Man of Steel Review (spoilers)

Man of Steel will inevitably be compared to the first two movies in the Salkind franchise starring Christopher Reeve. Fans of the comics will tally up the stories it references, and where it diverges from them. Its visuals, at times lyrical, at times more frantic than a fork in a garbage disposal, are a tour de force. It’s well acted. The dialogue is never strained. And yet, I wonder who it’s for, and perhaps what it’s for.

The earlier Superman franchise followed the example of the character’s history in establishing the Kryptonian lad’s birth and journey to Earth, then an early period in which he faces ordinary menaces like aviation disasters and bank robberies, before things get wickedly sci fi. This time around, not so. This Superman debuts, at least in the suit, precisely to face a Kryptonian invasion of Earth, with nary a cat saved from a tree, nor a Daily Planet article, before he has to face Zod’s army.

Along the way, we are given scenes from Clark Kent’s boyhood and adulthood, with jumps forward and backward in time. His adult phase may remind one of Birthright, although he’s at sea rather than in Africa. His boyhood is close to the one portrayed in Geoff Johns’ Secret Origin, a sort of sorrowful time when young Clark wonders “Why me?” Johns’ take on Krypton and its pre-cataclysmic politics are also used in Man of Steel, with Jor-El and Zod contemplating an alliance before they split. Krypton’s destruction is blamed on a form of fracking, one of two ways the movie takes a jab at the safety of petroleum production. The movie’s main plot most closely resembles the Eradicator plot from the Nineties’ comics, but it is Zod and his fellow criminals who wish to terraform Earth into a new Krypton.

In terms of plot, the biggest surprises take the form of three deaths. Jor-El does not live to see Krypton explode, dying at Zod’s hand shortly before the planet dies with him. However, Russell Crowe gets more than a little screen time, speaking as an avatar so often it’s almost as though he never died. A more surprising twist on comic book convention is that Jonathan Kent dies in full view of Clark in a way that is easily preventable, but it would blow Clark’s secret identity. Father has convinced son that the identity is more important than human life, so Clark, hemmed in by the unfortunate presence of witnesses, stands by as Jonathan goes smiling to his doom. Finally, Superman kills Zod by snapping his neck. The rationale is very compelling, but here any acknowledgement of the gravity of that act passes within seconds. When Superman killed Zod in the comics of 1988, the event haunted him for over a year.

Death is simply quite common in this movie. It’s hard to imagine that the destruction wrought by the Kryptonian villains could have killed any fewer than 100,000 victims, and we see many of those onscreen. These Phantom Zone ex-cons make Superman II’s villains look like peaceniks.

Scenes in this movie are exceptionally well photographed and rendered. You see set pieces right out of Avatar, Sweet Hereafter, even Poltergeist. The battle scenes don’t sacrifice the overwhelming and savage speed that Kryptonians possess to make it easier to follow. They move like gunshots, seemingly materializing and dematerializing because they move so fast, either under their own power, or after being punched, which tends to send them on a 14-mile path of destruction through at least a few buildings.

Ultimately, everything in the movie is well done, but I’m not sure who will rave that they loved it. The luscious, ponderous beauty of some scenes look like Terrence Malick directed them. But does anyone who appreciates that also appreciate CGI battles with skyscrapers exploding into flames? I think a lot of people will appreciate at least one aspect of Man of Steel or another. But there’s a rift between its careful, thoughtful camerawork and the kinetic action. If this reboot earns a second entry in the series, it will be interesting to see if they try to keep the tone or discard it for something more lively.

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!

Batman Inc, The Path Ahead

With three issues to go in Batman, Inc., we see Batman utilizing at least three weapons of last resort as he charges into battle with Talia's forces. Clearly, he will gain at least a partial tactical victory in this battle. But where do things go? We know at least the following events must be visited:

Timeline

T1) A second death of someone close to Batman will take place. Because the cover of #11 is still being withheld, it is likely to refer to this second death.
T2) Bruce reverts from man-bat form to his normal human appearance.
T3) At the funeral for this death, Bruce Wayne is arrested.
T4) An eventual resolution of all of these problems, except the two deaths.
T5) At least implicitly, the future timeline as seen in "666" may be referenced.

