Comic Pop: Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne

Written by Grant Morrison

Pencils by A Whole Lot of Characters 

It's been a rough year for Batman.

Between Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, he seemed to get killed twice.  Only one time, he was (in the words of Miracle Max) only mostly dead, and the other his apparent death sent him hurtling back in time.  Bruce's prodigies set out to fill the void.  Dick Grayson (formerly Nightwing) took up the mantle of the bat and became surrogate father to Damian (the new Robin and Bruce's biological son).  Tim Drake became Red Robin and had run-ins with the League of Assassins in his efforts to prove Bruce was still alive.

All of this leads to The Return of Bruce Wayne, a six issue arc collected in a graphic novel format.

The basic story is this: Bruce was thrown back in time by Darkseid.  He starts in the caveman era living in the very caves that would become his fortress, and begins leaping forward through time.  He becomes a witchhunter, a pirate, a cowboy and a noir-like detective.  He begins with no memory, but each step in his journey gives him a little more information about who he is.

Meanwhile, the Justice League is trying to prevent Batman's return.  They have discovered that with each jump in time, Wayne builds up more omega energy and when he reaches the 21st century: boom!  Game over.

Grant Morrison is a fascinating writer and the story here is universally compelling.  The narrative is pretty loose throughout, but I think that suits the story well.  Each of the tales is recounted almost as a half-remembered dream rather than a dense story.  And that's okay, because Morrison's got bigger fish to fry.

In telling the tale, Morrison burns Batman down and reconstructs from the ashes.  We see him as primal force, vigilante and detective.  We see the echoes of enemies from the Joker to Two-Face.  Each piece provides a mirror for who Batman has been and what he has become.  In telling the tale, Morrison both reveals Batman's character and better integrates the mythos of Batman into the history of the DC Universe.

The weakest part of the tale is the framing device which should give the finale its stakes.  When you are reading a tale of Bruce Wayne jumping through time and title it "The Return of Bruce Wayne," you've already given us the end.  The story that takes place at "the vanishing point" is narratively dense to the point of becoming incomprehensible in parts.  It's never clear exactly what bad thing will happen.  Bruce himself dismisses the threat as just another monster for his friends to beat up.

The art is universally great with the exception of the western tale penciled by Georges Jeanty (who was so reliable on the Buffy the Vampire Slayer books).  The scarred half of Jonah Hex's face looks like someone just took an eraser to it.  Many of the characters are difficult to differentiate from one another, making the story really hard to follow.

On the whole, this is a great arc.  I love seeing a crazily creative Morrison set loose on such a tent pole character.

****1/2 out of *****