The All-Over: 'Return of Bruce Wayne' #6 [Annotations]
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 finally drops this week. As the issue title "The All-Over " suggests, Morrison's grand Batman epic so far seems to have come to a fairly final conclusion. Or so I'd think if I didn't know Incorporated was coming up. I'm surprised with just how much this final issue resolves, wrapping up plot threads from Final Crisis and "Batman R.I.P." all the way back to 52 -- this really feels like a conclusion. Inside: The Bat-God incarnate, the final fate of Darkseid, deep time probes and getting by with a little help from your friends.
Page 1: Picking up right from the end of #5, this shows the Archivists at Vanishing Point retrieving Bruce from the current century. Since Bruce's life story is the last story to be archived for the recreation of the Universe, the defining elements of Bruce's life -- Martha's pearls, his bell, Joe Chill's gun -- are "frozen in time forever," explaining why they've reoccurred throughout time and the course of this series, especially given events to come with the archive itself.
Page 2: It's interesting that they say the Linear Authority has vacated the station when in actuality Rip Hunter just locked them all up, but it's probably safe to say Time Masters is playing off this title way more than vice versa. Note Bruce's suit has suddenly lost the pinstripes.
Page 3: I really can't help but reflect on how similar Bruce being kept in the Archivist is to the last season finale of Doctor Who. This also makes it clear that the archive of the universe is being sent into the black hole at its center - a sort of message in a bottle, an informational last son of a dying world.
Page 4: Nice speedsuit, douche. This page relates the hyperfauna to both Darkseid and Annie's curses; the "haunted house on the road of town" archetype is almost definitely based on both Wayne Manor and the Last Watchtower from Final Crisis. The final element of Batman's story - the bullet - joins the gun, the bell and the pearls to complete the sigil and the history of the universe.
Page 5: Bush robots: real concepts! It's safe to say the final three events are Batman's arrival, Superman's arrival/Batman's leaving and then the heat death of the universe. Once again, "Batman needs a disguise" repeats itself as a motif.
The Hole in Things continues. They keep referring to the Nichols Engine, which, in this case, I figure has to be Bruce -- he's been creating his own gaps in the archive, and he'll fill them in with himself, therefore filling the holes in time with the legend of the Bat. Did the universe create Batman or did Batman create the universe? Only God and Grant Morrison know.
Page 6: We revisit part of ROBW #2, except we see that Rip actually literally leaves the keys to the time sphere in it.
Page 7: Flashback to Batman: Year One, and the explanation of the bells, something that makes me feel like an absolute idiot for not catching. Of course a bell is an iconic part of Batman's origin; it's what he rings when he realizes he'll become a Bat. Morrison also does something very interesting with Miller's original narration. The original line says "He can stop the bleeding in time," but here Morrison breaks it up into two sentences to fit the current narrative : "He can stop the bleeding. Bleeding in time." The "THERE you are" is in white lettering in a black word balloon. That's Darkseid speaking, as we'll see later, not Bruce.
Page 9: I have no idea what incarnation of the Justice League this is supposed to be - Jade joined up after Starfire left. We'll just chalk it up to the bleeding in time.
Page 11: Oh Hal, you're always so imaginative with your magic wishing ring. I do love how Skeets is the only person smart enough to realize that, hey, it's Batman, he probably has our backs.
Page 12: That's right: instead of waiting for the time sphere to be made for himself, he just ganked Rip's and let it be made for his bros, thus taking the Hyper-Adapter with him and not them. Batman is solid like that.
Page 13: I wonder if this is all connected to what Superman did with the Miracle Machine, like this is the physical process of his wish to reboot the universe.
Page 14: This is a lot like the Amazo suit Bruce was wearing in the Road Home oneshots, actually. Maybe he keeps this new functionality in his new Incorporated digs.
Page 15: This is definitely taking place at the same time as "Batman and Robin Must Die!"w which really makes putting them in different trades kind of mystifying. This definitively answers why Tim was absent for all of that arc, though.
Page 16: It's nice to see Morrison giving Tim his big moments in this issue -- he's still Bruce's Robin, it seems. Note how Bruce's cape tendrils are already starting to resemble the Hyper-Adapter.
Page 20: First off, I absolutely ADORE how Bruce gets around the Hyper-Adapter trying to force him to tell her nothing by saying "nothing."
Page 21: Batman's life, broken down in time as it breaks down into individual panels around single moments. Orion's belt, the eclipse, the Hanged Man, the pearls, the horse's head, the roses - all of the symbols that have repeated through his adventure. The top-left and bottom-right symbols are, of course, incredibly important, since by being a Bat Bruce is himself a "hanged man," the Tarot card representing an apotheosis after a trial. [And probably who Spearhavoc was referring to in Action Comics #894 -Laura]
Bruce even has one eye here, following the Odin myth (with whom the Hanged Man is often associated), since he's died and come back and in the process gained wisdom - wisdom we'll soon see as the First Truth of Batman. This is Morrison's Bat-God Incarnate.
Page 22: Darkseid tried to weaponize Batman, so Batman's going to weaponize right back.