The solicits for the upcoming issues say:


#11 - Batman’s world has been devastated by his war against Talia, but is he willing to give up on his own humanity?
#12 - Leviathan and the Heretic are on the ropes...could Batman be on the verge of avenging all he’s lost?
#13 - Batman saves the world and loses everything.

As I mentioned in my last post, I believe the death will be that of Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman, who will first be revealed as the mysterious Headmistress from several brief appearances beginning with Leviathan Strikes, and we know to be a sexy brunette who is associated with Spyder, allied with Batman, and puts old-time Kathy Kane costumes on the agents she trains. For her to die now fits a theme of three-part family: the father, the wife, and the son. This is the family arrangement of the Waynes when Bruce was a boy, and now, although Kathy is of no relation to Damian, Bruce has a "good" wife and son in Kathy and Damian, and a "bad" wife and son in Talia and the Heretic. For the father to survive while the wife and son die is a theme also shown in the wonderfully enigmatic opening to Batman and Robin #13. Kathy's role in Batman's life has gotten significant attention earlier in the Inc story, with Bruce having told Dick Grayson, "We're going to be a Bat-Family!"

It is possible that the plot will also kill off the Heretic, although this seems less likely to produce the deep grieving that we saw in the flash-forward to the funeral at Wayne Manor.

The main battle, and thematic crescendo, in the next two issues will involve Batman and Talia. Morrison gave extensive interviews after Damian's death, and a selection of key quotations from those follows:

Q1: "the entire run is being based almost constantly on this sort of confrontation between parent and children."

Q2: "We want to make Batman driven by his vengeance again, and that drive to shoot him in to places where he does good for people, he helps people, he's a superhero and I think that can never be forgotten. Batman turns grief into something positive every time."

Q3: "These last four issues are kind of the vengeance of Batman and the iron fist of the Dark Knight."

Q4: "I always knew I was going to give Batman back kind of like, 'This is the way I found the guy.'"

Q5: "We deal with the Lazarus Pit in the very next issue."

Q6: "I just hope people like the end. It’s kind of a big end and obviously we’re dealing with big emotions now. And we’ll be dealing with the whole red-and-black thing that’s been in play since almost the very beginning and ultimately resolves with the Dark Knight versus the Red Queen. It all makes sense in the end! But I hope it’s got a big opera-like ending and that people get into it."

Q7: "The basic symbol of this story has been the serpent swallowing his own tail. And it was this idea of family destroying themselves, you know? And watching the kids having to deal with it.

And so because Damian is the child of Batman, Damian is killed by the child of Damian via Batman — this monster that Talia has grown and accelerated and turned into a monstrous warrior.

And so it just seemed right in the story of the serpent eating itself and families destroying themselves to take it from, you know, the little perfect child into this broken Frankenstein child who then destroys him. And obviously, Batman's going to have to deal with this thing."

Q8: "I could have written Batman and Robin a lot longer, and Damian could have had more of a life. I would have taken him up to the age of 14, where then he sells his soul to Dr. Hurt, or to the devil, and I'd play out that story. But you know... it just didn't play that way."

Q9: "The conclusion is finally here, with only four more issues to go. Four issues which take Batman to dark places he has never had to visit before. Four issues and I’m done, while Batman himself continues into as yet unimagined future adventures."

Q10: "Batman, Inc. is now the vengeance of Batman. This is what happens when you push him too far. He underestimated Talia, and now Talia has underestimated him.

But at the same time, Batman's dealing with something much bigger than he's ever had to deal with. Talia runs a gigantic, international criminal empire. She's no pushover. So it's kind of Batman going to places he's never been before.

But yeah, all the Batman, Incorporated characters come into it, and the world is threatened. Everyone's in trouble.

And find out where Batman goes when his son dies. What kind of Batman emerges from that?"

Q11: "A lot of stuff happens that you've never seen before in a Batman comic. The death of Damian is quite a big thing so I wanted to make sure all of the issues after have equally huge ramifications for Batman in the future." There will also be one final confrontation between Batman and Talia, where all the real drama lies, Morrison says. "It's not only what they've done to one another but what they've done to their son and what they've done to the world just over a misunderstanding, over a relationship gone wrong."

