Batman and Robin 16

One has to give Doctor Hurt credit. While most villains over the years have gone down easily when opposed by Batman, Hurt stayed alive, uncaptured, and largely on the offense until he had to face the combined efforts of two Batmen, one Robin, and the Joker. He was formidable enough that he had, and passed on, opportunities to kill both Batmen in a failed effort to achieve an even larger victory. But his elaborate plans kept the heroes off-balance for years. What was puzzling them -- and us -- was the nature of his game.

For Hurt, this issue begins and ends underground, and he spends most of the middle underground. All three of these subterranean scenes are memorable. First, we see the ceremony which is not quite the origin of Doctor Hurt -- he is already devoted to evil and practiced in Satanic rites in 1765 when he manages to raise a bat apparition that he takes for a demon and which somehow, perhaps telepathically, utters cryptic messages totaling just 22 words that forge a deal with Thomas and drops clear references to Darkseid.

Key parts of Hurt's origin as Thomas Wayne -- not Bruce's father but a young man in the Wayne family looking a lot like Bruce in 1765 -- had been hinted at over the last several issues. The issue begins with a faithful retelling of the ritual from Peter Milligan's 1990 story "Dark Knight, Dark City" in Batman #452-455. Six men prepare to sacrifice a woman in order to raise a demon, Barbatos. Thomas -- Jefferson in Milligan's story, Jefferson or Wayne in Morrison's -- objects at a key moment and the men flee. But in Morrison's version, only five men flee while Thomas Wayne remains to face the demon. As much as we know of Hurt's story, this is when Old Thomas Wayne became something special. Did he receive supernatural powers? He received at least one, longevity, contingent upon various blood rituals, just like Manfred in his deal with Satan in Morrison's 1990 story "Gothic."

What this made of Thomas who, identifying with Simon Magus, called himself Simon and eventually Doctor Simon Hurt, is hinted at in sentence fragments uttered (telepathically?) by Barbatos, then later made absolutely clear when Hurt, looking in a mirror and seeing or imagining Barbatos, says "I live to be your weapon." This line is the absolute nail-in-the-coffin proof that Hurt does not imagine himself to be the ultimate evil, but rather the servant of a greater evil. If we find out more about this Barbatos, we may find out if it truly is what the issue's solicit calls "ultimate evil."

Barbatos is clearly associated with the Hyper Adapter that Darkseid set loose in Batman #702 (in a previously unrevealed detail from Bruce's showdown with Darkseid in Final Crisis #6), and is most likely exactly that. Despite Hurt's vision, we see that no actual giant bat is present, just a large one that Thomas bites into in; if the issue's title had been "Black Sabbath" instead of "Black Mass" the farcical aspects of this arc could have added a guest appearance by celebrity bat-biter Ozzy Osbourne.

Though we see Thomas and Barbatos in their deal, interesting details regarding each and their association itself remain unclear. Thomas is already in search of "the mystery box" which came into being probably some years earlier in time for Jack Valor to see it in ROBW #3. The excitement with which one of the fiends yells "Barbatos!" upon seeing the box in B&R #12 might make one think that the box was the key to Barbatos, but here and in ROBW #5, Thomas indicates that Barbatos is the key to the box. We know that something dreadful is in the box, but it has contained lately and perhaps for a long time a bat-tracer and a note. Why did Thomas want the box? Is Barbatos, in saying "Omega Adapter," identifying itself or is it a different thing, perhaps not Apokoliptan at all, speaking of the box? This remains unclear and may be part of the true finale to this story in ROBW #6. Another riddle is why this encounter took place at all -- Thomas thinks he brought it about, but was making Hurt part of the Omega plan? If so, pestering Batman seems like an irrelevant add-on to a plan to destroy the world, particularly odd in that Hurt's major blow already came before Bruce faced Darkseid. A smaller riddle is why Barbatos calls Thomas "dark twin." Maybe it is exercising its knowledge of dead languages -- "Thomas" means "twin." Maybe Thomas is the actual twin of an 18th century Wayne, Darius or another. Or if this really is all about Bruce, maybe Barbatos considers Thomas to be a twin to the object of its primary objective.

The battle in Wayne Manor features Bruce Wayne, in a surprising reemergence that seems to be factually contradicted by last month's Road Home story. And so, in his great return, Bruce is a man who surprisingly comes back from a long torturous journey to stand beside his son (and closest friend) and fight against a large number of enemies who have taken his home -- this is the plot of Book XXII of The Odyssey, a chapter commonly called "Death in the Great Hall." This is Batman's version of that story, right down to the bow and arrow that Damian uses.

The Dynamic Trio, each of them taking on 33 Fiends, is easily able to overwhelm the muscle in Hurt's plan, and the story thereafter refers much more to Morrison's Batman story of 2008 than to Greek classics. Just as Bruce descended into Arkham in RIP he descends into the Batcave. Just as the Joker taunted him by loudspeaker then, Hurt does so now. Just as Jezebel called out for help then, Alfred does so now. And just as the Joker then shouted in triumph that Bruce was finally finding out what it was like to be him (the clown at midnight), Hurt shouts now, as he locks Batman in a vault, that Bruce is finally finding out what it is like to be "second best," "the Devil in Hell." That is a reference not only to Hurt's role as an outcast but to the "fallen angel" brand of Devil who regrets having been cast into Hell, second best to the king of Heaven whom he could not overthrow. Rolling on with references to the earlier story, Hurt quotes one of the lines that the Army doctor who inspired Hurt had in Batman #156, "One of man's most primitive fears is loneliness," which was also cited by Morrison in Batman #673. And then, in a moment that fandom has been waiting for, the story offers the real meaning (Hurt's meaning, anyway) of RIP as he curses Bruce to "Rot in purgatory."

Above ground, Dick and Damian take down Professor Pyg who identifies himself as the pig named Napoleon (who was himself an allusion to Stalin) from George Orwell's Animal Farm. With a burning "Mommy Made of Nails" and one lie, they neutralize Pyg by turning his own victims upon him.

Below ground, Bruce, probably having cracked his grandmother Betsy's story from ROBW #5, tells us that Hurt was the one who had been kept in the secret room, undoubtedly the criminal whose activities brought drug and rape allegations down around Bruce's father. And when Hurt claims to be Bruce's father we can see that he's no longer just flailing for a way to get a psychological edge -- he actually cannot stop speaking and possibly believing delusions about his identity, putting the lie retroactively to his implication a few pages earlier of knowing what the Devil feels like. He exults in being for Bruce what he has so long been for the readers, an endless puzzle, a case we can never close.

The Joker leads Hurt via a trail of 1-and-8 dominoes to a Clint Eastwood showdown with Hurt that leads him to the banana peel we saw prominently last time. A look at the line of Poe scrawled on the door of Alan Wayne's tomb reminds us once more of the dark, flapping things that visited the protagonist of The Raven, Bruce in his study as shown back in Detective #33 (Morrison, in Batman #682, has the bat land on a bust to copy The Raven more closely), and Old Thomas himself in this issue's first scene.

And so, mirroring the final events setting up Bruce's worst moments going into RIP's final issue, this story's final issue has Hurt's face smashed into glass before he is set laughing by Joker venom and buried alive in a coffin. This is also how the Joker disposed of the real Oberon Sexton, but Hurt, being immortal (why he has aged enough to play Bruce's father is not addressed), just may get out of this trap at his leisure, if his inability to perform blood rituals and "space voodoo" doesn't do him in down there.

Both the Joker and Hurt are hit by Bruce at comical punch line moments, Hurt asking Barbatos for a sign and the Joker asking what could be funnier than his stint as a crimefighter. He ends, though, as a gravedigging clown, taking us back to the prose issue of Batman #663, not to mention Hamlet.

The main story at an end (give or take ROBW #6), the issue confirms Damian's emergence as a thermonuclear-bomb-defusing superhero and then gives us the set up for Batman, Inc. With Bruce Wayne deciding to make public his role in funding Batman's war on crime, we are launched into a new era that puts aside for now the dark, twisted ambiguous mysteries that have haunted Batman since he walked past unnoticed "Zur En Arrh" graffiti in Batman #655. As Lois Lane was long fooled by glasses, the audience will likely fail to notice that the athletic man whose former ward is about the right age to be the first Robin and whose son is the right age to be the current Robin might actually be Batman. And so begins a new era for Batman.

Hurt on Hurt

"Call me Doctor Hurt," he said, to an audience of seven villains. On a logical level, that statement contains a hedge: The head of the Black Glove does not tell the Club of Villains that he is Doctor Hurt -- he merely tells them, and us, to call him that.

Even by the standards of super villains, Doctor Hurt is an avid liar. Among the deliberate falsehoods he speaks, there may be some delusions as well. And yet, his words and the deeds that we've witnessed provide information about him. Grant Morrison's handling of Doctor Hurt has taken readers through two different long stories that make a mystery of who this eminently capable and patient enemy of Batman is. Hurt is not trustworthy enough that his words alone could lead us to know his one exclusive identity -- if he has one. But they do help us narrow down who Doctor Hurt is in the sense of what he is like, and identify the guises he wears, which include some obvious fictions as well as some of the candidates for his identity.

