Everyone Should Read Grant Morrison's Batman

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R.I.P., THE MISSING CHAPTER. Part 2 - Batman's Last Case

(AKA Batman #702)

Get ready for Batman to die!  Just kidding.  Or am I?  Just kidding.  (Am I?)

p. 1 Orion.  The New God that was killed.

You don't need to know who all those superheroes in the back are.  Just some Justice League extras.  Not as cool as Batman.

p. 4 Wallace.  Wally West, the Flash - generally impressed with Batman.

p. 5 Alpha Lantern Kraken.  Alpha Lanterns are even more powerful Green Lanterns that act as a sort of internal affairs for the Green Lantern Corps.  Kraken, the alien you'll meet on the next page, suspects that Hal Jordan (generally, THE Green Lantern) is the killer they're looking for.  Sarcastic Batman thinks otherwise.  In reality, Kraken is the one possessed by an evil New God.

p. 6 The box.  Stay tuned.

p. 10 Darkseid only wanted a dead one.  Darkseid is the unquestioned dictator of the evil New Gods.  Think Darth Vader meets Hitler meets the Devil.

Why does he "only want a dead one"?  So he can dress it in a Batman costume and convince everyone that Batman is dead at the end of Final Crisis.

p. 12 Embrace Anti-Life and be whole.  Heeeeeeere's Darkseid!  Only he, like the other New Gods, is possessing a human host.  In his case, it's Dan Turpin, a cop from Superman's cast of characters.

Anti-Life is an equation that Darkseid is using to enslave humanity.  Once you hear it, you lose all hope and become his mindless slave.

p. 13 Can you outrace the Omega Sanction?  The Death that is Life?  Darkseid is known for his Omega Effect, crisscrossing beams that shoot from his eyes and kill instantly.  The Omega SANCTION is a little different, as you'll soon see.

p. 15 Ancestor Box.  Mother Boxes are devices used by the New Gods for a variety of amazing uses.  Ancestor Box implies a whole new level of power.

p. 16 The grave.  The last panel is a little homage to Neil Gaiman's Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader   It's great - you should read it!

p. 17 Willowood Asylum.   In World's Finest Comics #223, it was revealed that Bruce Wayne had an older brother who was insane.  His parents had put him away in Willowood Asylum and kept him secret.  They planned on telling Bruce about Thomas Jr. one day, but died before that day came.

I know you'll hear this somehow.  Batman's narration is revealed to be a recording he left for Superman and the Justice League.

p. 18 I'm not dead.  Young Bruce seeing his own funeral from "Joe Chill in Hell."

p. 20 The old caveman is Anthro, who played a small but pivotal role in Final Crisis, which ended with his death and Bruce Wayne's sudden appearance.  He first appeared in 1968.

p. 22 It never ends.  Well, now you're in on the secret.  Bruce Wayne's not dead, he's...LOST IN TIME!  But his homies back in the present have not figured this out yet.  Thanks to Darkseid's dead Bat-clone, they all think Batman's dead.  The next section of our Bat-epic, Batman and Robin, deals with how they, particularly Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne, react to that death.  Hint:  Batman and Robin never die.

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R.I.P., THE MISSING CHAPTER. Part 1 - The Hole in Things

(AKA Batman #701)

So, listen.  There's nothing wrong with Final Crisis.  If you want to read it, you should.  But thanks to this "missing chapter," you don't have to read it if all you care about is Batman.  (And if you're going to only care about one thing, it should be Batman.)

p. 6-7 A gun and pearls is always symbolic of the night Bruce Wayne's parents were killed.  Martha Wayne wore pearls that night, which is what Joe Chill was after.

p. 9 Ellie.  One of the prostitutes Batman ran into in Batman #646.

p. 16 A worm at the foundations.  This weird room will be further explored in Batman and Robin.  For now, just know that it is a clue that Dr. Hurt is even weirder than once believed.

p. 17 We need you on this.  That guy with the spit curl is Superman.  You know who Superman is, right?

p. 18 Green Lanterns.  Space cops with will-powered magic rings.  Batman tends to clash with them, rebellious guy that he is.

p. 19 When I get back we'll fix everything.  You're not experiencing deja vu - this dialogue is straight out of Last Rites, part 2.

p. 22 Think fast, Batman.  A "chalk outline" was left by the Green Lanterns.

Tune in next time when things get science fictiony! 

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LAST RITES. Part 2 - What the Butler Saw

(AKA Batman #683)

The retrospective of Batman's career continues.  As we enter the 70s, things get decidedly darker...

Cover Just as last time the cover highlighted everything colorful and bright about batman, this one shows us the shadows.  Each picture represents something tragic or hurtful, and the color scheme has gone darker and more realistic.

p. 1  Our son will inherit the world.  Batman and Damian's mother, Talia, makin' a baby.

p. 2-3 Snippets of Batman's career in the 70s.  From top to bottom, Batman battling Ra's al Ghul, 

facing a shark in "Joker's Five-Way Revenge,"

and taking on a poor guy transformed into a werewolf by Dr. Milo.

These adventures all have one thing in common, interestingly: they were illustrated by celebrate 70s bat-artist Neal Adams!  (Oh, and that last panel is more Bats/Talia sexy love time, obviously.

p. 4 Panel four:  Batman versus Kirk Langstrom, AKA Man-Bat, another villain born in the 70s.

p. 7 Her name is Selina Kyle...  AKA Catwoman, although in this alternate reality, she would have never been inspired by Batman to create that identity.  Her alias on the previous page, Elva Barr, was an early name of hers in the Golden Age comics.

p. 9 Oh my God.  The skeleton is wearing Dick Grayson's arealist costume, no doubt the "circus boy" whose body was never found.

p. 10 Panel one:  Batman battles Deadshot, a Golden Age villain remade in 1977.

