Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Batman, Detective Comics and All-Star Batman

Sales of Secret invasion seem to suggest otherwise.

At any rate, DC did learn from Sinestro Corps War. That's why RIP and the upcoming Superman crossover are unfolding the way they are. That's also part of why Final Crisis is comparatively self-contained.

The fanbase is rewarding DC for this by....well, by buying just about everything that says "Secret Invasion" on it.

A great analysis of individual issues of Morrison's Batman run can be found here. Start from the bottom though and work your way up.

I just spent an hour reading them, and its great stuff, and helped me refresh my memory of what's gone down so far.

I honestly have no idea where this is going and that pleases me. Like most of you, I'd imagine, there are a handful of guesses I'd be able to make but honestly they'd just be guesses.

I do think "Batman is crazy" or "Batman is actually the Black Glove" is a red herring. I love, love, love the fact that Honor Jackson, Bat-Mite and the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh are a way for Batman's psyche to combat psychological attacks.

I'm in love with this run. For the first time in years (decades?) I think Batman might be DC's best [in-contiuity] comic. Its certainly surpassed JSA, and is tied with GL at least.

LOLCatz sez, "Ai RIPz all yer Bats-Man comix!"

If Batman has Bat-Mite, Catwoman should have LOLCatz.

Thanks for the annotations Cobie. I luvs me some annotations (especially for Morrison), but wonder about more and more comics needing annotations...

Anyways, it's good to go back and see what I missed.

I'm the same way FC. I love annotations, especially like here, but I've got to wonder if its a good thing that there's such a pre-existing gap to be filled by these annotations.

listened to comicbookqueers podcast and one of the hosts suggested this: <span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">the black glove is the devil, perhaps Neron. this came from something grant morrison said on his site which was basically "it's very upfront". here's the quote "Can YOU guess the identity of the Black Glove? I keep thinking it’s so upfront, so obvious, that readers will inevitably demand an impromptu hanging when the reveal is revealed but, as ever, the looming possibility of public execution is part of the fun of writing BATMAN."</span></span>

ok so ... the podcast made me want to pick it up again. the host suggested that all the things that gordon was throwing out at the beginning was more like morrison talking to us going "it's not this, this, or this".

i want to read this but i need your help, guys! a big problem i was having was that i didn't understand what order to read these in! the checklist doesn't seem to list in chrnono-order!

Okay so while Morrison plays with Batman's mind, Dini is messing with his heart. The latest issue of 'Tec is full of Hush being sick and twisted, Scarecrow being creepy, and a hell of an ending.

This book truly deserves more spotlight.

Really, the entire story is in "Batman", all the rest is tangential to the main plot (some things on the checklist don't even fit in in any discernible way). At best they just fill in holes like "What the heck were XXXXX doing when Batman disappeared?". Stick with just the Batman title and you'll be fine.

thanks so much rouge!!

The latest issue dragged a bit for me. Too much Joker, a character I really don't like, and he's weirder than ever. That's Morrison for you. I don't know if Batman gets the red/black stuff, but I don't. Still, good insights into Batman's thinking throughout this series. I probably need to reread the whole thing in one sitting.

The new issue was pretty good, but obviously just a set up for the finale, moving all the characters into place and revealing the identity of the Black Glove (which was pretty anti-climatic IMHO).

I think I'm enjoying Detective right now more than Batman. Paul is telling a straightforward superhero story, but it's fun, more escapism and easily readable and familiar.

So there you have it.


I actually liked the issue, I'm just concerned with the follow-up as it seems Morrisson's not going to be around for the first part of it.

Glad to see the Uber-Bat Morrisson started in the JLA brought forward to it's logical endpoint (he literally thinks of *everything*), and it was great to see the Squire & company again.

Now what?

Can someone give me a spoiler-filled two or three line summation? I'd like to know basically what happened and how he "dies".

<span class="spoiler_containter"><span class="spoiler_wording">Click Here For A Spoiler</span><span class="spoiler_text">Hurt may or may not be Thomas Wayne but it's not ever actually clearly stated, although Batman denies that he is. Hurt escapes in a helicopter, Batman chases after him, the helicopter crashes, no bodies so neither are likely to actually be dead. Nightwing finds the cowl and broods on a rooftop. Damien knocks Joker into the river with a van (while Joker is driving an ambulance I think) but there's no body so he's not actually dead. Talia sends her Manbat ninjas after Jezebel's plane but again I don't think we see what happens. The issue ends with a jump to six months later with Batman gone, presumed dead. Despite the fact there's no body and everyone knows that means he's not dead. Plus the fact that it's Bruce Wayne in Final Crisis. So really not a conclusion or a final fate of Bruce Wayne either.</span></span>

Scary thing is I've not actually read the issue but the key pages are up on scans daily and various websites have a complete rundown of the issue. I think there's a thread on the Dc boards as well which gives a pretty detailed account of the whole issue too.

I'm going to have to read this all in one sitting. It's a solid story, but the time spread makes it hard for me to grasp all of Morrisson's subtlety. I'll be honest, I didn't feel like I got an ending.

So there ya have it... read the entire R.I.P. storyline in one sitting, finishing up with the recent BATMAN 682 that came out this week.

It's a great read, definitly showing why Bats is my man. We see Bruce at his best, a culmination of all his previous interpretations, including Grant's ultimate Boy Scout shown in JLA. We get a confrontation with the Joker that is still a bit troubling if everything was revealed as shown, both about Bruce and Joker.

Seeing the past and present Robin at work shows how devoted they are to Bruce. Doubts and concerns are pushed aside in order to do the job asked of them.