Everything Doctor Hurt says is a voice from two authors for two audiences. Hurt the fictional character says things to whomever is listening. And all of those lines were written by Grant Morrison to let readers know just what he wanted us to at that point in the story. Trying to juggle the two demands and others (such as making the dialogue good) in every line makes all of Hurt's dialogue the result of a many-way balancing act that is awesome to contemplate. It's quite a bit more complex than the bare minimum task that a writer faces in writing Lex Luthor. The result may bend at times the motive to sound like Hurt versus the motive to tell readers just enough and not more.

I will highlight a few different personae within Hurt's voice, and the voices and actions that reflect his attitudes about himself. These are not definite declarations of identity: to say that Hurt speaks as though he is the Devil is not to say that he necessarily is the Devil, any more than he is Alfred when he pretends to be Alfred in Batman #679. The qualities and identities that I will track here, quotation by quotation, are, with a pithy one-word code for each:

Devil: A supernatural being dealing out earthly rewards in return for corruption.

Sadist: A man who likes others to suffer as a pleasure for him in its own right.

Wayne: A Wayne who was born long ago but is still alive.

Thomas: This code indicates specifically the father of Bruce, not the Wayne who went by that name centuries ago.

Rules: A man who is on the inferior end of complying with arcane supernatural rules, implying some other power is offering something in return for his compliance with its evil requirements.

Poor: A man who has a poor man's contempt for the wealthy and out of insecurity from that past, he exults in his access to wealth and power now.

In terms of that code, here is Hurt in his own words and actions:

"The Black Glove aims to deliver a deluxe service high stakes experience at the very highest levels of the international game.": Sadist, Poor (Batman #667)

"eyewitnesses will be bribed or killed, the widow ruined": Sadist (Batman #676)

"damaged little aristocrat": Poor (Batman #677)

"complete and utter ruination of a noble human spirit": Devil (Batman #667)

"[Batman may return.] Perhaps as my butler": Poor (Batman #678)

[Hitting Alfred over the head with a bottle]: Sadist (Batman #667)

"The usurper never was my son, was he? It was you... you and Martha, my adulterous witch of a wife, am I right?": Thomas (Batman #679)

"I'm Doctor Hurt now": Wayne, Thomas (Batman #679)

"We intend to ruin him in every way imaginable. Body and soul.": Devil (Batman #679)

"the Black Glove invites you, some of the richest people in the world, to play a game with human lives.": Devil, Poor (Batman #680)

"Can the ultimate noble spirit survive the ultimate ignoble betrayal?": Devil (Batman #680)

Joker: "I found out who Doctor Hurt is and why he hates you.": Devil? Wayne? (Batman #680)

Joker: "devil is double is deuce, my dear doctor. and joker trumps deuce... pleased to meet you, admire your work, but don't, don't, call me servant.": Devil (Batman #681)

"I'm your father": Thomas (Batman #681)

"Hole in Things. The Enemy.": Devil (Batman #681)

"Unless, of course... unless Batman agrees to serve the Black Glove. And willingly dedicates his life to the corruption of virtue. Ready to deal?": Devil (Batman #681)

"Then I curse the cape and cowl, as you will soon! The next time you wear it will be the last!": Devil (Batman #681)

"99 Fiends, like storm crows, lead the way. The 3rd Hierarchy is already at your door, my stern judgment to enact.": Devil (B&R #10)
"Absolves me of all sin": Rules (B&R #11)
"Wounds [in the shape of a 'W'] remind me who I am": Wayne (B&R #11)
"Double You": Wayne, Devil (B&R #11)
"You know what I am": Devil, Rules? (B&R #11)
"reclaim what was always rightfully mine": Wayne (B&R #11)
"walk with me", "Christ will protect you from the bullets": Devil, Rules (B&R #11)
"slate's clear, washed in the blood of the Lamb; free": Rules (B&R #11)
"let it all fall down": Wayne? Devil? (B&R #11)
"Take me home. Gotham City": Wayne (B&R #11)
"return of the king": Wayne (B&R #12)
[opening scene: man pays hit man to kill his wife and son]: Thomas (B&R #13)
"Wayne Manor is mine. Gotham City is mine.": Wayne (B&R #13)
"And soon, when the Black Sun shines": Rules (B&R #13)
"I will break and corrupt this boy": Devil (B&R #13)
"You dare imagine yourself superior to a Wayne?": Wayne (B&R #13)
"...the key to eternity": Rules (ROBW #4)
"you little slut": Sadist (ROBW #4)
"Any attempt to tamper with the locks results in the destruction of the contents, remember? The secret of life eternal is here, in a box only you know how to open, so breathe deeply and do what Doctor Thomas tells you.": Rules (ROBW #4)
"Darius and Mad Tony": Wayne, Poor (ROBW #4)
"we raised batwinged Barbatos and drank the starry venom": Rules (ROBW #4)
"Are you one too? I'll get you all in the end.": Devil (ROBW #4)
"They say he too sought in blood the secret of life eternal… but that was blood of a different sort." ["too" and "different" juxtapose the case to that of Jonah Hex as a bounty hunter]: Rules (ROBW #4)
"I knew this prize would be mine in the end. But even I can't open it without destroying the contents, and that's my big problem...": Rules? (B&R #14)
"Perfectly corrupt, Pyg. Perfectly ugly.": Devil (B&R #14)
"I give you Gotham! The new capital city of crime! Where the only law is the law of might makes right! Where human lives are commodities! Where even men like our stubborn, incorruptible Police Commissioner Gordon must succumb to the new order of things... Soon you'll do anything for what we have to offer, Gordon. You and all the other innocent victims of Professor Pyg's viral narcotic. Instant junkies.": Devil, Sadist (B&R #14)
"Does it hurt now? I have the only thing that can stop the pain right here. But my customers have to do exactly as they're told.": Devil, Sadist (B&R #14)
Betsy Kane: "Then there was that terrible night... and every time I think of his sneering, awful face... The pearls were to identify her to the gunman... Doctor Thomas by day, Bad Tommy by night. Patrick and Silas had to cover up the whole thing. The stolen drugs, the rape charges, the secret room where they treated him for months while my grandson was sent away to a boarding school. He killed my daughter, of that I have no doubt. Then he stood there and admitted he'd turned her into a drug addict and... and worse.": Thomas (ROBW #5)
"You could be the richest man on Earth. You know who I am. I'm offering you the same deal I offered the others. And I bet you everything you can't refuse. Tell me that's not hesitation, Carter. If you don't want the wealth, the fame, the admiration of your peers... what about the woman? Think about what happened when Roderick Kane chose not to play. But don't think too long. Your visitor won't keep forever.": Devil (ROBW #5)
"No one important, Carter. No one who matters.": Poor, Sadist (ROBW #5)
"Barbatos will lead us to the hidden casket of immortality and life eternal. All is prepared for the ceremony of the bat.": Rules (ROBW #5)
"A man's soul is in his reputation, his legacy. Destroy a reputation, destroy a soul.": Rules, Devil (ROBW #5)

"Open the hole in time, Carter... call down Barbatos, the hunter, the finder of great treasure.": Rules (ROBW #5)

[Carter wins Doctor Hurt's wager] "Yes... Well done. I hope that thought will comfort you in the years of lonely obscurity ahead. Now run.": Devil, Rules? (ROBW #5)
Joker: "The big brother you never had is on the Devil's chopping block": Devil (B&R #15)
Joker: "most evil man in the world": Rules (B&R #15)
"It seems I may have returned just in time to protect my beloved city from disaster.": Thomas (B&R #15)
"Our handsome young acrobat will become a human vegetable. Unable to move or feed or change himself. With only broken memories of how it felt to soar.": Sadist (B&R #15)
"All I ask is something small in return. Something soul-sized.": Devil (B&R #15)
Damian: "You're not the Devil! You're a man who lived too long. We know who you are!": Rules (B&R #15)
"Become my creature, submit absolutely to my instruction and when your soul is extinguished in my service... perhaps you'll finally know by the gaping hole that remains what it is you've lost.": Devil (B&R #15)
"[Thomas and Martha] took me in. They showed me kindness.": Thomas (B&R #15)
"Now I've taken his face. He'll be remembered as a criminal, she a drug fiend. Their son mentally ill. The legacy of Batman will be one of monstrous failure and perversion.": Sadist, Rules (B&R #15)
"I will be Batman in my great black car, preying on the weak, in Gotham's endless night.": Sadist (B&R #15)
"The ceremony of the bat has begun. As the sun shines black you and I will summon the spirit Barbatos to open this impenetrable box of ancient secrets.": Rules (B&R #15)
"One last chance to save your friend. Raise your left hand and say...": Rules (B&R #15)
"Well... here we are come to business. Alone at last. You and I.": Rules (B&R #16 preview)

That list excerpts sixty-four of the items that are most revealing about Doctor Hurt's self-image; for the moment, I withhold a few more which indicate something a bit trickier and give us more insight still. The aforementioned pieces of evidence point in several different directions. Cumulatively, they are consistent with this back story:

Thomas was a Wayne born around 1730. Contact with a bat-demon in 1765 gave him limited life extension and perhaps other powers such as protection from bullets or the ability to cast a curse. He has tried to summon Barbatos again, perhaps to refresh his life extension, but has never been able to do so. He has pursued a few evil goals since then: He wants wealth and power, but particularly the helm of the Wayne family, which he considers to be rightfully his. In the meantime, he has come to seek the corruption of all virtue and he leads others, particularly the ultra-wealthy, to make deals that cost them their souls. In pursuit of those goals, he has claimed at least once to be the younger Thomas Wayne, which he is not, and has implied if not stated that he is the Devil, which he may or may not believe.

