Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artists: Lee Garbett, Frazier Irving, Georges Jeanty, Yanick Paquette, Pere Perez, Ryan Sook, and Chris Sprouse
A confusing, but interesting story that delves into Batman's journey through time, as well as the origins of Doctor Hurt...
Ranking: 3 stars
The concept of time travel is quite easily one of the most polarizing concepts ever conceived in storytelling. The idea of possessing the knowledge and capability to journey into either the past or the future can create interesting scenarios. Characters traveling to the past can allow interactions with famous people or events, while traveling to the future can open one's imagination to what life will be like in distant years. Both roads can provide interesting commentary about humanity and what we can learn from the past to prepare for the future, or could simply make compelling story lines. The plot device is one that can also be heavily misused however, as time travel into the past often alters events in the present, creating a disjointed continuity on what caused what events to occur. Superhero comics are no stranger to the concept, as stories since the golden age have had characters travel into the past or future, and have had varying effects on their continuity. While using time travel as a plot device alone can be risky, in the hands of a writer that utilizes complex or confusing narrative styles, it can be even more polarizing. It's these factors that have caused Grant Morrison's BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, to be a heavily divided story among fans of the dark knight, either loving or hating it. For me however, while certain areas of the narrative were unnecessarily confusing (and keep in mind that I'm a fan of Grant Morrison's works) in both storytelling and continuity, it provided an interesting take on Batman traveling through different eras of the past, while uncovering the mystery of the villainous Doctor Hurt. After nearly facing annihilation at the hands of the Black Glove and their leader Doctor Hurt in BATMAN R.I.P. (which I throughly enjoyed), Batman was confronted with the ultimate evil in FINAL CRISIS, in the form of the evil god of Apokolips, Darkseid. Although the dark knight mortally wounded Darkseid, the evil god supposedly killed Batman with the energy of his omega beams, leaving only a charred corpse behind. In Morrison's BATMAN AND ROBIN series however, Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne (then operating as the new dynamic duo), discovered that the corpse was not really Batman's, but that of a failed clone created by Darkseid. This revelation revealed Darkseid had not killed Batman, but sent the dark knight back in time, trapping him in the stone age. Bruce Wayne wakes up to find himself within the lands of the Miangi tribe, the bat-people who inhabit the land that will one day become Gotham City. Suffering amneisa, Wayne is forced to relearn everything he knew in order to discover who he is, while subconsciously adopting the symbol of the bat. Each time he regains a piece of his former self he undergoes a jump through the time stream, with each new time period set in the geography of Gotham. It's through these jumps that he witnesses the witch hunts of the colonial era, is entangled in the thieving ventures of the infamous Blackbeard, rides through the wild west while facing the bounty hunter Jonah Hex, solves the mysteries surrounding the murders of his own parents, Thomas and Martha Wayne. Unknown to him however, his body has been transformed into a living booby trap by Darkseid, causing him gather vast amounts of omega radiation with each jump, so that all of reality will collapse once he reaches the present. Also, because of the vast differences between him and the people around him in the past, he is unintentionally worshiped as a bat-god, forming a cult around his figure that will lead to the creation of Doctor Hurt, the man who nearly destroyed him in R.I.P.. Will Bruce be able to regain his memory and make his return as Gotham's protector, or will Darkseid ultimately in fulfilling his ambition of destroying all reality in the DC Universe? As I've stated in previous reviews, what attracts me to Grant Morrison's writing is his ability to create intricately complicated, yet compelling stories that introduce unique ideas into the character's worlds. For THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, Morrison centers Batman's ventures through time around a mystery that he himself unwillingly created. When Bruce first woke up in stone age Gotham, the prehistoric hunters he comes across are stunned by him. They can tell that he's not from any native lands as not only is his physique and clothing different from theirs, but the cave he awoke in was directly next to a time capsule rocket sent into the past by the Justice League in FINAL CRISIS, which the natives believe to have come from the realm of their gods. Their awe of Bruce only increases when the dark knight dawns the skin of a giant bat to fight off a rival tribe, using modern gadgets and unorthodox fighting methods in the process. Because of his actions, the tribespeople begin to revere Bruce as a god, a lord of bats that they've named Barbatos. The legend of Barbatos is then carried on into each time period that Bruce travels to, with him adding more to the legend each time, and it becoming more intertwined with the land of Gotham. The fact that the people in the past respond to Bruce's actions in this manner raises an interesting question. If