While this makes clear that a confrontation with Talia will dominate the final three issues, we also know that it will include some significant resolution after the battle, because at point T3 in the timeline, Bruce is ready to accept defeat, but he still has to deal with the arrest and then return to his war just like when Morrison "found the guy."

As I emphasized last time, Ra's speaks knowingly of a bigger picture, one which includes sacrifice and which pleases him more than it will Talia. How active his role in this plot turns out to be may be that of a puppet master controlling Talia, or a much more subtle and passive role behind the scenes, but we've seen that Talia regrets the death of Damian and that it took place when events slipped beyond her control, and yet Ra's seems completely pleased by these events. His reference to a "required sacrifice" has strangely religious, satanic overtones akin to the dark future seen in "666", and if Ra's is not working to achieve this end, he at least seems aware of it, and in favor of it. And his reference to one single detail that Talia forgot may be as simple as leaving Langstrom alive so that Batman could get a man-bat antidote, or it may be something bigger still.

Speaking with Michael Lane in #10, Batman says of the "666" plot, "My son is dead. The future I saw wasn't his, after all." The bolded "his" seems to indicate that someone else will take that place, either to save or destroy Gotham in the future, or to save it now. Perhaps Bruce will play that role now. Perhaps the Heretic will play it now or later. This higher level of plot, where Batman, as the solicit of #13 says, "saves the world" may concern the meta-bomb, playing a role like the Joker's nuclear weapon in Batman and Robin. And the final note of the plot is likely to be the final line of Damian in Batman #666: "The apocalypse is cancelled. Until I say so."

Batman Inc, Endgame

With three issues left in Batman, Inc. there's more coming than the story we've seen so far seems to require. Talia believes that a grand finale begins with the moment that issue #10 ended. But a battle won't last three issues. And we have seen, in #1, a look forward that includes a second funeral. In that flash forward, Batman once again appears to be a normal man, which means that he will have willingly reversed his transformation into a man-bat. And yet, that funeral leaves Bruce speaking of defeat, before being arrested by Jim Gordon, and that will require yet another series of twists. Where is this story going?

First, a list of the pending mysteries: Sivana's photonic crystal. The identity of the headmistress. The detail that Ra's says that Talia forgot. Whose death causes the second headstone in Bruce's vision? And overall, just where is this going?

Oroboros, Otto Netz's invention that allowed him to build a meta-bomb, a ring around the world, and Sivana's photonic crystal are both meta-materials. Unlike many comic book gadgets, these actually exist, and on small scales, actually do allow such otherwise impossible properties as a lens that pulls out detail smaller than the wavelength of the light that passes through them, and as mentioned in the comic, invisibility. If the importance of this is simply to give Batman one more weapon in his coming battle, then this will have its role, which should pass quickly. However, as this was introduced in the first issue of Inc, and has been mentioned more than once since then, it probably has a larger importance, related to the meta-bomb threat rather than as a mere battlefield weapon. The common language used to describe both and the explicit comparison of the two seems like more than coincidence.

The headmistress from Leviathan Strikes has been conspicuously hidden from full view in each appearance. We see her once with black nails, once with red. She wears a revealing dress in #10, and we find out that she's on Batman's side while she appeared to be on Leviathan's. And with the girls she trains wearing costumes in the style of the original Batwoman, others have guessed that she indeed is Kathy Kane, the original Batwoman whom Morrison has shown at several intervals in his epic. As of Inc v1 #3-5, she has been rewritten as a double spy, who was asked to betray Batman, and began that assignment but did not complete it. We know that Scorpiana is an underling of the headmistress, and we know that both Kathy Kane and Scorpiana dance the tango of death. Batman seems confused about the true identity of the headmistress, and he also seems convinced that Kathy Kane really is dead. Overall, the pattern is most easily completed if it turns out that Kathy Kane faked her death and has been seeming to work for Leviathan but will now fall in line and come to her former lover's assistance. For her to seem unscrupulous and turn out to be something more was even foreshadowed back in Batman #682, when Morrison's "Last Rites" story showed her leaving Bruce, prompting a young Dick Grayson to say, "There's something about her I don't trust." At the end of Leviathan Strikes, we see a woman speaking to Matron (the head of Spyder) about the death of Netz, and about her obvious familiarity and hatred of him, a hatred well explained in her recruitment into Spyder by Netz, who claimed to be her father. This woman has the Fifties hairstyle Kathy Kane was known for; it seems clear that Kathy Kane remains high up in Spyral.

