Batman RIP Spoiler/Catchup Thread
May 30, 2008 7:27:14 GMT -5
Post by Stu on May 30, 2008 7:27:14 GMT -5
Think I ought to post a summary of Morrison's Run so far for people who have only jumped on for RIP, because it's important
"Batman and Son" Arc:
Opens with Batman having seemingly been killed in an encounter with the Joker, only for "Batman" to be alive, pulling a gun on him and shooting him in the face, just as the real Batman arrives. Joker survives, barely, and Batman learns his impersonator was a cop who snapped, and is now dead from injury. In the aftermath of the previous arc and the criminals believing Batman has started using lethal force, Gotham is quiet and Alfred convinces him to go on a little trip to London, for a charity fundraiser, both for relaxation and to get used to being Bruce Wayne in public again.
While there, he meets heiress Jezebel Jet, who works for her (unidentified) nation to improve it's conditions and whose own father was killed for doing likewise. She later goes on to be his new love interest. The party is interrupted however by Ninja Man-Bats, who kidnap the Primeminister's wife and knock Batman out. He wakes to find Talia Al Ghul is behind it, and as well as wanting the primeminister's wife, she wanted to introduce Batman to their apparent son, Damian.
Batman takes Damian back to Gotham, and finds him quite difficult. Damien is resentfull of Robin being Bruce's adopted son, and when Batman leaves to deal with a situation at the prison, fights him, injuring him and trying to take the mantle of Robin, killing a minor Gotham criminal called The Spook. Batman admonishes Damian for it and gets him to tell him what his mother is up to. She's going to use the primeminister's wife as a hostage to get the british to hand over Gibraltar, but Batman stops her and her army of Man-bats. Talia offers him one last chance to be with her, before destroying the ship she's on. She and Damian disappear.
Next issue was the prose issue where Joker, having recovered from his wound, has reinvented himself mentally, and tries to escape Arkham. Batman stops him as usual, but Morrison establishes his Joker is more dangerous than ever.
Next storyline, Batman encounters another imposter, this time a giant on Venom serum and steroids, wearing a Bane mask as part of his costume. He's been killing prostitutes, and other cops seem to be in on it. After an initial encounter results in Bruce getting his ass handed to him, he recalls a weird case from when he once encountered 3 "ghost" versions of him matching the impersonators so far. Gun wielding Batman, Hulking Batman, and one worse than the rest. He fights the second one again, this time winning and confronting the cops, but has no evidence to what they're doing or why.
Batman #666 is set in a possible future, where Bruce is dead and Damian is the new Batman. The third impersonator Batman (who Bruce fights in a future issue set before this) is in town and is killing local criminals in a pattern making a pentagram. Damian fights him, and the Third, wielding a flamethrower and seemingly displaying some supernatural powers, claims to be following the Devil. Damian beats him, surviving lethal force, and even kills him. He also gets shot several times by the GCPD, but shrugs it off, and claims he made a deal with "an old dragon"/the devil himself to get this power, and that the apocalypse is cancelled until he says otherwise.
"The Black Glove" arc:
Next, Batman goes to the island of Billionaire John Mayhew, for a reunion with a group of international crimefighters he was briefly in a group with early in his career. The host, Mayhew is killed, by a mysterious figured called The Black Glove, who's treating this evening as a game between Good and Evil. He kills several of the group, before it's discovered that Mayhew is actually behind it and is killing for personal reasons, as well as under orders from the REAL Black Glove, who punishes Mayhew's failure by destroying the island and killing him. Batman and the other survivors get away, with the rumour of the Black Glove existing and there possibly being a Club of Villains out there.
(The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul was next, breaking up the Black Glove Arc (it's collected as it's own thing)and had Ra's coming back. Bruce also gets killed fighting the Sensei, but is saved by the fountain of life in Nanda Parbat. This doesn't seem to have much to do with Morrison's plans at the moment, as it was an even across all the Bat-books, including Robin and Nightwing.)