Panel four:  Batman meets Jason Todd, who would become the second Robin, stealing the tires off the Batmobile.

p. 11 The real thing.  This might be Morrison's way of explaining why Jason Todd's Robin uniform was exactly like Dick Grayson's (especially since every other Robin since has had a slightly different style).

p. 12 I have to go back through these creepy woods on my own!  Looks like Joker's transitioned from goofy camp Joker into the more murderous Joker of the 80s.  The beginning of his black joke goes something like this: A little boy and a mass murderer are walking through a forest.  The mass murderer hears the boy say, "I'm scared."...

The bloody crowbar references the events of A Death In the Family.  Jason Todd runs away to Ethiopia, because he believes his mother is there.  Unfortunately, so is the Joker.  Batman arrives too late to save Jason.

p. 13 Smile.  A reference to The Killing Joke, in which the Joker shoots Barbara Gordon in the spine, paralyzing her.

p. 14 They're clawing out their own eyes!  Even clones with his same genetic material and memories can't process tragedy into drive the way Batman can.

p. 15 Batman seriously needs a Robin.  Tim Drake's first appearance.  He was able to piece together that Dick Grayson was the first Robin, and that ergo Bruce Wayne was Batman.  Seeing Batman's behavior become increasingly violent and risky after Jason Todd's death, Tim becomes convinced that Batman needs a Robin to balance out his dark side.  Despite Batman's response in this panel, he eventually relents and Tim becomes his partner, as can be seen in panel with Tim in his updated Robin costume.

p. 16 Panel one:  Bane breaks Batman's back in the Knightfall storyline.

Take off the costume!  After the humiliating defeat at Bane's hands, Bruce foolishly asked the mentally unstable Jean Paul Valley - AKA Azrael, the angel of vengeance secretly trained by a weird religious order - to take his place.  Valley became more and more unhinged and after Bruce recovered, he made Valley see the light and surrender.  

p. 17 HELL COMES TO GOTHAM.  Gotham was hit by an earthquake in the No Man's Land crossover event.

...it never ends!  Batman battles Hush, a mysterious figure from Bruce Wayne's past who had organized all of his worst enemies into a conspiracy against him.  From the Hush storyline (obviously!).

Those poor boys...  Poor boy indeed - Tim's father was killed (by Captain Boomerang of all people) in the mini series Identity Crisis.

p. 18 What. Do. You. Deserve?  is from Infinite Crisis where Batman nearly broke his oath against guns because Alexander Luthor was destroying the multiverse or something.

p. 20 Various call backs to Morrison's own run.

p. 21 FINALLY we get a bridge from the events of RIP to Final Crisis.  Bruce survived the helicopter crash and immediately went on to his next case, the murder of a New God.  Investigating it led him into the the silly situation he finds himself in now.

Alright, next on the agenda, we're gonna look at what's called RIP, the Missing Chapter.  It was written well after RIP, probably to appease those who were complaining that RIP didn't make sense on its own, but it fits in narratively here.  Plus it will answer some questions so that you don't have to read Final Crisis unless you want to.

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LAST RITES. The Butler Did It

(AKA Batman #682)

We left RIP with a lot of unanswered questions - Who is Dr. Hurt, really?  Did Batman die?  Who are the Batman and Robin six months later?  The next section doesn't have a lot of answers, but boy is it fun!  Grant Morrison has been approaching Batman with this idea of hypercontinuity - the idea that EVERYTHING in Batman's publishing history has actually happened, from the 1939 "weird figure of the night," to the campy comics of the 60s, to the grim and gritty modern Batman.  Last Rites is where he really fleshes out that idea.  We get to see how this 70+ year history fits into about 15 years of a man's life...

Cover: The next two chapters are partly a retrospective of Batman's entire history, and the cover images by Alex Ross represent that.  This one features Batman's more colorful anceint past.  The color scheme is about as psychedelic as it could be, and it displays Batman and Robin joyously punching out their eccentric rogues gallery.  This represents the lighter side of Batman.  Bat-mite is even hiding in a corner.  The next cover will mirror this one, but feature Batman's darker recent history.

p. 2-3 The opening scene evokes Frank Miller's origin story Year One.  Bruce had just returned home after a total fail at crime-fighting (disguised as a burnt out vet), he's bleeding to death, and a bat has just flown through his window, inspiring his crime-fighting persona.  The bell in his hand was his means of summoning Alfred to stitch up his wounds.

p. 4 Miss Madison.  Bruce Wayne's first significant love interest, Julie Madison.  She first appeared in 1939.

p. 6 In panel one is Dr. Death, the first "super-villain" encountered by Batman, in 1939.

p. 7 A very lovely fairy tale indeed...  This dialogue is from Detective Comics #27, the very first Batman story.

p. 11 Panel one:  Batman is battling monster men, products of the mad scientist Hugo Strange, who made his debut in Batman #1, 1940.

Tickets to the circus?  This is an account of the origin of the first Robin, Dick Grayson.  He and his parents were circus aerialists.  The night that Bruce Wayne sees them perform, John and Mary Grayson are killed by criminals.

p. 14 Somebody 'round here must be crazy!  In "The Clown at Midnight," the narration mentions something about the Joker's "Satire Years."  Here we get a glimpse of the Joker parodying Batman's endless Bat-________ vehicles with his very own Joker-copter.

Panel four:  The Bat-Radia is in Batman's hand, as it appeared in the original "Super-Batman of Planet X" story.

p. 15 Are we having a team-up or not?  Kathy Kane, AKA Batwoman, was introduced in 1956 as a love interest for Batman (mostly to assure parents duped by the controversial book Seduction of the Innocent that Batman was not gay).

p. 16 Dying wouldn't be so bad if I knew you loved me too.  Batman and Batwoman were transported to alien worlds in "Prisoners of Three Worlds" (1963), but Morrison seems to be retconning this into a drug-induced hallucination, judging from Batwoman's dialogue.  Her dialogue in the last panel is from that original story.

p. 17 He usually breaks their hearts.  This is a retcon on Morrison's part, as in the Silver Age stories Batwoman was always chasing after Batman, and Batman avoided commitment.