Page 24: The Hyper-Adapter, having bonded with the bush robot archivist, takes the form of Barbatos as it's sent back in time by Bruce, where it promises to "take control, adapt, escape and return." Which is exactly what Darkseid did to Bruce, but Bruce managed to fix the "destroyed" part. The Barbatos bush robot then becomes -- I seriously can't believe this, this is so awesome -- the giant bat that scared the hell out of Dick Grayson, the giant bat Vandal Savage killed that Bruce wore in the first issue, and, as we'll see later, the bat that came in through the window and inspired Bruce.
Page 25: I really wish we'd gotten this right after B&R #15, since I'd almost forgotten about the "Gotcha!" note, but it's really nice to see it explained.
Pages 26-27: Lee Garbett absolutely ASSASSINATED on this spread. I completely adore it, admittedly more than his other work in this book - he should switch up his style more.
In any case, here we are on the remains of Apokolips, with Darkseid's giant statue head. This ties everything back to Bruce shedding his demons in the desert in 52, and the isolation experiments, and the cave in Nanda Parbat, those moments when time compressed for him, all of those times were this time, here, where Batman faces down evil on a metaphorical stage and defeats him by being. It also confirms that Metron was the dude in the wheelchair warning Bruce last issue, and that the current nature of reality is his design. I imagine we'll see more of this in Multiversity. In any case, Bruce defeats his demons by creating Batman again, because as Morrison is about to show us:
Page 28: Batman was created when Bruce Wayne asked for help, not when he went on his mission of vengeance. Bruce was just a lonely, angry dude until he asked for help. Bruce never could have done what he did alone - he always had Alfred, or Dick, or Tim, or Harold, or even Jason. Batman was created when he asked for help, and the bell he rings upon conceputalizing the Bat is the Bell of the All-Over for Evil.
Page 29: That's right: Diana declaring Bruce must die actually meant "we have to lower his body temperature to zero while he has a full-on trip-out sequence."
Page 30: Bruce is referring to Doctor Hurt here, who, if things had come out on time, we would have discovered the exact origin of at the beginning of next issue. It's probably fair to say the Barbatos that infected Hurt was the same as the Hyper-Adapter AFTER Bruce sent IT back in time. Doctor Hurt's life is basically Hyper-Adapter: The Return of the Omega Sanction. People who said Hurt was Darkseid, as much as I thought it was ridiculous, were right all along. It's probably safe to say he wrote the Crime Bible as well.
Page 31: And Bruce spells out what the art implied with the bell-ringing, neatly setting up his new mood for Incorporated.
Links to my other annotations:
- Return of Bruce Wayne #1, #2, #3, #4, #5; Batman #700, #701, #702; Batman and Robin #14, #15, #16
- original Batman run and previous issues of Batman and Robin
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Black Mass: Batman and Robin #16 [Annotations]
This week, Grant Morrison's run on Batman and Robin concludes with the final chapter, "Black Mass." Since Return of Bruce Wayne #6 isn't coming out until next week, the exact details of the end of Bruce's journey through time and the true nature of Barbatos will have to go unanswered for now. In this issue, we get the definitive origin of Doctor Hurt, the ultimate finale to the Black Glove storyline, the true meaning of "Batman R.I.P." and a teaser for the next era in the story of the Dark Knight, all wrapped up in gorgeous art by Cameron Stewart, Chris Burnham and Frazer Irving. Fill-in artists aren't so bad when they're this damn good.
The following includes a major spoiler ao
Page 1: I'll try not to totally step on Sims's excellent notes comparing this scene with Peter Milligan's now-seminal "Dark Knight/Dark City,"but the dialogue is taken verbatim from there. The setting: Jacob Stockman's farm and their devil-worship basement.
Pages 2-3: The Powdered Wig Brigade is mostly just a bunch of old idiots - the only ones worth remembering are Jacob Stockman, who wrote down the original rite, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Wayne/Simon Hurt. The human sacrifice there is Dominique, later buried in the Wayne family crypt next to Thomas and Martha by Bruce all the way back in Batman #454.
Page 4: The first three panels are again just from "DK/DC," but the fourth is where we start hitting new content. Barbatos claims in #454 that Dominique stayed behind in the cellar and starved to death; here, we see that Thomas Wayne stayed behind, too, to try to strike a deal with Barbatos.
Page 6: Here, Simon Hurt has his brush with divinity, and it is an explicit inverse of the first scene of Final Crisis #1 - "Man. I am Metron. Have no fear. This is knowledge." versus "Omega Adapter. Dark Side. Knowledge." Hurt seems to cargo cult it up; he hears "Omega Adeptus", the most adept magician, and thinks Barbatos is calling him a kickass wizard. This is when he takes the name Simon, after Simon Magus, an apocryphal figure in Christian gnosticism after whom the sin of simony is named because he tried to pay for laying-on of hands from the Apostles. He also tried to bury himself for three days and come back a la Christ, but apparently just died - something that'll come back later too.
Hurt referred to the "starry venom" back in ROBW #4 - I imagine it's called "starry" since it comes from the stars. In case it isn't obvious by now, this page pretty much shows that Barbatos, rather than being Bruce, was all along the Hyper-Adapter released by Darkseid's Ancestor Box back in Batman #702. It's the spirit that's haunting him and hounding him through time. It's appropriate as well that Batman is himself a sort of hyper-adapter, since his survival skill allows him to perfectly adapt to any situation. The Bat means adaptation.
