HOURMAN by Tom Peyer Reading Order

[BOOK I]

• Tomorrow Woman #1 - "Tomorrow Never Knows"
• #1 - "Through the Hourglass"
• #2 - "Romancing the Tombstone"
• #3 - "Timepoint"
• #4 - "Hourmen"
• #5 - "The Death of Hourman"
• #6 - "JLAndroids"
• #7 - "The Human League"
• Secret Origins of Super-Villains 80pg Giant #1 - "Amazo: Original Sin"

[BOOK II]

• #8 - "A Week With No Hourman"
• #9 - "Where Does The Time Go?"
• #10 - "Bride of the Gombezi"
• #11 - Hourman One Million, Part I : "Or Else"
• #12 - Hourman One Million, Part II : "Metron's Brain"
• #13 - Hourman One Million, Part III : "The Perfect Crime"
• #14 - "Secrets & Lies"
• #15 - "Friend of the Devil"
• #16 - "Snapper Carr, Super-Traitor!"

[BOOK III]

• #17 - "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
• #18 - "High Society"
• #19 - "The Thief of Time"
• #20 - "My So-Called Afterlife"
• #21 - "Maybe I'm Amazo"
• #22 - "The Chrono-Bums"
• #23 - "The Unbelievable Truth"
• #24 - "Minutes To Go"
• #25 - "...But You'll Never See The End of the Road If You're Traveling With Me"

PREACHER READING ORDER

[BOOK ONE - Gone To Texas]

• Preacher #1 - "The Time Of The Preacher"
• Preacher #2 - "And Hell Followed With Him"
• Preacher #3 - "And The Horse You Rode In On"
• Preacher #4 - "Standing Tall"
• Preacher #5 - Naked City, Part I : "Say A Prayer For Seven Bullets"
• Preacher #6 - Naked City, Part II : "New York's Finest"
• Preacher #7 - Naked City, Part III : "NYPD Blue"
• Preacher #8 - "All In The Family"
• Preacher #9 - "When The Story Began"
• Preacher #10 - "How I Learned To Love The Lord"
• Preacher #11 - "Pardners"
• Preacher #12 - "Until The End Of The World"

[BOOK TWO - Proud Americans]

• Preacher #13 - Hunters, Part I : "Came A Pale Rider"
• Preacher #14 - Hunters, Part II : "Boys Will Be Boys"
• Preacher #15 - Hunters, Part III : "Crashing The Party"
• Preacher #16 - Hunters, Part IV : "Judgement Night"
• Preacher #17 - Hunters, Epilogue : "Miracle Man"
• Preacher #18 - "Texas & The Spaceman"
• Preacher #19 - Crusaders, Part I : "Of Things To Come"
• Preacher #20 - Crusaders, Part II : "Too Much Gun"
• Preacher #21 - Crusaders, Part III : "Stormbringers"
• Preacher #22 - Crusaders, Part IV : "Iron In The Blood"
• Preacher #23 - Crusaders, Part V : "Revelations"
• Preacher #24 - Crusaders, Part VI : "And Justice For All"
• Preacher #25 - "Cry Blood, Cry Erin"
• Preacher #26 - "To The Streets Of Manhattan I Wandered Away"

[BOOK THREE - Dixie Fried]

• Preacher #27 - "Gun Chicks"
• Preacher #28 - "Rumors Of War"
• Preacher #29 - "Old Familiar Faces"
• Preacher #30 - "Good Times Rolling"
• Preacher #31 - "Underworld"
• Preacher #32 - "Snakes In The Grass"
• Preacher #33 - "Price Of Night"
• Preacher Special: Saint of Killers #1 - "Riders At Sunset"
• Preacher Special: Saint of Killers #2 - "Relentless"
• Preacher Special: Saint of Killers #3 - "Angels Of Death"
• Preacher Special: Saint of Killers #4 - "Revenant"
• Preacher Special: Cassidy: Blood & Whiskey #1 - "Luck Of The Irish"

[BOOK FOUR - War In The Sun]

• Preacher #34 - War In The Sun, Part I : "Once Upon A Time"
• Preacher #35 - War In The Sun, Part II : "You & Me Against The World"
• Preacher #36 - War In The Sun, Part III : "Come & Get It"
• Preacher #37 - War In The Sun, Part IV : "The Shatterer Of Worlds"
• Preacher #38 - "Badlands"
• Preacher #39 - "For All Mankind"
• Preacher #40 - "Arsefaced World"
• Preacher Special: The Story of You-Know-Who #1 - "Smells Like Teen Spirit"
• Preacher Special: The Good Old Boys #1 - "Hill-Bullies"
• Preacher Special: One Man's War #1 - "Apostles"

[BOOK FIVE - Salvation]

• Preacher #41 - "The Man From God Knows Where"
• Preacher #42 - "The Meatman Cometh"
• Preacher #43 - "Christina's World"
• Preacher #44 - "Custer's Law"
• Preacher #45 - "Southern Cross"
• Preacher #46 - "White Mischief"
• Preacher #47 - "Jesse Get Your Gun"
• Preacher #48 - "Good Night & God Bless"
• Preacher #49 - "First Contact"
• Preacher #50 - "The Land Of Bad Things"
• Preacher #51 - "Freedom's Just A Word For Nothing Left To Lose"
• Preacher #52 - "Even Hitgirls Get The Blues"
• Preacher #53 - "Too Dumb For New York City & Too Ugly For L.A."
• Preacher #54 - "I Built My Dreams Around You"

[BOOK SIX - All-Hell's A Coming]

• Preacher #55 - "Harbinger"
• Preacher #56 - "Smile Like The Gates Of Hell"
• Preacher #57 - "Of The Irish In America"
• Preacher #58 - "Dot The I's & Cross The T's"
• Preacher #59 - Alamo, Part I : "Texas, By God"
• Preacher #60 - Alamo, Part II : "The The Thunder Of His Guns"
• Preacher #61 - Alamo, Part III : "The Wonder Of You"
• Preacher #62 - Alamo, Part IV : "And Every Dog Its Day"
• Preacher #63 - Alamo, Part V : "Jesse's Girl"
• Preacher #64 - Alamo, Part VI : "If I Knew The Way I'd Go Back Home"
• Preacher #65 - Alamo, Part VII : "Shoot Straight You Bastards"
• Preacher #66 - "A Hell Of A Vision"
• Preacher Special: Tall in the Saddle #1 - "Rapture"

SANDMAN READING ORDER

 [Preludes & Nocturnes]

• Sandman #1 - "The Sleep of the Just"
• Sandman #2 - "Imperfect Hosts"
• Sandman #3 - "Dream A Little Dream of Me"
• Sandman #4 - "A Hope In Hell"
• Sandman #5 - "Passengers"
• Sandman #6 - "24 Hours"
• Sandman #7 - "Sound & Fury"
• Sandman #8 - "The Sound of Her Wings"

