MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: BATMAN RIP

[Batman RIP]

Batman #676 - "Midnight in the House of Hurt"

• From DCU #0: Joker and Batman in Arkham, reminiscent of Killing Joke. Joker deals a dead mans hand, black and red, life and death. He warns Batman of the coming of the Black Glove, the ruin of Batman nears. Batman tells them to bring it on.
• Flash forward: "You're wrong! Batman and Robin will never die!"
• Six Months Earlier: Le Bossu kills a man on the doorstep of the House of Hurt, cementing his initiation into Doctor Hurt's seeming Club of Villains.
• We see Charlie Caligula, King Kraken, Scorpiana, El Sombrero, the Swagman, Pierrot Lunaire, and Hurt himself.
• The Danse Macabre, the dance with death...
• Batman and Robin take down a crack-head villain called Green Vulture with the new Batmobile. They save a homeless man while Bats gives him a couple hunnid on da dash!
• Jez is staying at the crib, Tim doubts her though Alfred claims other flames have known Bruce's secret identity.
• Interesting that the Thogal Ritual from 52 #47 which was one week increased to 49 days, although it could have very well started before the sequence with Tim and the Monk and just ended at week 47.
• Tim wonders if Bruce is in the right state of mind after everything that's happened in this Batman run, Alfred chalks it up to Bruce's endless pursuit to pushing the boundaries of human ability.
• Tim himself has had some crazy trauma in recent history, but what bothers him the most is the fact that Damian is most likely Bruce's biological son.
• Jezebel Jet reveals to Bruce an invitation she received to join the Black Glove's danse macabre.
• Joker has some frightening fantasies in black and red while taking a Rorschach test in Arkham given by Le Bossu's alter ego, who cuts off the power to invite him into the Club of Villains.

Batman #677 - "Batman in the Underworld"

• Black Glove movie from #667: the story of two innocent lovers corrupted and destroyed by a group of super rich gamblers.
• Bats sustained a wound from his fight with the henchman in the sewers...
• Black Glove connections to the Waynes, "people my parents knew..."
• Tim has gone to the mountain retreat after his convo with Alfred last issue.
• This might be a stretch, but there is a panel showing Thomas Wayne and two other individuals who I believe are Mangrove Pierce and Marsha LaMarr, the stars of the Black Glove picture.
• Doctor Hurt prepares the Club of Villains for their attack on Batman and his allies, something none of his arch villains has ever accomplished successfully.
• El Sombrero prepares designs by looking over blueprints of either Wayne Manor... or Arkham Asylum...
• Hurt sees Batman's strengths as overcompensation for his internal weakness, the Forever Pit within his soul, something the Black Glove can use to ruin him.
• The wound on Batman was caused by a blade laced with Librium by the hench he fought in the opening sequence, a hypnotic medication making him more susceptible to trigger phrases implanted in his subconscious.
• Bruce takes Jez to the Batcave. He believes the Black Glove is targeting both of them, so he tells her to stay away from him.
• I don't buy Bruce's lovey dovey declarations to Jez, could this all be part of his counter attack?
• She says he could erase her country's national debt with the cost to maintain the Batcave.
• Gordon meets with the Mayor who shocks him with news of an upcoming hit piece on the Wayne family reputation: painting Bruce as a schizo bastard son of con-man actor Alfred and drug addict Martha, while Thomas orchestrated his wife's death and faked his own.
• Photos of John Mayhew, Marsha LaMarr, Mangrove Pierce, Thomas Wayne, Alfred, and space cadet Martha with needle tracks in her arms.
• The dossier was compiled 25 years ago by a PI hired by the Kane family who mysteriously went missing...
• Henchmen para jump over wayne manor...
• Jez gives Bruce the 'don't be Batman' speech, claiming that the crusade is just a reactive fantasy of the little boy's vow to his parents.
• So Jez's father was shot in front of her...
• Bruce tries desperately to hold off the clench of the Black Glove's grip, thinking Jez is another pawn in the game against him.
• We've seen Morrison's take on the World's Greatest Detective skills, concentrating on subtle clues hidden behind mythology as well as employing meditation to enter detective state. Everything must be considered, or else people will die.
• Jez introduces more doubt to the mission: what if it's him? What if he's the Black Glove all along, his own corrupted mental state sabotaging him.
• The cray mainframes present a new pattern, or is it the Black Glove hacking the Bat-computer?
• He can't see the images of Zur En Arrh graffiti, until Jez says the trigger phrase...
• The stone idol face appears from Batman #156, the creature from the iso-chamber hallucination.
• "What if your falling apart? What if you're having some kind of breakdown?"
• He collapses as the screens are flooded with the Black Glove. Bruce and Jez are surrounded by Le Bossu and his gargoyles.
• Alfred gets back from the movies to find the cave in ruins. He is attacked by King Kraken and Le Bossu.