That account is consistent and is perhaps relatively complete. But there are hints of other important story elements that do not fit easily into that.

[to Bruce] "Remember me? How you've grown, hmm? How long has it been?" (Batman #678) That line may be throwaway trash talking to his enemy when Bruce is down. But we know that Thomas and Martha took Hurt in, so Hurt probably did see Bruce when Bruce was a boy. But he has also seen Bruce as an adult, so it is odd that he mentions that Bruce has grown. This could be sheer rhetoric; it is also consistent with possession of Hurt by another mind such that he doesn't recall, as he's speaking in #678, the Isolation Experiment but does recall meeting the Waynes earlier.

"['W'] is the mark of the shadow, the dark twin." (B&R #11) Of whom? God? Some long-since dead Wayne -- Darius? The much younger Thomas? Bruce? These lines and the "double you" (which is a pun on the name of the letter) mean that Hurt is in his own mind someone else's counterpart, but there is no obvious answer as to whom. Moreover, the "double you" (a pun on the spoken name of 'W') is compatible either with the counterpart concept or with possession.

"200 years ago, Barbatos was beyond our abilities to explain or comprehend -- a demon, a myth. Now we have dark science on our side. A new understanding of time and unearthly lifeforms... In the name of the first red rock and the rage, and the angels and dukes of the dark side inferno pits." (ROBW #5) This line (as well as the chanting of King Coal's men) indicates a link between earthly Satanism and Darkseid and Apokolips. This is consistent with the previously hypothesized back story, but suggests that Hurt has become specifically aware of the nature of the demons to which he refers (the 99 Fiends include dukes) as originating somehow with Apokolips.

"Souls to feed Barbatos." (ROBW #5) This is a line of crucial importance despite its brevity, as the following makes clear:

What motivates Hurt? The answer does not need to be one thing. A person can like both skeet shooting and butterscotch pudding. Hurt is (a) a sadist; (b) a man who believes that the supernatural offers him a reward that he is seeking; (c) a Wayne who wishes that specific fortune and empire to be his. Is he also (d) the principle tempter in the universe, the Devil? "Souls to feed Barbatos" does not deliver a clear negative answer to that, but it indicates that most of the quotations tagged "Devil" above can be explained more simply: Hurt believes that what he seeks from Barbatos can be obtained by paying Barbatos with souls. When Hurt spoke of destroying Bruce's soul, he identified himself as a being who seeks evil for its own sake. But the indication that the souls are for Barbatos gives a simpler explanation of his motives: He is still motivated by more than one thing, the (a), (b), and (c) above -- he is a sadist who wants to be the principle Wayne and get some deal (probably for immortality) as well. But there is no evidence that he has a separate motive to collect others' souls. In "Gothic", Manfred acted to cause deaths in order to further his goals, but only because it furthered his goals. He says "Regrettably, this involved the regular spilling of blood." (LOTDK #9) He goes on to call the murders he commits "atrocious." They are a means to achieve an end. Hurt's line "Souls to feed Barbatos" is consistent with Hurt regretting what he does as a means to achieve his desired end. On the other hand, as a sadist, he may enjoy it quite a bit, and his characteristic smile suggests that he does. But he has a motive besides doing it because he is the being whose purpose is simply to do such things. He believes that he is gathering souls to pay such a being.

While this makes it simpler to explain his actions as those of a self-serving man (the "Rules" role that Hurt plays), it doesn't contradict the more complex possibilities that he is also the Devil or is possessed by the Devil and speaking with multiple voices. There remains the interesting dimension of the audiences to whom he speaks. The following people are present when Hurt asserts or may assert that he is the Devil: Lane, the Joker, Bruce, Dick and Damian, the doomed priest, Nichols, and in vaguer terms, others. If he is sure that he is not the Devil, why would he lay the "deal" act on so thick? Why would he say "You know what I am" with the impersonal pronoun instead of "who"? When Damian says that Hurt is not the Devil, why doesn't Hurt say, "Well, of course not. But anyway..."?

This is where the audiences make it complex. Hurt may have told Lane something so Lane would tell Bruce. Hurt could say that he's the Devil because he believes it, or he could be a man playing by Rules who thinks that a soul is only ruined if a person deals with the Devil than if a person just accepts a thing they want. Maybe he debases the priest (who isn't going to live to talk to anyone else) by telling him that he is blessing the Devil. And therefore, anything Hurt says can be explained by two motives so that there is evidence of both possibilities -- that he believes that he is the Devil; or, that he finds it useful to ruin souls for Barbatos -- but proof of neither.

And what did Hurt say to the Joker off-camera in #680? He told the Joker who he was, then the Joker said that what he found out is part of why the Joker would not join forces with Batman against the Black Glove. The Joker later calls Hurt the Devil, which is a viewpoint (fact or fiction) that he only could have gotten from Hurt, so clearly Hurt told the Joker that he is the Devil. Why lie to the Joker? Is that a soul that is not yet ruined? Maybe Hurt also told the Joker that he began as a Wayne. Clearly, the Joker's investigations as Oberon Sexton have led him to that knowledge by now, but the Joker already wanted revenge on Hurt before RIP ended. Because he's a relative of Bruce? Because he tried to do the Joker's job of eliminating Batman? Or because the Joker wants to trump the Devil, taking it as a personal challenge to be a bigger villain?

Likewise, Hurt's motive for trying to get Bruce becomes ambiguous: Is it because he's the tempter of souls and wants to corrupt "the man who has no price, the man who cannot be bought or sold or swayed from his singular path"? (Batman #663) Or because Bruce is the "usurper" holding the empire that Hurt, the rejected Wayne, believes is rightfully his? By surviving when Chill was meant to kill him, did Bruce ruin Hurt's plan to begin posing as Thomas? Even Hurt's motive for taking the Wayne empire is ambiguous: Does he want the house or free rein to hunt for the casket?

The audiences make it complex and the double audiences -- characters inside the story and we outside the story -- make it doubly complex. Look at the timeline of the evidence above. Ordered by publication date, we see one thing: Of the first stories to be published (by the end of RIP), there are many pieces of evidence for the Devil persona, followed by Thomas, with Wayne and Rules basically absent.  Of the stories coming later, Rules and Devil are the leading themes referenced, with Wayne arising as a common theme, but much less prevalent.

Alternately, consider the evidence in terms of Hurt's personal timeline. We see a trend that is the reverse of publication order. Of events taking place before Batman's career started, the Rules motive is easily the most prevalent, with Devil, Wayne, and Thomas making only a couple of showings each. Of the events taking place after Batman's career started, the Devil persona is clearly the most prevalent. If we had seen this story in the order of DC Universe chronology, we would have seen a man make some sort of infernal deal to start the story, with a pretty clear track as it unfolded of who he was and what he became. The narration did the opposite: We had an utterly ambiguous figure who was revealed to us, one hint at a time, as the Devil, before the backstory was shown, one hint at a time, as to how he became who he is. And so the origin comes last, tomorrow, in Batman and Robin #16. At least, the preview shows us the beginning of the origin. At least, we may see more of the origin. We may not. As Morrison said in a recent interview, "At the same time it comes to an end now, so we learn a lot more about him, but I did want to keep a little bit of that ambiguity in there because that's what he's all about." The double motives and folding logic as each line in the story is told for two audiences has been so far a masterpiece of ambiguity.

Batman and Robin 15

Batman and Robin #15, the penultimate issue in Grant Morrison's run that christened the title, is where the lines that were so numerous and crossed earlier in the series come -- almost -- all together. From ten figures, some of whom proved to be the same individuals -- identified as villains in the early going, we are now down to three main villains plus countless Fiend henchmen, and the identities are rather clear.

As the entire structure of this run matches the same pattern as Morrison's longer run on Batman, this issue corresponds rather closely to Batman #681, with many story elements here intentionally mirroring story elements there. Parallels can also be drawn between B&R #14 and Batman #680, and so on backwards throughout the runs. The significant deviation from this is that everything stops just short of completion in #15, with some big finale events of unknown nature yet to come. Moreover, the grimmer tone of the Batman run is more bizarre and comedic this time around; Morrison had called it farce, and it's interesting to see that farce can happen with the plot much the same, but a few funny lines and facial expressions providing the seasoning.

