Grant Morrison's Bat Mysteries

Just as most of Grant Morrison’s Superman stories follow conventions of science fiction, most of Morrison’s Batman stories follow conventions of mystery fiction. Now, with only one issue left, perhaps the biggest mystery is: Is Batman, Inc. a mystery at all? What sort of payoff does the final issue provide if not a mystery? By and large, Morrison’s Batman epic has told four long stories, in four separate titles. With three of those complete, are there patterns we can identify to elucidate the fourth?

Morrison’s runs in Batman, as well as Batman and Robin, told long single stories with a hierarchical structure, the whole run broken into a few parts, each part a few issues long.

The first substory told as a mystery was his Club of Heroes story set on John Mayhew’s island, which followed achingly familiar patterns of Murder Mister Dinner Theatre, some of which are also enshrined in the game Clue (Cluedo) and some of the works of Agatha Christie, among others. Several characters were isolated, one murder took place which began a series of attacks, and the remaining characters were left to solve the crimes before their time ran out. The answer proved to be more complex than one might have expected: There were truly three culprits, all three of whom had a misleading or masked identity: John Mayhew, who falsely assumed the identity of El Sombrero before unmasking in the final pages; Wingman, who had a few subtle clues pointing to him throughout, but who switched identities with Dark Ranger after he killed him; and the Black Glove, Doctor Hurt, who was not actually given a name for another five issues. One may also observe that the only tangible clue, the absence of rain on Wingman’s plane, was no more salient than an error in the writing, the number of stab wounds used to kill the Legionary. All told, the mystery insofar as Wingman and Mayhew went was probably not solvable in the conventional sense, and as far as the Black Glove went, certainly not solvable, as it led into future storylines. So, while the story was overwhelmingly a mystery in form, it deviated from a mystery in resolution.

This was also true of the extended “replacement Batmen” mini-mystery. Batman’s subduing of the Bane Batman culminated with a question: “Who is the third man?”, which was unsolvable in the sense that it was a character who had no specific name or identity at the time the question was raised. And this, too, ended by conveying the unmistakable impression that a bigger question was more important. Not “Who is the third man?” but “Who is the king of crime?” and by a subtle visual clue, “Who is the Black Glove?”

The way that the earlier mysteries were not true, fair mysteries made sense in the structure Morrison was building. They provided like appetizers before a main course, whetting our appetite for resolution, then building that hunger more when no definitive answer came. And by the time Batman, RIP began, the mantralike question defining Morrison’s run was “Who is the Black Glove?” And fans set to work posing and analyzing guesses up and down the DC roster, with such names as Hugo Strange, Lex Luthor, Jim Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth, the Crimson Avenger, Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne, and many others being suggested and discussed.

Here, too, the conventional mystery many anticipated was not in the offing. No previously-defined DC character was in any sense the answer RIP provided. The tone established along the way was, in retrospect, preparing that conclusion: The intertwined mysteries of Honor Jackson (ghost or hallucination?) and Bat-Might (magical imp or fantasy?) were both ended on notes of perfect ambiguity. We can’t be sure if the street junkie who appeared and disappeared was a spirit resurrected by Bat-Might or if there never was a Bat-Might to begin with. In the story, Morrison makes a joke of it by having Bat-Might say that imagination is the fifth dimension. The ambiguity was there in the renaming Morrison gave the sprite when he changed Bat-Mite to Bat-Might. Might means power, befitting the character’s magic, but it means something else: The modal verb “might”: as in, he might exist. Or he might not.

Likewise, the red-and-black mystery ended up being no mystery at all. So the mysteries of RIPwas always shrouded in ambiguity in its conclusions as well as mid-story. And when the Devil was name-checked repeatedly, and Batman himself says “the Devil”, it’s in a question. And when, later, he says it again, he says “may or may not have been the Devil” and references Hurt’s claim to have been Bruce’s father.

Batman and Robin and the intertwined Return of Bruce Waynehad at least as many mysteries of identity than a person can count on one hand. The Domino Killer, Oberon Sexton, the Red Hood, the “Batman” corpse, El Penitente, and Barbatos were all names and faces without a known match. The reappearance of Bruce Wayne in the final panel of #15 was subject to doubt, and there were mysteries, too, of the missing Wayne portrait, the tunnels under Wayne Manor, the casket, and more. Ultimately, there were more mysteries of identity than there were characters matching up to them (the Joker was both the Domino Killer and the detective trying to find the Domino Killer; Doctor Hurt was both Old Thomas Wayne and El Penitente). Most of these had definitive answers, whereas the contents of the casket ended up being an anticlimax.

Batman, Inc. has also had a few mysteries of identity. Most central, Talia was revealed as Leviathan, but this revelation came early, in fact, a year and a half ago. Heretic, the new Wingman, Nero Nykto, also mysteries of identity dangled for a while, also resolved long before the story neared the end.

So there may be striking significance in the reveal or reveals that remain. The Headmistress is the most prominent, nearly certain to be Kathy Kane, this mystery has not had its ceremonial unmasking yet. Nor has the identity of the occupant of the second grave, who could easily be the now-dead Heretic, or someone yet to die such as Kathy Kane. We also have the possibility that there’s a mystery where we didn’t know there was a mystery, if Talia is not the true controlling force and Ra’s or Doctor Hurt were to emerge. Finally, we may have outstanding the identity of the Batman of the future, who seemed clearly to be Damian; this future may be completely null and void, or someone else may take that role.

Morrison has told us that this finale will be bleak. That could mean Kathy Kane dies and Bruce is left to mourn the loss of another family (with Kathy and Damian as his wife and son, at least symbolically). It could mean we see the far future apocalypse is destined to play out. Morrison has kept his options open, and Inc is perhaps less clearly on a set of rails guided towards a specific finish than any of his Batman maxi-stories to date. The events in the story may be of less importance than the question: After a run on the character so long and so memorable, in what state does Morrison leave Batman? Is he the omni-capable Batman who defeats super beings and the Devil? Or is he a tragic figure lashing out in madness, as Morrison first wrote him, in Arkham Asylum?