time travel were possible, how would people in the past respond to individuals of unfamiliar nature? A basic truth of humanity is that the mysterious or unknown strikes curiosity in people. We want to understand what makes these events possible, and continuous speculation can lead to the creation of myths or legends. This especially pertains to the supernatural, as developing a mythos around it acts as a means for developing easier ways for people to cope with it. This question plays heavily into the plot, as the cult formed around Batman's likeliness eventually leads some groups to seek the supposed power of Barbatos. Doctor Hurt has quite easily become one of my favorite Batman villains. Not only did the scale and effort put into his campaign to destroy Batman make him an intimidating antagonist, but also because his true identity was kept a mystery. All we know about him is that he once posed as a military scientist that put Batman in an isolation chamber experiment to gain intel on his psychology. He formed a international crime organization known as the Black Glove, and used the information on Batman to bring the dark knight to ruin. Aside from that, we were kept in the dark on who he really was, but were provided multiple identities that would allow us to speculate which was his true identity. We were given hints that he could have been Batman's father Thomas Wayne, who faked his death and was an abusive alcoholic, Mangrove Pierce, an actor who starred in the film "The Black Glove," or even the Devil himself. In the third volume of BATMAN AND ROBIN, he is revealed to be an ancestor of Bruce's who is also named Thomas Wayne, and led a devil-worshipping cult in the 1700's under the faith of Barbatos, the cult unintentionally created through Bruce's ventures in the past. THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE ties into the revelation of Hurt's identity by portraying his nefarious deeds in the past. The reader learns that Hurt sought out a secret box that supposedly gained Barbatos' gift of immortality, and committed several crimes to obtain it, ranging from hiring bounty hunters to kidnap a family safeguarding it, as well as attempting to ruin the reputation of the Wayne family through foraging false information about their personal lives. The approach that Morrison takes not only allows development for Doctor Hurt's past, but also introduces a sense of irony as Batman is indirectly responsible for creating one of his greatest enemies. To be able to introduce all of these plot elements, yet successfully connect them all together is an extremely daunting task for any writer. Fortunately for Morrison, his writing assignments in the past have given him a unique form of narrative that is allows him to interconnect all of these elements together, creating innovating themes and concepts in the process. Despite the great ideas introduced, as well as Morrison's execution of them, the book has its shortcomings as well. As with most of Grant Morrison's comics, his narrative can easily confuse the reader, and while I can be patient and dissect it to uncover its symbolic meanings, it can be easily off-putting and frustrating for others. The writing is made more confusing however, due to the plot being centered around time travel. The weakness of time travel stories as aforementioned, is that writers often fail to completely elaborate on all of the possible alterations to the timeline that the character's actions in the past can cause. While THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE connects most of the events that transcribe together, there are still many questions left unanswered, such as explanations on the development of the Barbatos cult in the periods between Bruce's time jumps, what lead to the belief that the Barbatos casket contained treasure, or any small questions that might arise. It can frustrate a reader whenever certain things that should be explained are left in the dark, and while it does get on my nerves at times, I am still able to follow the plot well. So while these are serious flaws, they're not damaging enough to hurt the overall story. So while BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE suffers from a confusing narrative at points, as well as time travel-related plot holes, I found it to be a cleverly crafted story that introduces unique themes into Batman's myhtos, and effectively goes into detail about the past of one of my favorite Batman villains. I've come to acknowledge that Grant Morrison's writing is not for everyone, and can even understand the criticism that other reviewers have given him. Despite that, I'm able to overlook the flaws as I feel that they are outweighed by the innovative themes that he introduces in his works. The man is able to come up with original and unique ideas that I would never have dreamed of, and deserves his reputation as one of the greatest thinkers in recent comic book history. This is why it still hurts me when I feel people are too harsh in their criticism towards his confusing narrative, but I still remind myself that art is an means to express your ideas and opinions, but the public won't always side with them. But because art is subjective, I feel that Ain't it Cool News' statement "If you don't pick up this book, you hate comics," is completely unjustified! As Spock would say, "Highly illogical..." "I find the whole time travel question very unsettling if you take it to its logical extension. I think it might eventually be possible, but then what happens?" -William Shatner