Just as Batman #681 began with Bruce as Batman -- the more serious of that dynamic duo -- in a coffin, this issue begins with Damian as Robin -- the more serious of his duo -- in a coffin. The Joker, whose precise plan remains unknown, and must culminate next issue -- acts primarily to set Damian loose on Hurt, much of this shown in the preview. As Damian would want to do this anyway, the Joker doesn't actually do much here, but it is in grand form that he does it, dancing with the skeleton of Bruce Wayne's great-great-grandmother and telling a knock-knock joke. The inherent repetition in a "knock knock" joke ("knock" is repeated; so is the name used in each joke) plays on the theme of twins and counterparts that is all throughout this run. In a line that Damian doesn't understand, he refers to a friend of his as God's right-hand man. "Big Mike" is a brilliant double reference, using the name of the solder-angel Michael who leads God's army against the Devil in Hebrew Apocrypha and the Book of Revelation, and also the first U.S. hydrogen bomb, the test "Mike" being part of the series known as "Ivy Mike". So here, the nuclear bomb that we saw last time, ironic greeting painted on it as in Doctor Strangelove, is the weapon that the Joker threatens to use against his enemy, the Devil. But that's a plot that has to play out next time. The heroes might not need to worry that much: The weapon that the Joker wields in this issue, the "gun" that Damian thinks is aimed at his back, is just a banana. The Joker's nuclear bomb may be a barrel of old rags.

Hurt's plan, though, is culminating now. The city is in chaos, as we see when a woman tries to sell her children to the pimp and drug dealer Lone-Eye Lincoln, who debuted in Batman #678, and appeared wearing this same outfit in Batman #700. Hurt, posing as Thomas Wayne, makes an unknown offer to the city to stop the problem, an offer that is sure to do untold harm if accepted. Hurt also tells us that his desire is to be an evil Batman, driving around the city preying on the weak (the victims of choice named in devilish plans in Batman #666 and B&R #14, not to mention Final Crisis). Hurt's plan to recruit an evil sidekick is to Damian, bargaining for a soul that Damian doesn't even believe in. The leverage he holds is the life of Dick Grayson, who is menaced with brain damage as was Bruce in Batman #681.

But while RIP, like other Morrison stories such as Superman Beyond, had a ticking clock, this story has one that has been peculiarly fixed. Alfred set the clock to 10:47 and it remains at 10:47, even as days go by. If something bad is coming when the clock reaches a certain point, it's never going to happen. The sky, however, is beyond Alfred's reach. The eclipse that Hurt waited for appears in the window over the scene as Hurt kicks in the painting of Thomas and Martha and smashes the white knight figure that I pointed out a couple of months ago.

Outside of Wayne Manor, a chaos suggested by a detail chosen from the center-right of the Triumph of Death painting whose name was the title of B&R #14, Hurt's plan may be undone by a cure that Commissioner Gordon finds: when he is angry enough, he fights off the viral addiction. Emotion as a trigger is also a recurring Morrison theme: Damian was made vulnerable to Talia's spinal control system when he became angry. The means to overcome Hurt's citywide threat may thus be in the hands of the masses and not just the heroes. Ordinary people saving the day is also a Morrison theme from Justice League stories including the "New World Order" story that began his run and the Mageddon story that ended it. An idea that he uses to begin and end his run in another title is apt to end this one. A smaller detail mirroring the Batman run comes when Pyg stares at a snail and gives a speech about horns, duality, deuce, and the Devil, terms that came up in Damian's detective work in #666 and the Joker's sassing Hurt in #681.

Inside the Manor, we find out a bit more about the Hurt backstory: that Thomas and Martha were ultimately entirely good (Hurt's lies to the contrary convinced many inside the story and a few readers as well), plus the entirely new information that they had taken Hurt into their home. The promise of more backstory between Bruce as a boy and Doctor Hurt echoes Hurt's line to Bruce in Batman #678 ("How you've grown"). It also advances a bit the notion that perhaps Hurt planned the deaths of all three Waynes, as suggested by Joe Chill back in Batman #673, so that he could take on the role of Thomas, with this plan being irretrievably ruined by Bruce surviving, and telling the world that Thomas was dead.  Hurt's plan now includes wearing Thomas's face (symbolically, but the phrase recounts literal face-wearing through Morrison's run, including Hurt wearing Mangrove Pierce's face back in Batman #667), ruining the Waynes as immoral people and Bruce (as suggested in the dossier as told in Batman #677) as mentally ill.

Dick planned for this encounter with Hurt, but when the plan fails, Grayson improvises, an ability which is Morrison's signature characteristic for Dick Grayson in this run. That Damian knows about Hurt's backstory as a man who has lived a very long time tells us that the book Bruce holds in Wayne Manor in ROBW #5 has come into to the possession of Dick and Damian, telling them everything that Bruce knew at that point in time, including the Miagani whistle that opens the casket. This is all they need to win the day. The casket that Hurt won in B&R #12 holds nothing more than a bat-tracer and a note with the same message Bruce had to the god he defeated in Final Crisis: "Gotcha!" Then Dick and Damian take down Hurt with the signature double-punch seen several times in this series.

The who's who questions remain in principle ambiguous: Hurt believes that he's the Devil, but Damian, who doesn't believe in souls, doesn't. And the lone figure on the final page seems overwhelmingly to be whom we hope he is. There is doubt: A Morrison interview said that Bruce returns after B&R #16; post-return comics previously on sale show a Dick Grayson who seems not to know where Bruce is; eclipses have previously sent Bruce away instead of bringing him back; and, the B&R #8 reveal about the clone showed that Morrison is willing to overturn a "big moment" like the one at the end of Final Crisis #6 with a twist. But everything else is telling us that when Hurt thinks that he's summoning Barbatos, he gets the only Bat God there ever was, with Bruce Wayne speaking in words like icicles, "Turn around, Doctor. It's all over."

Update: Note the Morrison comment in a recent interview: "So in 'Batman And Robin Must Die!' it's all kind of upside down. It's not really a Batman story. It's a Joker story." This means a certainty that the Joker will figure large in the next issue, and thus a good likelihood that he is the Bat-God on the last page.


Also note that the Joker left a banana peel on the stairs leaving the Alan/Catherine tomb. To continue the idea of this story as RIP turned farce, it would be fitting if someone, particularly Hurt, slips on the banana peel next issue.

Return of Bruce Wayne 5

This close to the end of a story, the loose ends start wrapping up. So it is with Return of Bruce Wayne #5, much less because it is the penultimate chapter in a six-issue story than because it is the fourth-to-last chapter in a fifty-issue story that will reach its turning point next month. While the heroes are named on the front covers, the dominant force behind the scenes has been the enmity of Doctor Hurt, whose story will be providing its final answers very soon.

ROBW #5 itself has a plot twist that is revealed to us when we see Marsha Lamarr walking with Professor Carter Nichols and it becomes clear that she is "the woman", the "visitor" who serves as the ultimate temptation that Doctor Hurt offers the scientist. The betrayal is made clear to Bruce when he notices Marsha's absence and he is struck from behind. Betrayal is a common weapon of Hurt's -- Dick Grayson has been struck from behind by Jim Gordon in the most recent pages of Batman and Robin #14 and Bruce was betrayed by Jezebel as part of the coup in Batman, R.I.P. The plot of the main events of this story is thus complicated by acting and other lies. Lies within lies, actually.

Consider the seemingly simple question of whether or not Bruce, in this story, is the detective mentioned as far back as Batman #677 in the dossier that incriminates the Waynes. The dossier asserts that there was a detective hired by Martha's family. As it turns out, neither Marsha nor the others who arranged that dossier believed that there really was a detective, and considered Bruce to be play-acting, and he did not create any dossier himself. And yet he really did serve as a detective in the case, and was the person to whom the dossier referred, even though it was intended to be false. Lies within lies.

Since Infinite Crisis, Grant Morrison has been using old-time continuity selectively as a pattern for a new retelling of Batman's backstory. Two of the characters in this issue -- Doctor Hurt and Carter Nichols -- go back to the Fifties and Forties, respectively. Marsha Lamarr tells Bruce to wear a replica of the Thomas Wayne batsuit to frighten Thomas's murderer into confessing; this is the plot of Detective #235. But that plan is utter deception; she is sending Bruce into a trap so that he -- a nobody, in the eyes of the Black Glove -- can be sacrificed for their dark purposes. Nothing like the older story actually comes to pass in this issue, except as a lie. Nor, in fact, does this issue confirm the suspicion that the Black Glove had the Waynes killed, although it seems extremely likely.

Beyond the unreliable nature of Marsha Lamarr as a narrator, this story is complex because Bruce is being used for three entirely different purposes.

