Spoil Batman RIP for me.

[Scumpup]

I've seen references to this in comic book threads here. a little cursory Googling led me only to spoiler-free reviews and the like. So what happened?

[E-Sabbath]

A crazy guy drugged Batman. Then stuff happened. Then Batman jumped out of a helicopter which exploded. And the world thought he was dead, but he isn't. Then he died in Final Crisis.

The crazy guy was clearly more awesome than the Joker. Because the Joker worked for him for a bit. Also, Batman's latest girlfriend was the villain who drugged him.

The crazy guy who was a doctor who had surgery to look just like Bruce Wayne ran away, but not before cutting Catwoman's heart out of her chest, but leaving her alive.

Before the helicopter thing, Batman got the heart back and had it put back in Catwoman's chest. Catwoman healed instantly without scars and chased the guy down.
(The guy is Hush, if you care.)

...

Also, there were hallucinations.

It wasn't very good. Not nearly as good as the Dini stories recently in Detective. Read like a bad Bronze Age book.

[jayjay]

It wasn't very good. Not nearly as good as the Dini stories recently in Detective. Read like a bad Bronze Age book.

Heh...this reminds me of the Bronze Age Batman issue I got in the last batch of White Elephants. It's the one where Batman convinced Circe to try to reform Two-Face by hypnotizing him into thinking that a fake Egyptian sarcophagal mask had healed his evil face. And at least 3 pages of that issue are consumed by Batman and Catwoman arguing like two yuppies. "Your career is more important to you than me!" "But, Selina..." "And you don't like me as much as that kid you hang around with!" (Jason Todd at this point) "But, Selina..." "And that damn kid hates me, too!" "But, Selina..."

Terribly amusing. And amusingly terrible.

[Scumpup]

So is he Uncle Ben dead or just Superman dead?

[Just Some Guy]

A crazy guy drugged Batman. Then stuff happened. Then Batman jumped out of a helicopter which exploded. And the world thought he was dead, but he isn't. Then he died in Final Crisis.

The crazy guy was clearly more awesome than the Joker. Because the Joker worked for him for a bit. Also, Batman's latest girlfriend was the villain who drugged him.

The crazy guy who was a doctor who had surgery to look just like Bruce Wayne ran away, but not before cutting Catwoman's heart out of her chest, but leaving her alive.

Before the helicopter thing, Batman got the heart back and had it put back in Catwoman's chest. Catwoman healed instantly without scars and chased the guy down.
(The guy is Hush, if you care.)

...

Also, there were hallucinations.

It wasn't very good. Not nearly as good as the Dini stories recently in Detective. Read like a bad Bronze Age book.

You know you can just sum it up with two words: Morrison self-indulgence.

So is he Uncle Ben dead or just Superman dead?

Superman-dead. He was killed by a method that we've seen someone escape from before after it "killed" them.

[Fenris]

We'll know tomorrow--the big finale of all of Batman RIP is happening in FINAL CRISIS.

The only things I'd add to E-Sabbath's summary is that the mystery bad-guy is, per the writer, "Satan". Note that there is NOTHING in the story that implies that he's Satan. Oh, and Bruce (via the drugs) remembered that the last thing that Daddy Wayne said was in response to L'il Bruce saying "I wish Zorro was real!!". Daddy Wayne said (and Bruce suppressed the memory all these years) "I'm sorry son, it's a nifty idea but if Zorro was running around in Gotham City, they'd put Zorro in Arkham*". This uncovered memory psychologically killed Bruce (hence the RIP) and his death (or not) in Final Crisis is just the death of his body--"Bruce Wayne: Batman" died when he realized his daddy might not approve of what he's been doing.