Kathy Kane's death at the hands of the Sensei's men is a curious fact for Morrison to reference. The original Batwoman nearly disappeared from DC continuity in the early Sixties, but made a very brief appearance in which she was killed in 1979's Detective Comics #485. A fact of that story, which I will mention later, may prove to be a key plot element still to be seen in this one.

In Inc v2 #2, Talia visits Ra's, at his request. He announces that she will remain his prisoner, but she turns the tables and makes him her prisoner. The issue is full of flashbacks summarizing the history of Ra's, Talia, and Batman. The battle of wills between father and daughter is full of betrayals and reversals, recapitulating the events of #2 itself, in which he forbids her to fight a war against Batman, which seems only to strengthen her resolve. We don't see Ra's again until #10, in a scene that borrows atmosphere from the famous Batman-Joker scene in The Killing Joke, and again in DC Universe #0, when a captive foe seems to hold power over their captor. Just as the Joker plays cards by himself in both those scenes, Ra's plays chess by himself in this one.

The details of Ra's's chess game are obvious allegories to the main action, with red representing Talia's side (she wears red through most of #10), and black representing Batman's. First we see a red rook capture a black pawn. This is the Heretic killing Damian. Damian is even referred to as a pawn in #2. This is followed by a move in which the dark knight captures the red queen, and the meaning of the dark knight should require no explanation.

Multiple clues point to the fact that Ra's is not actually a prisoner at all, except in the literal sense. For Talia to have been revealed as the villain in this story came far too early, when the story has yet to climax.

1) In the aforementioned Detective #485, Ra's visits Batman and tells him that the Sensei was behind Kathy Kane's murder. He later says explicitly that he did so in order to use Batman against Sensei, so that the battle will weaken both of them, leaving him to emerge victorious.

2) The chess game itself, representing Batman and Talia is literally being played by Ra's. In that the pieces represent other people, we are seeing Ra's as the main agent, using others (as when he "forbids" Talia from fighting Batman) to weaken one another. In Detective #485, this was against Sensei (retroactively defines as Ra's's father by Morrison). Now the same dynamic skips a generation, with Ra's working against his daughter. Clearly he ends the scene smug, in control. His control is likely to become the central fact of the story's climax.

In addition, there is a very cagey geographical detail in the story which is unlikely to be a coincidence. The setting of Ra's's imprisonment is in Switzerland, by a mountain called Jungfrau, German for young woman. This mountain is invariably considered one of a trio, along with the Eiger (Ogre) and Mönch (Monk), all visible in one panoramic sweep. These map onto the key players in the story with Batman as the Monk and Talia as the Maiden. Perhaps the brutish and powerful of the Heretic indicate that he represents the Ogre, but the legend implies that the Ogre is a threat to the Maiden, whereas the story (and the chess symbolism) indicate that Heretic is a mere physical force serving Talia, alternately the Queen and the Maiden.

For the story to end, we also need another death to take place, one that makes Bruce mourn greatly, and for him to place a grave on the grounds of Wayne Manor. The best fit for this may be Kathy Kane, who could die as soon as she returns, just as she did in 1979.

Ultimately, something big is at stake. The battle with Talia is due to begin at 11 o'clock and what is 11 o'clock but an occurrence before the climax, which Morrison has twice (once with the Joker, once with Doctor Hurt) set at midnight. Morrison has also made mention of midnight in reference to Darkseid and Mandrakk. 11 o'clock is a pointed choice on his part to say that Bruce's battle with Talia is not the climax, but the thing that comes before the climax. We've seen enough mention of apocalypse and the Devil to wonder if the Heretic, Fatherless, is that climax, and yet Heretic appears simple, easily dominated in a battle of wills despite his enormous physical power. Ra's, on the other hand, looks calm and collected, and calling the shots. The endgame, the midnight battle, may show us what happens between Batman and Ra's once Talia has served her purpose as Ra's's tool.

