Batman 666 and the Road to Leviathan

Disclaimer: Grant Morrison’s Batman arc has caused a lot of changes to the DCU, the introduction of Damian, Batman’s “death” and Dick Grayson becoming Batman for a year all stem from his massive storyline. Since the New 52 Reboot it has not been confirmed or denied whether these events happened, and if theyd did, how they happened. We will assume that DC has given Grant editorial leniancy to assume his continuity is unbroken.

Grant Morrison is several years into a Batman Mega Arc, incuding Final Crisis and 52, not to mention the threads laced all throughout his line of DC work, including DC One Million and Animal Man. Released about a year into his work, Batman #666 tells the story of a future Damian Wayne who has taken the mantle of the bat, a hard-boiled death machine in a Gotham infiltrated with pure evil.

Read over and over, the book takes on the role of a prophecy, mapping out hints and clues to what will happen as Morrison’s story comes to a head. I think I’ve cracked a clue relating to the upcoming December finale to Batman Inc., or possibly next years Batman: Leviathon, the capper to 7 years of comic book genius. The Rosetta Stone speaks...

To start we open with a history of Batman which includes this panel, which shows Damian on his knees with a dead Batman, this is the moment his life changes for good, we are led to believe.

The dead Batman referenced in the opening could be Dick or Bruce, and until the New 52 put Dick back in Nightwing's boots, I was convinced it was Dick, especially with what the wheelchair-bound police commissioner Barbara Gordon has to say later on concerning her hatred for this Batman.

It'd be easy to assume she is taking about Dick, but the death of Bruce would likely haunt Barbara in the same way. We can be sure of one thing, Damian is at least HELD responsible for the death of a Batman, likely Bruce Wayne, which led Damian to dedicate his life to defending Gotham.

The plot builds to Damian fighting Michael Lane, who would turn out to be a GCPD officer who was chosen to participate in a forced recreation of the Batman psyche, all under the hands of Dr. Hurt, who would reveal himself to be the Devil, at least in his own head, but Damian's thoughts seem pretty sure.

Michael Lane would go on to be Azrael, to little consequence, but more importantly was shown to be an integral part in driving Bruce Wayne insane in R.I.P. Michael Lane flashes weapons about a socialite dinner in our future wasteland Gotham before Damian crashes the party. Lane prepares his guests for their future.

This is right in line with Hurt's goals towards the end of Batman and Robin several years later.

Lane goes on to mention his Batman lineage to Damian, as we reach the apex of our analyses.

So at this point we can assume this is the same Ghost of Batman, Michael Lane, as the one from R.I.P. Now we know how he became Batman, but who guides this character?

Michael Lane has sold his soul to the devil, obviously, in exchange for the powers and privelage to inflict punishment on Gotham. He even goes so far as to try and recruit Damian...

Not unlike what Dr. Hurt would try to do with Damian in Batman and Robin.

The big twist is that Damian may have beaten Lane to the punch.

There is a lot of assuming to go around, but Damian directly mentions the death of Batman, his father, Bruce Wayne, was such a horrible event it "paved the way" for a murdering Batman like himself, not to mention that when he was 14, we can assume this is his age when Batman was murdered, he was given powers to ensure Gotham's survival...

God I love that page. The comic ends with Damian taking a shotgun blast that barely knocks him down, so he sold his soul for some type of invulnerability powers.

We arrive at our conclusion section.

Though we can never know the future, with this analyses of Batman 666, along with general knowledge of what has been going on in the Batman titles for the past year, such as this scene from Batman: The Return where Damian comes face to face with a mysterious, desert themed supernatural villian...

And don't forget about Damian's twin brother...

The future is clearly spelled out: These dangling plot threads are waiting in the wings to be crammed together, but I bet we'll see a final confrontation where Damian must make the ultimate sacrifice, and although it's easy to say these future issues hardly ever last long and are thrown aside once continuity gets in the way, take a look at this little Easter Egg...

Published several years before Batman and Robin #16. The man has a plan.

P.S. Forgot to mention it but I don't need to remind anyone that in general religious affiliation Leviathan =The Great Serpent=The Devil

A Response to Scott Snyder, Part 3 (Damian Wayne)

In conclusion...

Robin (Damien Wayne)

Grant Morrison’s Batman mega-arc has always been right on the cusp of long-standing continuity. There are always questions raised about what from the past is part of continuity, whether these events are then part of regular DC continuity or something specific to Morrison’s vision, blending the Golden, Silver, Bronze and Modern ages into hyper-time, no matter what crisis may be threatening the time stream.