*A code-word that shows up throughout Batman: RIP is "Zurr-Enn-Arrr"...which is Bruce's way of trying to suppress "Zorro In Arkham"

[Scumpup]

I just read the summary of Final Crisis at Wikkipedia. According to what is there, Batsy used a gun to off Darkseid; but was himself zorched with some kind of funky eyebeams that don't just kill you. No, these eyebeams condemn your soul to an eternity of living successive lives, each one of which is worse than the one before. The summary notes that we see Superman sadly retrieving Batsy's charred corpse.
Okay, I remember back in the 70's when Darkseid, Orion, et. al. were introduced. There was A Prophecy that Orion was fated to kill his father, Darkseid. Orion. Not the Psychobat. Also, Batman hasn't used guns since 1939. He wasn't always as crazy-phobic of them as he's been protrayed in the last 10 years or so, but he didn't use them.
There are too many things awry here for me to believe that either Batman or Darkseid are really, truly Uncle Ben dead. I don't think either of them is even Superman dead. They're more like Joker dead.

[Brock Samson]

Long-time lurker, first-time poster, and Morrison apologist checking in:

I can’t deny that RIP was self-indulgent, but it was a little more coherent than the other posters have suggested. Hush wasn’t involved; that was a separate story. In RIP, Batman is targeted by the Black Glove, an unseen adversary who’s been quietly planning his destruction for years. The Glove turns out to be a group of super-rich gamblers who enjoy ruining human lives. Bruce’s parents may have been members of the Glove before their deaths, although we never find out for sure.

The head of the Black Glove is Dr. Hurt, a character briefly glimpsed in a Batman comic decades ago and not mentioned since. In the original story, Batman volunteered for a sensory deprivation experiment run by Hurt; in RIP, we learn that Hurt took that opportunity to learn Batman’s identity and plant a trigger phrase (Zur-En-Arrh) in Batman’s psyche. In RIP, Hurt returns, uses the trigger phrase to shut down the Bruce Wayne personality, and takes over Wayne Manor and the Gotham City crime scene. However, since Batman is Always Prepared, it turns out that he’s actually programmed himself with an alternate personality which can kick in when he’s psychologically attacked. This personality is brutal and irrational, since it lacks Bruce’s influence, but it allows him to keep functioning for a final confrontation with Hurt.

Hurt claims to be Thomas Wayne, but it seems pretty clear he's lying. There were multiple direct hints that he was Satan, or at least that some sort of supernatural force may have been behind everything. Some of these hints were in RIP itself, and others were in the Morrison Batman stories leading up to RIP. There’s room for interpretation, though, since Hurt never sprouts horns or shows any supernatural powers (except for an apparently successful curse which he places on Batman at the end of the story).

I liked RIP quite a bit overall, but it was probably more enjoyable for those who’d been following Morrison’s Batman from the very beginning, since he started planting clues in his first issue. The earlier storylines, “Batman and Son” and “The Black Glove,” are available as graphic novels now. “The Black Glove” especially is quite good. The entire run was built around the premise that every Batman story actually happened in some way, from the goofy Golden Age stuff to the horrible events of the 80s and 90s, even if some of it was only drug-induced hallucinations. Morrison explored the consequences of a single character living through all that, and he also spent a lot of time deconstructing what it meant to be Batman. The quality was uneven and the finale was a bit of an anticlimax, but I’d still strongly recommend it.

[shy guy]

In fairness, it was a special god-killing gun and the only thing that Batman really had handy to hurt Darkseid.

And at any rate, we all know Darkseid ain't dead.

[E-Sabbath]

Of course, Arkham Asylum wasn't built until _after_ Batman started running around.

So, Dr. Wayne said what now?

[E-Sabbath]

The thing is, his deconstruction wasn't even interesting. It was a deconstruction of the Bat-God, who can not be deconstructed.

And don't get me started on Jezibel Jones. "My country is starving, I wear million dollar dresses. Be guilty, white man."

And yes, I think I synthesized two arcs together. I think making Dr. Hurt into Hush improved it a bit.

For crying out loud, all Morrison wrote was a bad Hugo Strange plot with massive retcon added.

[Scumpup]

I thought Arkham Asylum was actually pretty old...or maybe I'm basing that impression too much on the Elseworlds and other one-offs that have constituted the bulk of my comics reading for the last 20 years.

[Brock Samson]

The thing is, his deconstruction wasn't even interesting. It was a deconstruction of the Bat-God, who can not be deconstructed.

And don't get me started on Jezibel Jones. "My country is starving, I wear million dollar dresses. Be guilty, white man."

And yes, I think I synthesized two arcs together. I think making Dr. Hurt into Hush improved it a bit.