Grant Morrison Batman Reading Order

Batman Run (21 issues +)

“52” #30 and #47

Batman and Son: #655-658

The Clown at Midnight: #663

Batman in Bethlehem: #666

Club of Heroes: #667-669

Resurrection of R’as al-Ghul: #670-671 (6 parts in other titles)

Three Ghosts of Batman: #672-675

Batman, R.I.P.: #676, DC Universe #0, #677-681

Lost in Time (32 issues+)

Last Rites: #682-683

Batman #701

Final Crisis #1-7 (especially #1, 2, 6)

Batman #702

Batman and Robin #1-9

Return of Bruce Wayne #1-5

Batman and Robin #10-15

Batman #700

Return of Bruce Wayne #6

Batman and Robin #16

Batman, Incorporated(24 issues)

Batman: The Return

Batman, Inc #1-8

Leviathan Strikes

Batman, Inc vol 2 #1-3, #0, #4-13

Here is my suggested reading order for the entire Grant Morrison Batman epic, 2006-2013. There's really no one right order, because when multiple series titles were telling the story at the same time, the publication order, the story logic, and the chronological time within the multiple series were mixed up three or four different ways. In at least two cases (the Arkham scene in DC Universe #0 and the respective order of the Batman and Robin and Return of Bruce Wayne finales), I think the publication schedule mixed up the intended logic. I think the transition from RIP to Final Crisis in particular makes more sense as I've offered it here, taking us through Bruce's experiences chronologically, instead of withholding the resolution to small mysteries for very long stretches of time.

Not mentioned here are the old stories that Morrison tied in, and the most important two were the Zur En Arrh story in Batman #113 and "Robin Dies at Dawn" in Batman #156. Others were reprinted in a trade paperback called The Black Casebook. However, while the small details of those stories were interesting reading while the Black Glove was an ongoing mystery, they aren't necessary to understanding Morrison's work. A rather large number of stories from 1939 through the Nineties are referenced by Morrison throughout his run, so the amount of background reading one could do would seriously add to the length of the list.

Finally, I'll make my best-of list-within-the-list. My favorite issues and scenes from the run.

1) Batman #680: Doctor Hurt's trap for Batman in Arkham.

2) Batman #674: Batman struggles to escape... and remember the past.

3) DC Universe #0: Batman and the Joker in Arkham.

4) Return of Bruce Wayne #6: Bruce ends the story of all time.

5) Batman and Robin #13: The Evil Thomas Wayne scene.

6) Batman #655: A replacement Batman shoots the Joker.

7) Batman #673: Batman's showdown with Joe Chill.

8) Batman #681: The RIP finale.

9) Batman and Robin #2: Frank Quitely draws Dick and Damian fighting the Circus of the Strange.

10) Batman #683: Batman escapes Darkseid's death trap.

If anyone reads this whole list in the order I suggested, I'd love to hear about it!

Return of Bruce Wayne 6: The Myth

While Bruce Wayne scored his inevitable victory over Darkseid (or rather the plan that the now-absent Darkseid set into motion) in ROBW #6, the ornate narration visited numerous details of Morrison's run and other aspects of Batman and DC mythology along the way. In so doing, it provided final explanations for a few of the lingering mysteries of the run and also made a tremendous number of comments about the character. Because I have already commented on the basic plot of Bruce beating Darkseid's Hyper-Adapter, I will focus here on the many expressive details that came along the way.

When Bruce first arrives at the end of time, thanks to Professor Nichols' time travel machine, the Archivists use the occasion to store his history into their permanent archive of the Universe. Bruce has an exalted role in the history of the universe – his is the last story to be stored and all of the final events in the universe involve him. The Archivists have a flair for the artistic: They create representations of the key items in Batman's mythic story: The pearls his mother wore, the bell he used to summon Alfred on the night he chose to become Batman, the gun and the bullets that took his parents' lives.

While completing their primary purpose for existing, the Archivists go to great lengths to help Bruce. He takes off the burning gangster clothing from ROBW #5 and undergoes a revival, what they refer, biblically, as a Lazarus Transformation. Affirming the essential, mythic characteristics of the situation, and Morrison's love of sigils, they arrange themselves in a "cardinal configuration", like the four points of the compass, as they begin to work with a Bruce who has regained his memory. Bruce describes the situation as familiar, because the urgency of the moment, and being hunted, is how Batman has spent his entire existence. At that comment, the original menace to Bruce, a bullet, is recorded as the absolute last detail to go into the archive of the universe.

Reflecting Morrison's love of science and technology, Bruce cannot help but be curious about the beings, assessing their hairy appearance as a characteristic of what roboticist Hans Moravec calls "bush robots." They, in turn, are fascinated by him, calling him and his appropriation of Nichols' time machine as one of history's great mysteries. They converse of platonic, universal matters while addressing the specifics of Bruce's problem. The timeline of Morrison's larger story, which began with a being dedicated to knowledge appearing before Anthro, ends with Bruce being assisted by these other beings dedicated to knowledge. Exemplifying Bruce's mythic stature, these beings who record the final archive of the universe are "honored" to assist him. They also tell him that this is to be his new beginning, which reminds us that Morrison's next season with Bruce will be something different and tells Bruce that these beings who know the full history of the universe already know that he's going to win this battle.

When the search party arrives, we have the first of many times that a scene or dialogue from a previous issue is repeated, this time from ROBW #2. This cuts sharply to the origin of Batman -- not the shooting, but the scene from his first night fighting crime, based on a scene in Detective #33, revamped by Frank Miller in Batman: Year One, and tweaked by Morrison to give it the characteristics of Edgar Allen Poe's The Raven in Batman #682, illustrated like this issue by Lee Garbett. This scene is referenced three times in ROBW #6, highlighting the importance of the bell that Bruce rang in a way that only becomes clear upon the third instance.

At Vanishing Point, Booster Gold's assistant Skeets becomes the voice of wisdom, telling the search party that the trap Bruce created is actually a time sphere, and it carries them from their doom to the battle in which they will be essential. They escape from the timestream only moments before it ends; this is the third of three final significant events in the DC Universe. Let it be noted that Rip Hunter gets the universe's last words: "The big all-over!"