Damian’s history technically dates back to the Mike Barr Elseworlds one-shot, Son of the Demon. In it Talia Al Ghul, daughter of Ras Al Ghul, reveals herself to be pregnant to Batman, who of course believes it to be his own child. Ras and Batman bond over the situation, relishing the merging of their two empires under compromised goals and motives, until Talia has an apparent miscarriage, at which point Batman bids the Ghul’s goodbye, but not before the twist revealing their hypothetical child was not lost to a miscarriage, and instead was born and adopted out.

Using the Superboy-Prime time-punch as his modus operandi, Morrison wove Son of the Demon back into continuity, opting to introduce Damian Wayne, the son of Talia and Batman, who has been raised in secret by the League of Assassins. Damian was introduced in Morrison’s first arc of his Batman opus, looking at a television screen and saying “There, that’s my father” to the sight of the super hero. The storyline would see a fun series of sequences of Batman and company trying to raise a spoiled, self-entitled, super-assassin who would just as soon cut your head off over not getting a laptop as he would listen to a speech about sacrifice.

Damian popped in and out of the Batman title for the next year, leading up to Batman R.I.P. and Final Crisis, the events of which left Batman in a time limbo, forcing Dick Grayson to don the cape and cowl and, unwittingly, taking on Damian as the new Robin. The change to the status quo was quite shocking; Damian had only appeared a little over half a dozen issues at this point, and here was this former cold blooded murderer in one of the oldest super hero costumes in the world. The dynamic between the jovial, optimistic Grayson and the cold, matter-of-fact future heir to the Batman throne shot to the top of the sales charts, where it remained for almost 2 years.

Damian has been featured in numerous cross-overs and team ups. He was on the Teen Titans for 3 issues, featured in a World’s Finest mini-series, and has had numerous adventures with Supergirl of all people, in both Supergirl’s solo series and Superman/Batman. The crown jewel of Damian’s DC adventures would be Paul Dini’s Street’s of Gotham, which featured a very long storyline, first Dick and Damian uncovering a child abduction ring, that led to an amazing solo-outing pitting Damian vs. the scarred serial killer, Zsasz.

Damian has secret bunkers throughout the city, weapons and vehicles, as well as becoming partners with a frail orphan with the ability to turn into a hulking monster named Abuse. Damian schemes and goes under cover, ending in a duel with Zsasz that has Damnian nearly slicing the flesh monster in two. The series was sharp and fresh, giving us a hard, down to Earth look at a character who, at the time, was still fairly new and had hardly been seen on his own. Dustin Nguyen provided stylinsh, thick line work with dirty colors, giving Damian’s adventure a very unique, non-DC look that really added to the overall martial arts feel of the character.

As Streets of Gotham wound down with the rest of the universe in preparation for the big reboot, I held out hope that Paul Dini and Dustin Nguyen would be given a Damian Wayne Robin book. There has always been a Robin book, with Jason Todd being the lone exception. Both Dick and Tim each had Robin series that went into the hundreds of issues, the Robin character has always been featured prominently in the Teen Titans, not to mention the general relationship they tend to develop across the universe. Damian has not had this opportunity.

With DC actively trying to court a younger audience I find it annoying that the most popular new character in over a decade, a 12 year old brash assassin son of Batman, cannot find his way into the mainstream DCU. Right now Young Justice, DC’s flagship cartoon at the moment, features a teenage Dick Grayson leading a pre-Teen Titans cast of sidekicks. Now, I’m not a marketing specialist, but from talking to people the average person doesn’t know who the hell Dick Grayson is. Everyone knows Robin and a few are aware of the circus origin of the first Robin, but no one really cares who Robin is in the general media. DC could have used Damian in Dick’s place and exposed the character to a wider audience while also joining their continuity a little bit, making the transition from cartoon to print easier.

With the relaunch Damian has been scrubbed pretty hard out of sight. Damian used to have appearances every month across the universe, including backup roles in most Bat books, now in the first month of the New 52 he is relegated to the first issue of Batman and Robin and a few cameo panels in Batman #1. Dick Grayson in the newly launched Nightwing doesn’t mention him, he isn’t name dropped in any other Bat book, he has no prominent role or storyline to carry out, and now that Morrison’s Bat Opus is on hold for a few months, Damian is all but invisible.

One of the most common complaints about the industry, from both creators and fans, is there aren’t enough new characters, that we keep reading the same stories over and over with different details about Superman’s birth and origin or The Hulk merging and separating from Bruce Banner over and over. Damian is relatively brand new. Despite being introduced in 2006 he has been left inside the Bat Books and outside of one Batman: Brave and Bold “what if” story that represented a wildly out of character Damian, he has never been mentioned on any television show or movie DC has released.