[The Doll's House]

• Sandman #9 - "Tales In The Sand"
• Sandman #10 - "The Doll's House"
• Sandman #11 - "Moving In"
• Sandman #12 - "Playing House"
• Sandman #13 - "Men of Good Fortune"
• Sandman #14 - "Collectors"
• Sandman #15 - "Into The Night"
• Sandman #16 - "Lost Hearts"

[Dream Country]

• Sandman #17 - "Calliope"
• Sandman #18 - "A Dream Of A Thousand Cats"
• Sandman #19 - "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
• Sandman #20 - "Façade"

[Season of Mists]

• Sandman #21 - "A Prologue"
• Sandman #22 - "Chapter I"
• Sandman #23 - "Chapter II"
• Sandman #24 - "Chapter III"
• Sandman #25 - "Chapter IV"
• Sandman #26 - "Chapter V"
• Sandman #27 - "Chapter VI"
• Sandman #28 - "Epilogue"

[Fables & Reflections]

• Vertigo Preview #1 - "Fear Of Falling"
• Sandman #29 - "Thermidor"
• Sandman #30 - "August"
• Sandman #31 - "Three Septembers & a January"

[A Game of You]

• Sandman #32 - "Slaughter On Fifth Avenue"
• Sandman #33 - "Lullabies Of Broadway"
• Sandman #34 - "Bad Moon Rising"
• Sandman #35 - "Beginning To See The Light"
• Sandman #36 - "Over The Sea To Sky"
• Sandman #37 - "I Woke Up and One of Us Was Crying"

[Fables & Reflections II]

• Sandman #38 - "The Hunt"
• Sandman #39 - "Soft Places"
• Sandman Special - "The Song of Orpheus"
• Sandman #40 - "The Parliament of Rooks"

[Brief Lives]

• Sandman #41 - "Part I"
• Sandman #42 - "Part II"
• Sandman #43 - "Part III"
• Sandman #44 - "Part IV"
• Sandman #45 - "Part V"
• Sandman #46 - "Part VI"
• Sandman #47 - "Part VII"
• Sandman #48 - "Part VIII"
• Sandman #49 - "Part IX"
• Sandman #50 - "Ramadan"

[Death: The High Cost of Living]

• Chapter I - "The Spirit of the Stairway"
• Chapter II - "A Night To Remember"
• Chapter III - "The High Cost of Living"

[World's End]

• Sandman #51 - "A Tale of Two Cities"
• Sandman #52 - "Cluracan's Tale"
• Sandman #53 - "Hob's Leviathan"
• Sandman #54 - "The Golden Boy"
• Sandman #55 - "Cerements"
• Sandman #56 - "World's End"

[The Kindly Ones]

• Vertigo Jam #1 - "The Castle"
• Sandman #57 - "Part I"
• Sandman #58 - "Part II"
• Sandman #59 - "Part III"
• Sandman #60 - "Part IV"
• Sandman #61 - "Part V"
• Sandman #62 - "Part VI"
• Sandman #63 - "Part VII"
• Sandman #64 - "Part VIII"
• Sandman #65 - "Part IX"
• Sandman #66 - "Part X"
• Sandman #67 - "Part XI"
• Sandman #68 - "Part XII"
• Sandman #69 - "Part XIII"

[The Wake]

• Sandman #70 - "Which Occurs in the Wake of What Has Gone Before"
• Sandman #71 - "In Which A Wake Is Held"
• Sandman #72 - "In Which We Wake "
• Sandman #73 - "An Epilogue - Sunday Morning"
• Sandman #74 - "Exiles"
• Sandman #75 - "The Tempest"

[Death: The Time of Your Life]

• Chapter I - "Things You Just Do When You're Bored"
• Chapter II - "Imaginary Solutions"
• Chapter III - "The Time Of Your Life"

JACK KIRBY'S FOURTH WORLD READING ORDER

[SUPERMAN'S PAL, JIMMY OLSEN!]

• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 - "Jimmy Olsen Brings Back the Newsboy Legion!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #134 - "The Mountain of Judgement!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135 - "Evil Factory!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136 - "The Saga of the DNAliens!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #137 - "The Four-Armed Terror!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #138 - "The Big Boom!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #139 - "The Guardian Fights Again!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #141 - "Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #142 - "The Man From Transilvane!"
• DNA Project: "Hairie Secrets Revealed!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #143 - "Genocide Spray!"
• DNA Project: "The Alien Thing!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #144 - "A Big Thing In A Deep Scottish Lake!"
• DNA Project: "The Torn Photograph"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #145 - "Brigadoom!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #146 - "Homo-Disastrous!"
• DNA Project: "Arin The Armored Man!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #147 - "A Superman in Super-Town!"
• Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #148 - "Monarch of All He Subdues!"
• DNA Project: "Genetic Criminal"

[THE FOREVER PEOPLE]

• The Forever People #1 - "In Search of a Dream!"
• The Forever People #2 - "Super War!"
• The Forever People #3 - "Life vs. Anti-Life!"
• The Forever People #4 - "The Kingdom of the Damned!"
• The Forever People #5 - "Sonny Sumo"
• Young Gods of Supertown: "Lonar!"
• The Forever People #6 - "The Omega Effect!"
• Young Gods of Supertown: "Raid From Apokolips"
• The Forever People #7 - "I'll Find You In Yesterday!"
• Young Gods of Supertown: "Battle-Horse, Thunderer!"
• The Forever People #8 - "The Power!"
• The Forever People #9 - "Monster in the Morgue!"
• The Forever People #10 - "The Scavengers!"
• The Forever People #11 - "Devilance the Pursuer!"

[NEW GODS]

• New Gods #1 - "Orion Fights For Earth!"
• New Gods #2 - "O'Deadly Darkseid"
• New Gods #3 - "Death Is The Black Racer!"
• New Gods #4 - "O'Ryan Gang & The Deep Six"
• New Gods #5 - "Spawn!"
• Young Gods of Supertown: "Fastbak!"
• New Gods #6 - "The Glory Boat!"
• New Gods #7 - "The Pact"
• Young Gods of Supertown: "Vykin the Black!"
• New Gods #8 - "The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin!"
• Young Gods of Supertown: "Beat The Black Racer!"
• New Gods #9 - "The Bug!"
• New Gods #10 - "Earth -- The Doomed Dominion!"
• New Gods #11 - "Darkseid & Sons!"