In the present, the Bruce/Hyper-Adapter hybrid easily takes down a group of JLA members which conveniently contains none of the original or Satellite Era members. When his rampage leaves only Tim Drake standing, Tim plays a card that Bruce used to stop the monster of the original Blockbuster story in Detective #345 -- he removes his mask and allows his humanity and familiarity to stop the invincible threat. Bruce, amnesiac, remains hostile, but slows to a creak, chilling the room because of the contact he made with the universe's heat death. His nose bleeding to reflect the internal struggle, Bruce's words turn tender. "I know you. Tim." More meaningful than first names, he later, more poignantly says, "Robin."

It is this measure of control that Tim helped Bruce achieve that leads him to submit when Wonder Woman arrives. In Batman #701-702, Bruce reminds us that while he is a man, these other heroes are themselves mythic and gods. Wonder Woman sees the story in her own terms, calling the Hyper-Adapter a Fury and probably in reference to Pandora, asking if Darkseid opened a box to let that demon out.

Under the power of Diana's lasso, Bruce speaks the truth while we see the words of the Hyper-Adapter struggling to manipulate him, associating the identity of Diana with Martha Wayne by saying "Mother betrayed you! Mother lied! Mother Box lied! Tell her nothing! Tell mother nothing!" Apparently compelled to obey the letter of its command, but not the spirit, Bruce continues to tell Diana everything she asks while triumphantly and hilariously vexing the Hyper-Adapter by punctuating his words with the non sequitur "Nothing." It asked him to tell her nothing. He told her everything and also told her, as it commanded, "Nothing."

As a hint of the Darkseid-Doctor Hurt association which is reinforced later, it continued its rant with lies about Thomas Wayne, much the same as Hurt would have had Bruce believe: "Father hated you! Stay lonely! Stay dead forever father fear!"

With his memory intact, the Hyper-Adapter goes on the attack, with "time" being shown to us, in the form of the Hanged Man tarot card, which symbolizes devotion to a worthy cause and also displays the petrine cross which was so notoriously removed from the cover of B&R #15. We also see the pearls and bullet and the Wayne murders, the eclipsed sun from Bruce's legend-inspiring adventure in ROBW #1, the "HAHAHA" of the Joker, symbols of games -- cards and chess, a bat and the bat-symbol, and a constellation. These tokens of what Batman is are alluded to with single-word speech balloons covering everything from the Wayne murders to the Joker's apophenia-inducing puzzles to a "ka-pow" right out of the Adam West television show.

We know that Batman must win. But he once again out-plans the enemy plan. Batman needs a time sphere for his plan to work and though the Hyper-Adapter disabled one, the search party arrives with a second one. Batman reckons that urban pollution alone is one weapon against the Hyper-Adapter -- for air to pose a danger to an alien threat is as old as The War of The Worlds. But he hits every right note at once with the masterstroke of his plan -- he has brought the monster to fight the strongest members of the Justice League on their home ground. They are empowered not only by who they are but because this moment now is the Age of Superheroes (the importance of the era itself being a thing that Libra acknowledged in Final Crisis) and presenting a theme to be developed more later, the monster must moreover fight his friends.

The superheroes, however, cannot tear the Hyper-Adapter out of Bruce -- he has to do that on his own. But once it is out, it stands no chance. In the grip of Wonder Woman, Superman, and Green Lantern, it is helpless, and they throw it where Bruce instructs them, into the time sphere. As they do, Bruce tells us that it, like the New Gods, is an idea made real. He says of it what Vandal Savage's evil thugs said of him at the end of ROBW #3, that it "never tires, never stops." Becoming the image that has defined Bruce, it becomes a bat, as it begins a trip backwards in time to its own defeat. Along the way, it makes the appearance during which it briefly fought Dick Grayson during B&R #11-12. Compelled by the time sphere, it goes back like the time-traveling bullet from Final Crisis, probably making the stop along the way to encounter 1765's Thomas Wayne as part of this voyage and not as a residue from Bruce's previous visit in 1718. Finally, it arrives in 9,000 B.C. where it is killed by Vandal Savage. Its skin later adorns the site where Savage's tribe binds Bruce to the ground and Bruce wears it in triumph, creating the bat-legend that carries forward in time, ultimately linking back to this story and itself. DC Message Board poster dangerdrventure notes that consuming the flesh of this bat form of the Hyper-Adapter may be the source of immortality for both Doctor Hurt and Vandal Savage. Its death is a part of the same story that it thought it was using to doom Bruce and his world, another dramatic example of the folly of working against Batman.

A powerful fever threatens to kill Bruce in the wake of his possession. As he falls, he puts clues together, telling us that Darkseid had tried to incarnate in Doctor Hurt. Given the evil with which 1765's Thomas Wayne began, this does not meet the requirements of incarnation from Final Crisis #4, "the ruin of a powerful, noble spirit." Maybe because of this, Darkseid was not able to use Hurt as he was Turpin.

The narration switches to pure symbols and flashbacks as a near-death experience with Kirbyesque art shows us a conversation between Bruce and Darkseid in the silent battlefield full of tombstones and broken Ozymandius-style statues where the "war in heaven" that beat the good New Gods before Final Crisis had taken place. Moments after Bruce had expelled one bat-demon, we see a flashback to what was truly Morrison's first Batman issue, the scene in 52 #30 in which the Ten Eyed Men cut away Bruce's demon -- a scene that RetroWarbird notes showed a Barbatos-like demon floating away. Lines from throughout ROBW and Batman #701 appear in fragment and show the rush of the story to this one end. We also see that the man in the wheelchair from ROBW #5 was, as many suspected, an avatar of Metron, who reveals that he has set up the Fifth World and says that Bruce can end this threat to his life, and the threat of Darkseid, by articulating the first truth of Batman. And at that, we see the third flashback to the "bell" scene and realize its true significance -- though Joe Chill's gunshots left Bruce alone, vulnerable to the fear of loneliness, he was never alone. He is staring at a bat, perhaps a stop of the Hyper-Adapter on its path to the past. In Batman #682, it is called a "peculiar, beady-eyed specimen, quite unafraid." It ends with Alfred disposing of it in humiliating fashion, sweeping it up and burning it. But at the moment of Bruce's impending mortality -- as in Return of Bruce Wayne #6, he had salvation awaiting. In that story, Bruce's help came the moment he rang the bell -- it was Alfred, who looms gigantic over this story though he is never shown and is named just once. In this story, it is Tim -- Robin. It is Wonder Woman and Green Lantern. Superman. Batman's friends.