Next had the Third Replacement Batman showing up at the police station, asking for a Commisioner Vane, before flamethrowing the place. Batman is called in and fights his third replacement, only to get distracted when James Gordon shows up and is hit, getting shot himself in the chest and suffering a heart attack, dying for 5 minutes. During those five minutes, we get a weird mix of dream/flashback/vision in the next issue, which is told a bit non-linearly, so I'll break it up into the different strands
-we open Bruce's time in the cave in Nanda Parbat, briefly covered during 52. The process he's going through is meant to be the closest one can come to death without actually experiencing it. it's implied that while under it, he forsees what's happening to him in the present now
-We see how Batman found his parents' killer Joe Chill, continuously visiting him to scare him, before finally revealing who he really was, leaving Chill with a gun. Chill apparently kills himself with it (we know the gun goes off, but we don't see it)
-Morrison's update of the "Robin Dies At Dawn" storyline, where Batman volunteers for a government isolation experiment, with the aim for himself being to gain some perspective on being insane, to help him deal with the Joker better. The man in charge of the experiment is a Dr. Simon Hurt. The experiment results in a few weeks of Batman having hallucinations and acting out of the ordinary, so much so that he considers quitting to protect Robin (Dick Grayson)
-Batmite pops up a few times, and talks to Bruce like they've known each other BEFORE he became Batman. It also seems to suggest bruce has had Batmite as an imaginary friends since childhood, and someone has possibly "programmed" Bruce mentally. We also see an image of a funeral for Bruce
Batman wakes up, and finds the Third Batman has saved his life, just to torture him, while explaining a few things.
When Batman's methods first started getting results in Gotham, a group of cops secretly funded Simon Hurt to create Batmen of their own, using 3 gotham cops as test subjects. Obviously these are the same ones Batman has been encountering recently. Hurt realised though that what Batman had that made him special was some sort of psychological trauma that drove him, and deemed that a replacement Batman must have that as well. The Third was a young cop who's family are murdered in an occult ceremony. He apparenly now believes that Hurt was The Devil and caused this to happen. The encounter with all three Bruce remembers was them being set against him as a test. They failed, but the mental conditioning Hurt had put in them had stuck and they seemingly had recently been reactivated. Batman breaks free of his restraints before the Third can cut his arm off. The Second Bane-Batman (who the Third got free) attacks, but is killed by guilt-ridden cops who were keeping him protected in the earlier arc. Batman chases the Third, but the heart attack and torture leaves him too tired to give chase. Before disappearing, the Third taunts him with the idea that all that's been happening recently is connected and someone is pulling the strings, having decided it was time Batman's luck ran out. Batman figures as much himself, going so far as to consider this as something that's been going on since the beginning. He also figures a Black Glove being left behind is the calling card of this "ultimate enemy".
After covering up his injury with a story about basejumping accidentally into a dumpster, Bruce takes Jezebel out to dinner, where she tells him she's figured there's more to him than he's letting on, but when he doesn't say anything, she begins to break up with him. They're interrupted as one of the Ten-Eyed Men holds the place up. Bruce takes him down, but does so in his civillian disguise, and Jezebel figures out he's really Batman.
Batman RIP DC Universe Zero segment:
community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/5418322.html#cutid1
"Batman RIP":
Opens with a shadowed shot of A Batman and A Robin, the former of whom shouts "YOU'RE WRONG! BATMAN AND ROBIN WILL NEVER DIE!"
Six Months Earlier: A group of villains (who are arch enemies of the guys Batman once teamed with) assemble under the lead of Simon Hurt (who answers to the Black Glove) to plot the destruction of Batman. In Gotham, Batman tests out the new Batmobile, taking down a wannabe supervillain trying to gain prominence during the power vacuum in the Gotham Underworld(due to Salvation Run/Gotham Underground?). He goes back to the manor and spends some time with Jezebel, who asks what he'll do once his mission is complete. She also tells him she's been invited to a party with a theme of "Danse Macabre", by someone called...The Black Glove.
Meanwhile, in Arkham...Y'know, here's the pages. It's better read than summarised...
i27.tinypic.com/1zq62av.jpg
i31.tinypic.com/315hq3q.jpg
Note: all the blood in the second pic is a coloring error. The stuff in the first one is all in his head. Except the Doctor, who's actually one of the villains working with Hurt.