[MISTER MIRACLE]

• Mister Miracle #1 - "Murder Missile Trap!"
• Mister Miracle #2 - "X-Pit!"
• Mister Miracle #3 - "The Paranoid Pill!"
• Mister Miracle #4 - "The Closing Jaws of Death!"
• Mister Miracle #5 - "Murder Machine!"
• "Young Scott Free, Part I"
• Mister Miracle #6 - "'Wait For Godot', With Funky Flashman!"
• "Young Scott Free, Part II"
• Mister Miracle #7 - "Apokolips Trap!"
• "Young Scott Free, Part III"
• Mister Miracle #8 - "Battle of the Id!"
• Mister Miracle #9 - "Himon!"
• Mister Miracle #10 - "The Mr. Miracle To Be!"
• Mister Miracle #11 - "The Greatest Show Off Earth!"
• Mister Miracle #12 - "Mystivac!"
• Mister Miracle #13 - "The Dictator's Dungeon!"
• Mister Miracle #14 - "The Quick & The Dead!"
• Mister Miracle #15 - "The Real Big Barda!"
• Mister Miracle #16 - "Shilo Norman, Super-Trouble!"
• Mister Miracle #17 - "Murder Lodge"
• Mister Miracle #18 - "Wild Wild Wedding Guests!"

[FINALE!]

• New Gods Vol. 2 #6 - "Even Gods Must Die!"
• The Hunger Dogs #1 - ""

CHRONO ORDER!

ACT I

1. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #133 - "Jimmy Olsen Brings Back the Newsboy Legion!"
2. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #134 - "The Mountain of Judgement!"
3. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #135 - "Evil Factory!"
4. The Forever People #1 - "In Search of a Dream!"
5. New Gods #1 - "Orion Fights For Earth!"
6. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #136 - "The Saga of the DNAliens!"
7. Mister Miracle #1 - "Murder Missile Trap!"
8. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #137 - "The Four-Armed Terror!"
9. The Forever People #2 - "Super War!"
10. New Gods #2 - "O'Deadly Darkseid"
11. Mister Miracle #2 - "X-Pit!"
12. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #138 - "The Big Boom!"
13. The Forever People #3 - "Life vs. Anti-Life!"
14. New Gods #3 - "Death Is The Black Racer!"
15. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #139 - "The Guardian Fights Again!"
16. Mister Miracle #3 - "The Paranoid Pill!"
17. The Forever People #4 - "The Kingdom of the Damned!"
18. New Gods #4 - "O'Ryan Gang & The Deep Six"
19. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #141 - "Will the Real Don Rickles Panic?"
20. Mister Miracle #4 - "The Closing Jaws of Death!"

ACT II

1. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #142 - "The Man From Transilvane!"
1. DNA Project: "Hairie Secrets Revealed!"
2. The Forever People #5 - "Sonny Sumo"
1. Young Gods of Supertown: "Lonar!"
3. New Gods #5 - "Spawn!"
1. Young Gods of Supertown: "Fastbak!"
4. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #143 - "Genocide Spray!"
1. DNA Project: "The Alien Thing!"
5. Mister Miracle #5 - "Murder Machine!"
1. "Young Scott Free, Part I"
6. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #144 - "A Big Thing In A Deep Scottish Lake!"
1. DNA Project: "The Torn Photograph"
7. The Forever People #6 - "The Omega Effect!"
1. Young Gods of Supertown: "Raid From Apokolips"
8. New Gods #6 - "The Glory Boat!"
9. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #145 - "Brigadoom!"
10. Mister Miracle #6 - "'Wait For Godot', With Funky Flashman!"
1. "Young Scott Free, Part II"
11. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #146 - "Homo-Disastrous!"
1. DNA Project: "Arin The Armored Man!"
12. The Forever People #7 - "I'll Find You In Yesterday!"
1. Young Gods of Supertown: "Battle-Horse, Thunderer!"
13. New Gods #7 - "The Pact"
1. Young Gods of Supertown: "Vykin the Black!"
14. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #147 - "A Superman in Super-Town!"
15. Mister Miracle #7 - "Apokolips Trap!"
1. "Young Scott Free, Part III"
16. Superman’s Pal, Jimmy Olsen #148 - "Monarch of All He Subdues!"
1. DNA Project: "Genetic Criminal"
17. The Forever People #8 - "The Power!"
18. New Gods #8 - "The Death Wish of Terrible Turpin!"
1. Young Gods of Supertown: "Beat The Black Racer!"

ACT III

1. Mister Miracle #8 - "Battle of the Id!"
2. The Forever People #9 - "Monster in the Morgue!"
3. New Gods #9 - "The Bug!"
4. Mister Miracle #9 - "Himon!"
5. The Forever People #10 - "The Scavengers!"
6. New Gods #10 - "Earth -- The Doomed Dominion!"
7. Mister Miracle #10 - "The Mr. Miracle To Be!"
8. The Forever People #11 - "Devilance the Pursuer!"
9. New Gods #11 - "Darkseid & Sons!"
10. Mister Miracle #11 - "The Greatest Show Off Earth!"
11. Mister Miracle #12 - "Mystivac!"
12. Mister Miracle #13 - "The Dictator's Dungeon!"
13. Mister Miracle #14 - "The Quick & The Dead!"
14. Mister Miracle #15 - "The Real Big Barda!"
15. Mister Miracle #16 - "Shilo Norman, Super-Trouble!"
16. Mister Miracle #17 - "Murder Lodge"
17. Mister Miracle #18 - "Wild Wild Wedding Guests!"
18. New Gods Vol. 2 #6 - "Even Gods Must Die!"
19. The Hunger Dogs

HITMAN BY GARTH ENNIS

[THE DEMON]

• #40 - "The Wild One"
• #41 - "Castle of the Damned"
• Annual #2 - "Introducing: Hitman"
• #42 - Hell's Hitman, Part I : "Fall & Rise"
• #43 - Hell's Hitman, Part II : "Cry Havoc!"
• #44 - Hell's Hitman, Part III : "A Night on the Town"
• #45 - Hell's Hitman, Part IV : "King of Hate"
• #46 - Haunted Glory, Part I : "Return of the Hanuted Tank"
• #47 - Haunted Glory, Part II : "Weird War"
• #48 - Haunted Glory, Part III : "Be All That You Can Be...!"
• #49 - "From Hell"
• #50 - "The Shanty of Captain Scumm"
• #51 - "Sons & Lovers"
• #0 - "Zero Hour"
• #52 - "Suffer The Children, Part I"
• #53 - "Suffer The Children, Part II"
• #54 - "Suffer The Children, Part III"
• #55 - "The Longest Day, Part I"
• #56 - "The Longest Day, Part II"
• #57 - "The Longest Day, Part III"
• #58 - The Longest Day, Part IV : "Etrigone"

[A Rage In Arkham]

• The Demon Annual #2 - "Introducing: Hitman"
• Batman Chronicles #4 - "Hitman"
• Hitman #1 - "A Rage In Arkham, Part I"
• Hitman #2 - "A Rage In Arkham, Part II"
• Hitman #3 - "A Rage In Arkham, Part III"

