Batman R.I.P. Book

It struck me today that Grant Morrison must love opera. Why? Because he's constructed Batman R.I.P. as if it were a grand Wagnerian Opera - vast, romantic and filled with legend.



Grant Morrison's Batman R.I.P. is a masterpiece. To that point there is no doubt. Batman R.I.P. is a challenging read. One of the reasons it's such a great Batman book is because it has so many layers and interpretations, not to mention ingenious storytelling methods and an enormous amount of imaginative scenes and ideas all thrown in and mixed together by a genius writer at the top of his game. But it's not a standalone book. You need to have read Batman: The Black Casebook, Batman and Son and Batman: The Black Glove before coming to Batman R.I.P. to get the most out of it. If you read this as a standalone book - and it's not really meant to be read as such - then you're going to be confused, and I think some people read it this way and their confusion manifested in anger. Batman R.I.P. is a demanding read and Morrison's books have, more than many others, shown how comic books, particularly superhero comic books, can be as intellectual and complex as any contemporary novel. To this end, the stories are unlike other Batman books and tend not to follow a linear plot or an obvious message, and this can bother some people. As I said, I think this book is a masterpiece, but I understand why this book is divisive among comic fans.



To understand Batman RIP you need to know a couple of things about Morrison's intent with this series. First off, Batman can never be beaten, and that the only way you beat Batman is to get Bruce to stop being Batman. Once he puts on the cowl, he's invincible - so take away the cowl. Second, he posits that every Batman story that has ever been, counts. It all happened to this one man and the person Batman is today is because of every single one of those experiences. So, Batman 66 or those weird 1950s sci-fi stories about aliens - every single story really happened and they happened to make Batman who he is today. Morrison deals with all of Batman's history and somehow makes it all fit. Years ago, Batman took part in an isolation experiment in the Himalayas called Thogal which lasted several days in an effort to train him for death - and the possibility of overcoming it! During this ordeal Bruce hallucinates all kinds of Batman adventures he and Robin went on like the Adam West and Burt Ward Batman years and the out-there 1950s stuff. This Thogal sequence is essential to the plot as it's where Bruce develops the Zur-En-Arrh personality, but it's also an ingenious way of explaining how all of Batman's bizarre decades-long history fit into the creation of this one man and have it make sense. It's such a brilliant idea by Morrison, it needs to be acknowledged.

Right away, Morrison kicks things off with maybe the most defining Batman scene you can have: Batman and Joker in a room talking to one another. You'll notice the black and red color scheme, alternating with each panel, to make the page look like a checkerboard - this comes into play later and ties into one of the book's themes - while Joker plays a dead man's hand with his cards: red 8, black ace, red 8, black ace. This is Joker's answer to Batman's question: who is the Black Glove? Take the 8th and 1st letters of the alphabet and spell it out:

H. A. H. A.

And it begins.

Soon we meet a broken Bruce Wayne one who becomes the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh and his sidekick, Batmite.



Zur-En-Arrh was a real storyline from the 1950s Batman comics where there was a planet with two Batmen and he was super-strong, invulnerable and immortal. Again to make sense of this you must read The Black Casebook, published alongside Batman R.I.P. that collects the stories that inspired Morrison. Dressed in red, yellow and purple (almost like Robin's colors), Batman and the impish Batmite - a floating, cartoonish figure whom only Batman, zonked out on drugs, can see - set about figuring out who he is and what's going on. They see a giant grid on the Gotham skyline - a checkerboard grid - with each grid representing a piece of Batman, an experience, a storyline, all of which make up the whole. (This is a small detail I loved but Bruce carries with him a broken AM/FM radio he calls the Bat-Radia which tells him things - an insane, but amazing touch). This leads to Zur-En-Arrh fighting Joker on a checkerboard floor, Jezebel Jet revealing she is part of the Black Glove, and the "death" of Batman. The checkerboard, the red and black, life and death, Batman and Bruce Wayne, it all ties together.

One of the last images we see is of Dick Grayson, aka Nightwing, holding the cowl, setting up Act 2 of Morrison's operatic Batman run where Dick and Damian will be the new Batman and Robin. The next time we see Bruce is in Final Crisis where he confronts Darkseid.



I want to mention Damian and Talia, both of whom barely feature in this book but when they do are amazing. When Gordon goes to Wayne Manor, he's saved by Damian who destroys the Black Glove's traps and is also invited to join Talia and Damian as they investigate the whereabouts of Batman. I love Damian's character because I know the kind of adventures he and Dick are going to get up to in later books, but I think his brief moments in this book are really funny and add an unexpected humor to this generally doom-laden atmosphere. Talia too has a great scene at the end as she deals with Jezebel Jet by sending her manbat ninjas - from Batman and Son - after her private plane to enact her retribution.



Following the Batman/Joker dead man's hand prologue is a page where a young Bruce Wayne is shown screaming in the rain and a massive quote announces:

"What We Are About To Do Will Be A Work Of Art"

And Batman R.I.P. is a work of art -- the best kind of art.