Batman #678 - "Zur En Arrh"

• Bat-Radia held by Tlano, Batman of Zur-En-Arrh from Batman #113.
• Rainbow creature from #134.
• Black Casebook: pages detailing the creatures seen in the hallucination and a newspaper saying Gotham's Hurt missing. Could Simon Hurt have gone MIA before the Waynes were murdered, then returning for the iso-chamber replacement Batmen experiments, and then departing to return now? Michael Lane said in #674 that Hurt came and went every now and then to corrupt good men and make slaves of the weak.
• "Prisoners of Three Worlds" from #153.
• So Tim is the one who nabbed the Black Casebook Bruce was looking for last issue and has been reading it in the mountain retreat.
• Bats experimented with hallucinogens to try to understand the psyche of the Joker in order to be more effective against him. This resulted in the zany synthetic silver age adventures of Batman with aliens and sci fi phantasmagoria. If it wasn't for Robin, he would have succumbed to the madness and fallen deeper into his internal Forever Pit.
• The cabin is attacked by Pierrot Lunaire and Swagman.
• Bruce is found in the pits of Gotham by the homeless man he gave some bread to back in #676, Honor Jackson. He's talking to someone before he finds Bruce, mentioning little bat-fairies...
• Flashback in red and black. Hurt drugs up Bruce with street heroin and crystal meth before dumping him out on the streets.
• Tim alerts Dick to the situation as they both prep to face more members of the Club of Villains.
• Bruce and Honor make their odyssey across the city. Honor gifts Bruce something within black and red checkerboard wrapping, "this was my best friend".
• They make it to a liquor store, where Honor reveals the whole odyssey was just a trek to get Bruce sober and beat the drugs.
• The Odyssey: a cyclops and a man who must get back to save the woman he loves? But the cyclops aids him, could it be an inverted odyssey?
• They watch the sunset together, and Honor sheds a tear as he ponders on a good deed he could have done to preserve a shred of self worth; saving Bruce's life. Was Honor a figment of Bruce's imagination?
• Lone Eye Lincoln tells Bruce that Honor died yesterday after buying a bunch of drugs and subsequently ODing. Most likely the same money given to him by Bruce and Tim in #676.
• Honor's spirit guided him to Crime Alley, and Lincoln offers some drugs as the keys out of Hell and into Heaven...
• Nightwing has been captured and drugged up in Arkham by the villains.
• Simon Hurt dons the OG Batman costume of Thomas Wayne from Detective #235 as he toasts to crime.
• Cracked out of his mind, Bruce knits the Zur-En-Arrh suit while reciting lines verbatim from Batman #113. The Bat-Radia looks like an AM/FM radio (his own mother box?). Speech bubbles change to indicate a new Batman persona taking over, parallel to Joker's transformation from #663.
• Black and red in the background, death of Bruce Wayne and rebirth of a new Batman.
• Bat-mite is there as well, could he have puppeteered the spirit of Honor Jackson to guide Bruce? Mite said in #674 that he came to guide Bruce on his passage...
• Something that I'd love to make a note of is a theory presented by David Uzumeri of Funnybook Babylon, a document I had to scour the web archives for:  "Keep in mind, though, that these colors are the ones mentioned in the prose piece, #663 – could this be a new glam Batman, inspired by the lights rather than darkness of Gotham? I’m sure this isn’t the permanent new outfit."

Batman #679 - "Miracle on Crime Alley"