[Ten Thousand Bullets]

• Hitman #4 - "Ten Thousand Bullets, Part I"
• Hitman #5 - "Ten Thousand Bullets, Part II"
• Hitman #6 - "Ten Thousand Bullets, Part III"
• Hitman #7 - "Ten Thousand Bullets, Part IV"
• Hitman Annual - "A Coffin Full of Dollars"
• Hitman #8 - "The Night The Lights Went Out"

[Local Heroes]

• Hitman #9 - "Local Heroes, Part I"
• Hitman #10 - "Local Heroes, Part II"
• Hitman #11 - "Local Heroes, Part III"
• Hitman #12 - "Local Heroes, Part IV"
• Hitman #13 - "Zombie Night At The Gotham Aquarium, Part I"
• Hitman #14 - "Zombie Night At The Gotham Aquarium, Part II"

[Ace of Killers]

• Hitman #15 - "Ace Of Killers, Part I"
• Hitman #16 - "Ace Of Killers, Part II"
• Hitman #17 - "Ace Of Killers, Part III"
• Hitman #18 - "Ace Of Killers, Part IV"
• Hitman #19 - "Ace Of Killers, Part V"
• Hitman #20 - "Ace Of Killers, Part VI"
• Hitman #21 - "Kiss Me"
• Hitman #22 - "The Santa Contract"

[Tommy's Heroes]

• Hitman #23 - "Who Dares Wins, Part I"
• Hitman #24 - "Who Dares Wins, Part II"
• Hitman #25 - "Who Dares Wins, Part III"
• Hitman #26 - "Who Dares Wins, Part IV"
• Hitman #27 - "Who Dares Wins, Part V"
• Hitman #28 - "Door Into The Dark"
• Hitman #29 - "Tommy's Heroes, Part I"
• Hitman #30 - "Tommy's Heroes, Part II"
• Hitman #31 - "Tommy's Heroes, Part III"
• Hitman #1,000,000 - "To Hell With The Future"
• Hitman #32 - "Tommy's Heroes, Part IV"
• Hitman #33 - "Tommy's Heroes, Part V"
• Hitman #34 - "Of Thee I Sing"
• Hitman #35 - "Katie, Part I"
• Hitman #36 - "Katie, Part II"

[For Tomorrow]

• Hitman #37 - "Dead Man's Land, Part I"
• Hitman #38 - "Dead Man's Land, Part II"
• Hitman #39 - "For Tomorrow, Part I"
• Hitman #40 - "For Tomorrow, Part II"
• Hitman #41 - "For Tomorrow, Part III"
• Hitman #42 - "For Tomorrow, Part IV"
• Hitman #43 - "The Morning After, The Night Before"
• Hitman #44 - "Fresh Meat, Part I"
• Hitman #45 - "Fresh Meat, Part II"
• Hitman #46 - "Fresh Meat, Part III"
• Hitman #47 - "The Old Dog, Part I"
• Hitman #48 - "The Old Dog, Part II"
• Hitman #49 - "The Old Dog, Part III"
• Hitman #50 - "The Old Dog, Part IV"

[Closing Time]

• Hitman #51 - "Super Guy, Part I"
• Hitman #52 - "Super Guy, Part II"
• Hitman #53 - "Closing Time, Part I"
• Hitman #54 - "Closing Time, Part II"
• Hitman #55 - "Closing Time, Part III"
• Hitman #56 - "Closing Time, Part IV"
• Hitman #57 - "Closing Time, Part V"
• Hitman #58 - "Closing Time, Part VI"
• Hitman #59 - "Closing Time, Part VII"
• Hitman #60 - "Closing Time, Part VIII"

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: BATMAN INCORPORATED PART IV

[Fearful Symmetry]

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #7 - "Belly of the Whale"

• Check out Deep Space Transmission's reading of the N52 Batman Inc issues having Tarot correspondence.
• Batman nabbed by the Man-Bats! Robins are too late!
• For all the preparation Batman made, everything still played into Talia's grand design.
• Jason sent to Bat-Cave East, Tim goes to track Bruce down, Dick stays with Gordon.
• Whale carcass in Yemen, birthplace of Heretic.
• Traktir & Spidra fend off Leviathan Ninja Man-Bats coming to erase evidence. Last Stand of the Super-Collectiv!
• Poor Beryl; she was the one who saved Cyril's life and brought him back from addiction.
• Damian immediately throws away the Third Ghost of Batman/666 future prophecy, claiming the Heretic is the real enemy. He gives us the recap from B&R #12 + The Return.
• I like that Alfred used the phrase 'Second Chances' which is a seminal Jason Todd story.
• So Hood was a mole for Spyral this whole time? Makes sense how he survived Matron shooting him back in Leviathan Strikes. The dialogue is almost verbatim to what was said to him.
• Talia gets a new Oroboro trigger with the Brunnian Ring. This can supposedly activate the ring of meta-bombs placed by Otto Netz and almost set off before Damian killed him.
• Nice figurine of Kali the Destroyer, bad mommy persona of Talia.
• I love how on top of things Tim is, he's always been the smartest of the bunch.
• Ellie! We last saw her in V1 #6 as a receptionist, before that in #701, and even before that in #664.
• Chessboard/Checkerboard! Red Queen, Black Knight! Red & Black! Life & Death! Love & War!
• So from #3 on, everything that Bruce has delt with was precision planned to make sure he can only escape the safe exactly when Talia wants. Psychotically brilliant. And it's all been one night I think?
• Lovely moment between Alfred and Damian.
• Gordon finally pops a cap in the Leviathan plant cop! Not sure how Dick got overpowered.
• Damian's ability to impersonate voices has always been an element of his character since #657.
• Dick's about to get merc'd!
• Hood brings Jason to The Headmistress! It has to be Kathy Webb right?
• Tim goes into the fray at Wayne Tower!
• And Damian flies off in the jet suit from The Return!

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #8 - "The Boy Wonder Returns"

• "What would you do without me, Grayson?"
• Batman has lock picks in his esophagus!
• Another homage to the bat & the window via Damian.
• Dick + Damian's moment together is without a doubt one of the greatest pages in all of Batman history. Damian becoming Robin is the epitome of Batman Impossible, the unimaginable becoming manifest. Bruce Wayne in the Alley. Dick Grayson beside the candle. Jason Todd & the Pit. Tim Drake & the plea. And now the child of the Devil, with all the odds against him, goes to sacrifice himself for the mission.
• Ellie nabs the Oroboro Trigger.
• The standoff: built up since The Return. The Beast & the Boy Wonder.
• The Heretic's attempt to break Damian, Knightfall-style, in panel 6 evidently don't work because of the robot spine Talia gave to Damian in Batman and Robin #7.
• Could Damian have won? Even without the interference of the Leviathan foot soldiers, we'll never know.
• Batman breaks free, but it's too late. He's always too late.
• Even when Damian dies, and I don't know if people have noticed, but the sword that kills him belongs to the very first known ancestor of the Waynes, it was used in Batman: Shadow of the Bat, in the 90s, so what we went back to, there's a suit of armor in the case, and it's Bruce Wayne's earliest ancestor's. That's who kills the boy, and so there's a lot of you know, you see him smashed against the Wayne "W" and the foyer of the Wayne tower and so it's kind of very much about how these things play out over generations and how repetitive patterns play out of destructive patterns and it really never ends.
• Talia sheds Kali/Tiamat/Gorgon for a moment, a second to remember her former self before scorn, before the archetype.
• Here Lies Damian Wayne. Robin RIP.