And we finally come to this week's issue.
www.newsarama.com/dcnew/May08/previews/28th.html
Bruce shows Jezebel Jet around the Batcave, and she questions his mental well-being for doing all this, even going so far as to put out the idea The Black Glove is actually Bruce. Meanwhile, Hurt and the Club of Villains prepare to start the plan
i31.tinypic.com/esmbt1.jpg
And the Mayor tells Gordon about a story a reporter wants to run, which apparently says Bruce is Schizophrenic due to Thomas Wayne being a foul mouthed degenerate on booze and hard drugs. The mayor also brings up Alfred possibly being Bruce's real father.
i26.tinypic.com/9u24wl.jpg
This could be a red herring, since in the firs part of RIP, the Black Glove had the power to cover up a minutes old murder, making it look like a suicide, so this could all be fabricated by them. The whole issue in fact seems to be Morrison putting out the various fan theories. Though the names of those people are stars of the movie Black Glove, and it's been brought up recently that Alfred used to be an actor, so may in fact have been in that movie.
Bruce tells Jezebel he's not just being paranoid. He's got the Bat-Computer running, looking for a pattern. It produces various photos of walls with the phrase "Zur En Arrh" on them. This has been popping up as grafitti all throughout Morrison's run and has some significance, which is:
i32.tinypic.com/htgxsh.jpg
i31.tinypic.com/2aakpxx.jpg
i26.tinypic.com/6jg77b.jpg
i28.tinypic.com/28vf5n4.jpg
Holy Sheet.
The "first Batman" btw, is Thomas Wayne. There's an old story where it turns out he once went to a fancy dress party in a bat-inspired costume. He even appeared as such as a fear gas hallucination in the OYL Face The Face storyline. So we're faced with the possibility Thomas Wayne is still alive and Batman's mission is based on a lie, which is pretty major. That said, Morrison did say that the Black Glove's identity wouldn't be revealed until the last or second last issue, I think, so, I dunno. Maybe Bat-dad shows up as a crazy hallucination. Joker's back later too, and Morrison has implied he might not be totally on board with the club of villains. I could see that, what with Hurt creating the guy who shot Joker in the face and all.
"Batman and Son" Arc:
Opens with Batman having seemingly been killed in an encounter with the Joker, only for "Batman" to be alive, pulling a gun on him and shooting him in the face, just as the real Batman arrives. Joker survives, barely, and Batman learns his impersonator was a cop who snapped, and is now dead from injury. In the aftermath of the previous arc and the criminals believing Batman has started using lethal force, Gotham is quiet and Alfred convinces him to go on a little trip to London, for a charity fundraiser, both for relaxation and to get used to being Bruce Wayne in public again.
While there, he meets heiress Jezebel Jet, who works for her (unidentified) nation to improve it's conditions and whose own father was killed for doing likewise. She later goes on to be his new love interest. The party is interrupted however by Ninja Man-Bats, who kidnap the Primeminister's wife and knock Batman out. He wakes to find Talia Al Ghul is behind it, and as well as wanting the primeminister's wife, she wanted to introduce Batman to their apparent son, Damian.
Batman takes Damian back to Gotham, and finds him quite difficult. Damien is resentfull of Robin being Bruce's adopted son, and when Batman leaves to deal with a situation at the prison, fights him, injuring him and trying to take the mantle of Robin, killing a minor Gotham criminal called The Spook. Batman admonishes Damian for it and gets him to tell him what his mother is up to. She's going to use the primeminister's wife as a hostage to get the british to hand over Gibraltar, but Batman stops her and her army of Man-bats. Talia offers him one last chance to be with her, before destroying the ship she's on. She and Damian disappear.
Next issue was the prose issue where Joker, having recovered from his wound, has reinvented himself mentally, and tries to escape Arkham. Batman stops him as usual, but Morrison establishes his Joker is more dangerous than ever.
Next storyline, Batman encounters another imposter, this time a giant on Venom serum and steroids, wearing a Bane mask as part of his costume. He's been killing prostitutes, and other cops seem to be in on it. After an initial encounter results in Bruce getting his ass handed to him, he recalls a weird case from when he once encountered 3 "ghost" versions of him matching the impersonators so far. Gun wielding Batman, Hulking Batman, and one worse than the rest. He fights the second one again, this time winning and confronting the cops, but has no evidence to what they're doing or why.