First, he plays the role of a detective during a meeting with his own grandmother, Betsy Kane. Why does this meeting take place at all? Lies within lies. Perhaps it falsifies the existence of a detective to explain the existence of a dossier that frames Thomas Wayne. Does it feed Betsy's belief that Thomas was really evil? It may help that belief along, but that's apparently not necessary -- she is already solidly convinced, for reasons that will merit comment later. Lastly, it helps lead Bruce along in the lie, because it gives the impression that Marsha was using the meeting to get the key to Wayne Manor -- a key she almost certainly did not need. However, it makes Marsha's phony investigation seem more plausible.

Second, Bruce is to play the role of the human bat in a ceremony of sacrifice patterned on the one in the 1990 Peter Milligan-penned Dark Knight, Dark City. Summoning the demon Barbatos requires a carefully-prepared human sacrificial victim who is dressed like a bat. Marsha's poison lipstick (Bruce is, like Jesus, betrayed with a kiss) and the batsuit bring this about. And now we must ask, if that is the role this suit plays in one masquerade involving the Black Glove, why did Thomas Wayne wear such a suit? When Doctor Hurt wears it, it seems to imply power within the Black Glove, but Thomas may have worn it because he had been set up as a victim on some other occasion, maybe some lunar eclipse earlier during the same year.

Third, Bruce's murder is being filmed (by Mayhew, the aspiring director) as faked evidence that Martha Wayne was a Satanist. Marsha in disguise shows us why the Black Glove, in RIP, note Doctor Hurt's fondness for actors. (She mentions two others who could have played the role that Bruce plays; this could be another crucifixion reference, but more directly refers, possibly, to Mangrove Pierce and John Mayhew.) The Black Glove's plan is marvelously complex, in that duping Bruce during one day could help bring about three different goals.

But there are two other goals that Doctor Hurt has that day, and these offer conflicting evidence on who and what he is. First, he is trying to tempt the members of the Black Glove to evil for evil's sake. We see this most clearly with Lamarr, who had been offered eternal life, and ultimately sinned and loses years off a natural life span in the process. She goes on to die young, after becoming Mayhew's fifth wife of six, a death first described way back in Batman #668.

While Hurt succeeds with Lamarr and with the other Black Glove members, he fails with Nichols, who is offered wealth and fame (similar to the successful temptation of Wingman in the Club of Heroes story), but ultimately rejects them, backing out of the ritual at the last moment, a role played by Thomas Jefferson in Milligan's story. He goes on to be an ally of Batman as illustrated in many older stories as well as Morrison's Batman #700.

Hurt's desire to tempt others casts him again as the classic literary Devil, a motive he didn't display in his chronological prior appearance in ROBW #4. (There can be no doubt that Hurt is Old Thomas Wayne, or is what Old Thomas Wayne became, after Morrison's latest interview.) So perhaps something meaningful happened to Old Thomas Wayne sometime during the last hundred years, during which time he apparently began the Black Glove, took up the "Simon Hurt" identity, and perhaps committed the Jack The Ripper crimes. By the time of RIP, he is able to cast a curse, and perhaps do more. He seems to have more tricks up his sleeve than retarded aging.

What seems less devilish is his goal, seen also in ROBW #4 and B&R #14, to procure the bat-casket to attain immortality. Driven to attain immortality, he seems much more man (though one with supernatural longevity) than metaphysical. Among the many telling facts in this issue is that he is simply unable to find the casket, even though he is now, as in RIP, given free access to Wayne Manor. He asks for Nichols' time travel device to bring Barbatos to him, so that he can make use of what is almost certainly the Ancestor Box to give himself another jolt (perhaps an infinite one) of prolonged life. This is a goal he has attained before the possible future in Batman #666.

On a more straightforward note, we finally get a sense of how it is that The Devil would be living as an Army psychiatrist in order to brainwash Batman many years later. We see that he has used this job to make soldiers relive past trauma, possibly torture for torture's sake. At some point, he has to disappear from this role, per the "Gotham's Hurt Missing" headline from Batman #678. But he returns to it later. For now, he occupies the role at Willowwood Asylum, serving as a tie to the "Thomas Wayne, Jr." story from World's Finest #233.

Perhaps the most striking revelations of this story are in the language that ties Doctor Hurt's devil worship to Darkseid. Look at these two speeches.

Bruno Mannheim, 52 #25 (speaking of Gotham): "I'm looking to establish a new world order of crime, with its own capital city."

Doctor Hurt, B&R #14: "I give you Gotham! The new capital city of crime! ... [Where good men] must succumb to the new order of things."

Morrison's depiction of the cult of the Crime Bible and the armies of King Coal, who mention Mannheim in B&R #8 inextricably intertwine these worlds of evil. 52 joins older continuity in linking Mannheim to Darkseid. Hurt's comments in this issue explain that what seemed like demons and myth during his first encounter with Barbatos are now known to be "dark science". While he adopts all the Satanic of ritual and echoing Pyg's line about "Gotham" being a "goat home" (notice the near-anagram intended there), he also references, like Mannheim, the rock and the rage, the "dark side", and Apokolips' fire pits. This issue makes it clear that in Morrison's DCU, the one kind of evil is the other. Most likely, good is related, too, and a man in a wheelchair warns "Batman beware the hole in things." This is like Metron's appearances in Seven Soldiers and Final Crisis, although this man who "can't actually speak" lacks the blue squarish pupils that were Metron's telltale feature in those stories.

ROBW #5 is dense with offhand statements of fact that illustrate much more backstory. A GCPD Mayor James has been killed, replaced by the undoubtedly corrupt Mayor Jessop. Marsha's story of corruption (assuming she's not lying about that) also mentions Police Commissioner Loeb who was introduced in Batman Year One.

Yet more is told about Bruce's family. The Kane side shares a name with both versions of Batwoman, the younger of which is a target of those who follow the Crime Bible. They also sold Kane Chemicals to 

Ace Chemical, which is part of the Joker's origin in The Killing Joke. According to Batman #682, Ace Chemical also bought Axis Chemical, and that story also references Apex Chemical, which is the organization behind the mystery in Batman's very first story in Detective #27. On top of that, the given name of Betsy Kane figures to be the same as that of the original Bat-Girl, Betty Kane. You can't say that Morrison's not playing a deep game here.

Bruce's grandfather Roddy turned down Hurt's temptation, which apparently led to Hurt causing, somehow, his stroke. The agonizingly neglected invalid (wasps crawling on his immobilized face -- torture but no one seems to notice) moans out words of warning for Bruce. Words that he seems to say include "Army", "Martha", and "Hurt" while Betsy looks into her teacup and sees Hurt's "W" scar and the twin bat-symbols (of Bruce and Dick?). These words certainly would make apt warning,  and make, with the man in the wheelchair, a salient pattern of two disabled men assisting the hero with information. This pattern is familiar from aforementioned Morrison works as well as Twin Peaks.

Along the way, we find out that a constellation of facts about the Waynes, through the filter of disinformation fed to Betsy Kane. We find out that Martha's necklace is a Van Derm heirloom, via Alan Wayne's wife Catherine from ROBW #4. Thus, the famous pearl necklace, if as "worthless" as Betsy thinks, may actually belong to Anthro's wife from ROBW #1, and be more or less the world's first necklace.

We also know that Thomas Wayne had an evil night life, and appearances before Betsy that seem to stand out from his usual demeanor, and these are almost certainly the work of Doctor Hurt standing in for Thomas. This suggests that perhaps Hurt looked young about thirty years ago, but has aged since then at almost a normal rate, adding urgency to his quest for immortality. The maligning of Thomas Wayne seems to have left to him -- or Hurt? -- being kept in the secret batcave, covered up by Bruce's grandfather Patrick and his great uncle Silas (from 1958's Batman #120, and one of the portraits in B&R #10). This coincided with Bruce being sent to boarding school, which is a story element from Morrison's "Gothic". Meanwhile, Carter Nichols is revealed as a school friend of Thomas's.

It remains to wonder why the Black Glove did not thoroughly smear the names of Thomas and Martha while they were still alive. This may yet be revealed; it may be a plot hole.

While big and complex answers to many questions have arrived, and others seem to be on the verge, we also get a quick, easy answer as to what threat Darkseid has made of Batman's trip through time. In a dash of throwaway pseudoscience, the issue opens with Red Robin explaining that the trip itself is bringing an explosive dose of Omega energy.

Bruce Wayne, as a sort of Batman, appears in the present at the end of this issue. But he is not arriving directly from the Black Glove ritual. He has gone to the End of Time, served as the Archivist, and encountered the rescue team of Superman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, and Rip Hunter before using their Time Bubble to pop into the Hall of Justice. The next issue is likely to tell of a more complex path through time, possibly giving Bruce at least one stop to pick up the Ancestor Box from the casket before going to the far future. Perhaps the use of a non-Darkseid time conduit breaks the effectiveness of the Omega Sanction, but clearly Bruce has more to do to escape this trap. For despite the use of the Time Bubble, the bells of the Ancestor Box are ringing as the JLA are caught unprepared. We know who will play the key role in ending the threat.