If DC wanted my money they would launch a Robin solo-title. He has a motive, he has an identity, he has gadgets and safe houses, partner’s (Abuse) and acquaintences to grow into relationships (Alfred, Stephanie Brown, Barbara Gordon), and most uniquely, he is one of the DC characters with a future already laid out. Batman #666 and #700, both written by Grant Morrison, features stories of a grown-up Damian who has inherited the mantle of the Bat. Damian is haunted by a guilt over the death of the Batman, inflicting severe punishment, even death, upon the new breed of futuristic Gotham scum, with his own rogue’s gallery including Professor Pyg and Flamingo, two characters who would show up in out present, along with Max Roboto and Jack-A-Napes, villians yet to be seen outside these futuristic adventures. The future Batman wears a trench coat, designed to take the place of a cape. His arm protector’s are now sharpened blades used to sever limbs and torsos, leaving bloody stumps in place of mayhem. He has a disturbed relationship with Barabara Gordon, the wheel-chair bound chief of police who can’t help but blame the Dark Knight for the death of “a friend.”

In these two comic books Morrison has created quite the future for our beloved brat. His cockiness and lack of remorse today gives way to the haunting weight on Damian’s shoulders in the future. It is intriguing and mesmerizing, some of the most imaginative comics in recent years, oozing the brutality and absolute justice today’s crowd wants out of it’s Batman. Just as I plead for a Robin solo-series, the Holy Grail of “crap I’ll never get” is a futuristic-Damian-Wayne-as-Batman series. Immediately we have to come to the conclusion Morrison won’t be writing it if it ever happens, but I have faith that DC would stack the property rightly, giving an already fully-formed character a prominent role that he deserves.

Scott Snyder began this little series by asking use who we, the fans who actually buy comic books, feel deserves a solo-series. Damian Wayne. Make it happen Scott.

Batman #1 Review

Batman #1

Scott Snyder’s run on Detective Comics hit all the right marks. He was using a still relatively new Dick Grayson as Batman and, more than any other writer except for Grant Morrison, really went out of his way to show that this was Dick’s book. The city and characters began to change fittingly and I was sure that this would be the Dick Grayson we’d all be talking about, the Scott Snyder Batman a la the John Byrne Superman.

Although Dick is back in his Nightwing costume I think we can still see all the hallmarks of Snyder’s previous Batman run. Within the first 8 pages we are immediately introduced (in a very clever way) to all three Robins and Alfred (Red Robin was very integral in Snyder’s Detective run) and throughout we see all the familiar faces including Gordon, Vickie Vale and Harvey Bullock. This is all in stark contrast to Tony Daniel’s new Detective Comics run which seems to only be featuring Batman, Gordon and Alfred.

The story moves, quickly. We start with a riot in Arkham, which is far more fun than any other Arkham riot I can think of, quickly shooting to a Bruce Wayne news conference with lots of future hints dropped on the floor about what Batman is planning along with an introduction to a future villain/ally/red herring that works very well to put this new guy in the thick of the plot in 1 page flat. In the final few pages we’re treated to a very well written back and forth between Batman and Harvey Bullock before a bomb explodes (figuratively) in the form of a cliffhanger you’ve got to come back for.

Snyder has a real knack for telling these stories; lots of characters, each with their own side plots and motivations, coming together in the middle to get to the end. Bruce Wayne’s appearance is noteworthy only because there have been a lot of Batman comics in the past few years that obviously tried to stay ambiguous as to who was under the cowl. This led to a cardboard Batman never leaving his cave and having exhausting never ending fights to fill space. Snyder has a firm grasp on the strengths and weaknesses of the Bruce Wayne character and why Batman needs to adopt this mask (heh) from time to time. He is juggling a lot of balls with just issue 1, but to say I’m not excited would be a boldface lie.

The art is beautiful. I remember seeing the first teaser of the cover and having some apprehension to the possibility of an Image guy drawing Batman. The splashes are kept to a minimum (but they look so damn good) and there is a lot of really inspired movement. Early on a character is undercover and they are placed in the background delivering a devastating 360 mule kick while Batman strikes a super-scary “punch several guys at once” pose. Movement, expression, and subtle hints in the background make this well worth reading over, especially as the momentum begins to build in the coming weeks. There was one moment where a new character is introduced and given the context, and tell me if I’m crazy, its hard not to think this character is Clark Kent (in his reporter fashion), and I think something could have been done to denote that this is a brand new character.

If I were to complain it would be petty; Damian is shuttled away as soon as he arrives, Gordon’s biggest moment is getting a phone call to move the plot, etc. but in 20 pages Snyder writes what would take any normal writer double the space to tell. This is not a man that throws away pages in exchange for pretty splash shots of costumes on rooftops (it should be noted, NO ROOFTOPS!) and when I’m paying $2.99 plus tax for 20 pages it is much appreciated.

Final Score: 5/5