Batman, Inc #10

In what is perhaps the most significant event of Grant Morrison's long run on Batman, Damian Wayne was killed by his brother/clone in Batman, Inc v2 #8. This was in many ways foretold, not the least of which that he had appeared to die in his fourth appearance and Morrison said later that he intended for Damian to die then. Now, more than sixty issues later into Morrison's mega-epic, that death has taken place for real, but rather than serving as the climax of the story, it comes with five issues to go, which leaves a mystery: What sort of story is Morrison telling? What is the intended payoff?

After an issue largely dedicated to grieving and the follow-up battle between Batman and his allies and the Heretic, we now see the sides prepare for another battle. Of course, Batman will have his retribution. Of course he will dismantle Talia's threat and leave Gotham safe. But something bigger is coming.

#10 is full of action and twists, with ten scenes in only twice that many pages. That starts with the fold-out cover that shows what the publicly-released cover does not: In his commitment to winning this war, Batman willingly becomes a man-bat, disfiguring himself to gain the power to physically defeat the Heretic and Talia's army of man-bats. Inside the issue, this scene comes last, after we see Kirk Langstrom working on an antidote that will surely set Batman back to normal when his victory is complete. We also see Batman use an experimental exo-skeleton which had proven dangerous and the return of Sivana's photonic crystal from Inc v1 #1 which will also power him in the coming battle, perhaps giving him the power of invisibility.

Talia's cool and collected facade beging to crack in this issue. She seems to be in control when she orders Gotham's mayor to declare Batman a fugitive, and when she uses control over the Heretic's nervous system to stop him from commiting mutiny against her. But she's frequently at a disadvantage. We learn that she did not plan on Damian's death, and in a rage she orders the brutal murder of many of her underlings. A visit to her father proves disturbing as he hints at one forgotten factor that is certain to lead to her defeat. As he teases her with this knowledge, we see on a chessboard, a dark knight knocking off the red queen, reprising the red-and-black game theme from earlier in Morrison's Batman work, with meaning all too obvious as Talia wears red throughout this issue awaiting her battle with the Dark Knight. Later, she's disturbed to see Bruce's new look. Having used her man-bats to defeat Bruce twice before, she knows that she's lost her tactical advantage on him.

In fact, she may have lost this war before it began. She may not even be the main villain. Earlier, we saw the Hood, representing Spyral, take Jason Todd hostage. Now, as the Knight and Ranger arrive to rescue him, we learn that the evil headmistress operation in the UK (raided by Stephanie Brown, who no longer exists in the DCnU) was never really serving Talia in the first place. The Hood's earlier declaration of Batman, Incorporated being a failure was not a statement of victory but of resignation. Spyral is aligned against Leviathan, but we have yet to learn why he cold-cocked Jason Todd and tried to force his cooperation instead of asking for it.

And this leads to the most significant part of the issue, its beginning. Batman visits Michael Lane to recruit him, and while doing so, works to piece together the vision of the future we saw in #5, while Lane recites lines from Nostradamus and bemoans his own fate ultimately to serve evil, while Batman taps him to play a significant role for good. This opening scene mentions the Devil and the Joker (at least, the word "joker") and indicates a bigger picture than we've yet had come into focus.

The simplest way this story could end would be that Batman would defeat Talia and the Heretic in a battle and send them off into incarceration, with Talia shaking her fist at the air and bemoaning that she underestimated him. There's too much story coming for that to be all that happens. We have three more issues (one more than the original plan) and numerous hints of a more complex arrangement than we, or Talia, or even Bruce realized. The portentous prophecies in the scene with Batman and Lane have to come true. The vision of Gotham's apocalypse has to fall into place. What R'as knows and Talia does not has to be revealed. Why Spyral is working against Talia but also against Batman has to be explained. The battle that this story requires may be a small part of the three issues left in Morrison's epic.

Action Comics #18

The final installment in Grant Morrison's extended Superman story is like a piece that fit just as it must, in the shape of the hole the unfinished puzzle was missing. Surprises? Not so many. There was no doubt Superman would beat Vyndktvx, and the way he did it, well that didn't matter so much. In fact, what was it? Or did he beat him a thousand times?