We now await more of the Doctor Hurt saga in B&R, with whatever comeuppance awaits him, whether it be defeat in battle, or the metaphysical despair that he has always been something less than he thought he was. He may have to suffer from the revelation that his Barbatos was the Miagani tribute to Bruce.

Meanwhile, ROBW #6 will provide the conclusion to the tale of Bruce's Omega Sanction, a science fiction story whose forthcoming twists and turns seem almost utterly impossible to guess now, except that they will end with Bruce Wayne back in his own time, ready to begin a distinctly new era as Batman.

Return of Bruce Wayne 5 Preview

Tomorrow, the long-anticipated resumption of Grant Morrison's Batman saga comes with Return of Bruce Wayne #5. This issues comes after a delay of several weeks, but it also follows on build-ups begun during Batman, R.I.P. and even in Infinite Crisis. That crisis provided a soft reboot, allowing the creators (primarily, Morrison) to redefine the terms of Batman's past, so long as nothing drastically changed the present. Instead of beginning this process with a beginning-to-end redefinition, Morrison started by telling a story in the present, as though nothing much had changed, but at irregular intervals, he has served notice that the backstory has already changed -- we can say that it changed with Infinite Crisis, but off-camera. In doing so, he tends to pattern things loosely on older continuity, but with a very free hand to modify whatever he wishes, not only recording a new mythology, but using it to drive a story being told now. (Geoff Johns has followed a similar strategy with Superman, choosing to write an origin that focuses on events that played into his current stories rather than, say, the stories of a few years earlier.)

What makes ROBW #5 central is that we are going to revisit the general timeframe of the Wayne murders. To be specific, Bruce is revisiting that era in person, having arrived not too long after the murders have taken place. The time travel journey of the Omega Sanction is going to give him an opportunity to interact with his own personal past, putting the adult Bruce in a world (of about 1980) where the child Bruce is just beginning a life mission. That Morrison would revisit this time frame had been promised by the flashbacks to the Wayne murders in his 2006-2008 run in Batman. My take, from over a year ago, on how inevitable this chapter of the story was can be seen here. Now that chapter is upon us.

The key story from the past is Detective #235. Morrison has been teasing a return to that story from the time he showed the Thomas Wayne batsuit from that 1956 comic in the first issues of his own run. Now, the preview for ROBW #5 shows that batsuit as the actress Marsha Lamarr asks Bruce to wear it. Very likely, he will wear it for the same reason he wore it in 1956 -- to intimidate the people responsible for the Waynes' deaths into thinking that Thomas has returned, supernaturally, to haunt them.

The 1956 story was itself a retcon of the 1948 story in Batman #47 that showed Batman confronting Joe Chill, the mugger whose unplanned killing of the Waynes set the course of Bruce's life. Detective #235 added the significant detail that a mobster named Lew Moxon hired Chill to settle a score. In both of these stories, Batman confronts the person behind his parents' deaths and the encounter results in the death of the malefactor. Morrison has revisited the first of those stories, that of the gunman Chill, in Batman #673. The last page of RIP hinted that the new Lew Moxon is actually the Black Glove, probably Doctor Hurt himself, who has intriguingly chosen to wear the Thomas Wayne batsuit. Why? As part of demonic worship? Does the cowl have some power? Did it affect Thomas when he wore it, and will it try to do so when Bruce wears it?

The answers, and another step closer to the shadowy backstory of Doctor Hurt himself, may come tomorrow.

Batman and Robin 14

With bazookas, poison makeup, drug addiction, slaves, and a crowbar, so begins a three-sided war. The hallucinatory, nightmarish, David Lynch-inspired quality of Batman and Robin #14 is as intense and disorienting as anywhere else in Grant Morrison's sixteen-issue "first season" of the title. It is a carnival of death, debasement, victimization, and not infrequently, of comedy. Nearly nothing goes well for the heroes, at least not on-panel.

The three-headed nature of the struggle means attacks come from every direction. Robin beats, and is beaten by, the Joker, who uses the devices from the utility belt against the police. Dick and Jim Gordon are swarmed by Dollotrons. The Joker blackmails Dick into working with him. Doctor Hurt is caught off-guard by a chemical attack by the Joker at the same time that Batman swoops in, once again forced to fight a swarm of enemies who are dangerous due to sheer numbers. Then an enslaved Jim Gordon hits Dick from behind, showing the total control that Pyg's contagious addiction exerts on its victims. Finally, the Joker plans to use Damian as a weapon against Hurt.

That's a lot of action -- none of it terribly unexpected, at least given the preview that showed the Joker's escape in progress. The story is rich, however, in themes and tone, with a few lines carrying particularly important implications for where the story is going.

The horse/knight theme I mentioned earlier has crept out of the artwork and into the dialogue. The first image in the story is the horsehead in the Wayne Manor library, seen when Alfred goes either to check on Dick or to perform some other important chore in the Batcave. The final words of the issue are the title of #15 -- "The Knight, Death, and The Devil", with the words cleverly laid over the characters they represent: Dick, the Joker, and Doctor Hurt. In between, we see Hurt yell to his adversary, in a chess metaphor, that his knights have been beaten. But who is the audience for that line -- Dick or the Joker? Given that Dick is a knight, the Joker may be the one Hurt is addressing, even though his mouth is close to Dick's ear. It remains unclear if the horsehead on the mantle is a mere symbol or has some real power. Alfred may be looking at it as he passes by. Soon enough, it will be a silent witness to Hurt's gunshot aimed at Dick.

Hurt is getting a lot of practice for that shot. He fires at a pumpkin for no clear purpose early on, and later, we cut to a shot of him holding the smoking gun as a series of watermelons have received similar shootings. This is an intensely odd display of Hurt's behavior, seemingly for no purpose other than to enjoy in anticipation the shooting of Dick Grayson. He's chosen fruits that are roughly the size and shape of a head. That he seems to expect to undertake that specific manner of execution suggests some sort of ritualistic significance, either to fulfill some mystic requirement or because he will derive pleasure from it. It is a divergence from the otherwise stolid behavior we've seen him conduct as he goes about his business, and together with the wearing of the old bat-cowl and hitting Alfred with the champagne bottle, tells us more about Hurt's personality than all of his evil hand-wringing.

There is, however, plenty of that. In describing Pyg, Hurt tells us once again, that he enjoys corruption for its own sake. He describes with "might makes right" a vision of Gotham that matches the vision Lane has in Batman #666, with Lane "praying for a world where the strong are free to exploit and abuse the weak". Speaking to criminals, he celebrates crime, and plans to act on his contempt for the incorruptible, describing it with Hitler's term for a "new order" much as Lane, the Devil's messiah -- at least in his own mind -- dreamt of his version of a "better world". His vision is well underway, with the Mayor, who was shown to be working for Hurt in Morrison's Batman run, in attendance along with criminals and the media.

Other details in this issue point to #666. We see Batman fighting Dollotrons and Professor Pyg hanging upside down in a human inverted crucifix. Hurt's ceremony takes place in Crime Alley, which is apparently the scene of one Batman's death in #666, "the crossroads" where Damian chooses to deal with the Devil. The promised interaction between this story and the potential future of #666 is drawing near, and it is likely that the places where the details don't match (e.g., Damian is now ten, but fourteen when he makes the deal in #666) are to be considered dust swept under the carpet. This probably isn't a dress rehearsal for the real meeting between Damian and the Devil four years from now, but the in-continuity version of those events with, probably, a different outcome when it comes to whether or not Damian agrees to deal.

The ceremony itself, with Jim Gordon as a hostage, resembles the classic Joker story "Dreadful Birthday, Dear Joker!" from Batman #321. But this time the Joker is, if not a hero, an enemy of the villain. Senator Vine, whom Hurt seems earnestly to try to protect, gets Jokerized by a "golden domino" in a reference to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one of many references to children's literature in the run to date. Vine's earlier concern that Hurt told him that he would keep the Senator "outta harm's way" echoes the lines Black Glove members spoke when things went sour for them in Batman, R.I.P. Meanwhile, that Hurt uses drug addiction to flip Jim Gordon to his side is reminiscent of the very first page of Morrison's run, with a Jokerized Commissioner Gordon falling through the air, and also makes good on Lane's information in Batman #674 that Doctor Hurt makes slaves of good men. And for Jim Gordon, in an act of betrayal that at once suggests Odysseus and the sirens and Jezebel's betrayal in RIP, to succumb shows that virtually no man is too good to escape his grasp.

We get almost total assurance from Hurt's quest for the casket -- and chagrin that opening it will destroy the contents -- that Hurt is, basically, the same entity we saw as old Doctor Thomas Wayne in ROBW #4, and he uses now as then, the line "in the end". Back then, he wanted it to provide him with true immortality -- the mere centuries of life prolongation that Doctor Hurt has already enjoyed may be something short of eternal life. We know from Alan Wayne's estimate of OTW's appearance that Hurt has aged in appearance since c. 1880, so he may be aging at some reduced rate, but still on a path to die eventually. The key point is that his continued quest for the casket is a very important piece of information about Hurt's nature. While it had been surmised earlier that Hurt may have achieved immortality and true devilish nature between the events of ROBW #4 and RIP, the fact that he has the same goal now as then -- along with his aging -- suggests that he is not so very different, experience aside, than he was 130 years ago. It may explain why he exclaimed "Not like this!" at the time of the helicopter crash -- not that the crash itself would kill him, but that it might keep him from finding the casket and thus doom him to an eventual death of old age, or when his Manfred-like deal with the devil ran due.