The ringing of the bell in the flashback sends a pattern of sound across the whole world. Batman is a figure far more prone to give his assistance than to need it himself. Tim, his partner, recognizes that the way to revive Bruce is to tell him that Gotham is in danger. This is not just a claim they make for its therapeutic value. It happens to be true -- these events take place during the culmination of Doctor Hurt's attack which played out in Batman and Robin #16. Bruce's thoughts reveal in flashbacks that wrap up the mystery of the casket, that it never held anything of power. It was always a red herring for Doctor Hurt to pursue. Its note reading "Gotcha!" was a second barb aimed at Darkseid and his servants using that word, because Bruce knew that it would eventually be seen by them, as it was when Hurt went on to open it at a moment that is probably just slightly after Bruce rises from the icy bath that cools his fever. He thinks of the evil that is Doctor Hurt, and underscores for us, speaking to a mystery that has spanned two years, exactly what Hurt is: "A pure strain of platonic evil." And that there is still time to stop it. Going alone to join the battle with Dick and Damian, Bruce reminds us that his mission is not done, and will not be until "the night is over." As the Archivists knew, the knight's not over yet.

Return of Bruce Wayne 6: What Happened

This issue is a piece of a puzzle. It fits squarely between ROBW #5 and the end of B&R #15. It concludes ROBW and retroactively concludes B&R and Grant Morrison's 28 issues of Batman. It leads in to Batman, Inc. while also concluding, in some respects, Final Crisis, the Batman origin tale from Detective #33, and the entire timeline of the DC Universe. An ambitious story? And then some.

What happens? Through a narrative that is tangled in time, story lines, different titles, and themes, with characters who are moving forward, backward, and sideways in time, the myth of Batman is rebuilt from the beginning to its absolute end. One very particular adventure concludes: The Hyper-Adapter that Darkseid set loose must be beaten. This, of course, happens. In that respect, the story is very simple. What it says along the way is incredibly complex. I would not want to count the panels, including tiny insets, in this issue, but I suspect that the total number is several times that of an ordinary comic.

How does the final encounter between Bruce and the Hyper-Adapter play out? The Archivists who inhabit Vanishing Point automatically snare it for him, in a trap that will last a while, but not long enough to doom it at the very end. Bruce must escape it, and because his mind is what attracts it, he asks the Archivists to wipe his memory once more. He also asks them to build a time sphere that his friends can use to escape from the universe's heat death while he borrows theirs. And so he jumps, amnesiac, to the Hall of Justice.

The Hyper-Adapter, as clever as it is ugly, has bonded with him, and so it is the Archivist suit that Bruce wears upon his arrival. Satan, as Bruce says in ROBW #2, is hairy; it is not merely a disguise he is wearing: Bruce is essentially possessed, still as dangerous as ever, taking down the JLA while they try to stop him. The Hyper-Adapter directs Bruce to do its ill bidding until Tim Drake talks the half of Bruce that is still himself into slowing down his attack. Bruce allows Wonder Woman to lasso the composite pair and let them both speak their truths. At that point the Hyper-Adapter becomes its full self, still bonded to Bruce, threatening his life and all of time. And at that, Bruce's plan is itself revealed. He knows that he is not a god and cannot face true evil on a mythic scale, but that he is not and never has been alone. He cannot beat the Hyper-Adapter, only purge it from himself. And then his friends take over. In the time of superheroes, the JLA is unbeatable: Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, and Superman can beat the Hyper-Adapter, and by bringing it to the JLA, Batman has made it just another monster for them to beat. It has destroyed Nichols' time machine so that Batman cannot banish it, but as always, he is a step ahead. As soon as the time sphere brings the rescue party into the fight, the three big guns of the JLA wrestle the Hyper-Adapter inside, and it is taken into the past, in the form of a giant bat, where it is turned into an element of its own story: Vandal Savage kills it, where it inspires the bat legend that Bruce's adventure in ROBW #1 created for the Miagani.

This leaves Bruce barely alive, a medical threat which is resolved with ice water and by telling him that Gotham is in peril and needs him. That sounds like a necessary lie that Tim Drake thinks of, but it happens to be true: Bruce, having returned safely to his own time with his health, mind, and life intact, leaves to go help Dick and Damian beat Doctor Hurt, which we already saw take place.

On the simplest level, that is how Batman escapes from the trap that Darkseid created for him in Final Crisis #6: With his brains, his ability to survive, and a little help from his friends.

The larger part of the narration, though, embeds inside the plot the resolution of numerous plot points from Morrison's entire bat-saga, along with a sort of essay about Batman and the most endless Batman story of them all. That will be the subject of a second post, appearing here later today.

Batman and Robin 16

One has to give Doctor Hurt credit. While most villains over the years have gone down easily when opposed by Batman, Hurt stayed alive, uncaptured, and largely on the offense until he had to face the combined efforts of two Batmen, one Robin, and the Joker. He was formidable enough that he had, and passed on, opportunities to kill both Batmen in a failed effort to achieve an even larger victory. But his elaborate plans kept the heroes off-balance for years. What was puzzling them -- and us -- was the nature of his game.

For Hurt, this issue begins and ends underground, and he spends most of the middle underground. All three of these subterranean scenes are memorable. First, we see the ceremony which is not quite the origin of Doctor Hurt -- he is already devoted to evil and practiced in Satanic rites in 1765 when he manages to raise a bat apparition that he takes for a demon and which somehow, perhaps telepathically, utters cryptic messages totaling just 22 words that forge a deal with Thomas and drops clear references to Darkseid.

Key parts of Hurt's origin as Thomas Wayne -- not Bruce's father but a young man in the Wayne family looking a lot like Bruce in 1765 -- had been hinted at over the last several issues. The issue begins with a faithful retelling of the ritual from Peter Milligan's 1990 story "Dark Knight, Dark City" in Batman #452-455. Six men prepare to sacrifice a woman in order to raise a demon, Barbatos. Thomas -- Jefferson in Milligan's story, Jefferson or Wayne in Morrison's -- objects at a key moment and the men flee. But in Morrison's version, only five men flee while Thomas Wayne remains to face the demon. As much as we know of Hurt's story, this is when Old Thomas Wayne became something special. Did he receive supernatural powers? He received at least one, longevity, contingent upon various blood rituals, just like Manfred in his deal with Satan in Morrison's 1990 story "Gothic."

