I visited my brother last week and he rocked my world. Can any of you confirm this?
Is Bruce Wayne dead in the comics?
What does that mean for the franchise?
Not as of any comics that have been released as of today, 1/6/2009. He’s currently captive of Mokkari and Simyon, two servants of Darkseid. They were trying to use him as a template for artificially-created warriors (new generation Parademons, I guess), but he proved to be too much in control of his own mind to allow himself to be used like that. Supposedly, the outcome of that story will be told in Final Crisis # 6.
Grant Morrison, who wrote the stories in question has said he’s not actually going to die - that he’ll suffer a ‘fate worse than death’, which will leave him unable (whether he means physically or mentally he hasn’t said) to continue as the Batman.
Just what that entails will presumably be revealed in the issue cmkeller mentioned, or the one following.
What that means for the franchise…
A brief hiatus for the main Bat-books, cancellation of a couple peripheral books, then the Battle For the Cowl arc, resulting a new person in the costume (probably Dick Grayson, especially since there’s a new Nightwing, who’s likely to be headlining (with Flamebird) in Action)…or the return of Bruce. We’re looking at most of a year before that resolves.
Superman and Wonder Woman are also going to be going through big shakeups in the near future - they’ve been pretty much mum on what’s going on with Diana, but the conclusion of the New Krypton arc will lead to Superman leaving Earth for a while again. And Action comics, which will have a new headliner (not specifically revealed, but it’s pretty easy to guess), to boot.
Currently no-one knows what’s going to happen.
The rumor is that Bruce will either
die or retire. Actually, one other rumor suggests he becomes head of the new New Gods
Since these are guesses, not rumor, I’m not going to spoiler-box them.
That leaves 3 possible (read: likely) possibilities for replacements. IMO, the candidates for taking over the role are (from most to least likely)
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Nightwing (the first Robin, all growed up). They recently cancelled his book and the editor in chief doesn’t like the whole “Batman & Nightwing” concept, so my money’s on him.
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Robin III (Tim Drake): The current kid. If he doesn’t become Batman, his status becomes iffy. I believe it’s been spoiled that Damien, Batman’s naughty son via Talia Al-Ghul) will be the new Robin.
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Robin II (Jason Todd): the “I wanna be the Punisher” Robin-gone-bad. Unlikely he’ll be the new Bats, but what happens to him? I dunno.
Longshots include Azrael (a (IMO) lame character who filled in for Batman once before), an alternate earth Batman or a nobody cooked up
I think Jay’s less likely than Azrael or a newbie, for 2 reasons…
- When he ditched the Red Robin gear, they made a big, big deal out of how he thinks costumes are lame, lame, lame.
- He’s not on good terms with the rest of the Bat-family, and I don’t see either Dick or Tim tolerating him taking up the mantle - I’m not sure they’d be happy with Jean-Paul, either, but, IIRC, there wasn’t so much active hostility with him by the time he ‘died’.
The Battle For the Cowl preview image also includes Two-Face in a bifurcated bat-suit, but I don’t think he’s a serious candidate. Hush (presumably) is also shown, with Damien, which suggests some…interesting possibilities. He’s not shown in a batsuit, and Dick and Tim would be far, far less likely to let him do it, but it does suggest a possibility for what happens to Bruce.
Really? I thought Geoff Johns explicitly revealed that it was going to be Mon-El.
Wait, Jason Todd didn’t die? I quit following DC a while back, and from what I remember, Wonderwoman and Aquaman were getting together (don’t know if that ever happened) and Batman was officially Robin-less, although Tim Drake was going out as Robin without his knowledge. Catch me up?
Superboy of Earth-Prime punched Jason Todd back to life.
No, that really is not too absurd a statement to have happened in a recent DC Comic book.
I saw DiDio saying that a Mon-El story was going to be moved from Adventure to Action, but I was under the impression that that was going to be one arc, rather than the new headline feature.
On the other hand, it might be a long arc that bridges the gap until Superman returns and starts headlining the book again…
Believe it or not, the quoted post is absolutely correct and accurate.
Infinite Crisis really was simply too stupid for words.
I don’t think Infinite Crisis was stupid overall. I thought the pieces fit together pretty darned well. I just think the Superboy “reality-changing punch” idea is stupid. Really, DC needed better continuity control for a long time.
You’d think so, but I seem to have found hundreds of ways to expound on just how idiotic Infinite Crisis was over the last couple years.
That said, I’ve been following Final Crisis and R.I.P. out of morbid curiosity, and there are aspects of each that give IC a run for its money.
Oh come on people! Changing continuity by beating it up? That was a totally beautiful idea, and I am saddened that some of you seem unwilling to appreciate it.