Meanwhile, as much as those implications make Hurt seem more like an evil man with a dose of immortality than the Devil himself, Pyg bestows the devilish label of a "goat" in Gotham upon Hurt, suggesting Baphomet, a character associated with Satan. Pyg's rants reinforce that he was broken, like an animal in the experiments of Harry Harlow, to become a more perfect servant to Doctor Hurt, as part of a larger pattern (along with Flamingo and the three replacement Batmen from the GCPD experiment) to enslave good men to do evil. Pyg, eager for a PCP fix and to destroy reason, rambles on about his captivity, mentioning the rats in "Rockville" as a possible turn of the fictional asylum Rockland referenced in Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl".

Meanwhile, the choice of Crime Alley as Hurt's chosen location resonates with the Wayne Murder itself, an event whose centrality to the Batman mythos cannot be overstated. Clearly Hurt knows about this event. Quite likely, he ordered it. But with Bruce Wayne absent, it hints at a larger agenda for Hurt to stage an event here, the same location where the event/fantasy that opened B&R #13 took place.

While Hurt goes about his plan, the Joker plans to strike at Hurt, even though the Joker is convinced that he cannot stop the dominoes from falling. The mystery of why dominoes were name-checked by Hurt and used by the Joker continues, although it seems that the Joker is using dominoes to mock Hurt, for whom dominoes seems to have some other role, larger than the plague already sweeping Gotham, which shouldn't bother the Joker all that much, save that he doesn't get to carry it out, since it is similar to his own vision of mass casualties. The Joker's first casualty in this story is Damian, who falls prey to toxins on the Joker's eyelids and/or fingernails, and has his turn interrogating the Joker go terribly sour. Damian ends the issue upside down, much like Pyg, but with his arms at his sides, with an ironic smile painted onto the tape across his mouth. At issue's end, the Joker plans to use Damian as a weapon against Hurt. Clearly, Robin will not resist that idea, although the Joker will have to distance himself from the freed Damian. Later, the Joker uses toxins to attack Hurt's audience, using popcorn (the "catering" he referred to in his call with Dick) as the delivery vehicle.

If there is a single line in the issue that packs more meaning than it seems to, it is Alfred telling Dick that he has prepared the mansion and the cave as Dick had requested. This has enormous implications. Whatever those preparations are, it means that Dick expects the confrontation to move from Crime Alley to Wayne Manor and even down into the Batcave. As we saw in the flash-forward last time, he is of course right. When he hisses to Hurt "You don't get it do you? You're finished." Dick is speaking of those preparations. That line, in reduced lettering that suggests a whisper, is Alfred telling us that Dick, for all his affinity for timing is going to end this scheme with no more help from Bruce Wayne than in having taught his friend that victory lies in the preparation.

Oberon Sexton: An Unusual Suspect

I have, admittedly, tossed out a few ideas about who Sexton is and haven't locked in on any that convince me. I've been pressing harder to try to work out the Sexton / Domino Killer situation, and am not quite ready to write it all up yet, but I wanted to post another idea for people to run with. Like "Mangrove Pierce", the new suspect I have in mind is an extremely minor character. One who, if revealed, would not be a big "WOW" moment, but an "ah". And I think that's possible -- not all reveals are "WOW". Lately, I have been coming at this "bottom up", and asked: What has Oberon Sexton actually done? And what, therefore, is his motive? And the main thing he has done is come to Gotham and told Batman that there is someone killing the Black Glove members. We don't know if he's good or bad, honest or dishonest, but we do know that he's not 100% honest, because he didn't tell Batman about the phone call from El Penitente. So, if he's not all good, all honest, and he's telling Batman that someone is killing the Black Glove members, what is his motive? Possibly that he's one of them, and he wants Batman to save his (Sexton's) own skin. One of the newspapers in Batman and Robin #10 said, "Sir Anthony: The Mystery Deepens". An English (like Sexton) member of the Black Glove, possibly the one who identified himself in Batman #681 as having made his fortune in electronics. (He uses the phrases "nonsense" and "dear lord" in RIP; those may or may not be more likely from the mouth of an Englishman than an American.) In Batman and Robin #10, Sir Anthony is referred to as a "media guy". In the next panel, Sexton uses the word "media".

There is no compelling evidence that this man is Sexton. But the motive actually works. Suppose a rich, powerful man running a media empire notices that after Jezebel Jet's disappearance, at least two other Black Glove members are killed. That would make three dead out of the five who were still alive at the end of RIP. He'd obviously have a reason to fear that he might be killed soon himself. So he goes underground under another man's identity (perhaps killing the real Sexton and his wife). Now, he thinks he's temporarily safe, but still has an unknown force out to get him. So immediately after the public reappearance of Batman in Gotham City, he goes to Gotham and tells the world, and then Batman personally, that someone is out to get the Black Glove members. To further make sure that Batman is motivated to get the killer, he adds that Bruce Wayne is the next target. He possibly knows that the old Batman was Bruce Wayne and that the new one would be extra-motivated to save him. Of course, being English, covering the real Sexton's voice would be easier. If he's a famous media magnate, that could explain why Dick finds something familiar about him.

Note that this theory is agnostic as to whether or not the "domino" motif has actually been used to decorate the bodies of the victims. Maybe it's true. Maybe Sexton is lying to make it more compelling that there is one killer out there that Batman has to stop. But if he's lying, then there needs to be an explanation for how the lie is linked to the dominoes appearing in Gotham, which are - perhaps - another issue.

This evidence is not proof that Sexton is the incredibly low-profile character who was only named in the last issue. But this is the only theory I've seen that actually explains Sexton's actions without any additional tricky explanations. (I.e.: If he's Bruce, why is he withholding information from Dick? If he's the Joker, why is he investigating one murder, Malenkov's, that he himself commited?)

But I'll add: Sexton has arrived at the Wayne Cemetery with a shovel nearby, and this is utterly inexplicable. We don't know what he's going to do with it, but dig up a grave seems like a good bet. And then we don't know what or why. This could immediately disqualify Sir Anthony if Sexton's got some sort of exceptional (or cosmic) knowledge about the former dead Waynes. If that's true, then perhaps he is the black-tophat wearing Baron Samedi, a loa of the dead in voodoo, something that freedumbdclxvi suggested on the DC Message Boards.

But until we see him step outside the natural (or the Fourth Wall, in the case of another conjecture: that he is Grant Morrison), Sir Anthony remains a top possibility for Sexton.

Mangrove Pierce is a similar suspect, but less obviously has something to gain from telling Batman about someone killing the Black Glove members: He's not one of them, and an actor likely never was because he just wouldn't be rich enough. So for the moment, I think Sir Anthony is a slightly stronger suspect.

This was just a short post on the thinking I've been doing about Oberon Sexton and the Domino Killer. More to come!

Update: Two additional observations that add some support to Oberon Sexton being Sir Anthony.

1) It has been observed that El Penitente says "Your sins have found you out" to Sexton over the phone, and this is a line that Doctor Hurt used previously. Assuming that Sir Anthony was the "electronics" member of the Black Glove, then he was actually one of the ones to whom the line was originally addressed.

2) Sexton says that the members of the Black Glove have either been murdered or have vanished without a trace. This indicates that there are cases in each of those two categories. We know that three of the five (Malenkov, al-Khidr, and Maggi) have been murdered and did not vanish without a trace. It is possible that Jezebel was never found, so she may be one who vanished without a trace. We can't pick apart Sexton's syntax with a fine-toothed comb and get any further than a guess, but it seems possible that he would not list the two outcomes (murdered, vanished) and link them unless more than one person were in each category. In other words, it is at least plausible and perhaps likely that Sir Anthony is one who vanished (perhaps in addition to Jezebel, or perhaps the only one). And the headline "The Mystery Deepens" is compatible with a disappearance. Though, admittedly, such spare information is all compatible, also, with Sir Anthony being actually dead with a body left behind. My point here is that it's quite plausible that Sir Anthony is missing, with no body, which supports the idea that his body is somewhere else -- namely, in "Oberon Sexton"'s clothing.

Batman and Robin: Arc #4

In the previous post, I talked about the likely guest stars who will provide the focus for Batman and Robin's second and third arcs. But Grant Morrison said that his initial run will consist of four arcs, and all indications are that the fourth will be explosive. What we know about this arc, still over half a year from its start date, raises more questions than answers, but the questions are huge:

Will Batman once again face The Devil? The Black Glove organization of gamblers? The Club of Villains?