What this made of Thomas who, identifying with Simon Magus, called himself Simon and eventually Doctor Simon Hurt, is hinted at in sentence fragments uttered (telepathically?) by Barbatos, then later made absolutely clear when Hurt, looking in a mirror and seeing or imagining Barbatos, says "I live to be your weapon." This line is the absolute nail-in-the-coffin proof that Hurt does not imagine himself to be the ultimate evil, but rather the servant of a greater evil. If we find out more about this Barbatos, we may find out if it truly is what the issue's solicit calls "ultimate evil."

Barbatos is clearly associated with the Hyper Adapter that Darkseid set loose in Batman #702 (in a previously unrevealed detail from Bruce's showdown with Darkseid in Final Crisis #6), and is most likely exactly that. Despite Hurt's vision, we see that no actual giant bat is present, just a large one that Thomas bites into in; if the issue's title had been "Black Sabbath" instead of "Black Mass" the farcical aspects of this arc could have added a guest appearance by celebrity bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne.

Though we see Thomas and Barbatos in their deal, interesting details regarding each and their association itself remain unclear. Thomas is already in search of "the mystery box" which came into being probably some years earlier in time for Jack Valor to see it in ROBW #3. The excitement with which one of the fiends yells "Barbatos!" upon seeing the box in B&R #12 might make one think that the box was the key to Barbatos, but here and in ROBW #5, Thomas indicates that Barbatos is the key to the box. We know that something dreadful is in the box, but it has contained lately and perhaps for a long time a bat-tracer and a note. Why did Thomas want the box? Is Barbatos, in saying "Omega Adapter," identifying itself or is it a different thing, perhaps not Apokoliptan at all, speaking of the box? This remains unclear and may be part of the true finale to this story in ROBW #6. Another riddle is why this encounter took place at all -- Thomas thinks he brought it about, but was making Hurt part of the Omega plan? If so, pestering Batman seems like an irrelevant add-on to a plan to destroy the world, particularly odd in that Hurt's major blow already came before Bruce faced Darkseid. A smaller riddle is why Barbatos calls Thomas "dark twin." Maybe it is exercising its knowledge of dead languages -- "Thomas" means "twin." Maybe Thomas is the actual twin of an 18th century Wayne, Darius or another. Or if this really is all about Bruce, maybe Barbatos considers Thomas to be a twin to the object of its primary objective.

The battle in Wayne Manor features Bruce Wayne, in a surprising reemergence that seems to be factually contradicted by last month's Road Home story. And so, in his great return, Bruce is a man who surprisingly comes back from a long torturous journey to stand beside his son (and closest friend) and fight against a large number of enemies who have taken his home -- this is the plot of Book XXII of The Odyssey, a chapter commonly called "Death in the Great Hall." This is Batman's version of that story, right down to the bow and arrow that Damian uses.

The Dynamic Trio, each of them taking on 33 Fiends, is easily able to overwhelm the muscle in Hurt's plan, and the story thereafter refers much more to Morrison's Batman story of 2008 than to Greek classics. Just as Bruce descended into Arkham in RIP he descends into the Batcave. Just as the Joker taunted him by loudspeaker then, Hurt does so now. Just as Jezebel called out for help then, Alfred does so now. And just as the Joker then shouted in triumph that Bruce was finally finding out what it was like to be him (the clown at midnight), Hurt shouts now, as he locks Batman in a vault, that Bruce is finally finding out what it is like to be "second best," "the Devil in Hell." That is a reference not only to Hurt's role as an outcast but to the "fallen angel" brand of Devil who regrets having been cast into Hell, second best to the king of Heaven whom he could not overthrow. Rolling on with references to the earlier story, Hurt quotes one of the lines that the Army doctor who inspired Hurt had in Batman #156, "One of man's most primitive fears is loneliness," which was also cited by Morrison in Batman #673. And then, in a moment that fandom has been waiting for, the story offers the real meaning (Hurt's meaning, anyway) of RIP as he curses Bruce to "Rot in purgatory."

Above ground, Dick and Damian take down Professor Pyg who identifies himself as the pig named Napoleon (who was himself an allusion to Stalin) from George Orwell's Animal Farm. With a burning "Mommy Made of Nails" and one lie, they neutralize Pyg by turning his own victims upon him.

Below ground, Bruce, probably having cracked his grandmother Betsy's story from ROBW #5, tells us that Hurt was the one who had been kept in the secret room, undoubtedly the criminal whose activities brought drug and rape allegations down around Bruce's father. And when Hurt claims to be Bruce's father we can see that he's no longer just flailing for a way to get a psychological edge -- he actually cannot stop speaking and possibly believing delusions about his identity, putting the lie retroactively to his implication a few pages earlier of knowing what the Devil feels like. He exults in being for Bruce what he has so long been for the readers, an endless puzzle, a case we can never close.

The Joker leads Hurt via a trail of 1-and-8 dominoes to a Clint Eastwood showdown with Hurt that leads him to the banana peel we saw prominently last time. A look at the line of Poe scrawled on the door of Alan Wayne's tomb reminds us once more of the dark, flapping things that visited the protagonist of The Raven, Bruce in his study as shown back in Detective #33 (Morrison, in Batman #682, has the bat land on a bust to copy The Raven more closely), and Old Thomas himself in this issue's first scene.

And so, mirroring the final events setting up Bruce's worst moments going into RIP's final issue, this story's final issue has Hurt's face smashed into glass before he is set laughing by Joker venom and buried alive in a coffin. This is also how the Joker disposed of the real Oberon Sexton, but Hurt, being immortal (why he has aged enough to play Bruce's father is not addressed), just may get out of this trap at his leisure, if his inability to perform blood rituals and "space voodoo" doesn't do him in down there.

Both the Joker and Hurt are hit by Bruce at comical punch line moments, Hurt asking Barbatos for a sign and the Joker asking what could be funnier than his stint as a crimefighter. He ends, though, as a gravedigging clown, taking us back to the prose issue of Batman #663, not to mention Hamlet.