For crying out loud, all Morrison wrote was a bad Hugo Strange plot with massive retcon added.


I thought it was more of a synthesis than a retcon. It was an anti-retcon in some ways; Morrison took stories which had been ignored for decades, and which were probably technically out of continuity post-Crisis, and found a rational way to pull them back into the whole. I thought that was fascinating, personally. I loved the fact that he made an incredibly dangerous villain out of some random guy who appeared in a couple of panels forty years ago, and he did it in a way that made a lot of sense (until the Satan business got layered onto it, anyway).

As for the ‘deconstruction’, maybe I shouldn’t have used that word. It’s more that Morrison showed us a variety of other ways Batman could have turned out if he’d been something less than the Bat-God--if he’d been less moral, or less intelligent, or less in touch with reality, or any number of things. And he did actually show us some of the Bat-God's frailties, like the fact that years of chemical exposure and trauma have left him out of touch with reality at times. Maybe it wasn’t deep enough to be called ‘deconstruction’, but I thought it was fun within the context of the story. At the end of the day, it’s still mostly just a story about a guy punching other guys out, but I thought he succeeded in dressing it up in a new way.

RIP was like most other Morrison work—extremely shallow in some ways and gratuitously complicated in others, but with a lot of cool moments, lots of ideas kicking around, and lots of room to read between the lines if you felt like doing so. Many of the people who really enjoyed it (me included) got some of their enjoyment from reading it carefully and parsing out the clues and red herrings as each issue came out. It was a good ride for me, but I'm guessing it won't read that well as a graphic novel.

[E-Sabbath]

I wouldn't mind the story so much if Morrison wasn't gratitiously britishly ejaculating over the rest of the DC universe in Final Crisis. I might even enjoy it. I'm just, you know, 2000ADed out right now.
As a standalone story, it's not bad, it's even interesting. As a massively interleaved with the 'I'm a miniseries with twenty parts each made out of six books of three books" mother-doll thing that it _is_...

fuckit. I'm gonna read PS238 now.

[History Geek]

Sorry, this might be a bit of a highjack.
I heard Neil Gaiman on NPR yesterday and he mentioned he was writing some issues of Batman involving the death of the Caped Crusader. I think he said something about them being in Detective Comics (or partly so). Would they be part of the Batman story discussed here, or is this a separate incarnation of Batman that's getting the axe?

[Fenris]

It's a final "goodbye" to Bruce Wayne/Batman---I think it comes out next month. Sort of a "Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?" for Bats

[Fenris]

Could you give some help here? I *wanted* to like RIP. I was loving RIP until the "Wait...it's SATAN?!" ending--frankly if I hadn't read a comment by Morrison where he pretty much admits it, I'd have had no idea whatsoever. Personally, I was liking the Thomas Wayne theory. So--with that in mind, could you point to some of these clues?

Hurt claims to be Thomas Wayne, but it seems pretty clear he's lying.
Based on what?

There were multiple direct hints that he was Satan, or at least that some sort of supernatural force may have been behind everything. Some of these hints were in RIP itself, and others were in the Morrison Batman stories leading up to RIP.
What were they? Other than an half-accurate quote from The Stone's "Sympathy for the Devil", I must have missed them all--and I've read all of Morrison's Batmans.

I don't know if Morrison's just a ton more subtle than me or what, but if there were clues, I missed them all and any help would be appreciated.

[E-Sabbath]

I kind of liked the idea he might be Thomas Wayne Jr, if anyone remembers him. But... nope!

[Fenris]

World's Finest 226 & 228 or so. (Or Brave & Bold 126 & 128)

I remember him. Batman gave him to Deadman in a morally dubious act.

But those stories took place on Earth-B. ;)

[Terrifel]

The next day, Batman wakes up and it turns out he's still living with his Aunt Harriet...

[Brock Samson]

Could you give some help here? I *wanted* to like RIP. I was loving RIP until the "Wait...it's SATAN?!" ending--frankly if I hadn't read a comment by Morrison where he pretty much admits it, I'd have had no idea whatsoever. Personally, I was liking the Thomas Wayne theory. So--with that in mind, could you point to some of these clues?

