Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 – Review
By: Grant Morrison (writer), Lee Garbett, Pere Perez (artists), Alejandro Sicat and Walden Wong (inks)
The Story: Bruce Wayne arrives at the end of time, where those weird-eyed, fuzzy archivists help him along on the last leg of his journey through time and into the final steps of Darkseid’s plan to use him as a weapon. Superman, Rip Hunter and Green Lantern are stranded there, only moments away from catching up with Bruce. In the present….the JLA is waiting.
What’s Good: I know there are a few readers who argue that Batman needs the setting of Gotham to be an honest depiction (I’m usually one of those readers). Some have pilloried Morrison for sending essentially a regular guy in leather and spandex through time. However, Morrison did drop some thematic markers throughout the mini-series that he picked up here to good effect (in Tim Wayne’s mouth): It isn’t really fair that a regular guy has to fight gods. This is a deep statement that can be read in any number of ways. I really like that Morrison said it. The issue of scale in superhero comics is usually ignored (“Go get ‘em Thor and…um…Hawkeye…” or “Superman, you check left! Wildcat, you cover right!”) which can really diminish a story in some ways. Morrison doesn’t solve the problem, but that nod to a basic flaw in comics made the end-of-time sequence really, really cool, as well as the psychedelic brushes with the New Gods mythos near the end. I also *loved* the nod to origin of Batman, with the hand on the bell, not knowing if he should ring or not for Alfred to come fix him up. This was very cool. It crystallized what Morrison had been doing with the bats throughout the series. There’s a lot more cool writing and story stuff, but we’re on word limits here, so I’ll stop for now.
The art was functional and occasionally evocative. I found the draftsmanship (proportions, texture, poses, clarity) a bit wanting in more than a few spots, and sometimes crude (check out the fight with the JLA). This was a bit surprising for me, considering how pleased I am with Garbett and Perez on Batgirl. Maybe it’s the difference in inkers? I’m not sure. I haven’t seen the work of Sicat and Wong before. Don’t get me wrong. The art got the job done, and made the end-of-time archivists interesting.
What’s Not So Good: Tim Wayne, the man with the plan, and the eternal optimist in terms of Bruce Wayne’s survival, was a bit strident in chalking up Bruce’s survival through time and stopping Darkseid’s plan to Bruce’s heroism. I read all six issues. Here and there, Bruce’s essentially stubborn and sleuthing personality helped him, but many of the decision points were a bit out of his hands. At many moments, Bruce was a passenger (and often a confused one), so Tim’s claims of Bruce’s awesomeness were a bit much for me. Let’s just say it’s pretty amazing that Bruce survived his trip at all.
On the writing, I’m not going to lie. A few moments confused me, especially near the end of the book. Morrison, so adept at evoking psychological mood in the Batman and Robin series, makes a good attempt here, but has to rely to a great extent on his ever-changing artists. He succeeds in some spots. He reaches for psychedelic, and while puzzling, I’m not sure it gets there, even after two reads. Partly, I think he wasn’t given artists capable of delivering the subtlety his scripts require. I would put money on the idea that Quitely or Frazer could have pictured what Morrison was imagining and it would have been good.
Conclusion: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 satisfied me emotionally (reunion of the family, victory of the heroes), almost satisfied me intellectually (the plot makes sense, everything was tied together) and left me unsatisfied on the art. Now that King is back, I want to see what happens to the Princes who ruled while he was gone.
Grade: B
-DS Arsenault
Filed under: DC Comics Tagged: | Batman, DC Comics, Wonder Woman, Grant Morrison, Superman, Green Lantern, Comics, DC, Comic Book Reviews, Darkseid, Pere Perez, comic reviews, Lee Garbett, Cyborg, DS Arsenault, Walden Wong, Justice League of America, Tim Wayne, Red Robin, The Return of Bruce Wayne, Rip Hunter, Batman: the Return of Bruce Wayne #6, Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6 review, Alejandro Sicat
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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