Page 7: Apparently, the "starry venom" is also fresh bat blood. This provides more fuel for the adapter=bat motif, since Hurt calls Dominique "adapter incarnate" - and she's the Human Bat. This page implies that the sacrifice to Barbatos WAS in fact completed, since Hurt says he's going to "bathe in [her] blood." Since it was implied he was also Jack the Ripper, it's probably fair to say that Hurt's kept himself alive all these years via human sacrifice to Barbatos and, unknowingly, Darkseid.
Pages 8-9: Well, there go all my theories that it was Alfred or the Joker. It was Bruce, he came in through the fireplace, and we'll find out more in ROBW #6 next week.
Page 12: Damian straight-up saving Dick is a pretty big moment here. He also taps into his skills with a bow and arrow, which we hadn't seen since "R.I.P." Even though the "Must Die!" arc is ostensibly over, it seems that we're still in R.I.P. farce mode, as we'll continue to see.
Page 13: Dick's statement implies that they were, in fact, just waiting for Bruce to show up and knew where he'd been.
Page 14: Confirmation on all the stuff we'd mostly already figured out - Hurt is Thomas Wayne, the accident fund was siphoning cash to Hurt, etc. One of the hilarious parts of this is the comparison to Jezebel Jet's line in #681, where she brags about how much money the Black Glove has in comparison to the Wayne fortune, since the Black Glove's entire operating budget has been siphoned off of the Wayne fortune for years.
Page 15: Honestly, I thought that Joker left the nuke in the Batcave, not the Bat-Bunker - at least that's how it seemed on the last page of #14.
Page 17: Hurt's back to his gambling schtick. I do love the way Morrison makes this all seem so... final, though.
Page 18: I have to admit, I'm kind of surprised Hurt punked Bruce with a walkie-talkie like that. Alfred's really got it in for the guy, probably since he remembers when he was being treated in the Hidden Room.
Page 19: Here we get Hurt doing his version of Joker's monologue from the end of #680, asking Bruce how it feels to be the Clown at Midnight, while here Hurt tries to make Bruce feel like the Devil in Hell. Similarly, Hurt echoes Joker's comments from #681 about how he tries to put Batman in a box and Batman keeps breaking out of that box. I can't seem to find any definitive source of "rot in purgatory" as the meaning of R.I.P., but if Hurt says it, it's probably safe to say that's what the arc title meant all along.
Page 20: "Napoleon of the Barnyard" has to be a double entendre to both Napoleon of France and Napoleon the pig from George Orwell's Animal Farm.
Page 21: My best guess here is Pyg is apologizing to his Mommy Made of Nails for being such a creepy bastard, and trying to blame all the bad things he's done on "what they did to [him] in hospital." I dunno which hospital this is; it might just be wherever Hurt transformed him from Jim Rose into the creepiest new Batman villain in forever.
Page 22: "I'm not wearing protection, my darlings!" absolutely slays me.
Page 23: I almost thought that first panel was Quitely the first time I saw it, especially the way Gordon looks in the Dollotron gown.
Page 24: This echoes the final scenes of "R.I.P.", where Hurt was standing on a rooftop lecturing Bruce about how he was Thomas Wayne, a claim that's a complete joke by this point. Hurt's lost all of his credibility, all of his mystique, and, consequently, all of his real power at this point.
Page 25: Homage to the underwater helicopter escape scenes in the "R.I.P." Missing Chapter. I do love how Hurt totally loses it when he sees the domino, though.
Page 26: Morrison's Banana Peel is the new Chekhov's Gun - spread the word. I know a lot of people saw this coming after #15, but that doesn't make Hurt straight-up falling on his ass like a three-year-old while running down stairs any less satisfying. The fact that Hurt gets taken out by a pratfall on his escape echoes Joker's final moments in #681, when his getaway ambulance from Arkham gets rammed off a bridge by Damian in a speeding Batmobile. I get the point of the Raven quote now - it was peering deep into the darkness that got Bruce to do the isolation experiment which got Hurt into his life which led to this entire disaster.
Page 27: Again linking back to Simon Magus - Hurt here is buried alive, just like Damian was last issue and Bruce was back in #681. Unlike the two of them, he's unlikely to come back up, especially since he apparently just got dosed with Joker venom. Devil is double is deuce, and Joker trumps deuce.
Page 31: Last few pages are mostly straightforward wrap-up, although Batman did pick the perfect time to deck the Joker. These final two pages serve as the setup for the next leg in Morrison's Bat-journey. First, I'm sure I'm not the only person who expected Bruce to go "My name is Bruce Wayne and I have been Batman since I was twenty-five years old" Civil War style.The third kid in the final panel is Tim, I imagine, who's been curiously absent from this entire arc.
Links to my other annotations:
- Return of Bruce Wayne #1, #2, #3, #4, #5; Batman #700, #701, #702; Batman and Robin #14, #15
- original Batman run and previous issues of Batman and Robin