Batman: R.I.P. by Grant MorrisonMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
Batman R.I.P. is difficult to review as a single work. This follows immediately upon Morrison's The Black Glove arc, and the first half continues that impressive work to great success. Unfortunately, the second half is a disjointed mess that leads into/overlaps with Final Crisis, and isn't nearly as coherent.
I first read this volume years ago, when it was originally released. At the time, I hated it. I hadn't read any of the work leading up to it, so I was being dumped into the middle of the story with absolutely no idea what was going on. Frankly, I think that it was a mistake to release this as a stand-alone; it would have made a lot more sense to release the first half of this and the contents of The Black Glove Deluxe Edition together in one book, since that is essentially the first act of Morrison's larger three part arc, but it's a little late for that (unless DC gets off their butt and releases it in one of those Absolute editions?).
Anyway, yes, I hated it the first time. This second reading was much stronger, though. Once you've read The Black Glove and have seen where Morrison is coming from, this is a lot easier to understand. Dr. Hurt is slowly taking the Dark Knight apart, piece by piece, making Batman question his own sanity in the process. This is very cool territory to explore, and I like the way that Morrison approaches it. As with the previous volume, one of Morrison's interests here is mining the past and finding ways to make it work with the modern interpretations of the character. So, for example, we see Morrison's version of Batmite as a possible figment of Batman's fractured mind.
My main criticisms with this part of the story are two-fold. First, the whole "is Batman crazy and imagining all of these connections/paranoid/his own worst enemy" bit would be more effective in some ways if the book didn't open with Dr. Hurt introducing us to the Danse Macabre. So, at the point where Batman begins to question his own sanity, the reader has already been introduced not only to the mastermind behind the plot, but to the whole group of assorted murderers and crooks that make up the conspiracy. I wonder if the story might not have benefited from withholding that information just a little longer, to give some credence to the idea that maybe Batman really is losing his grip on reality.
Second, the whole Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne connection/claim is pretty weak and doesn't actually seem to go anywhere, and feels a little tacked on. I like the idea of a villain who knows enough about Bruce Wayne to manipulate and attack him from that side of his life, and the idea that maybe Bruce's parents weren't the angels he's imagined/remembers them to be is probably territory that could be well mined, but from the moment Hurt first mentions it, not a single character believes it. Alfred flat out rejects it "I knew Thomas Wayne. Sir. You are not Thomas Wayne." Later, when he attempts to tell Batman the same thing, Batman doesn't even briefly consider the possibility. I've seen other speculate that the plan really was to have Hurt turn out to be Bruce's father, but that editorial may have forced the change. Perhaps? As it stands, it's a weak link in the story. It either shouldn't have been there, or should have been a lot stronger. As it stands, it feels a little silly.
Those complaints aside, the Black Glove part of this book is generally quite strong. We see more of the international Batmen, we get to see more of these new foes, and we get to see Batman being broken psychologically. We also get a very cool new interpretation of the Joker.
As I think I mentioned in the last review, one of the things I really enjoy about Morrison is how he digs deep into character mythologies and finds ways to put it all together. He's not interested in pretending that the golden and silver age stories didn't happen, he's interested in finding ways to make sense of them in a way that lets them be incorporated into the modern interpretation. For Batman, that means that some of his more outlandish adventures are part of the Black Casebook of unsolved or unexplained adventures. Some of them are chalked up to being overexposure to hallucinogenic compounds. But a lot of it is reexamined through a modern lens.
With the Joker, we get the idea that he has superpersonas that he cycles through over time. This was mentioned in The Black Glove and is explained more here. Essentially, the idea is that every so often, the Joker's entire personalty shifts. It's a clever way of reconciling the darker, more murderous versions of the Joker we're generally given now, with the slapstick, pun obsessed version of yesteryear. It's a pretty cool conceit, actually. Quite clever. Morrison's new Joker is pretty terrifying (even if the bullet wound he suffered at the beginning of Morrison's arc appears to have migrated. When his bandages are first removed in The Black Glove, the bullet wound appears to have gone in under his chin and exited on the side of his face, but now he's suddenly got a bullet wound dead center of his forehead? And how would he survive that, anyway?)
That's the good half. What about the rest? The rest is... not as good. After Batman and Hurt face off, the various characters clearly fear the worst. Where is Batman? Well, it turns out, he's... somewhere? Being held captive. After he apparently escaped the helicopter, went home, talked to Alfred a bit, and was summoned by the Justice League to help with the fight against Darkseid (although that part isn't mentioned here, only that he's been called by the JL). The entire "I'm being held captive" arc is weird. There are some interesting moments, I think, but it's mostly a mess. It jumps around through the character's history and through fake/alternate interpretations of the world had the Waynes not died that night. Without any explanation of what led up to this (except, again, a very brief mention later that the JL called), this ends up being very, very confusing. And not in a "I just need to do a little research/read on" kind of way. It's confusing because the story picks up in the middle of another event without providing the reader any idea that this has occurred. One moment we're reading about Batman fighting Dr. Hurt, the next he's being held captive by two weirdos and a guy who looks kind of like Clayface. It's just... confusing.
This is a four star book and a two star book mashed together. They shouldn't be included with each other, when they clearly belong to two radically different stories. I can't help but think that the plan was to have Batman "die" during the first half of RIP, and then DC editorial said "no, wait, we want Batman for Final Crisis; you need to keep him around at least that long. Maybe have him die there, instead." The end of the Black Glove story arc would have been a perfect place to end the first arc of Morrison's run, since the second arc is all about Dick taking over the mantel of the Batman. All of the Final Crisis nonsense just gets in the way of a clean narrative.
The artwork, provided by Tony Daniel, Lee Garbett, Sandu Florea, and Tervor Scott is very strong. Daniel does an excellent job using panel arrangement to contribute to the sense that Bruce is just really losing his mind, at times. There are also some great panels capturing the feelings of the characters in the moment (Joker's face when Hurt grabs his shoulder and calls him "my servant" is perfect; the malice on Jokers face through most of this arc is actually fantastic. Daniel's joker is a creepy, creepy man).
I really do hope that DC eventually releases the Black Glove arc as an Absolute edition, sans the Final Crisis stuff. The story arc makes so much more sense taken as a whole, and it would make an excellent companion to the Batman and Son and Batman Inc. Absolute editions, which capture the remainder of Morrison's run.
This is a necessary and interesting chapter, marred by the needless inclusion of the Final Crisis tie-in.
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