I was a circus kid.  I knew about Katy Kane.  Before inheriting her fortune and beginning her crime-fighting career, Kane was a circus performer.  

p. 18 hurt.  Aaaaaand who's this guy?  The Lump is part of Jack Kirby's New Gods, who are the basis of Grant Morrison's Final Crisis.  He is completely immobile, but has incredible psychic power.

not Alfie.  Alfred died in Detective Comics #328.  He later returned, as comic book characters are apt to do, having no recollection of his "death".

p. 20 I thought I'd try out something new for my Teen Titans meeting.  This is an early version of Dick's Nightwing costume.  The Teen Titans is a team of superhero sidekicks Dick was part of with the likes of Kid Flash, Wonder Girl, Aqualad, etc.

p. 21 Say goodbye to the Batcave.  Bruce briefly relocated to a base of operations under Wayne Tower after Dick quit as his partner.

p. 23 These two are Mokkari and Simyan, two New Gods.  They are evil scientists who work for Darkseid, ruler of Apokolips.  We now see that their plan is to create an army with Batman as the imprint for their soldiers.  This retrospective has been brought to us by the Lump who is filing through Batman's brain, collecting everything which might be the key to Batman's superior drive and ability.  It's yet another pseudo-Batman, only this time an army of him!

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a word about FINAL CRISIS

Everyone expected (not unreasonably) that Batman would die in Batman R.I.P.  He DID end up dying (or at least "dying"), but not in RIP.  Morrison did the dirty deed in his DC Universe-wide mega-crossover, Final Crisis.  You don't need to read it to understand what's going on in Morrison's Batman story, but it helps to know a few things going into Last Rites...

Final Crisis begins with the Justice League investigating the murder of Orion, a New God.  The New Gods were created by Jack Kirby in the 70s and are basically science fiction versions of the Greek pantheon.  Orion, for example, was the New God of warfare.

During the investigation, Batman clashes with a senior Green Lantern (a space cop, basically) and discovers that she is part of the foul play going on and that the evil New Gods of Apokalips are invading Earth by possessing different people.  This Green Lantern, possesed by a New God named Granny Goodness, kidnaps Batman and takes him back to their headquarters, where Batman is last seen trapped in a sci fi torture machine.

And that is what leads us into RIP's coda (and my favorite part of the bat-epic) Last Rites.

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READING ORDER

We're approaching a point in the narrative where the reading order is going to become less obvious, so I thought I'd post the order I'll be using for this blog.  There's no "right" way to read the Grant Morrison Batman epic, but this is the one that makes the most sense to me.

The first list is most useful if you're reading graphic novels, and the second is better for single issues.

GRAPHIC NOVELS:

1. Batman & Son (or The Black Glove - Deluxe Edition, which has Batman and Son along with The Black Glove)

2. The Black Glove

***optional:  Grant Morrison's two chapters in The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul

3. Batman RIP

4. “RIP the Missing Chapter” from Time and the Batman

5. Batman and Robin: Vol. 1 - Batman Reborn

6. Batman #700 from Time and the Batman

7. Batman and Robin: Vol. 2 - Batman vs. Robin

8. The Return of Bruce Wayne

9. Batman and Robin: Vol. 3 - Batman and Robin Must Die!

10. Batman, Incorporated: Vol. 1

11. Batman, Incorporated: Vol. 1 - Demon Star (Yes, you are reading that right.  This one is also vol. 1 *giant eye roll for the New 52*)

12. Batman, Incorporated: Vol. 2 - Gotham’s Most Wanted (due out Dec 3, 2013)

SINGLE ISSUES:

1. Batman #655-658, 663-666

2. Batman #667-669, (optional Ressurrection of Ra's al Ghul tie-in issues are #670-671,) #672-675

3. DC Universe #0, Batman #676-683

4. Batman #701-702

5. Batman and Robin (vol. 1) #1-6

6. Batman  #700

7. Batman and Robin (vol. 1) #7-12

8. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1-6

9. Batman and Robin (vol. 1) #13-16, Batman: The Return (one shot)

10. Batman, Incorporated (vol. 1) #1-8, Batman, Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes! (one shot)

11. Batman, Incorporated (vol. 2) #0-6

12. Batman, Incorporated (vol. 2) #6-13

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BATMAN R.I.P. the conclusion - Hearts in Darkness

(AKA Batman #681)

p. 1 But that's the thing about Batman.  For me, it was a long wait between this issue and the last one.  Grant Morrison had been putting Batman through hell - his mind violated, put on drugs and humiliated, every part of his life invaded, and now the love of his life betraying him - but I was hoping that at the end of all this hopelessness, Batman would still find a way to be the unstoppable Batman Morrison had been writing about earlier.  He really delivers, as you'll see.  But when I read "But that's the thing about Batman," I knew we were about to hear why he was better than the Black Glove.

p. 2-3 "The superior man thinks of evil that will come and guards against it."  Quoted from the Book of Changes by blind warrior monk I-Ching in Morrison's prelude to The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul.  See, it DOES tie in! 

p. 5 A back-up human operating system.  We see in this flashback that the Thogal ritual is what alerted Bruce to the suggestions Dr. Hurt had implanted into his mind, and that that is when it first occurs to him to come up with the solution which ended up being the Batman of Zur En Arrh.  Bruce underwent Thogal during 52, which means that this flashback is happening before any of the events of Morrison's run.  He's been prepared a long time.  

p. 7 Dark Ranger.  Formerly Scout.  The Ranger from the original Club of Heroes story had a sidekick named Scout who didn't make it apparently to the reunion penned by Morrison.  But now we see that he has taken over after the original Ranger's death.

p. 8 The Club of Heroes, clockwise from top left: Squire, Raven Red and his father Man-of-Bats, the Musketeer, El Gaucho, Dark Ranger, and the Knight.