The main story at an end (give or take ROBW #6), the issue confirms Damian's emergence as a thermonuclear-bomb-defusing superhero and then gives us the set up for Batman, Inc. With Bruce Wayne deciding to make public his role in funding Batman's war on crime, we are launched into a new era that puts aside for now the dark, twisted ambiguous mysteries that have haunted Batman since he walked past unnoticed "Zur En Arrh" graffiti in Batman #655. As Lois Lane was long fooled by glasses, the audience will likely fail to notice that the athletic man whose former ward is about the right age to be the first Robin and whose son is the right age to be the current Robin might actually be Batman. And so begins a new era for Batman.

Hurt on Hurt

"Call me Doctor Hurt," he said, to an audience of seven villains. On a logical level, that statement contains a hedge: The head of the Black Glove does not tell the Club of Villains that he is Doctor Hurt -- he merely tells them, and us, to call him that.

Even by the standards of super villains, Doctor Hurt is an avid liar. Among the deliberate falsehoods he speaks, there may be some delusions as well. And yet, his words and the deeds that we've witnessed provide information about him. Grant Morrison's handling of Doctor Hurt has taken readers through two different long stories that make a mystery of who this eminently capable and patient enemy of Batman is. Hurt is not trustworthy enough that his words alone could lead us to know his one exclusive identity -- if he has one. But they do help us narrow down who Doctor Hurt is in the sense of what he is like, and identify the guises he wears, which include some obvious fictions as well as some of the candidates for his identity.

Everything Doctor Hurt says is a voice from two authors for two audiences. Hurt the fictional character says things to whomever is listening. And all of those lines were written by Grant Morrison to let readers know just what he wanted us to at that point in the story. Trying to juggle the two demands and others (such as making the dialogue good) in every line makes all of Hurt's dialogue the result of a many-way balancing act that is awesome to contemplate. It's quite a bit more complex than the bare minimum task that a writer faces in writing Lex Luthor. The result may bend at times the motive to sound like Hurt versus the motive to tell readers just enough and not more.

I will highlight a few different personae within Hurt's voice, and the voices and actions that reflect his attitudes about himself. These are not definite declarations of identity: to say that Hurt speaks as though he is the Devil is not to say that he necessarily is the Devil, any more than he is Alfred when he pretends to be Alfred in Batman #679. The qualities and identities that I will track here, quotation by quotation, are, with a pithy one-word code for each:

Devil: A supernatural being dealing out earthly rewards in return for corruption.

Sadist: A man who likes others to suffer as a pleasure for him in its own right.

Wayne: A Wayne who was born long ago but is still alive.

Thomas: This code indicates specifically the father of Bruce, not the Wayne who went by that name centuries ago.

Rules: A man who is on the inferior end of complying with arcane supernatural rules, implying some other power is offering something in return for his compliance with its evil requirements.

Poor: A man who has a poor man's contempt for the wealthy and out of insecurity from that past, he exults in his access to wealth and power now.

In terms of that code, here is Hurt in his own words and actions:

"The Black Glove aims to deliver a deluxe service high stakes experience at the very highest levels of the international game.": Sadist, Poor (Batman #667)

"eyewitnesses will be bribed or killed, the widow ruined": Sadist (Batman #676)

"damaged little aristocrat": Poor (Batman #677)

"complete and utter ruination of a noble human spirit": Devil (Batman #667)

"[Batman may return.] Perhaps as my butler": Poor (Batman #678)

[Hitting Alfred over the head with a bottle]: Sadist (Batman #667)

"The usurper never was my son, was he? It was you... you and Martha, my adulterous witch of a wife, am I right?": Thomas (Batman #679)

"I'm Doctor Hurt now": Wayne, Thomas (Batman #679)

"We intend to ruin him in every way imaginable. Body and soul.": Devil (Batman #679)

"the Black Glove invites you, some of the richest people in the world, to play a game with human lives.": Devil, Poor (Batman #680)

"Can the ultimate noble spirit survive the ultimate ignoble betrayal?": Devil (Batman #680)

Joker: "I found out who Doctor Hurt is and why he hates you.": Devil? Wayne? (Batman #680)

Joker: "devil is double is deuce, my dear doctor. and joker trumps deuce... pleased to meet you, admire your work, but don't, don't, call me servant.": Devil (Batman #681)

"I'm your father": Thomas (Batman #681)

"Hole in Things. The Enemy.": Devil (Batman #681)

"Unless, of course... unless Batman agrees to serve the Black Glove. And willingly dedicates his life to the corruption of virtue. Ready to deal?": Devil (Batman #681)

"Then I curse the cape and cowl, as you will soon! The next time you wear it will be the last!": Devil (Batman #681)