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #9 - "Fallen Son"

• Funeral of Damian.
• Heretic has his own bat-armor underneath the oriental veneer.
• Bruce's speech parallels Morrison on the Batman title: a brief but exciting and explosive reinvigoration of the Batman story, now come to an end. Like Damian, Morrison carved his own path against the grain of what other writers had done with the character.
• The Knight's adventure alongside his dad against Spring Heeled Jack hasn't been chronicled anywhere and is most likely another detail drawn from Morrison's unpublished The Knight & Squire mini-series pitch.
• Beryl is the new Knight, joining up with Dark Ranger back in the Batman Inc fray. Vengeance!
• The primordial Lazarus Pit from the Blackest Knight arc in B&R could be used to resurrect Cyril...
• Bruce sends Alfred on a 'vacation' for letting Damian leave the cave. Part of me doesn't think it's vindictive; instead motivated by the fact that Bruce knows he must embrace part of him he thought long dead. He must nix the first truth of Batman, and become the creature of the night, the black winged prowler, the Bat-Man.
• Media perception of the War: Leviathan claims it all has to do with Wayne's financing of Batman, hence the occupation of Wayne Tower. Their ultimatum to Gotham, ban the sigil of Batman Inc or the city falls. Of course, politicians are stupid and fail to recognize that the city is falling anyways.
• "Is Gotham City the beginning of the end for the American Empire?"  Morrison has been pressed on the politics of Batman Incorporated in interviews recently and highlighted in his responses that he sees it all as window dressing to the conflict between Talia and Bruce - grown adults hiding behind ideologies rather than addressing their (very) personal issues.  Talia isn't especially interested in toppling the 'American Empire', she's externalizing her rage against Bruce into a crusade against everything he stands for.  And he in turn does the same - organizing an international army of crime-fighters to pit against her.  As Morrison has said, this is a story about bad parents and what happens when they lose sight of the small things that matter the most, like the well-being of their children - and not about proposing solutions to the world's political quandaries.
• Gang reconvenes at Bat-Cave East. They have the Oroboro trigger and know that the meta-bombs are around the world in every location Batman visited during V1.
• They can track Jason because he pissed himself?
• Is the Headmistress & Spyral involved with Leviathan? Are they a third party? Why were the Skull-Girls + Son of Pyg acting as agents? Has Hood been working for the enemy this entire time?

 [Batman Forever]

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #10 - "Gotham's Most Wanted"

• Michael Lane! We last saw him in this run as Bat-Devil in the RIP finale. He subsequently became the newest version of Azrael to repent from his sins.
• The prophecies he's reciting are clearly interlinked with the 666 future; the Joker's judgement of laughing death, the Dragon being Damian, his brother being the Heretic, the state of the masked set ablaze...
• We did see the horned star back in #674 when we got Lane's origin.
• Lane apparently accepts the fact that he'll become Bat-Devil in #666 but will try to do good up until then.
• Drawings of 666 Damian, cover of Batman in Bethlehem in his visions...
• "Laying near death in the cave" reminds us of the N52's slight alterations of ROBW and how Bruce got the visions.
• Though there's very likely an element of Morrison not wanting to tread on any New 52 toes by avoiding references to Bruce's time jaunt in The Return of Bruce Wayne, framing the references in deliberately vague mysto-Jungian language ("I lay near death in a cave and I saw the end of the world at the hands of my son") gives Batman's words a doom-laden weight they might otherwise have lacked.  It's almost as if the events of Final Crisis and Return... have dissolved into myth themselves; half-recalled dream memories rather than concrete events.
• I love this line: We're all your sons, Batman. Any one of us could end the world. Or save it.
• Batman preps to do battle with the Beast, the Heretic, and nabs the Suit of Sorrows.
• Ra's and chess! Imprisoned back in V2 #2, he trolls Talia with vague oversights she has apparently made.
• Rook (Heretic) takes Pawn (Damian), but Knight (Bruce) takes Queen (Talia)!
• Batman is banned from Gotham! Public enemy like the old days!
• Photonic crystal meta-material from Sivana's lab finally working!
• A new Bat-Exo-Skeleton!
• Talia has the coward foot-soldiers put to death for shooting at Damian during his duel with Heretic.
• Batman must surrender at 11:00! An hour before midnight...
• Contaminated gas, energy sources of Gotham sabotaged, Gotham falls and Oroboro emerges as the substitute. New Al Ghul empire. As Gotham falls, so falls the whole world...
• Dick is right; Batman's at his most powerful when the odds are against him.
• Jason's been bugged by Talia since she brought him back in Under The Red Hood.
• So Headmistress and Spyral and the Skull-Girls are not with Leviathan. but then why were they back during School of Night? Was it all a ruse?
• Batman uses Kirk Langstrom to make a Man-Bat cure...
• Heretic is a child, the full circle of the 'Batman is a little boy playing dress up'.
• Talia removes agency in an attempt to control, something she lacked with Damian, with Bruce.
• Slouched in the chair, like in Year One, Bruce must become something beyond Batman, something that can beat the perversion of everything he's built.
• Readying for his final assault on Wayne Tower he weaponizes the bats with Man-Bat antidote while injecting himself with Langstrom's original transformative serum.
• A storm of bats! The Bat-Man cometh!

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #12 - "Fatherless"

• Epic to end the Moz-Bats age!
• Bats-laced with anti-venom aerosol.
• We finally see the photonic crystal in action: invisible Batman!
• Batman's diatribe towards Heretic has to come from some part of self-criticism, the self-awareness of the supposed absurdity of his crusade.
• So Hood claims that Batman Inc was only allowed to occur because Spyral wanted it to, using it as some sort of psy-op against Leviathan. I'm assuming that's why they worked with them during V1 #4 and School of Night, to further gather intelligence.
• Batman Inc is now a weapon for the Headmistress, who is 100% Kathy Webb.
• One of the greatest pages in Batman history: "Sons are born to die in war."
• Heretic is a reflection of not only Damian, but Bruce himself. Truly the little boy trapped behind the Bat-Behemoth DKR visage.
• Talia says there are dozens more Damian clones waiting to be born...
• Talia calls herself Wire Mommy! Does that mean she worked with Otto Netz to make Prof Pyg? Or was it just another archetype suggested to Netz?
• Red Queen! Mother of Skeletons!
• The Big Picture unfolds! The grand design! Batman Inc goes to disarm the Oroboro ring around the world, while Bruce deals with Talia.
• Wayne Tower is detonated!
• Mirroring Chris Burnham's first page for the run back in B&R #16, Talia descends into the cave to do battle with her Bat-Beau.
• And she's got her own variant on the Thomas Wayne/Simon Hurt First Batman Costume!