p. 9 I switched the cups.  Force of habit.  THIS.

p. 17 apophenia.  The experience of seeing meaningful patterns or connections in random or meaningless data.

p. 19 It was the bad I was attracted to all along.  We now see that Batman has suspected Jet ever since she said, "I want you to know I understand," which was way back at the tail end of the Batman and Son.  I mentioned earlier that Bruce Wayne's girlfriends usually suffer one of two fates: getting dumped or getting killed.  I neglected to mention a third possibility: they're evil.  The women Batman tends to fall hardest for - Catwoman, Talia, Poison Ivy - are on the other side of the law.  He was smart enough to notice his tendency to be attracted to the Bad Girl, and used that evidence to figure out that Jet must be hiding something.  So everything up to this point has been Bruce leading her into his own trap.

p. 21 Nicely timed.  THEME ALERT - This is a preview of a theme that will continue into Morrison's next arc, Batman and Robin.  Although Batman succeeds because of an insane level of preparation,  for Dick Grayson it's improvisational - all in the timing.

p. 25 I skinned Mangrove Pierce alive and wore him to Mayhew's party.  We discover the identity of that poor guy being flayed in the background of page one of the Club of Heroes arc.  

I am the Hole in Things.  This is the clearest explanation you're going to get of who Dr. Hurt really is.  (For now.)

p. 26 Then I curse the cape and cowl, as you will soon!  The next time you wear it will be the last!  When a guy like Grant Morrison starts a series called Batman R.I.P., bat-fans start to get nervous.  As you'll see, the ending of RIP is left ambiguous.  Batman's very final adventure happens in the pages of Final Crisis, a miniseries encompassing the entire DC Universe, also written by Morrison.  But it does seem that the end he meets in that story is caused by this cryptic curse from Dr. Hurt.  (You will not need to read Final Crisis to understand Morrison's Batman epic.  More on that a little later.)

p. 31 GRUESOME SLAYING OF BELOVED CARDINAL.  This newspaper seems to confirm that the Joker has already begun "collecting his winnings" from the fingers of the Black Glove.

Impossible.  And we cycle back to the very beginning of Batman RIP, where the next line you'll hear is, "You're wrong!  Batman and Robin will never die!"

However, these two are liberally draped in shadows, so it is hard to see whether this is Bruce and Tim as we'd expect, or whether Bruce is gone and a new person (or a new pair) have filled the roles.  All will be revealed, but for now you get to wonder.

p. 32 What?  After all this time, the true origin of Zur En Arrh is revealed to be a garbled version (perhaps only half heard by Bruce) of "Zorro in Arkham."  This is the phrase muttered by Batman during the isolation experiments, and identified by Dr. Hurt as something useful for attacking his mind.  So Zur En Arrh is really discouragement and insecurity.  Before he becomes Batman, before he even has a reason to become Batman, Bruce's life's ambition is undermined by his own father.  Zur En Arrh is the sneaking suspicion that Batman is silly, that dressing as a bat and fighting crime is ridiculous, that - as Jet suggests in the Batcave - Bruce's money could be better spent on something less theatrical, in short, that Bruce shouldn't be Batman.  Morrison has said that he wanted the villains on his run to be a pair of nightmare parents - an evil mom and an evil dad.  The evil mom is Talia, and the evil father is Dr. Hurt, masquerading as Bruce's real father.  But in a sense, the real Thomas Wayne is the villain for being the realistic adult who's curt comments undermine Batman's reason for being.  Metatextually, Zur En Arrh is the bat-fan who likes their Batman a certain way and scoffs at the Silver Age nonsense of weird alien tales and fifth dimensional imps, or even the Adam West TV show, not believing that Batman can survive contact with that silliness.  But the truth is that Batman does survive.  He's been a grim avenger, a campy overactor, an ordinary mortal fighting street level crime, and a superhero saving the world with the Justice League.  And the thing about Batman is that all of those interpretations work.  Batman beats Zur En Arrh the same way he beats everything - by being prepared to survive.  As sure as he'll get out of a thousand death traps, he'll go into any setting - dark/colorful, realistic/out there, goofy/grim - and come out alive.

The next little section of Morrison's epic, Last Rites, pursues this idea of a constantly changing/adapting Dark Knight, and sees what it looks like when it's all put together.  See ya!

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BATMAN R.I.P. Chapter 5 - The Thin White Duke of Death

(AKA Batman #680)

p. 1

The Thin White Duke of Death.  One of David Bowie's stage personas was the Thin White Duke.

  p. 2

The monitors show the members of the Black Glove arriving: a businessman, a general, a Texas oil tycoon, a Sheik, and a priest.

  p. 7 Some things are just naturally funny. Sombreros were on the Joker's mental list of things that are funny back in "The Clown at Midnight."

  p. 8 It's the boss I'm after, Might. Traditionally it's been spelled Bat-mite. This alternate spelling suggests...a wider range of possibilities?

  Look close - those are tin can lids Zur En Arrh Batman is throwing like ninja stars!

  p. 9 What's next, soldier? Probably the most overt "ZEA Batman as parody of Frank Miller" evidence. Miller's Batman often lovingly refers to his partners as "soldier."

  I'm the last fading echo of the voice of reason, Batman. Interesting that the voice of reason would be personified by a childlike imp. Perhaps because all reason left Bruce's life when his parents died?

  Imagination is the 5th dimension. Brilliant answer for those wondering if Morrison was trying to reinsert Bat-mite into continuity. Just because something's imaginary doesn't mean it's not real.

  p. 16 You shot me in the face. Back in Morrison's first issue. Although it wasn't THE Batman - it was one of the replacement Batmen that Dr. Hurt trained.

  p. 20

The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh. The shift from the blue, distressed speech bubbles to regular suggests that Batman's back up personality has run out, just as Bat-might said would happen. Either Bruce is back or he's really lost it.

  p. 22

My good and faithful servant. Biblical language which perhaps supports the idea of Dr. Hurt being the Devil. But woah, does Joker ever not like being called a servant.

  p. 23

Panel one: Notice that Bruce has the "bat-radia" turned ON.

  p. 24

Now do you get it? There's the big reveal! Jezebel Jet was in with the Black Glove from the beginning. The simplest clue has been there from her first appearance - she's a Black woman with red hair. Red and black. Although the red and black theme has been revealed to be inspired by the Joker's cell floor tiles, so who knows. His final line, "Now do you get it?" is a nice fourth wall break to the audience.