Batman #666 is set in a possible future, where Bruce is dead and Damian is the new Batman. The third impersonator Batman (who Bruce fights in a future issue set before this) is in town and is killing local criminals in a pattern making a pentagram. Damian fights him, and the Third, wielding a flamethrower and seemingly displaying some supernatural powers, claims to be following the Devil. Damian beats him, surviving lethal force, and even kills him. He also gets shot several times by the GCPD, but shrugs it off, and claims he made a deal with "an old dragon"/the devil himself to get this power, and that the apocalypse is cancelled until he says otherwise.
"The Black Glove" arc:
Next, Batman goes to the island of Billionaire John Mayhew, for a reunion with a group of international crimefighters he was briefly in a group with early in his career. The host, Mayhew is killed, by a mysterious figured called The Black Glove, who's treating this evening as a game between Good and Evil. He kills several of the group, before it's discovered that Mayhew is actually behind it and is killing for personal reasons, as well as under orders from the REAL Black Glove, who punishes Mayhew's failure by destroying the island and killing him. Batman and the other survivors get away, with the rumour of the Black Glove existing and there possibly being a Club of Villains out there.
(The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul was next, breaking up the Black Glove Arc (it's collected as it's own thing)and had Ra's coming back. Bruce also gets killed fighting the Sensei, but is saved by the fountain of life in Nanda Parbat. This doesn't seem to have much to do with Morrison's plans at the moment, as it was an even across all the Bat-books, including Robin and Nightwing.)
Next had the Third Replacement Batman showing up at the police station, asking for a Commisioner Vane, before flamethrowing the place. Batman is called in and fights his third replacement, only to get distracted when James Gordon shows up and is hit, getting shot himself in the chest and suffering a heart attack, dying for 5 minutes. During those five minutes, we get a weird mix of dream/flashback/vision in the next issue, which is told a bit non-linearly, so I'll break it up into the different strands
-we open Bruce's time in the cave in Nanda Parbat, briefly covered during 52. The process he's going through is meant to be the closest one can come to death without actually experiencing it. it's implied that while under it, he forsees what's happening to him in the present now
-We see how Batman found his parents' killer Joe Chill, continuously visiting him to scare him, before finally revealing who he really was, leaving Chill with a gun. Chill apparently kills himself with it (we know the gun goes off, but we don't see it)
-Morrison's update of the "Robin Dies At Dawn" storyline, where Batman volunteers for a government isolation experiment, with the aim for himself being to gain some perspective on being insane, to help him deal with the Joker better. The man in charge of the experiment is a Dr. Simon Hurt. The experiment results in a few weeks of Batman having hallucinations and acting out of the ordinary, so much so that he considers quitting to protect Robin (Dick Grayson)
-Batmite pops up a few times, and talks to Bruce like they've known each other BEFORE he became Batman. It also seems to suggest bruce has had Batmite as an imaginary friends since childhood, and someone has possibly "programmed" Bruce mentally. We also see an image of a funeral for Bruce
Batman wakes up, and finds the Third Batman has saved his life, just to torture him, while explaining a few things.
When Batman's methods first started getting results in Gotham, a group of cops secretly funded Simon Hurt to create Batmen of their own, using 3 gotham cops as test subjects. Obviously these are the same ones Batman has been encountering recently. Hurt realised though that what Batman had that made him special was some sort of psychological trauma that drove him, and deemed that a replacement Batman must have that as well. The Third was a young cop who's family are murdered in an occult ceremony. He apparenly now believes that Hurt was The Devil and caused this to happen. The encounter with all three Bruce remembers was them being set against him as a test. They failed, but the mental conditioning Hurt had put in them had stuck and they seemingly had recently been reactivated. Batman breaks free of his restraints before the Third can cut his arm off. The Second Bane-Batman (who the Third got free) attacks, but is killed by guilt-ridden cops who were keeping him protected in the earlier arc. Batman chases the Third, but the heart attack and torture leaves him too tired to give chase. Before disappearing, the Third taunts him with the idea that all that's been happening recently is connected and someone is pulling the strings, having decided it was time Batman's luck ran out. Batman figures as much himself, going so far as to consider this as something that's been going on since the beginning. He also figures a Black Glove being left behind is the calling card of this "ultimate enemy".