For anyone looking to be deeply invested in a linear plot, this multidimensional story about a 5-dimensional villain left them hanging, although the past several issues should have made that clear. The 18-issue run gradually turned more and more into a fractured, postmodernist experience that used science fiction to explain the twisted structure which was about the science fiction it was describing, a self-writing meta story which has been Morrison's vision in his previous Superman works. In that regard, there was nothing new here, and the greatest difference from Action #14-17 and Action #18 is that the cliffhangers all convert into victories, as we knew they must.

To the extent there is a story, it is this: Vyndktvx, being a 5-dimensional being, attacks Superman not just in space but in time; Superman wins when he realizes that from Vyndktvx's perspective, there is only one attack he will ever make against Superman, and by beating him once, Superman beats him many times, and every time. So of the many fronts on which Superman and his allies are fighting Vyndktvx, which of them is crucial? One, all, or none, but Superman's victory is preordained, and as he starts doing stuff to one-up Vyndktvx, it all works at once, ending in a definitive defeat of Vyndktvx, and saving every life that was jeopardized along the way, including those which earlier seemed to have been lost. Does the Legion of Super Heroes' plan succeed? Yes. Did Mrs. Nyxly really die? No, and we see her live happily ever after with Mxyzptlk. Did the little boy and other colonists on Mars die? No, because the one wish Mrs. Nyxly had left was used on something red (Mars) to set them all right again. And of course, Superman and Krypto survived, and there the story ended, like a final panel from the Sixties, with the man and his dog in a definitive happy ending.

And in many ways, it was from the Sixties, and the happy ending was definitive. As with Morrison's Final Crisis, Superman Beyond, and All Star Superman, the story has too many references to serial storytelling structure for us to miss the larger message. The story of Superman isn't a lot of stories. It's basically one story, where the strong and just man defeats evil. From 1938 until the Sixties or so, Superman most stories happened in circular time, time out of time, where everything was always put right back where it started at the end of the story. As a Superman mythology grew, Superman began to live in linear time, with some stories changing his world in significant new ways, with new Kryptonians and other major changes coming along, gradually writing a larger narrative with a beginning and middle... and at last, in 1986, an end. Which led to a new beginning, and recently, another end. Because Superman is still in circular time, and if the circles take 25 years to come around where they started, that's still a circle. Superman Beyond reminded us that Superman's epitaph is "To Be Continued." Action #18 observes that all of Superman's victories are just one victory, and if he has to do the impossible to accomplish them, then the impossible is what has to happen.

The last point repeats a meta observation made in 1987's "The Greatest Hero of Them All", in which that story's Superboy performs a feat that's seemingly impossible, and notes in his death scene that maybe he always could do anything he needed to. Perhaps the most meaningful reference to earlier stories is that the villain here was styled after Doomsday, the villain who killed Superman in 1992, but this time, despite the title of Action #16's story, "The Second Death of Superman", cannot finish the hero off. In an alternate timeline seen in Joe Kelly's 2005 story "This Is Your Life", Superman simply refuses to die in the Doomsday battle, and reflects that for Superman to die points his universe in the wrong direction. Morrison's epic emphatically agrees, and this Superman never dies. Perhaps the choice of Doomsday here is to inoculate the post-Flashpoint Superman from ever having that death story re-told by future writers. As with Morrison's desire to liberate Superman from a commercial, faceless shell (as Vyndktvx says here, with "$" in place of "S"), his power to control the future is limited, but he does make a heroic bid to do right by the Man of Steel with these creative moves in a run that will inevitably be remembered.

In Morrison's Batman run, it was asserted that all of Batman's past eras, as diverse as they were, existed as part of one timeline, and he created a belabored explanation within the story for the many sharp changes in tone between those different eras. In Action, he has an easier time of accomplishing much the same result because Superman's science fiction underpinning makes alternate timelines a straightforward consequence of fifth-dimensional villainy. Morrison has included characters and scenes from 1938, the Silver Age, the Bronze Age, the Byrne era, and a plunge from the sky oddly reminiscent of 2006's Superman Returns. Mrs. Nyxly, speaking with a Red-and-Blue Superman from the Nineties (which was itself an echo of an earlier era's "imaginary story") tells this timeline's Superman that he'll never know what he was giving up. Being fifth-dimensional, she knew as we do that the adult Kents have been virtually killed by this reboot. This and other nods to other Superman continuities make it appropriate that fifth-dimensional character were in the forefront in this run, because, as Morrison's Bat-Mite told us, "Imagination is the fifth dimension." Morrison has essentially written a 32-story Superman epic that began in the All Star Superman continuity, continued in the post-Byrne/post-Infinite Crisis continuity, and ended in this post-Flashpoint continuity, but folds all of them together in a way that we, and fifth dimensional characters can see as one. And now we shall see where the next generation of writers take the rebuilt Man of Steel.