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #13 - "The Dark Knight and the Devil's Daughter"

• Bruce and Jim Gordon at the end, at the beginning.
• Follow-up to the first page of V2 #1.
• Pass off the war to Gordon as Bruce being entangled with Talia, and the reason behind Batman Inc being their falling out over their son.
• Talia says Leviathan, like the idea of Batman, is made of vague and empty promises. It's all a smokescreen to veil the emotional engine. Like she said in V2 #2, she already has everything, everything except a family. This whole thing is all bullshit, a ploy to ruin Bruce. She's so beyond Bruce, the Devil's Daughter, the femme fatale of femme fatales, of course she sees terrorism and filicide as just a game.
• Gordon and Leslie Thompkins with Bruce as a child, so I'm guessing to keep in with Year One you can have Gordon go to Chicago at some point?
• The war against Talia is the ultimate test of Batman, the farthest he will ever have to descend into the Forever Pit. Even worse than RIP. She (and Selina and Kathy by some extent) is a woman made for an idea like Batman, but Bruce being part of that equation is where the exploitation and weakness comes.
• Lone-Eye Lincoln! Wonderful set of pages with Batman Inc taking down the agents of Leviathan.
• It all comes back to red and black, life and death, the bat and the window, the holes and the blood.
• The Hole in Things, the deaths of Thomas and Martha. The well that devours love. That spews heartbreak.
• I'm sorry I couldn't love you the way you wanted me to. Batman is Bruce is Batman, and they weren't enough. So she becomes his war, the thing he's devoted to.
• But Batman lies to her: You're too big for me to fight.
• This is Batman. The guy who beat the God of Evil. The guy who beat Time. Who beat the Devil. Who beat Death!
• Jason comes just in time. Notice how Dick saves him in RIP, Tim saves him in ROBW, Damian saves him in Inc V1, and now Jason at the end.
• So the Oroboro ring around the world would destroy the cities, purge their fuel, and the subsequent explosion would release the Oroboro meta-material to substitute. Leviathan will own it all after that.
• And it is a trick! Otto Netz's Oroboro was always Fool's Gold, always bullshit. Sivana's crystal was the real deal.
• You'll never have Gotham City: this is Batman, who walks with Superman and Wonder Woman. This is Batman, the New God of the Fifth World. Even at the point of absolute ruination, the enemy will blink for a second, and that's all he needs to beat them. Batman. Never. Stops.
• Talia condemns him to be pinned to the colorful madmen of his rogues gallery (sort of true), but Kathy Webb returns to put her in the ground.
• It was all the secret war of two women who loved Batman, the weakness of Bruce; Martha, the Pearls, the Wire Mommy.
• Kathy planned the whole thing, most likely when she heard her pops getting busted out from the Falklands by Talia.
• She leaves him with the last gaze of the Gorgon; she's the only one who ever broke his heart, who ever really left him besides Martha. To him, she doesn't exist anymore.
• Bruce says Batman is dead. That it's over.
• Kathy clears the investigation. Bruce is free.
• Bruce looks into the Hole In Things, the ultimate trauma, the Forever Pit that has governed his entire history, and sees nothing. Black. Oblivion. Heartbreak. Despair.
• But in that ruin, in all that Nil, there is enough to build forever. There is always a chance to move forward. To rise out of the well.
• Alfred's back, the graves of Talia and Damian have been unearthed.
• Batman is never over. Because he will always be needed. There will always be a world to save.
• EPILOGUE: Ra's is out of the Jungfrau prison, taking control of Talia's seaside base we saw in Batman #665 and B&R #12 IIRC.
• Lord Death Man has been captured and his blood is being harvested to make new Lazarus Pits. That was his secret upgrade mentioned way back in the beginning of this run.
• Ra's vows revenge with Talia's nursery of Damian clones as his weapons!
• Batman is Forever. The Snake eats its own tail. His progeny mass produced. Like the constant monthly publication of the title.
• It never ends. It probably never will.

MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: BATMAN INCORPORATED PART III

[Heir to the Bat]

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #1 - "Demon Star"

• Twin headstones. Bruce wants to quit Batman.
• Gordon goes to take him in.
• One month earlier...
• Batman and Robin on the trail of animal mask merc's. Meat factory with tampered cattle, branded with horned demon star to indicate contaminant. Dark Tower + Lone Star brands.
• Demon Star as indicated in the Leviathan Strikes Special is the name for Algol in the Perseus System which means Demon's Head, the Eye of the Gorgon...
• Animal-masks maneuver Damian into trap but Goat-Boy fails to kill him.
• Goat-Boy has his own backstory: down on his luck assassin who needs money from Damian hit to take care of kid.
• Branded Cow added to the bat-animals, Bat-Cow.
• Bruce and Damian are on on the rocks after Damian killed Otto Netz and Nobody during N52 B&R's Born To Kill arc.
• Talia opens Monarch Theater restaurant with west side Gotham crime bosses, usurps Grimm Brothers. Feeds one of them to the other and then drops him from the skyline in front of Batman.
• Damian's wearing the hood...
• Dead Heroes Club! Everybody attacked by Netz survived, faked their deaths, and rendezvous at Bat-Cave West in San-Fran. Hood, Gaucho, Outsiders, Batwing, and the new Wingman!
• Confirmation that the big guy was Matron who shot at Hood.
• Outsiders survive because of Metamorpho's move from 1997's JLA #1!
• Pretend they're dead to have advantage over Leviathan.
• Bruce says it's good that Leviathan is in Gotham because it's his playing field advantage.
• Goat-Boy apparently succeeds in killing Damian, even presenting photo proof to Talia and Heretic. He claims he needs protection from Leviathan for killing Robin...
• But Damian's hood was on before Batman arrived, his hood was on in the photo, and we can definitely assume that Batman convinced him to play along with the ruse in order to get Talia off their backs for a little while.