"99 Fiends, like storm crows, lead the way. The 3rd Hierarchy is already at your door, my stern judgment to enact.": Devil (B&R #10)
"Absolves me of all sin": Rules (B&R #11)
"Wounds [in the shape of a 'W'] remind me who I am": Wayne (B&R #11)
"Double You": Wayne, Devil (B&R #11)
"You know what I am": Devil, Rules? (B&R #11)
"reclaim what was always rightfully mine": Wayne (B&R #11)
"walk with me", "Christ will protect you from the bullets": Devil, Rules (B&R #11)
"slate's clear, washed in the blood of the Lamb; free": Rules (B&R #11)
"let it all fall down": Wayne? Devil? (B&R #11)
"Take me home. Gotham City": Wayne (B&R #11)
"return of the king": Wayne (B&R #12)
[opening scene: man pays hit man to kill his wife and son]: Thomas (B&R #13)
"Wayne Manor is mine. Gotham City is mine.": Wayne (B&R #13)
"And soon, when the Black Sun shines": Rules (B&R #13)
"I will break and corrupt this boy": Devil (B&R #13)
"You dare imagine yourself superior to a Wayne?": Wayne (B&R #13)
"...the key to eternity": Rules (ROBW #4)
"you little slut": Sadist (ROBW #4)
"Any attempt to tamper with the locks results in the destruction of the contents, remember? The secret of life eternal is here, in a box only you know how to open, so breathe deeply and do what Doctor Thomas tells you.": Rules (ROBW #4)
"Darius and Mad Tony": Wayne, Poor (ROBW #4)
"we raised batwinged Barbatos and drank the starry venom": Rules (ROBW #4)
"Are you one too? I'll get you all in the end.": Devil (ROBW #4)
"They say he too sought in blood the secret of life eternal… but that was blood of a different sort." ["too" and "different" juxtapose the case to that of Jonah Hex as a bounty hunter]: Rules (ROBW #4)
"I knew this prize would be mine in the end. But even I can't open it without destroying the contents, and that's my big problem...": Rules? (B&R #14)
"Perfectly corrupt, Pyg. Perfectly ugly.": Devil (B&R #14)
"I give you Gotham! The new capital city of crime! Where the only law is the law of might makes right! Where human lives are commodities! Where even men like our stubborn, incorruptible Police Commissioner Gordon must succumb to the new order of things... Soon you'll do anything for what we have to offer, Gordon. You and all the other innocent victims of Professor Pyg's viral narcotic. Instant junkies.": Devil, Sadist (B&R #14)
"Does it hurt now? I have the only thing that can stop the pain right here. But my customers have to do exactly as they're told.": Devil, Sadist (B&R #14)
Betsy Kane: "Then there was that terrible night... and every time I think of his sneering, awful face... The pearls were to identify her to the gunman... Doctor Thomas by day, Bad Tommy by night. Patrick and Silas had to cover up the whole thing. The stolen drugs, the rape charges, the secret room where they treated him for months while my grandson was sent away to a boarding school. He killed my daughter, of that I have no doubt. Then he stood there and admitted he'd turned her into a drug addict and... and worse.": Thomas (ROBW #5)
"You could be the richest man on Earth. You know who I am. I'm offering you the same deal I offered the others. And I bet you everything you can't refuse. Tell me that's not hesitation, Carter. If you don't want the wealth, the fame, the admiration of your peers... what about the woman? Think about what happened when Roderick Kane chose not to play. But don't think too long. Your visitor won't keep forever.": Devil (ROBW #5)
"No one important, Carter. No one who matters.": Poor, Sadist (ROBW #5)
"Barbatos will lead us to the hidden casket of immortality and life eternal. All is prepared for the ceremony of the bat.": Rules (ROBW #5)
"A man's soul is in his reputation, his legacy. Destroy a reputation, destroy a soul.": Rules, Devil (ROBW #5)

"Open the hole in time, Carter... call down Barbatos, the hunter, the finder of great treasure.": Rules (ROBW #5)

[Carter wins Doctor Hurt's wager] "Yes... Well done. I hope that thought will comfort you in the years of lonely obscurity ahead. Now run.": Devil, Rules? (ROBW #5)
Joker: "The big brother you never had is on the Devil's chopping block": Devil (B&R #15)
Joker: "most evil man in the world": Rules (B&R #15)
"It seems I may have returned just in time to protect my beloved city from disaster.": Thomas (B&R #15)
"Our handsome young acrobat will become a human vegetable. Unable to move or feed or change himself. With only broken memories of how it felt to soar.": Sadist (B&R #15)
"All I ask is something small in return. Something soul-sized.": Devil (B&R #15)
Damian: "You're not the Devil! You're a man who lived too long. We know who you are!": Rules (B&R #15)
"Become my creature, submit absolutely to my instruction and when your soul is extinguished in my service... perhaps you'll finally know by the gaping hole that remains what it is you've lost.": Devil (B&R #15)
"[Thomas and Martha] took me in. They showed me kindness.": Thomas (B&R #15)
"Now I've taken his face. He'll be remembered as a criminal, she a drug fiend. Their son mentally ill. The legacy of Batman will be one of monstrous failure and perversion.": Sadist, Rules (B&R #15)
"I will be Batman in my great black car, preying on the weak, in Gotham's endless night.": Sadist (B&R #15)
"The ceremony of the bat has begun. As the sun shines black you and I will summon the spirit Barbatos to open this impenetrable box of ancient secrets.": Rules (B&R #15)
"One last chance to save your friend. Raise your left hand and say...": Rules (B&R #15)
"Well... here we are come to business. Alone at last. You and I.": Rules (B&R #16 preview)

That list excerpts sixty-four of the items that are most revealing about Doctor Hurt's self-image; for the moment, I withhold a few more which indicate something a bit trickier and give us more insight still. The aforementioned pieces of evidence point in several different directions. Cumulatively, they are consistent with this back story:

Thomas was a Wayne born around 1730. Contact with a bat-demon in 1765 gave him limited life extension and perhaps other powers such as protection from bullets or the ability to cast a curse. He has tried to summon Barbatos again, perhaps to refresh his life extension, but has never been able to do so. He has pursued a few evil goals since then: He wants wealth and power, but particularly the helm of the Wayne family, which he considers to be rightfully his. In the meantime, he has come to seek the corruption of all virtue and he leads others, particularly the ultra-wealthy, to make deals that cost them their souls. In pursuit of those goals, he has claimed at least once to be the younger Thomas Wayne, which he is not, and has implied if not stated that he is the Devil, which he may or may not believe.

That account is consistent and is perhaps relatively complete. But there are hints of other important story elements that do not fit easily into that.

[to Bruce] "Remember me? How you've grown, hmm? How long has it been?" (Batman #678) That line may be throwaway trash talking to his enemy when Bruce is down. But we know that Thomas and Martha took Hurt in, so Hurt probably did see Bruce when Bruce was a boy. But he has also seen Bruce as an adult, so it is odd that he mentions that Bruce has grown. This could be sheer rhetoric; it is also consistent with possession of Hurt by another mind such that he doesn't recall, as he's speaking in #678, the Isolation Experiment but does recall meeting the Waynes earlier.

"['W'] is the mark of the shadow, the dark twin." (B&R #11) Of whom? God? Some long-since dead Wayne -- Darius? The much younger Thomas? Bruce? These lines and the "double you" (which is a pun on the name of the letter) mean that Hurt is in his own mind someone else's counterpart, but there is no obvious answer as to whom. Moreover, the "double you" (a pun on the spoken name of 'W') is compatible either with the counterpart concept or with possession.