Killing Damian Wayne

In 2006, the world’s greatest superheroes suddenly got three sons. In the film Superman Returns, we found out that Superman and Lois conceived a child way back in 1981’s Superman II. In DCU continuity, Superman and Lois adopted a Kryptonian son they dubbed Christopher Kent. And in the pages of Batman, Bruce Wayne found out that he had conceived a child with his lover/enemy perhaps during the same events narrated in the 1971 story that introduced Talia. Three sons introduced at the same time. Now, all of them are gone.

It has long been noted that Grant Morrison planned to kill off the Damian character as soon as he introduced him. In fact, the Batman and Son story ended with events that might have been interpreted as Damian’s death. But seven issues later, a quick scene established that Damian, thanks to his mother’s access to remarkable medical technology, would survive.

Damian played a major role in an al-Ghul crossover story, then reappeared briefly during the long storyline of Batman, RIP. After Battle of the Cowl, Damian had his longest time in the spotlight, as the second title character of the Batman and Robin title. While Damian has appeared in several titles over the past three and a half years, the centerpiece of his character development was in Morrison’s first sixteen issues of that new title, with Damian and Dick Grayson inverting the familiar dynamic of a serious Batman and a cheerful, punning Robin.

It appears to have been Morrison’s intention for this third long storyline, that of Batman, Inc, to have Damian be murdered by his own mother. It has been foreshadowed generally that someone would die, and specifically that Damian was the object of a murder plot, and now, with Batman Inc v2 #8, we appear to have seen this transpire.

We have also seen, in Batman#700, a future in which Damian becomes Batman, although this future was never guaranteed to take place. It resembles the one seen in Inc #5, and Bruce Wayne, following the information he saw at the end of time in Return of Bruce Wayne#6, took steps to prevent this from coming true. By firing Damian from the Robin identity, and as the heir as a subsequent Batman, Bruce Wayne effectively chose to save his city while sacrificing, on some level, his son. In the final scenes before Damian’s death, we saw the cat that would have been his pet had he gone on to be Batman in the future seen in Batman #666 and elsewhere. Small references taking the story backwards and forwards in time, like a double punch shared by Dick and Damian, and the minor character Ellie, first seen in the same story back in #664-665 where Damian returned from the dead.

Will he return from this death? Impossible to say. Inc v2 #1 ended with the apparent death of Damian, which proved to be a ruse. Batman: The Return opened with Bruce saving a man’s son from apparent death. The theme has been established. Whatever Morrison’s plans are, it could happen sooner or later in any case.

But what are Morrison’s plans for this story? A grand death has happened. Batman has suffered a tragic loss. The man who lost his parents to murder has now lost his son.

The solicits for upcoming issues run as follows:

9: The fallout from last month’s shocking turn of events has Batman on the run! Is The Dark Knight a murderer?

10: When only one can survive, which will it be: the man or the bat?

11: Batman’s world has been devastated by his war against Talia, but is he willing to give up on his own humanity?

These point to the flashforward seen in Inc v2 #1, where Bruce, mourning a loss, plans to quit the Batman role, upon which he is promptly arrested as a murderer. Clearly this is a plan on Talia’s part. Clearly, Bruce Wayne has to prevail on some level, and will save the world and Gotham from destruction, and also return to be its protector. But what of the loss of his son? When Grant Morrison took over the Batman character, he spoke of the grimness with which his predecessors had handled it. In an interview as well as in the pages of his stories, he included the death of Jason Todd as part of a pattern that had led Batman down too dark a path. How can Morrison feel that way then and kill Damian off now? We had Batman, RIP end with Batman climbing out of a grave to fight and win again. Jason Todd himself had died and come back, as did Dick Grayson in the old story Morrison cited, Robin Dies at Dawn. Will the grave, having let these other Batman and Robin return, prove inescapable for Damian?