Writer Grant Morrison has redefined cerebral comics narrative for decades.
It would be difficult to jump into the middle of Morrison's storied run on the Batman mythology in the sublime Batman and Robin or the hotly topical Batman, Inc. without getting somewhat disoriented or discouraged, especially if you're a newcomer to the writer's sprawling concerns.
But in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne, out Wednesday in a 224-page hardcover edition that retails for $30, a time-traveling Dark Knight offers a perfectly accessible entry point to Morrison's prodigiously challenging storytelling. The six-issue miniseries can function as a standalone classic.
All you need to know is that a presumed-dead Bruce Wayne has been hurled back in time by evil immortal Darkseid in the apocalyptic Final Crisis storyline, and now must make his inexorable way back. Of course, there's never any doubt that he will.
"He can survive anywhere," Superman says in the first issue as he tracks the confused, battered Batman through time with the help of Green Lantern, Booster Gold and Rip Hunter. "Surviving is what he does."
How the world's greatest detective achieves the temporally impossible is what matters to the relentlessly inventive Morrison, who, as always, seizes the opportunity to make amazing metafiction. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne gives the Scottish scribe the chance to seamlessly submerge the Dark Knight mythos throughout the ages.
Whether Bruce Wayne appears as a brawling caveman, puritanical witch hunter, misunderstood pirate, avenging cowboy, noir patsy or lonely cyborg witnessing the heat death of the universe, the Dark Knight fights and fits every incarnation like a weaponized Bat-glove.
In fact, it is Batman's accelerated technology – his tricked-out utility belt, cape and cowl – that serve as Space Odyssey-style monoliths, creating century-spanning bat cults and information trails back to the future. But his iconography is viral no matter the century, whether he's wearing a massive bat skin while bashing cavemen bullies, bat hat and shoe buckles while battling religious persecutors, or ammo belts and bat clasps while dueling Jonah Hex in the Wild West.
Morrison takes the symbolism further, casting his spell across the timescape. The pearl necklace worn by Wayne's murdered mother becomes a DNA string during the final issue's thermodynamic shutdown. Time travel and lineage manipulation assure that Wayne Manor will house a Batcave long before Wayne is born. That kind of thematic and symbolic vertigo separates Morrison from almost every other writer in the comics game.
The miniseries' varied artwork rises to the task of accompanying such an expansive storyline. From Chris Sprouse's prehistoric naturalism and Frazer Irving's dark expressionism to Lee Garbett's surreal futurism, the visuals in Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne are as impressive as the book's ambitious narratives. The same goes for Andy Kubert's covers, viewable in the gallery above, alongside variants from Irving, Cameron Stewart and Ryan Sook. The art transmits the energy and intrigue of Morrison's time-traveling tale without diluting it.
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne mashes smarts and style in such a way that anyone can appreciate it, regardless of familiarity with the nerdy intricacies of The Black Glove or Herculean mythology. It's an equal-opportunity epic that shows off the kinds of risks Morrison takes, even as his stories read like a well-oiled Hollywood screenplay. In fact, it would make a stunning blockbuster film, when DC Comics finally gets around to having Superman and Batman show up in the same film.
WIRED Slipstreaming smarts, thermodynamic futurism, enough Easter eggs to energize Bat-maniacs.
TIRED People who get tired of hearing about Grant Morrison.
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