"200 years ago, Barbatos was beyond our abilities to explain or comprehend -- a demon, a myth. Now we have dark science on our side. A new understanding of time and unearthly lifeforms... In the name of the first red rock and the rage, and the angels and dukes of the dark side inferno pits." (ROBW #5) This line (as well as the chanting of King Coal's men) indicates a link between earthly Satanism and Darkseid and Apokolips. This is consistent with the previously hypothesized back story, but suggests that Hurt has become specifically aware of the nature of the demons to which he refers (the 99 Fiends include dukes) as originating somehow with Apokolips.

"Souls to feed Barbatos." (ROBW #5) This is a line of crucial importance despite its brevity, as the following makes clear:

What motivates Hurt? The answer does not need to be one thing. A person can like both skeet shooting and butterscotch pudding. Hurt is (a) a sadist; (b) a man who believes that the supernatural offers him a reward that he is seeking; (c) a Wayne who wishes that specific fortune and empire to be his. Is he also (d) the principle tempter in the universe, the Devil? "Souls to feed Barbatos" does not deliver a clear negative answer to that, but it indicates that most of the quotations tagged "Devil" above can be explained more simply: Hurt believes that what he seeks from Barbatos can be obtained by paying Barbatos with souls. When Hurt spoke of destroying Bruce's soul, he identified himself as a being who seeks evil for its own sake. But the indication that the souls are for Barbatos gives a simpler explanation of his motives: He is still motivated by more than one thing, the (a), (b), and (c) above -- he is a sadist who wants to be the principle Wayne and get some deal (probably for immortality) as well. But there is no evidence that he has a separate motive to collect others' souls. In "Gothic", Manfred acted to cause deaths in order to further his goals, but only because it furthered his goals. He says "Regrettably, this involved the regular spilling of blood." (LOTDK #9) He goes on to call the murders he commits "atrocious." They are a means to achieve an end. Hurt's line "Souls to feed Barbatos" is consistent with Hurt regretting what he does as a means to achieve his desired end. On the other hand, as a sadist, he may enjoy it quite a bit, and his characteristic smile suggests that he does. But he has a motive besides doing it because he is the being whose purpose is simply to do such things. He believes that he is gathering souls to pay such a being.

While this makes it simpler to explain his actions as those of a self-serving man (the "Rules" role that Hurt plays), it doesn't contradict the more complex possibilities that he is also the Devil or is possessed by the Devil and speaking with multiple voices. There remains the interesting dimension of the audiences to whom he speaks. The following people are present when Hurt asserts or may assert that he is the Devil: Lane, the Joker, Bruce, Dick and Damian, the doomed priest, Nichols, and in vaguer terms, others. If he is sure that he is not the Devil, why would he lay the "deal" act on so thick? Why would he say "You know what I am" with the impersonal pronoun instead of "who"? When Damian says that Hurt is not the Devil, why doesn't Hurt say, "Well, of course not. But anyway..."?

This is where the audiences make it complex. Hurt may have told Lane something so Lane would tell Bruce. Hurt could say that he's the Devil because he believes it, or he could be a man playing by Rules who thinks that a soul is only ruined if a person deals with the Devil than if a person just accepts a thing they want. Maybe he debases the priest (who isn't going to live to talk to anyone else) by telling him that he is blessing the Devil. And therefore, anything Hurt says can be explained by two motives so that there is evidence of both possibilities -- that he believes that he is the Devil; or, that he finds it useful to ruin souls for Barbatos -- but proof of neither.

And what did Hurt say to the Joker off-camera in #680? He told the Joker who he was, then the Joker said that what he found out is part of why the Joker would not join forces with Batman against the Black Glove. The Joker later calls Hurt the Devil, which is a viewpoint (fact or fiction) that he only could have gotten from Hurt, so clearly Hurt told the Joker that he is the Devil. Why lie to the Joker? Is that a soul that is not yet ruined? Maybe Hurt also told the Joker that he began as a Wayne. Clearly, the Joker's investigations as Oberon Sexton have led him to that knowledge by now, but the Joker already wanted revenge on Hurt before RIP ended. Because he's a relative of Bruce? Because he tried to do the Joker's job of eliminating Batman? Or because the Joker wants to trump the Devil, taking it as a personal challenge to be a bigger villain?

Likewise, Hurt's motive for trying to get Bruce becomes ambiguous: Is it because he's the tempter of souls and wants to corrupt "the man who has no price, the man who cannot be bought or sold or swayed from his singular path"? (Batman #663) Or because Bruce is the "usurper" holding the empire that Hurt, the rejected Wayne, believes is rightfully his? By surviving when Chill was meant to kill him, did Bruce ruin Hurt's plan to begin posing as Thomas? Even Hurt's motive for taking the Wayne empire is ambiguous: Does he want the house or free rein to hunt for the casket?

The audiences make it complex and the double audiences -- characters inside the story and we outside the story -- make it doubly complex. Look at the timeline of the evidence above. Ordered by publication date, we see one thing: Of the first stories to be published (by the end of RIP), there are many pieces of evidence for the Devil persona, followed by Thomas, with Wayne and Rules basically absent.  Of the stories coming later, Rules and Devil are the leading themes referenced, with Wayne arising as a common theme, but much less prevalent.

Alternately, consider the evidence in terms of Hurt's personal timeline. We see a trend that is the reverse of publication order. Of events taking place before Batman's career started, the Rules motive is easily the most prevalent, with Devil, Wayne, and Thomas making only a couple of showings each. Of the events taking place after Batman's career started, the Devil persona is clearly the most prevalent. If we had seen this story in the order of DC Universe chronology, we would have seen a man make some sort of infernal deal to start the story, with a pretty clear track as it unfolded of who he was and what he became. The narration did the opposite: We had an utterly ambiguous figure who was revealed to us, one hint at a time, as the Devil, before the backstory was shown, one hint at a time, as to how he became who he is. And so the origin comes last, tomorrow, in Batman and Robin #16. At least, the preview shows us the beginning of the origin. At least, we may see more of the origin. We may not. As Morrison said in a recent interview, "At the same time it comes to an end now, so we learn a lot more about him, but I did want to keep a little bit of that ambiguity in there because that's what he's all about." The double motives and folding logic as each line in the story is told for two audiences has been so far a masterpiece of ambiguity.