Hurt and the Black Glove come across as a competent group, if a little enamoured with their own cleverness. The Club of Villains provide great kooks for future adventures reminding us of the fun of the Silver Age.

It's a solid story, capped by this week's #682. The revelation there is a bit surprising, one Grant has actually used before. And it provides for a wealth of story opportunity in Final Crisis before Battle of the Cowl and this Spring's Bat-re-launch.

Okay, so I finally read RIP. Lets not worry about the spoilers completely from here on, because this thing needs some dissection.

Anyone reading this thread can see plainly I've been very high on my opinion of Grant's Batman. That is still the case, but I need to say, I'm not 100% in love with how RIP ended. I liked the entire weird Bat-Mite, Batman of Zur-En-Rrh, Honor Jackson sequence, I loved the Club of Villains and the gathering of Batman's allies in the final issue, and I loved the whole rhythm of the thing. But generally, the finale was a pretty confusing bit!

So Batman isn't insane, he's just so prepared and so sane--so confident in his beliefs even--that he essentially appears insane.

Liked Nightwing and Robin's roles here.

Ceej, what revelation are you speaking of? Is it the Alfred thing? Because I'm not 100% clear on that. I took it that at the end Grant was saying Alfred was always Batman's ally, and the Lump was only messing with his memories. But for awhile, it looked like Alfred was never ressurected after his death in the Silver Age, and the Lump had been posing as Alfred for the entire last 35-ish years! That is quite the twist, and pretty interesting, but I assuredly would hate it if it were true--which it doesn't appear to be. Still, its fascinating.

Dr. Hurt remains a mystery--either just the doctor from "Robin dies at dawn!", the actor from the movie "The Black Glove", or someone more mysterious. I doubt its Thomas Wayne, though I love the idea that the guy continues to make us believe it so.

I love that Bruce realized Jezebal Jet was in on it (because damn that was obvious) and the minute he did, he realized it was the bad in her that attracted him to her all along.

So everyone, go ahead, spoil. Give your theories and interpretations. I've yet to see an interview with Grant going into detail on what he was trying to 'say', and I've read no really great reviews of the story.

Oh, also, I loved Morrison's various recaps and how they go along with so much of his interpretation of Bat's history. His notion of the Joker constantly evolving and reinventing himself (and Batman realizing it years earlier) is genius. The re-inclusion of the original Batwoman into the mythos, and the implied thought she wasn't all that great for Bruce (with a big 'why?' begged by the readers thereafter) is great.

Having read R.I.P. and having both enjoyed AND been severely confused by it, I'm wondering how essentially it is tied to the stories that occurred between it and the Damien arc. Since I've not read the story that introduced the Black Glove, I can't help but think I should've read it first because I don't think Grabt gave new readers to this arc everything they needed to know.

So is R.I.P. just as confusing having read all the prior Morrison arcs or not? Would it help to buy those stories?

R.I.P. really builds on the whole Morrison run. Both the "Club of Heroes", the Joker prose story and the "Three Batmen/Black Casebook" arcs are pretty important in introducing (or "re-introducing" if you were reading for the past 60 years) the players in RIP.

I'm with Lardie -- there was a lot that was very enjoyable about RIP, but I'm not sure I GET the story, and I don't think I've felt that way about a mainstream comic since I was a teenager. I read all the preceding stories EXCEPT the one with the fake Batman shooting the Joker. I think my feelings of dissatisfaction stem from the fact that the story is NOT definitive and standalone--there's all this Final Crisis tie-in, not to mention everything that's going to come after. Maybe that uncertainty should be a good thing, leading to excitement and suspense. But I can't escape the feeling that a story this hyped should have been more definitive and closed-ended. I do, however, give Grant credit for trying to tell a very new kind of Batman story that still builds on everything before, and he certainly didn't spoon feed his readership.

I read all the previous stories by Morrison and I think its just as confusing.

Don't get me wrong--I liked it. But I don't think I've 100% got it. And I'm desperately trying to!

I'm assuming everyone at this point has been reading the Last Rites epilouge Grant wrote in Batman 682-683. Seeing Batman being tortured by the Lump made me wonder if the entire R.I.P. storyline was fake, a mental implant of the Lump. With the release of the second part, it's most definitely not.

So does the Joker know Bruce Wayne is Batman?

From what I gather, and this used to be referenced all the time in the late 80's, is that the Joker is aware on some level that Batman is Bruce Wayne but generally doesn't care or have given it a second thought. His business is with Batman alone, not Bruce Wayne. "Death in the Family" and the stories directly after really followed up on this notion and now Grant seems to as well.

The revelation I thought you were referencing was the possibility that Alfred has been dead since the 1960's and has somehow been the lump, (I see now this was before the second part of the story). I'm *pretty sure* (re: not positive) that Morrison is saying this is not the case.

I really thought it was cool that Morrison set up the subplot of chemical companies being so thoroughly immersed in all of Batman's problems for the duration of his career. It seems like a natural way for him to follow-up on his run when he returns in a few months. Considering how chemicals have effected so many of his foes and his adventures, it seems a natural 'secret enemy' of his for decades.

I keep thinking, the next issue will clear this all up. I read the last three (up to 683, Last Rites). So now I have to get Final Crisis to see what actually happens in the end... nevertheless, I enjoyed R.I.P. and the somewhat surrealistic life review in Last Rites. And it's always great to see Batman do stuff like escape from a buried coffin and turn the tables on criminals. Jezebel Jet gets her comeuppance from Talia; one can only imagine.

They could lose that Damian kid for about 10 years, so annoying. Fortunately, he had a bit part.