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #2 - "Eye of the Gorgon"

• Daddy issues!
• Ra's meets Melisande at Live Aid. Fascinating how Talia ends up taking the eco-terrorism of her father to the Nth degree with Leviathan's infiltration of society itself instead of just an attempt to bring it down.
• Talia confronts her father in his mountain headquarters, though I'm not sure exactly why he doesn't want her to wage war against Batman. Does he have his own plans? Is it a pride thing? Has Talia gotten too big that her actions would destabilize he world?
• The flashback to Jungfrau's peak was referenced way back in Batman #670!
• Batman always underestimates Talia: she's the anti-damsel, the beast behind the beauty.
• Netz guided her new persona along with the Leviathan iconography. The red and black, Kali Ma, Tiamat, Medusa. All of these bad mommies referenced in B&R #3 by Professor Pyg! Could she be the Wire Mommy or have had some hand in his creation...
• I love all of the astrology/onomy that Morrison involves.
• Talia has had everything, but she fulfills the prophecy of the scorned woman, just like her mother. The one thing she can't have, the thing she never will: a family.
• In the eyes of the Gorgon, all men are lying devils. Spiral subversion of underestimation, of 'the act', is the way to win.
• Ra's gives Talia the secret headquarters beneath London + Submarine that we see during the Batman & Son arc.
• Lazarus Pits, a declining resource...
• Burnham and Morrison retell Detective Comics #411!
• "You would never tire of me" : I love this page, the spiral sun in the background, the Eye of the Gorgon that ruins.
• "Why is it your kiss always chills me to the marrow?" = Batman #243.
• Ra's always wanted Talia and Bruce to have a kid so he could inhabit its body! Just like in Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul!
• Duel in the desert! Batman #244.
• Their child to be a new Alexander; Alexander killed his father/led his father to death... many implications and parallels to Damian... and 666...
• Talia was a driving factor behind the Secret Society during Infinite Crisis, though I'm assuming that E3 Alex Luthor found that pretty convenient since it all ended up fitting into his plan.
• General Malenkov was Talia's mole in the Black Glove! Reiki to the rescue!
• The chess symbolism is so potent in retrospect now, the Red Queen and the Dark Knight.
• Talia knows Damian is not dead!
• Confirmation that Heretic was born out of the Whale carcass in The Return.
• Talia has turned Ra's to stone, she has his attention after all these years.
• Look and learn...

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #3 - "The Hanged Man"

• Horrifying human replacement as Leviathan sinks its tendrils into the education system, the courts, and the GCPD!
• Matches Malone is back! Funny how his return to the underworld operates in tandem with Batman's.
• The bar Three Eyed Jack's is the same one we saw Goatboy in #1. Possible reference to One-Eyed Jacks from Twin Peaks?
• Lumina Lux! Her song of a scorned woman, death in flames of Joan of Arc, pearls, and the Hanged Man! Bruce was identified as the Hanged Man back in ROBW #6.
• Matches comes to Small Fry for info on Leviathan; they're at an homage to the Brother's Grimm who Talia + Heretic killed in #1.
• El Bastardo, Bulldog, and Ogo! Gaucho, Hood, and Batwing have some of the funniest make-over's ever.
• Turnip Twins want Lumina Lux to sing at the Brother's Grimm wake, but she wants illegal drugs for payment.
• Dick back to impersonating Bats! Love it!
• Pine flooring in Man-Bat commando claws, five locations in city with that kind of flooring. This will most likely lead Batman to the Monarch Theater restaurant they were in Leviathan Strikes & #1.
• Damian is alive of course. Grounded for the time being for his safety.
• Talia's Web! Most intrigued by the Professor Pyg connections...
• So Leviathan has always been at the center of Morrison's Batman run! Could Talia have been behind Doctor Hurt too?
• The Demon Star Dark Tower hormone they mentioned in #1 is connected to Pyg's drugs! Mind control!
• The Assassin's League, here in Gotham to hunt for Damian!
• Operation Kill Box...
• Damian believes that the price on his head is Talia's way of separating them two so Bruce is vulnerable. Robin has always been the shield that protects Batman, the one who saves him.
• Leviathan religion, goat sacrifices to Kali... Lilith, Dark Mother, Tiamat, mythology put in place to make Leviathan the hyper-idea of crime infesting Gotham.
• Matches goes to Goatboy on info regarding the Leviathan secret base AKA the Monarch Theater restaurant.
• Heretic is a Frankenstein's monster made from Batman's DNA. This all but confirms that he's the second Damian clone from B&R #12.
• Alfred is ready to take Bruce to Target #1 (Leviathan HQ), but Lumina Lux lures him to Target #2 (House of Assassins).
• Horned Star, three eyes, goat's head. It's a trap! Lumina Lux's own eye of the Gorgon. But Batman knows it's a trap...
• Damian escapes the cave with a new persona; like Dick became Nightwing after Robin, Damian becomes Redbird!
• Goatboy was in on it too! Gave the location of the Monarch Restaurant as a trick, then relying on Lux to lead him to the HOA.
• Three sacrifices: Small Fry, Matches, who is the third?
• Small Fry hanging looks like the street lamp on crime alley.
• Jack Ketch, the Hangman! Creepy ass Judge too.
• Jack Ketch, the hangman from the show, is based on a real, famously incompetent or particularly bloodthirsty, executioner who lived in the 17th Century.  The giant heads worn by Matches' captors resemble the classic interpretations of the Punch and Judy characters, and recall similar masks worn by some of the townsfolk in Robin Hardy and Anthony Shaffer's The Wicker Man.
• Alarm goes off in the House of Assassins: Redbird is here!

[Heir to the Gorgon]

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #4 - "Kill Box"

• Love that they call it Zorro's Restaurant!
• We know it's not about Damian, it's about Bruce!
• So Heretic is definitely a Damian clone.
• Matches! You can actually see the gunpowder trail in the closing pages of last issue! (I definitely had to go back and check haha).
• Batman INC must have set some charge at the base of the trail outside the the front door.
• This issue is perfect btw. Burnham's choreography and layout of the House of Assassins is second to none.
• A lot of these assassins were seen during the Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul.
• Gaucho & The Hood!
• Wingman & Redbird!
• Phase 2! We can see the assassins dining at the actual wake for the Grimm Brothers.
• So Talia is wired in the entire House, allowing her to have dialogue with Bruce.
• Batwing uses ultrasonics to take out the Man-Bat commandos! Takes a sample of the Were-Bat serum...
• So Goatboy's three were Robin, Small Fry, and Matches, but he failed so he's using Lumina as a back-up.
• So Batman obviously offered to pay back in #1 for the ruse of Robin's death, but Talia knew and offered him more to join the war against Batman.
• Lumina never had a sister, the drugs were for her. Batman lets her off.
• Assassin's League is broken. Batman wants Talia to end the war and meet with him.
• Wingman is Jason Todd! How did Talia know?
• So the fact that he let Jason back in is seen by Damian as hypocrisy: how can Bruce judge Damian for saving his life when Jason has been a stone cold murderer since his return? Bruce is using Jason as a point of redemption for Damian?
• Why is Talia so keen for Bruce to spill the beans as far as Wingman's identity goes?  Is it because Jason symbolizes so much that Damian is not allowed to be?  A murderer; a self-righteous vigilante who answers to no authority but his own?  In a sense it's more meta than that as well - Jason represents how little any of it 'matters'.  Even if Talia and her cadre of elite assassins succeeded in killing Damian, why not just bring him back via the Lazarus Pit?  He's the example that makes a mockery of all of the lessons Bruce is trying to teach Damian, and a living if somewhat more moderate embodiment of his mother and grandfather's ideals.
• Bruce tells Damian that his time as Robin is over because Talia has put them in a war they can't win with an unavoidable future...
• Damian must return to his mother, or else the world will fall...
• And Damian will be the one who causes it!!!
• 666 BABY!