  Next week: Batman is Batman by Batmanning his way out of an impossible situation.

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BATMAN R.I.P. Chapter 4 - Miracle on Crime Alley

(AKA Batman #679)

Just when you thought it couldn’t get better, Batman is running around dressed like an alien, with a fifth dimensional imp as a sidekick!

p. 1

KRASH!  He’s got a bat.  Get it?

p. 8

A place you once saw in a flashback hallucination induced by Professor Milo’s gas weapon.  Morrison seems to be confirming that the trip to Zur-En-Arrh was indeed a dream, and more than that, that it was Freudian fantasyland where Batman could be unstoppable.  In the original story, Batman gained Superman-like powers on planet Zur-En-Arrh.

  p. 9

Hypnotic trigger phrase.  So apparently Dr. Hurt heard Batman muttering Zur-En-Arrh during the isolation experiment and decided that the phrase would  work as the trigger phrase to attack Batman’s mind - “switch off” Batman and give Bruce amnesia.  

This will remind you that I have been here once and can return.  Zur-En-Arrh Batman’s secret HQ is the Monarch Theater where Thomas and Martha Wayne saw their last movie, right before they were killed.  The movie (flashed back to here) is The Mark of Zorro.

He made a secret self to save him.  Apparently Batman has known about the way his mind was messed with and prepared a back up plan.  More on this later!

p. 11

Squire and Knight.  The “Batman and Robin of England,” and part of the Club of Heroes Batman reunited with earlier in Morrison’s run.

p. 15

Huh.  @#!& you, Morrison, for giving this cop just the right dialogue to make us love him before you kill him off a page later.

El Sombrero.  Earlier impersonated by John Mayhew, we now have the real thing.  El Sombrero’s specialty is intricate death traps.

p. 19 What’s that thing behind you?  Can Charlie see Bat-Mite?

I’m what  you get when you take Bruce out of the equation.  Some have theorized that the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh is parody of a certain type of interpretation of Batman - in general, the idea Batman being the real person and Bruce Wayne being the mask, and (perhaps) in specific, Frank Miller’s “Goddamn Batman” seen in All Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder.  Morrison seems to be saying that Bruce Wayne is an essential part of Batman.  This is what you get when you take Bruce out, and he’s dressed him in ridiculous colors just for emphasis.  Zur-En-Arrh Batman also seems to be a reaction to an attack on Batman’s confidence, so perhaps the comment is that the overly grim and dark interpretations of Batman are from writers who are trying to hard to overcompensate for Batman’s colorful past.

Honestly though, if that’s the case, it may have backfired.  I would happily read an entire series of crazy homeless ZEA Batman.

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BATMAN R.I.P. Chapter 3 - Zur En Arrh

(AKA Batman #678)

Batman goes on an oddyssey and Robin can’t stop eating!

p. 1

The Bat-Radia.  Let’s take this one panel at a time:  Panel one has the Bat-Radia, a device featured in "The Batman of Planet X," the story where Batman travels to Zur-En-Arrh.  At the end of the story, Batman believed the experience was a dream, but found the Bat-Radia still in his hand.  This dialogue (and the text in the next panel) is lifted from that issue.  

Panel two has the Rainbow Monster from "The Rainbow Creature!"

Panel three shows a page or two of the Black Casebook, specifically those dealing with the isolation experiment Batman underwent in “Robin Dies at Dawn.”

Panel four is from Batman #153, "Prisoners of Three Worlds."  The woman in the red and yellow costume is Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman, and they are trapped on an alien planet.

p. 6

On the planet of the little bat fairies.  Suggests that this gentleman is being visited by Bat-Mite.

p. 7

Honor Jackson.  He appeared briefly in the first chapter of RIP (Batman # 676) when Batman saved him from the runaway car of wannabe super villain the Green Vulture.  Honor told Batman he had a kind face, and Batman told him to help himself to the money in the Batmobile’s glove compartment.

p. 10

Nightwing!  This is Dick Grayson, the original Robin, who switched to the crime-fighting identity of Nightwing upon becoming an adult.

p. 11

Every panel Tim has his mouth open, he’s stuffing food into it.  I don’t know why.

p. 17

Honor Jackson died yesterday.  It’s left unclear whether Honor was ever really there to help Bruce, or a product of Bruce’s currently whacked-out mind.

Crime Alley.  Park Row, AKA Crime Alley, is the area of Gotham where Bruce Wayne’s parents were shot down.

p. 18

Tony Daniel forgot to draw the six foot hoagie in Tim’s mouth here.

p. 19

A perfect fit.  Dr. Hurt is wearing the bat costume once worn by Thomas Wayne.  Last issue, the mayor laid out the possibility that Thomas Wayne arranged his wife’s murder and faked his own death.  It’s looking like Dr. Hurt has a very disturbing secret identity...

p. 21

...It would be far easier to consider this a dream.  This dialogue, and that of the next two panels, is directly from "The Batman of Planet X," just like page one of this chapter.

p. 22

uh oh.  Bat-Mite’s back!  This fifth dimensional imp appeared earlier in Grant Morrison’s run, and is originally from Silver Age comics where he came to earth to vex Batman with challenges (only because he was Batman’s biggest fan).

NEXT:  Crazy homeless Batman!

