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.