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #5 - "Asylum"

• The revelation of Bruce's vision of the future: the world in flames...
• Talia wanted Damian to join Bruce as Robin as a way to sabotage him and replace him as her agent. Because where Bruce always wins, Damian always fails.
• Things have changed since #700, we thought that tomorrow belonged to the Batman but we were wrong.
• Gotham is on fire. Laughing Death in the city. The Bat-Cave invaded. A child with the antidote.
• Great homage to the bat through the window in Year One.
• Everybody's held up in Arkham, the last citadel.
• President wants to nuke Gotham.
• As we'll see later in the issue, given who their top man is it's clear that this group advising the President is the new inner circle of the Black Glove.
• Damian believes that if he fails, there is a higher power against him, or a lower power...
• Jackanapes says that everything is the Devil's plan, preparing the world for a final battle!
• The baby's a carrier!
• So Hurt claims that by Damian leaving his mother, by Batman rejecting Talia way back in #658, Damian led to the conflict with Doctor Hurt. He was in the dream of the Three Ghosts...
• Batman dies at the crossroads. It's all Damian's fault. He opened the devil door, he carved the Hole In Things. Gotham was marked by Talia, mother of the beast of bedlam, Damian!
• Babs is gone, she's full Killing Joke mode. One bad day of joker venom ruins noble spirits.
• Hurt convinces the President to nuke Gotham!
• Could he be smiling in all the panels because of the Joker Venom in B&R #16?
• So even if it was indirectly, Talia is the cause of the 666 future, the Ruin that Comes to Gotham. Damian is the beast, the Third Ghost, and his becoming of the Batman will always be cursed, never good enough.
• Is Bruce saying that Damian acting as Redbird saved someone (Jason?) from dying, or is he saying that luckily Damian as Redbird didn't cause anyone to die?
• Nobody knows the future. But Bruce believes he needs to send Damian back to his mother.
• Target One: the Zorro Restaurant, though I'm not sure why they call it a homeless shelter. Maybe the restaurant is supposed to be inside the Monarch Theater across the street?
• The pine flooring, the hidden frequency Batman used to communicate with Talia last issue, it's all a trap!
• The Kali Ma, the bad mommy, the annihilation of Batman Inc!

Batman Incorporated (Vol 2) #6 - "Garland of Skulls"

• Immediately continued from the end of last issue. The hostage situation at St Malphas, a homeless shelter financed by Bruce Wayne now used as Leviathan's HQ under everybody's noses.
• GCPD ineffective due to Leviathan's infiltration. Even Gordon knows this.
• Ro-Bats join Batman into the fray.
• With its top floor destroyed by the explosion last issue, the St Malphas building is a pretty close visual analogue to the Tarot card The Tower, often symbolizing fear, ruin and catastrophe.
• Zen parable of the Goatherd (instead of the Ox) of course because of Goat-ham, Baphomet, the Devil Black Thomas...
• Ten stages of understanding, pursuing the goat up the mountain of enlightenment.
• Its a series of pictures that illustrate the 10 stages on the path to enlightenment, often accompanied by a short poetic passage.  They're not something you can really pin a specific 'meaning' on, being as they are a tool for meditating on achieving an enlightened state.  The first picture on the floor here is "In Search of The Bull - aimless searching, only the sound of cicadas".
• The second picture, leading Batman deeper into Talia's lair, "Discovery of the footprints - a path to follow".  The goatherd (Batman?) pursues the goat (Talia/Leviathan?), up the mountain of Enlightenment (the interior of St. Malphas).
• Outsiders are merc'd. Hate to see the gang absolutely annihilated.
• The third picture, "Perceiving the Bull - only it's rear and not it's head."
• Batman is on a bender since #3, non-stop feats that will inevitably drain him. He's running on empty.
• Picture number four in the sequence - "Catching the Bull (or goat...) - a great struggle, the bull repeatedly escapes, discipline required".
• Jason returns to the Bat-Cave. Damian still doesn't rock with him since the Revenge of the Red Hood arc.
• Alfred gets Damian the cat that will be named after him!
• Did Talia hack the Batman INC frequency or the Bat-Cave? Or is Tim just transmitting what Bruce can hear in the building?
• Phenomenal double spread: the dummy-torsos have the faces of those replaced by Leviathan in #3. This whole thing is so totally Dedalus it hurts.
• The fifth picture - "Taming the Bull - less straying, less discipline, bull becomes gentle and obedient"
• As Batman tries to get out of the tea room, all of the clocks strike 10:47 - the time Bruce's parents were killed.
• The Ninja Man-Bats are projecting the sixth picture in the sequence onto the side of St. Malphas - "Riding the Bull Home - great joy."  Is Talia the Herder and Batman the Ox/Bull/Goat?
• Talia still plans to use Otto Netz's oroboro meta-material to replace energy in the NewAl Ghul Order.
• Is Gotham actually burning or is it just another one of Talia's tricks, meant to evoke the 666 future? But then again how would she know?
• The seventh picture - "The Bull Transcended - once home, the bull is forgotten, discipline's whip is idle; stillness"
• Behind the Talia dummy, an empty circle - picture number eight - "Both Bull and Self Transcended - all forgotten and empty"
• Picture number nine - "Reaching the Source - unconcerned with or without; the sound of cicadas"
• Are these hostages all homeless of the shelter, or could they be the originals replaced by Leviathan?
• Beryl's brought back just as Cyril is taken from us. Heart-breaking. We've barely seen The Heretic and I already want him pummeled to oblivion.
• Talia claims Heretic to be the Third Ghost of Batman!
• The three Robins go to save Bruce, telling Damian to stay behind, but he'll obviously not listen.
• The final picture in the sequence - "Return to Society - crowded marketplace; spreading enlightenment by mingling with humankind"
• Batman falls, Gordon and the boys are attacked by the Leviathan mind-controlled kids. Everything becomes helpless in the blink of an eye. That is enlightenment that Talia reveals, that you were never winning, Batman.