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BATMAN R.I.P. Chapter 2 - Batman in the Underworld

(AKA Batman #677)

Batman deals with a girlfriend who just doesn't GET him in this exciting chapter of Batman R.I.P.

p. 2-3 Some old movie.  The movie Gordon refers to is The Black Glove, introduced in the Club of Heroes story and produced by billionaire crazy person John Mayhew.  Not sure what movies are doing on a police database.

p. 4 The Black Casebooks.  Where Batman recorded his most bizarre adventures, the stories of alien intervention and other weirdness from the Silver Age of comics.  

p. 8 A recent case.  The Club of Heroes murder mystery where the Black Glove orchestrated a contest between Good (Batman and his allies) and evil (John Mayhew and a traitorous Wingman).

p. 10 Thomas and Martha Wayne.  Batman's parents who were gunned down when he was only a child.  The Waynes were very influential, regularly fought for charitable causes, and were considered Gotham's "first family."  Their "sordid secret history" would indeed be a scoop.

p. 11 Mangrove Pierce, Marsha Lamarr.  Actors in The Black Glove movie.  (See the poster on page 4.)

p. 14 My father was shot dead in front of me too.  Speaking of fathers, this bat outfit on display belonged to Bruce's father "the First Batman."  In another forgotten Silver Age tale, Thomas Wayne wore a bat costume to a masquerade party and foiled some criminals hoping to rob the rich crowd.  There seems to be a lot of mention of Thomas Wayne lately...

p. 20 Zur-En-Arrh.  This is the same nonsense phrase that caused Batman to have some weird flashbacks in his tussle with the third replacement Batman.  It's the name of a planet from a particularly weird Silver Age tale where Batman was enlisted to help Tlano, Zur-En-Arrh's Batman.  The Zur-En-Arrh graffitti has been appearing the background of Grant Morrison's run since the beginning.  The monster face at the bottom of this page first appeared in "Robin Dies at Dawn," the story Morrison retconned to be a secret study of what makes Batman tick by the evil Dr. Hurt.  Batman saw this monster in his isolation-induced hallucinations. 

Looks like trouble for Batman and his faithful butler!  Tune in next time for homeless Bruce Wayne and a Robin who just can't stop eating!

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BATMAN R.I.P. Chapter 1 - Midnight in the House of Hurt

(AKA Batman #676)

Ready for a RIP-roarin' good time??

I am so sorry.

p. 1 Batman and Robin will never die!  Were you wondering if Batman will die in this story?

p. 3 Le Bossu.  A French villain created by Grant Morrison.  Might be a foe of the Musketeer?

p. 4-5 During the Club of Heroes murder mystery, the Musketeer wondered aloud whether there was a club of villains.  Well, if they hadn't existed before, Dr. Hurt has assembled them now.  Although they are all nemeses of the members of the Club of Heroes, they were all dreamed up by Morrison.  You will eventually learn their names, and here they are:  

In the scuba suit - King Kraken (foe of Wingman)

In the Roman corona - Charlie Caligula (foe of the Legionnaire)

In the lucha libre mask - El Sombrero (for real this time! foe of El Gaucho)

In the clown make-up - Pierrot Lunaire (foe of the Musketeer)

In the silver swimsuit - Scorpiana (another foe of El Gaucho)

In the... head bucket? - Swagman (foe of the Dark Ranger)

p. 10 Okay, I'm impressed.  Tim Drake, the third young man to fill the role of Robin.  Got the job by discovering Batman's identity!

p. 12 It's an "American Idol" era of equal opportunity super-crime.  Ever since Batman's crime blitz at the open of Morrison's run.

p. 13 Jezebel Jet, Bruce Wayne's new girlfriend who just discovered his double life.

Thogal.  A super intense, month and a half long meditation technique Bruce undertook a couple years ago in the mystical city of Nanda Parbat.

p. 14 Isolation chamber.  An experiment by the dubious Dr. Hurt.  Read The Black Glove!

p. 15 I've lost my dad, my best friend, and my girlfriend.  Tim lost his dad in Identity Crisis, when he was killed by Captain Boomerang.  His best friend was Superboy, killed in Infinite Crisis.  His girlfriend, Stephanie Brown was (thought to be) killed when she filled in for Tim as Robin during War Games.  Tough couple years!

p. 16 Damian.  Batman's recently discovered son.  The super villainess Talia al Ghul is the mother.

p. 19 wife's guts.  This is what the Joker daydreams about.

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BATMAN R.I.P. Prologue

(AKA a few pages from DC Universe #0)

Let's start things off easy with THREE PAGES.  

I'll take up some space by mentioning (since this is probably the most popular arc of Grant Morrison's Batman epic) that if anyone's starting here, I will do my best to keep you up on what's happened already, but would also strongly suggest you begin at the beginning, as this story is a culmination of a lot of stuff that's already happened.  Old readers, I will not keep you bogged down in details you already know.

p. 1 Red and black.  This theme began in the "Clown at Midnight" prose story, with the Joker using red and black roses to kill his former henchmen.

Since you came back from the dead.  Remember, the Joker was shot in the head back in Grant Morrison's first issue.

p. 3 What are you trying to tell me?  The original readers of this comic would have resonated with this line.  This brief story teased an upcoming arc called, of all things, Batman RIP, written by a man who had already shaken up the status quo by giving Batman a son and drawing heavily from the much forgotten Silver Age of Batman.  Reader expectations were all over the map.  Was Morrison going to kill Batman?  Or maybe worse?  Bring it on.  If I was scared, I wouldn't be Batman ('s biggest fan).