• Zur busts into a gargoyle outpost where tailors prep the outfits for Le Bossu's henchmen, and he's wielding a freaking wooden bat!
• Zur has some rapport with the Gargoyles as he prepares to descend on the henchmen. Slow-vision allows him to see Gotham as a checkerboard of grids, "a machine designed to make Batman."
• Bat-Mite alerts him to the tracking device Hurt implanted him with. He pulls his tooth out and gets the drop on the bad guys.
• He's using Crime Alley and the Monarch Theater as his base of operations.
• Mite explains that the Zur-En-Arr episode from Batman #113 was actually a hallucination induced by Prof Milo's gas weapon, which is interesting because that literally happened in #112.
• The iso-chamber experiments allowed Hurt access to Batman's mind, where he got the idea for Zur-En-Arrh as a trigger phrase to turn off Batman anytime he wanted.
• But this Batman of Zur-En-Arrh persona that he's embodying now is actually a back-up identity to save Bruce from psychological attack.
• The miracle on Crime Alley, salvation crawled out from the Forever Pit to save the orphan boy...
• Tim calls up the Knight and Squire for some back up against the Club of Villains, who in turn call the rest of the Batmen of All Nations.
• Zur takes down Kraken and Charlie Caligula.
• Gordon comes to warn Bruce of the contents of the dossier, but he's lured into a boobytrapped Wayne Manor, courtesy of El Sombrero.
• A final act at Arkham Asylum, a trap for the Dark Knight.
• Hurt believes himself to be Thomas Wayne, now taken the persona of Simon Hurt. He's most definitely responsible for the fake dossier, but it's interesting that he appears to actually believe it, or at least shows that he does to Alfred.
• They promised Robin to the Joker...
• Batman Breaks At Midnight!
• Zur-En-Arrh is what happens when you take Bruce out of the Batman equation.
• Charlie Caligula can see Bat-Mite behind him?
• Bossu has his henchmen body Arkham while he preps to lobotomize Dick.
• El Sombrero is going to booby-trap Arkham, crates of red and black flowers are brought in along with Jez who seems to be a victim...
• Bossu brings Joker his stuff as they prepare for the Dance of Death. Joker has painted his nails red and black...

Batman #680 - "The Thin White Duke of Death"

• The Black Glove is revealed: a continuation of the MO from the Club of Heroes arc, rich men gamble with human lives. An annual event, so the last one we saw despite being one years ago in real time (11-12 issues ago) could be justified as John Mayhew and Wingman's initiations.
• Five rich men for the five fingers. Roulette wheel in the middle of the table.
• Bunch of red and black theming, they'll be betting on Batman vs the Joker.
• Bossu spills his heart out to Joker, about how Joker's invention and momentum have inspired the Club of Villains. He's so into himself that Joker doesn't give af.
• The colors of Zur En Arrh represent total confidence, something he admires Robin for wearing.
• Apparently the backup persona is short term, he's not meant to run the ZEA all night.
• Joker goes awol immediately, killing henchmen.
• Awesome page: Bat-Mite can't follow Bats into the asylum since he's the voice of reason. Also, it doesn't matter if Bat-Mite is a figment or "real", because imagination and the 5th Dimension are one in the same! In our dimension, you can explain Bat-Mite's intervention as Bruce's hallucinations, his voice of reason, but Bat-Mite still exists in the higher planes of Space-B!
• Batman calls Bat-Mite, "might," which seems to imply the possibilities inherent in the character,
• The Sheikh mentions Hurt's actors, a connection to Marsha LaMarr and Mangrove Pierce I presume, or even Alfred Beagle...
• Cardinal Maggi.
• Joker hangs El Sombrero, but Hurt doesn't care, as he gleefully pins a black rose to Joker's lapel.
• Portraits of Silas Wayne and Mordecai Wayne...
• Damian and Talia arrive!
• Four suits: Diamonds & Clubs for the rich, Hearts for love, Spades for death...
• But it doesn't matter, because Joker's pattern is a rabbit hole with no end, nothing ever mattered, nothing ever made sense!
• Joker hints at some irony upcoming... JET-BLACK IRONY...
• He's still pissed at getting shot in the face, and he's found out why Hurt hates Batman...
• Joker maimed Bossu, even after his proclamation of love!
• Joker laughs at Batman's pursuit to trying to understand him, the whole thing that started this mess.
• Batman tussles with Joker, the Danse Macabre, and Joker is death, the dead man's hand, HAHA.
• Jezebel used as bait! "You want to know what it feels like to be the clown at midnight? Where there's only ever one joke and it's always on you?"
• Joker doesn't like Hurt's hand on his shoulder, nor does he like being called a servant...
• Bruce tries to use the Bat-Radia, but he succumbs to the poison of the flowers...
• The revelation! The pattern hiding in plain sight! Black and Red! Jezebel Jet! The Black Glove!
• Now he knows!

