & his crew summoned a Bat-Demon of the Miagani Tribe and made all sorts of bargains, leading Dick to question if anything happened to "...associate this place with bat gods and bat tribes and devils?"

Damian notes how much the picture of Mordecai looks like Bruce, leading Alfred to remark the remarkable facial similarities between the Wayne patriarchs. Dick, knowing Bruce like he does, elects to look at everything as a potential clue, starting with the book in Mordecai's hand. Where did it end up? What's Mordecai's story?

There's a casket in Joshua Wayne's hand, another pic that looks a lot like Bruce, and he appears to be looking at something. Where is he? What's the casket?

Dick finds another painting, this one of Darius Wayne, the Revolutionary War hero of the family, riding horseback in front of burning ships and under the constellation of Orion. A coincidence that Orion was also the New God whose death Bruce was investigating in Final Crisis?

Damian begans to question the possibilities of Bruce actually being alive, the possibility that he is in the here & now but changed by his experiences so that the Bat Family doesn't even realize it. 

There's a lot of information filtered into just a few pages by Morrison, but I want to point out something very cool I discovered while doing all this, something I didn't know initially.  All those portraits on the Wayne Manor wall are of characters who actually existed in continuity, not ones Grant made up.  Check this other blog out here to see for yourself.  Warning, it's got some spoilers from "Return of Bruce Wayne"...

We take a break from the Mansion search to check in on Sexton as he gets another mystery phone call, presumably from El Penitente.  What's most interesting about this chat to me is how "Mr. Sexton" is placed in quotes just like that, essentially stating that this man is now who he claims to be.  The Mexican Train is again referenced, the 99 Fiends are mentioned for the first time, and those are likely the individuals creeping up on Sexton's hotel room as he speaks.  Sexton escapes...

Dick & Damian enter the library, the painting of Thomas & Martha Wayne looming large over the fireplace. Alfred informs the duo that the Mordecai painting was only added to the gallery in the 19th century and it doesn't fit the official genealogy, further evidence that it may be a picture of Bruce. He also points out that Joshua & Solomon Wayne were "conductors" on the Underground Railroad.

Damian questions, sorrowfully it seems, if he & Dick will still be B&R if his father is alive? Dick jokes with Damian about how Bruce wouldn't put up with him, perhaps failing to realize the gravity of the question and the level of Damian's worry, more focused on the clue hunting (Bruce would likely be the same, minus the jokes).  On the fireplace Dick discovers a correlation with the Darius Wayne picture (Orion's belt, hunter, horse head) and finds the secret passage aluded to by Bruce in "The Missing Chapter".

Damian flashes back on his time with Talia post-surgery, her insistance that he return to her side, that Dick Grayson isn't fit to be Batman, to which Damian begins to defend him but is abruptly cut off by his mother. The flashback ends with Damian stating that he "...won't be your weapon against them, mother" to which she retorts "We'll see".

The swing fails as Dick falls through a hidden passage, Damian realizes his mother did something to him, and a panel focusing on Talia has her stating "Summon my executioner".  Dick stumbles through another secret passage, his connection to Alfred getting bad, and finds something familar from "Missing Chapter":

Alfred discovers a "Corpse Road" centered around the Wayne family cemetery as well as a Garden of Death while Damian, in shock/panic/horror over whatever Talia has done, stumbles into said cemetary and the arms of Oberon Sexton, still hunted by the 99 Fiends.

Damn that was a dense chapter! But before we can get back to the adventures of Damian & Sexton, it's time for a little detour south of the border...



The "W" on this man's back has a couple of different potential meanings.  We know this is El Penitente from seeing those same scars on his back at the close of the Red Hood arc in the last volume, and as you can read above, it is refered to as a "double you. The mark of the shadow. The dark twin." I suppose that all fits because if the letter V or U were to cast a shadow next to itself, it would look like a W.  Still given the presumed identity of Penitente as Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne, a presumption visually confirmed a couple pages later, the "W" is just as likely symbolic of the Wayne family name.  Hurt sets out to "...reclaim what was always rightfully mine" as he boards a helicopter bound for Gotham City.

Back at the Manor Dick has discovered the hidden room, pointing out that despite the fact Thomas Wayne lived & presumably died in the 18th century, the "Barbatos" paint is within a year old, and there's a giant bat-symbol on the ground that, when stood upon, reveals a rail tunnel, likely part of the Wayne's history with the Underground Railroad, and kind of playing into the whole Mexican Train idea too.

Damian & Sexton are surrounded by 4 of the 99 Fiends, all named after demons & denziens of Hell.  They fend them off somewhat easily but Damian again realizes that there's something wrong with him which cues the story over to mommy dearest herself: Talia Al Ghul.  Apparently, with the addition of the new spine, she also installed some virtual control element, enabling the user of this device to essentially control Damian like a puppet.  It also seems she has a specific "consultant" in mind to take control of her son for this operation...

