A BATMAN-ON-FILM.COM Comic Book Review: "BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2" by Chris Clow (5.29.10)

EDITOR'S NOTE: We certainly try to be fair around here (except when it comes to BATMAN RETURNS),
so the following review presents another P.O.V. -- from a Batman and DCU fan -- on Grant Morrison's Batman tale. For my review of THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 -- which is from the P.O.V. of a "Batman Only" fan -- CLICK HERE. - "Jett"

OFFICIAL SYNOPSIS: The most anticipated series of 2010 is here! Superstar writer Grant Morrison tackles his most ambitious project to date with THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, a special six-part series that chronicles the return of the original man behind Batman's cape and cowl! Each issue spans a different era of time and features the dynamic artwork of one of today's artistic juggernauts.

One of my academic interests is the only thing that can tell us where we've been, and in many cases, predict where we're going: history.

The Puritan era is definitely a dark blemish on the early colonial history of what would become the United States. The fundamentalist protestants, through an attachment to religious extremism, killed many innocent people in their quest to uncover witchcraft, and made us learn some hard lessons about where attachments to blind faith, lapses in civil liberties, and ignorance of due process can lead us. With the horrors that came out of that period in history, it's quite a fascinating era to study.

When I heard that Bruce Wayne would be in the thick of it in the second issue of THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, I was oddly pleased. It's very rare when my interests in Batman and history collide, so this issue was of particular interest to me. Bruce Wayne, a man who basically worships the triumph of reason and empirical evidence more than anything, and has said he doesn't believe in an afterlife, would be thrust into an era where colonial Americans had yet to have an attachment to empirical logic. Because of this, I imagined someone like him hating this era with every fiber of his being.

I think we got something better, though. Because this story features him with some slight amnesia, he's not attaching to the logic that he's had because he's not aware he has had it. He's forced to work with what he has, but there's a point in this issue where the devil gets the blame for something going wrong. Bruce, known in this era as "Brother Mordecai," simply rebuts that by saying...

"I'm less inclined to lay blame at the devil's door when an earthly explanation is forthcoming."

Amazon.com Widgets

That simple phrase encapsulates Bruce's approach in this period. Working with what he has, and not relying on the simplistic divine explanations that are known to have been rampant 400 years ago, he proves himself as the World's Greatest Detective no matter what era he's in, and refuses to accept the answers that can't be supported with evidence. This makes him dangerous in the eyes of his fellow villagers, and even the way he speaks is criticized as, "not of the Lord." That I found a particularly good and accurate touch; if someone appears in a Puritan village speaking the way modern man does, it seems likely that a Puritan would blame that on the devil. Very interesting stuff, and for what it is, it seems historically plausible. It may not be in actuality, but it works as a story beat.

The cosmic stuff, if jarring for a Batman-only fan, is well handled by Grant Morrison.. As BATMAN, R.I.P. has proven, Morrison is awesome at writing revelations that show Bruce has everything figured out before anyone ever suspects him to, and this issue is no exception. Frazer Irving, the artist who will be taking over the next arc of BATMAN AND ROBIN, suited the tone of this issue very well. A time that was largely candle-lit, with dark, cloudy colonial skies, was rendered well with lots of shadow and great lighting playing off the characters' faces. It was a nice preview of where he might take B&R, and I'll be interested to see what Irving's Joker will look like.

All in all, the timestream with Batman at the helm is proving to be more thought provoking than I originally thought, and if there's anything that will make me pick up the next issue, it's this one's last page. It seems to be saying that a Bruce-Wayne-Handing-You-Your-Ass-On-A-Silver-Platter beating is coming, and it's been a long while since we've seen one of those.