Man, I was hoping you wouldn't ask me to list them, because I didn't want to make myself look too fanboyish by giving a detailed explanation, but here goes:

During the torture session in police headquarters, Lane, the Third Ghost of Batman, says in so many words that Hurt is the Devil. In issue 666, both Lane and Damian demonstrate supernatural powers which they claim to have gotten via deals with Satan. It's a future story, so we don't know whether it "really" happened, and we don't know whether they're talking about Hurt, but it injects the devil directly into the mix as a suspect. Batman even seems to be leaning that way just before the helicopter crash, when he asks "Did I look the devil in the face, and was that fear I saw in his eyes?", or words to that effect.

It seems clear to me that Hurt tells the Joker that he's Satan, and that the Joker buys into it. Apart from the Sympathy with the Devil bit, there's also the part where Joker splits his tongue with a knife so that it takes on a forked, devilish look; he does this immediately after telling Batman that he knows who Dr. Hurt is. The mere fact that the Joker initially defers to Hurt, even briefly, suggests Hurt is something more than a garden-variety lunatic. When he eventually rejects Hurt's orders, he does it by telling Hurt "devil is double is deuce, and joker beats deuce."

Someone in the Club of Heroes makes a reference to a Satanic curse just before telling Robin to go help Batman, implying that they think Batman is facing the Devil. By the end of the issue Hurt has placed a curse on the cape and cowl...a curse which apparently had some oomph behind it, based on Final Crisis #6.

There were also general references to the Devil throughout the run. The image that appears on the Bat-Computer when the trigger phrase takes effect is demonic. Early on, I believe Gordon asks Batman why they chose to fight an evil as old as time, and Batman says "I thought I could take him." There's hellish imagery used in the original Club of Heroes arc (the painting on Mayhew's island). A lot of these "clues" are vague, I'll admit, but they add together to paint a certain mood.

As for why I didn't buy Hurt's claim to be Thomas Wayne, he just didn't seem very committed to it. He seems to be trying anything and everything in order to rattle Bruce at that point: shooting at him, shouting additional post-hypnotic trigger phrases, and then telling Bruce that he's Thomas Wayne. When Bruce refuses to buy it, he doesn't argue the point at all; he asks whether Bruce is really willing to consider the only other alternative, which is that he's "the hole in things," and I don't know what that could possibly mean other than that he's the Devil.

[Johnny Q]

Do they dance in the pale moonlight?

[Brock Samson]

Do they dance in the pale moonlight?

In fact, they do. Issue 680, page 17, lower left panel. Proof positive.

[E-Sabbath]

But those stories took place on Earth-B. ;)

Not anymore. Morrison now made them all a hallucination! Isn't that much better? So much simpler!

[Harborwolf]

I don't know if Morrison's just a ton more subtle than me or what, but if there were clues, I missed them all and any help would be appreciated.He's not subtle. He's sloppy and overly ambitious. Too many threads and retro characters which he just sort of slams together at the end. Now that I've read both Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, I'm thinking Morrison shouldn't be allowed near a writing gig ever again. Bad as the Marvel events were, at least I knew what had happened.

[shy guy]

I think Morrison just needs a good, strong editor who will actually guide and limit him instead of letting him jerk off all over the Superfriends.

When he runs loose with all of his "magick" bullshit and theories on fiction, we get garbage like Final Crisis, about half of Seven Soldiers, and R.I.P..

When he just decides to write a good, solid story, we get cool stuff like All-Star Superman, We3, and the other half of Seven Soldiers.

[Fenris]

Oh, and to get back to the OP, the answer about Bruce's final fate (revealed in Final Crisis #7) is that He's trapped about 40,000 years in the past. As a grown old Anthro (the first Cro-Magnon) dies of old age, Bruce is seen right there, on panel, watching. So my "Bruce becomes a New God" theory is shot to hell.

Of course, that kinda leaves the question about "Wait--then who's body is Superman holding in Final Crisis #6 and #7?" hanging, but.....

[History Geek]

It's a final "goodbye" to Bruce Wayne/Batman---I think it comes out next month. Sort of a "Whatever Happened To The Man Of Tomorrow?" for Bats

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out for it.