Back to Grayson as he explores the "Corpse Road" under the manor grounds, leading him to some old abandoned water source, a location he immediately recognizes as the one in which the painting of Joshua Wayne is set.  I like the little mention of the Gotham earthquake Dick throws out, just a nod to the book's history that fits perfectly within the framework of what is happening in-panel. 

Dick stumbles upon a giant stalactite carved into what he calls a "half human, half bat guy" which Alfred nails as Barbatos and again mentions the Miagani Tribe and the antics of Thomas Wayne's devil-worshipping cohorts. Dick ventures beyond a twisted gate, broken off its hinges, and begins to lose contact with Alfred as something distorts the signal.

Up above Damian & Sexton continue to fight the Fiends, Naberius mutters something about "...deep underground...Barbatos wakes...", revealing some form of connection between this individuals and the demon, further solidifying for me that Dr. Hurt is the Thomas Wayne that summoned Barbatos since he's the guy directing this party despite Naberius' assertion that the 99 Fiends have no master.

Alfred realizes that Alan Wayne's crypt is the centerpiece of the "Garden of Death" while Sexton comments on the demonic origins of all the Fiends names.  Damian, as astute as his father was, realizes that Sexton (who btw either just produced a domino from his coat or found one on Naberius' body) is faking his British accent.  Damian just has one real question:

Sexton refutes the question, simply stating that he was here to stop Bruce Wayne from being killed, apparently by the Domino Killer. Damian sees through the story, questioning why a killer who has worked alone would suddenly have hired guns, but Sexton keeps moving on, trying to open up the vault of Alan Wayne.  Damian is still struggling inside too, stating "My spine was replaced. My mother put something inside me." as Talia & her Consultant watch on, and with a shovel across Sexton's head, take over.

Grayson emerges from the tomb, clutching the casket seen in the Joshua Wayne painting, only to be met by a shovel attack of his own from Damian.  Who's driving this meat puppet:

Slade Wilson aka Deathstroke...the long-time foe of Dick Grayson & The (Teen) Titans, an appropriate choice for Talia to use to murder Grayson.  Slade pushes Damian's body hard, trying to kill Grayson, and making sure that Dick knows who is running the show.  Damian begins to fight the control, giving Dick the opportunity to use those fancy shock-knucks to disrupt the control, while more of the Fiends begin to converge on the scene.

Control is broken, one of the fiends recovers the Bat-Casket that Dick found underground, yelling "BARBATOS!" just before Alfred turns the giant water cannons on them.  The Fiends flee, Sexton tells Dick to meet him at his hotel so they can talk, "I fear this is only the beginning...", and Deathstroke convulses on the floor.

Dick recalls his memory of the how he found the Bat-Casket, Damian insists they go see Talia, and Alfred reveals some of his findings.  Not only is the initial design of the mansion (circa 1795 & Darius Wayne) a stylized "W" but when you tack on the additions over the years, the outline of the funeral garden paths, it turns into a giant Bat-Signal!

The dynamic duo head to Talia for a little heart-to-heart and while Damian talks to mom, Dick smacks Deathstroke around a bit.  Talia shows Damian his clone prompting the kid to question why his mother can't love him for who he is.  Her response is cold but expected, "That's not my nature. I'm too much of a perfectionist."  So what does Damian have to say...

Back to Gotham where Penitente/Hurt/Thomas Wayne is arriving, the Bat-Casket in the possession of The Fiends, and the last remaining Black Glove member, Senator Vine, at Hurt's side...well at least until he slides on a black glove of his own and presumably kills him. Curious part of their conversation to me is Vine asking "It's him isn't it?" to which Hurt replies "Oh, indeed. Coming at us out of the east".  Its safe to assume this means Vine knows who is killing off the BG members, but what made me curious was the "coming out of the east" line.  Near as I can find that is some biblical reference to the son of man & Matthew 24:27.

Back at Wayne Manor Alfie, Dick, & Damian return to the caverns to verify the Barbatos stalactite as well as find a Bat-Cowl held to the cave walls by antlers with black sun painted over it.  Dick's response, "Alert the Justice League", as he begins to connect the dots between Thomas Wayne, Barbatos, devil worhsip, and the Underground Railroad.  He also connects the dots on Oberon Sexton's identity and heads off to his hotel to close that case.  What does he find, besides the Black Glove connections between the Domino Killer victims?  They were all killed in some form of a joke, and who else could it be:

Getting revenge on The Black Glove for trying to make him a puppet during "RIP" makes sense, but helping out Batman & Robin? That's a new one for The Joker who presumably underwent another of his personality changes after being driven off a bridge by Damian in "RIP". This defintely isn't the "Clown at Midnight" persona we last saw. 

So it's all coming to a head now with Thomas Wayne in Gotham and looking to reclaim what he believes is rightfully his while the Wayne clan begins to unravel the mystery of Bruce's whereabouts. It all continues next time as we look at beginnings of "Batman & Robin Must Die!"