What is to be said about Thomas and Martha Wayne's past? Were they involved in evil -- or targeted for death because they crossed it? Will their reputations survive the "dossier" that was leaked to the media?

Will we see the backstory of Batman #666 take place in the present? Will Damian make a deal with the Devil and have supernatural powers from here on?

Will Dick Grayson die?

Will Bruce Wayne return? If so, how?

Who will be Batman when this story concludes?

All of these questions arise from the hints we've been given. For the sake of brevity, I'll call the fourth arc of this series, which should start with issue #10 and run for three or four issues, "B&R IV" -- not to be confused with issue #4 (which will be in the middle of the second arc).

The Devil Went Down to Gotham

You don't have to look very hard to see that Doctor Hurt, who was the Devil, will resurface in B&R IV -- the last page of issue #1 contains four preview panels, and it seems very clear that each panel represents one arc of the series's first year, in chronological order. And there, in the fourth panel, is Doctor Hurt dangling the keys to Wayne Manor.

That is not very specific, however, as to what form his participation will take. The most lively possibility would be if he shows up in person, commanding a host of other villains, and launches an overwhelming attack on our heroes inside Wayne Manor. And that's quite possible. On the other hand, a panel merely showing Doctor Hurt doesn't guarantee any such thing. He doesn't need to have a physical presence to be a menace. He is not a fist-fight kind of villain. Doctor Hurt does run a mean plan, however.

Doctor Hurt had something at stake when the helicopter crashed, and probably not just the loss of a shiny helicopter. He really didn't want the crash to happen. So if he had something to lose, how is he back now?

Exactly what is Doctor Hurt? He's the Devil, but is he the body of an ordinary man, hosting the Devil, but possible to kill? Some real "Doctor Hurt" who had an ordinary life until the Devil possessed him? The newspaper headline in Batman #678 suggests that. But we don't know. He could have been walking around in that form for thousands of years. Maybe we'll find out more. Maybe the Devil hopped into Doctor Hurt after a failed attempt to possess Thomas Wayne -- he wanted the batsuit from Detective #235 back for a reason.

Morrison has indicated that the run, and therefore almost certainly this arc, will exhibit "the Black Glove characters" and some of the villains of RIP. Let's look at the rosters:

Black Glove, Roll Call

Dead: The general, whose neck was snapped by the Joker.

AWOL: Jezebel Jet (not a member, but threw in with them), whose plane was attacked by Talia's manbats. Could be dead, or could resurface.

Doomed: Cardinal Maggi, who dies shortly before the "six months later" scene in RIP wherein Dick and Damian catch up with Le Bossu.

Others: The electronics billionaire, the "Texas" oil billionaire, and the Arab al-Khidr. It's unclear what would have happened to then after RIP. If Cardinal Maggi was running free to be killed, then you'd think they might have, too. But they are all targets for both Talia and the Joker, both of whom vowed to get them. Those are two very bad enemies to have.

Because the Black Glove is an organization that replaces its outgoing members, we could also see the Black Glove with a new cast of characters replacing any who die. But probably only if Doctor Hurt is around to organize it.

Club of Villains, Roll Call

Dead: Sombrero. In Batman #663, the Joker listed sombreros among things that are inherently funny. So he must have had a gas killing someone who went by that name.

Captured: RIP showed Le Bossu and Scorpiana being taken down by Nightwing, although Le Bossu somehow gets out to be taken down again. Charlie Caligula was going to starve to death if nobody were to rescue him from the "Zorro" theatre where Zur En Arrh Batman had him. Maybe Bruce freed him before Final Crisis. The Murder Mime and Swagman were captured by the Club of Heroes. Of course, jails in the DCU have revolving doors.

AWOL: King Kraken was theoretically never captured in RIP.

The various henchmen seem to present a huge problem for the heroes' secret identities. Many of them stormed Wayne Manor, and probably most of them survived RIP. Will they come back and be dangerous for what they know?

The Ghost of Batman Past

Grant Morrison has said "Bruce Wayne's parents have still been accused of being drug addicts and all kinds of things, so we haven't dealt with the fallout of RIP, and the new Batman and Robin are kind of caught in the middle of a lot of that stuff as well." We know from Batman #683 that the news hit the papers. Bruce and Alfred did not seem overly concerned. But there is a huge backstory that's up for grabs, which I've discussed before.

The Ghost of Batman Future

Grant Morrison really raised the stakes by stating that "certain events in #666 ... form the basis for" B&R IV. Separately, he said that "Damian selling his soul to the devil" from that issue might give you "an idea of how some upcoming events might play out."

Well, then. This is a loaded hint because if Damian does make the deal with the devil now, he'll forever after have at least one supernatural ability -- the regenerative ability (and/or immortality) seen in #666. That's actually the smaller of two implications, with the other being that "Batman" will die now, sooner rather than later. Since Dick is now Batman, could that mean that Dick will die in B&R IV?

It's not impossible. But it's not what a straightforward reading of #666 suggests. But let me qualify this in advance: Batman #666 makes a number of portentous statements, but they are also non-specific and very brief. Very little is signed on the dotted line. Several statements are made, in art as well as in words, that someone dies while Damian is involved, and that there is a bargain, etc. But the language does not nail down who exactly dies (Bruce and Dick are of course the main suspects), and does not strictly rule out that it may be talking about two or more events even when it sounds like they may all be one.

So the simplest interpretation of #666, which may or may not be correct, is that on some future night, a Batman dies while Damian, Robin, at the time, is somehow to blame (presumably through negligence, not murderous intent). And on that night, Damian makes a bargain with the Devil: His soul in return for Gotham's safety, which seems to be delivered by means of Damian's immortality. If there is only once such event being referred to (not two or more deaths, or two or more bargains), then by far the most likely interpretation is that the Batman who will die in this event is Bruce.

For one thing, Damian says that he makes the deal when he's 14 years old, but B&R #2 said that Damian is only 10. So the simplest timeline is that Bruce will take over as Batman again (more on that later), and the death/deal will take place about four years from now in comic time, which would happen much later -- more likely never -- in publication sequence. This is further validated by the artwork that shows a Batman dying (or hurt very badly) while an anguished Damian looks on. This Batman wears a giant chest logo that matches the central (and larger) Batman in Damian's Batcave memorial. That should all match Bruce, then, rather than Dick.

If we read #666 with legal strictness, Dick has a virtual life insurance policy thanks to one little phrase that Barbara Gordon says: That Damian is responsible for the death of "a friend". Not two. So if Damian makes a deal with the Devil four years from now on the night that Bruce dies, then Barbara is blaming him for Bruce's death, and that accounts for "a friend", and Damian's not going to be blamed for Dick's death now.

And yet: Morrison does say that events in #666 will form the basis for B&R IV, and he's probably not talking about the feud between Lane on the one hand and Professor Pyg and Phosphorus Rex (both of whom die in #666) on the other. And it would hardly be a revolutionary event if one or two tiny facts were altered from that "future" story to the present one. So if the deal has to be the basis of B&R IV, but the deal is to take place years from now, what's the resolution?

Well, there are unguessably many permutations. Suppose the many small clues do describe two different events, but only one death. Suppose Bruce fakes "Batman"'s death upon his return. Suppose part of B&R IV (it can't be all of it; Morrison says that the "new Batman" is involved) is actually a flash-forward to four years from now and has no bearing at all on the present. As easily as the last chapter of RIP showed us Bruce outwitting the evil monk in the past and Dick confronting Le Bossu in the future, B&R IV could span two, three, or more points in time.

I think all of these possibilities, plus countless others, are cumulatively more likely than Dick's death ten months from now leading to Damian's deal with the Devil. And Morrison might remain utterly true to the events of #666.

So This Man Walks into a Cave...

Bruce is coming back before the end of B&R #13, and he will be Batman again after that.

Grant Morrison has told us so:

1) "Bruce is still out there. “Final Crisis” revealed Bruce is still out there and he’s got to make his way back in some way." "We’re not really entertaining the notion that Bruce won’t be back at some time."

So he is coming back. When?

2) Morrison plotted 12 or 13 issues for B&R and "Everything about [Bruce's absence] will be tied up by the end. Everything that's happening with Bruce and Bruce's world will be revealed in detail and resolved by the end of Batman and Robin's first year."

And he's really going to be Batman again? Right away? Not a mentor to the ongoing adventures of Batman Dick?

3) "We always knew that after “Batman R.I.P.,” we were going to do this run of stories where we didn’t have Bruce under the cowl."

That leaves a loophole that Morrison may mean something different when he says "this run" on different occasions, but that's a very small loophole when you combine it with the quotation in (2).

In fact, with the ghostly Batman seen in the preview panel for B&R's third arc, his return might even begin before the fourth arc opens. But knowing that the "new Batman" has to deal with the smear campaign against the Waynes, we know that Dick won't be stepping aside before issue #10.

The topic of Bruce Wayne's absence and how he might get back is a topic for yet more discussion, a bit less immediate than B&R IV, which itself is several months off.