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THE BLACK GLOVE. Chapter 7 - The Fiend with Nine Eyes

(AKA Batman #675)

p. 1  I had a great time.  Well, whatta you know, it's the first (non-flashback) appearance of Dick Grayson, AKA Nightwing, in Grant Morrison's run!  He's the original Robin, and since "growing up," he's adopted the persona of Nightwing, and it will add to your nerd cred if you know that's the name of a crime-fighter from Krypton, Superman's home planet.

p. 2-3 The mask of a man.  Jet's experiencing what all of Bruce's girlfriends eventually experience - getting close enough to Bruce to realize he's holding something back.  Typically the results of this are either a) getting dumped, or b) finding out he's Batman and eventually dying.  Good luck, Jet.

p. 5 This isn't what I--  Option A, it is!

p. 6 I can see you all.  This guy has his roots in a character called the Ten Eyed Man, a crook with his optic nerves rerouted into his fingerprints so that he could see through his hands.  

Before his Batman run, Morrison used him as inspiration in 52 to create the Ten-Eyed Men of the Empty Quarter, the nomadic tribe that exorcised Bruce of his demons, who have the same finger-eyes.  Now things come semi-full-circle, with this crook who appears to be ostracized from the Ten-Eyed Men, one finger short.

p. 21 Mask of a man who never grew up.  This comment is interesting as it contradicts a theme Morrison has been pushing since the beginning - that Bruce Wayne is just as important as Batman.  Is Bruce/Batman regressing?

p. 22 Bruce Wayne is Batman.  Uh oh.  Looks like it's Option B after all.  Good luck with that, Jet.

K, kiddies - up next is the arc you've all been waiting for, Batman RIP!  Who is the Black Glove?  What the hell does Zur En Arrh mean?  Does the Devil walk among us as Dr. Simon Hurt?  None of your questions will ever be answer so give up hope now!

Just kidding...

Kinda...

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THE BLACK GLOVE. Chapter 6 - Batman Dies at Dawn

(AKA Batman #674)

p. 1 East Side Gotham.  Scholarship boy.  Suggests the Third Man grew up poor.

A Batman specialist.  This doctor who spoke only in dialogue from an old comic is doing so no longer.  Morrison is expanding the character and twisting his intentions.

p. 5 I must put away my Batman costume and retire from crime-fighting.   More dialogue lifted directly from "Robin Dies at Dawn."

In part 2 of the story, Batman suffers black outs as a result of the isolation experiment.  He eventual shakes off the black outs when Robin is in a real life threatening situation.  Here Bat-mite suggests that the idea to retire was not prompted by a concern for Robin's safety, but a suggestion implanted into his mind.  It is still not clear what Mite's deal is.

  p. 7 Space B at the Fivefold Expansion of Zrfff.  Your guess is as good as mine.

Doctor Simon Hurt.  This name was not in the original "Robin Dies at Dawn," but at least we now having something to call that creepy doctor.

  p. 10 Of course, they had to test them against me one night.  It's unclear when this test happens.  Judging by Batman's costume, and by the publishing date of the issue when Commissioner Gordon was demoted to patrolman it could be "the 50s," which would correlate to about 12 or 13 years ago by Morrison's reckoning.  

  p. 13 Doctor Hurt was the Devil.  Future Damian said in #666 that he met the Devil, "or at least something...which might as well be the Devil," and that he made a deal with him. Wondering what's up with this Dr. Hurt fella yet?

 Or maybe just take the whole thing?!  And that's how Batman lost his hand.  Jk, turn the page.

p. 15 I've often wondered.  If two issues ago was the issue that got me strangely intrigued, this is the one that put me at ease that, as weird as it is, this is indeed a Batman story.  Morrison writes Batman as the ultimate mortal.  If it's possible, he can do it.  He puts Batman in terrible, bizarre challenges, and then the fun is seeing how he gets out.  Not only did Batman have a plan all along, but he spent the extra time he had daydreaming about the villain who really could finally get the best of him...

  Some words on the three replacement Batmen:  So we know now that these three cops were chosen to take part in a project that purported to find fill-in heroes, and possibly designed to be Batman's three worst nightmares.  They seem to be human essays on the possible source of Batman's great ability.  Muller, the "ace marksman," seems to be just a cop in a costume.  He has skill, but skill doesn't seem to be enough - the Joker had him all but wrapped up.  If it wasn't for the gun, he would have been completely ineffective.  He might represent Batman's fear of taking the easy way out - resorting to killing or using a gun.

Branca, the big one, was described as the "alpha male."  He posits that Batman succeeds because he's the toughest guy around.  They attempted to make him as strong as possible, resorting to even monster-ifying him, but Batman still out alpha male-ed him.  He also represents a failing that Batman fears - becoming a monster that he can't control.

Then there's Lane.  This is the most insidious theory on where Batman gets his power, and perhaps the closest to the truth - Batman gets his power from the tragedy he suffered.  Somehow Dr. Hurt knows that Batman is driven by a tragedy and makes a monster out of Lane by murdering his family.  The result is a super creepy Batman.  He might be Batman's fear of losing his mind.  He's maybe the worst threat, but Batman still beats him, and tellingly, it's not because of Bruce being driven by tragedy.  Batman beats him by remaining calm and collected, slowly using his skills and preparedness to overcome his situation.  Batman is driven, but not only by tragedy.

Well, we've got a short coda, and then the Black Gove is wrapped up!  See you next time.

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THE BLACK GLOVE. Chapter 5 - Joe Chill in Hell

(AKA Batman #673)

p. 1 Thogal.  Bruce Wayne undertook this ritual in the mystical city of Nanda Parbat in the 47th issue of 52, while he, Tim, and Dick Grayson, the original Robin, were on a yearlong sabbatical.   See the 47th issue of 52, or volume 4 of the collection if you desire more info.

p. 4-5 All of this is normal.  We're flashing back to Bruce's earliest years as Batman, as can be deduced from his costume.  From the shorter gloves to the more devil-like ears, it resembles the very first costume Bob Kane drew him in.