Batman #681 - "Hearts in Darkness"

• Batman straitjacketed in a coffin buried underground. But Batman thinks of everything. In the cave, in the dark, Bruce had visions of past, present, and future. He found himself in the Forever Pit, the black radiant core behind the self.
• Master Lo is missing... Bruce doubts if he is his own worst enemy; in his visions he finds a scar on his consciousness, a wound created from Hurt's hypnotic molestation during the iso-chamber experiments. Bruce wishes to create the ZEA persona to defend against the darkness hidden within his mind.
• The monk he sits with now has poisoned his cup, no doubt commanded by the Black Glove and/or Hurt.
• The Club of Heroes saves Tim as they dispatch to save the rest of Gotham.
• We get a new Dark Ranger, formerly the Scout.
• Bruce switched the cups!
• The coffin will run out of air in 30 minutes...
• Joker is still at Arkham, he wants to place a bet, killing one of the fingers to join.
• Joker knows his nemesis, and he bets on Batman to defeat the Glove.
• The Bat-Radia is a remote transmitter! That's what he was fumbling with at the end of last issue! Wayne Tower uplink with Arkham, activating the security lockdown. Batman thinks of everything!
• Drugs wear off and Nightwing frees himself from restraints!
• Bruce faced the Thogal Ritual not because he needed spiritual purification like he told Tim, but because he wanted a taste of death, the knowledge of every eventuality. He ate every fear and doubt in his mind.
• Bruce knew of the ultimate evil all along!
• BATMAN BUSTS OUT OF THE GRAVE! YES YES YES!
• Joker got the pattern of red and black from the crowbar coated in Robin's blood from Death of the Family.
• Every time Joker evolves, Batman evolves to match him.
• Apophenia = finding connections where there exist none.
• Joker feels he's been driven insane to try and loosen Batman up; in #663 he stated his motive to push Batman to accept chaos and the meaningless nature of reality.
• Devil is double deuce, and Joker trumps deuce!
• The Wild Card, the unexpected, the impossible final reveal of the dead man's hand!
• Joker leaves a goodbye and a threat; he'll come to collect soon enough...
• Interesting that Hurt is completely unfazed by Joker...
• So Batman says he knew she was tricking him since way back in #664!
• He says he was attracted to the bad in her: look at his history! Talia, Catwoman!
• The truth behind her father: Jacob Nkele won her and her mother in a Black Glove wager 20 years ago, corrupting both of them. Her father's enemies killed him and put Jez in his place, while her mother died in a cell on Death Row. Bats stole a secret letter from her safe!
• Even though she believes he will never love again, he says it was all acting lessons!
• Dick Grayson will always have Bruce's back! He saved him in #156, he saved him in #112, and he'll always have his back!
• Rumors behind the Black Glove movie: the devil put a curse on it and all died who were involved...
• Joker's ambulance gets flipped over by Damian whipping the batmobile!
• Hurt claims the Crime Blitz was a farce, as the Black Glove lessened crime to undermine Batman's reason to be.
• They also daubed the walls with trigger phrases he couldn't see until it was too late.
• Verbatim lines from #156, hypnotic commands hidden in Batman's mind just like Bat-Mite said in #674.
• Hurt says he's Bruce's father, faked death while Chill lost his nerve to kill Bruce.
• Bruce says he's Mangrove Pierce, disgraced star of the Black Glove, but Hurt says he skinned Pierce and wore him to Mayhew's party. This means that the man we saw being skinned and worn in #667 was Pierce and Hurt was on the island (or the video was prerecorded)! Then again, it does look like hurt who kills legionary, but THEN AGAIN it was supposed to be the initiation of Mayhew and Wingman. Could go either way, but the man in the video is most likely Hurt.
• The Hole in Things, the enemy, the piece that can never fit. The Forever Pit, the black hole in the soul, the bullet holes in the hearts of Thomas and Martha Wayne.
• Hurt says the next time Bruce wears the cape and cowl, it will be his last...
• Michael Lane pilots the helicopter!
• Bruce writes this adventure as the last entry into the Black Casebook: in his war against evil, was Hurt the devil after all?
• Tim tries to make up some excuses for Gordon, but Talia says she will take care of retribution.
• Dick holds the cowl from the wreckage.
• Man-Bat commandoes attack Jet's plane!
• Back to the flash-forward from #676: the Cardinal from the Black Glove is killed, most likely by the Joker.
• Bossu is about to kill a cop, but Batman and Robin never die!
• The Waynes leave Monarch Theater, Bruce wants to be Zorro, Thomas says they would probably throw Zorro in Arkham. Bruce mishears his father's last words as Zur-En-Arrh, a remnant power phrase that manifests into the hallucination in #113, and then the back up identity of Batman ZEA. This is very reminiscent of Tec #235, where Bruce discovers his father wore a primordial Batman costume to a masquerade. He deduces that the forgotten memory of his father in the costume triggered his desire to become Batman when the bat crashed into his window and landed on his father's bust.
• Bruce is Zorro in Arkham, the flamboyant hero trapped in a mad machine he cannot escape, while fighting on with indomitable spirit all the same.
• Easily the best Batman comic of all time.