After covering up his injury with a story about basejumping accidentally into a dumpster, Bruce takes Jezebel out to dinner, where she tells him she's figured there's more to him than he's letting on, but when he doesn't say anything, she begins to break up with him. They're interrupted as one of the Ten-Eyed Men holds the place up. Bruce takes him down, but does so in his civillian disguise, and Jezebel figures out he's really Batman.
Batman RIP DC Universe Zero segment:
community.livejournal.com/scans_daily/5418322.html#cutid1
"Batman RIP":
Opens with a shadowed shot of A Batman and A Robin, the former of whom shouts "YOU'RE WRONG! BATMAN AND ROBIN WILL NEVER DIE!"
Six Months Earlier: A group of villains (who are arch enemies of the guys Batman once teamed with) assemble under the lead of Simon Hurt (who answers to the Black Glove) to plot the destruction of Batman. In Gotham, Batman tests out the new Batmobile, taking down a wannabe supervillain trying to gain prominence during the power vacuum in the Gotham Underworld(due to Salvation Run/Gotham Underground?). He goes back to the manor and spends some time with Jezebel, who asks what he'll do once his mission is complete. She also tells him she's been invited to a party with a theme of "Danse Macabre", by someone called...The Black Glove.
Meanwhile, in Arkham...Y'know, here's the pages. It's better read than summarised...
i27.tinypic.com/1zq62av.jpg
i31.tinypic.com/315hq3q.jpg
Note: all the blood in the second pic is a coloring error. The stuff in the first one is all in his head. Except the Doctor, who's actually one of the villains working with Hurt.
And we finally come to this week's issue.
www.newsarama.com/dcnew/May08/previews/28th.html
Bruce shows Jezebel Jet around the Batcave, and she questions his mental well-being for doing all this, even going so far as to put out the idea The Black Glove is actually Bruce. Meanwhile, Hurt and the Club of Villains prepare to start the plan
i31.tinypic.com/esmbt1.jpg
And the Mayor tells Gordon about a story a reporter wants to run, which apparently says Bruce is Schizophrenic due to Thomas Wayne being a foul mouthed degenerate on booze and hard drugs. The mayor also brings up Alfred possibly being Bruce's real father.
i26.tinypic.com/9u24wl.jpg
This could be a red herring, since in the firs part of RIP, the Black Glove had the power to cover up a minutes old murder, making it look like a suicide, so this could all be fabricated by them. The whole issue in fact seems to be Morrison putting out the various fan theories. Though the names of those people are stars of the movie Black Glove, and it's been brought up recently that Alfred used to be an actor, so may in fact have been in that movie.
Bruce tells Jezebel he's not just being paranoid. He's got the Bat-Computer running, looking for a pattern. It produces various photos of walls with the phrase "Zur En Arrh" on them. This has been popping up as grafitti all throughout Morrison's run and has some significance, which is:
i32.tinypic.com/htgxsh.jpg
i31.tinypic.com/2aakpxx.jpg
i26.tinypic.com/6jg77b.jpg
i28.tinypic.com/28vf5n4.jpg
Holy Sheet.
The "first Batman" btw, is Thomas Wayne. There's an old story where it turns out he once went to a fancy dress party in a bat-inspired costume. He even appeared as such as a fear gas hallucination in the OYL Face The Face storyline. So we're faced with the possibility Thomas Wayne is still alive and Batman's mission is based on a lie, which is pretty major. That said, Morrison did say that the Black Glove's identity wouldn't be revealed until the last or second last issue, I think, so, I dunno. Maybe Bat-dad shows up as a crazy hallucination. Joker's back later too, and Morrison has implied he might not be totally on board with the club of villains. I could see that, what with Hurt creating the guy who shot Joker in the face and all.
: And to reconsider a particular possibility that has always haunted me...