Joe Chill in Hell.  The titular Joe Chill is the criminal with the dubious distinction of being the one who killed Bruce Wayne's parents.

p. 7 Then we will wound your soul.  Panel one is a brief flashback to another experience Bruce Wayne had during his yearlong sabbatical.  He has tracked down the Ten-Eyed Men of the Empty Quarter and asked them to exorcise his personal demons.  Afterward, Bruce says that they had "cut out all the dark, fearful, paranoid urges that I've allowed to corrupt my life."  For the whole story, see the 30th issue of 52, or volume 3 of the collection.

 p. 9 Three for three.  Joe Chill has done well for himself.

p. 10 The son I lost.  You will never learn anything more about this kid, stop wondering.

p. 14 Little Bruce seems to be somehow seeing his own funeral in panel one.  The mourners seem to be (left to right) Alfred, Barbara Gordon (Batgirl/Oracle), Clark Kent (Superman), Hal Jordan (Green Lantern), Dick Grayson (the original Robin/Nightwing), and Oliver Queen (Green Arrow).

Oh...hi, Bruce!  Bat-mite's back and appears to be Bruce's imaginary friend.  He also has a little demon thing on his back, and it is never clear what that is supposed to mean.

p. 15 Hallucinations.  This creepy doctor appeared (with no name) in a story called "Robin Dies at Dawn" (Batman #156, 1963) where Batman volunteered for a military isolation experiment and suffered a hallucination where he thought he was on a strange planet where Robin had died.  The doctor's dialogue is lifted directly out of that issue You can find this story in the Black Casebook collection.

...like the others.  The middle costume belonged to Stephanie Brown, one-time girlfriend of Tim Drake who filled in for him as Robin for a short time.  She was thought to be dead for some time.  The costumes on either side belonged to Dick Grayson, the original Robin, and Jason Todd, who actually died (but came back).

p. 16 Space medicine.  The dialogue on this page - up until the panel in the batcave - is taken 100% from "Robin Dies at Dawn."

That's so wrong, Bruce!  For the sake of clarity, I should point out that this is Dick Grayson, the original Robin, not the one we've been seeing in the present, Tim Drake.  It's also about ten years ago, so this little guy has grown up and taken on a different crime-fighting identity (NIghtwing).  It is interesting that Dick doesn't share the obsession Bruce has with the Joker, or even really have much of a fear of him.  This is kind of a mini theme throughout Morrison's story - that Dick has the Joker "figured out" - unlike Bruce who obsesses endlessly about him

p. 20 BLAM.  This incident is pretty controversial among fans.  Batman's number one rule is no killing, and here he is manipulating a man into suicide.  I think it's okay.  It's not Batman's most morally upright moment, but as it's a flashback to his earliest years, I actually really like the grayness of the whole situation.  And, in the end, it's probably more merciful than letting the underworld know what Joe Chill did.

p. 22 How lucky to you feel?  Oh yeah, THIS guy!

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THE BLACK GLOVE. Chapter 4 - Space Medicine

(AKA Batman #672)

With the mostly-a-waste-of-time Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul over and done with, we continue The Black Glove.  This story is personally very special to me as it is the issue which got me into Grant Morrison's run and back into comics in general.  Not having bought a Batman comic in years, I noticed #672 on a rack in a book store.  I think I was waiting for my girlfriend at the time to find something, so I picked it up to see what ole Bats was up to these days.  I was not prepared for one of the weirdest comics I had ever read, and the weirder it got, the more I was sucked in.  I was simultaneously appalled that this Morrison character (whom I only remembered from Arkham Asylum, which I never cared much for, and JLA) was messing with my beloved Batman, and undeniably excited to see where it was going.  I picked up every other issue I could find, and here I am five years later writing a reading guide so that Everyone On Earth can easily enjoy it too!

p. 2 The Third Man is back!  Hey, it's that third replacement Batman we saw Damian kill in the future in issue #666!

p. 4-5 Vane.  The Commissioner for a short time while James Gordon suffered a demotion to patrolman in Detective Comics #121.  

p. 6 Paging Vicki Vale.  One of Bruce Wayne's exes, a reporter who seems to have landed a gig on The View.  Remember Jezebel Jet, Bruce's new girlfriend and the only person in history to have business cards printed that say "Leader of an African Nation/Supermodel"?  We haven't seen her since issue #665.

p. 8 Farelli knows.  Cops were trying to protect the second replacement Batman in issues #663-665.  Some kind of conspiracy is happening.

p. 13 There was me and Branca. And Muller.  We now have names for two of our replacement Batmen:  Muller is the ex-cop who shot the Joker in the first issue of Morrison's run, and Branca is the aforementioned monster in a Bat/Bane costume. 

p. 16 Last time we met was in a bad dream.  Recounted in issue #665.

p. 21 Zur En Arrh.  Boy, does this little nonsense phrase open a can of worms!  Firstly, if you've been listening to me, you've seen it popping up on walls in the form of graffiti  since the beginning. It's been showing up in the background ever since then.  But what does it mean?  The answer has to do with an alien Batman named Tlano. In 1958, Batman #113 featured a bizarre story called "Batman - The Superman of Planet X."  In it, Batman is transported to another planet to meet an alien who was inspired by his exploits to ALSO fight crime in a bat costume.  Batman discovers that he has Superman-like powers on this planet and uses them to help Tlano neutralize enemy invaders.

The name of this planet is Zur En Arrh.

So what the hell does that mean??  You're not meant to know yet, so keep going!

p. 22 ...now you're in trouble, Bruce.  And JUST when you thought things couldn't get weirder, there's THIS guy.   It's Bat-mite!  This fella debuted in 1959 in Detective Comics #267, as a spin-off of a Superman foil, Mister Mxyzptlk, an imp from the 5th Dimension with the power to alter reality however he chooses.  Bat-mite is also from the 5th Dimension, and has the same powers.  Bat-mite idolizes the caped crusader and uses his powers to put Batman in "fun" situations.  All in all, he's the type of archaic, kid-friendly character that "modern" fans of Batman tend to hate.  But in Morrison's world of hypercontinuity, he has to exist for some reason, because it all happened.  We don't know why yet, this is just a teaser.  But hooboy, are we in for some fun!  See ya next time!