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Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #3

Publisher: DC Comics
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist: Yanick Paquette
Covers: Andy Kubert and Yanick Paquette

**WARNING: Spoilers Ahead!**

Bruce Wayne’s journey through time to return to the future takes him from the 1400s in early America to the 1700s on the open seas. When Bruce Wayne is thought to be a rival pirate ghost to legendary pirate, Black Beard, he and 15-year-old Jack Valor are taken hostage.

This issue moves the many different plot points forward significantly. We get a clearer understanding of the messages Bruce has been sending Dick Grayson in the future, and how Bruce himself has had an impact on his own family history and the birth of the superhero as a whole, inspiring not just Valor to “continue the work” by donning a cape and cowl, but an entire people (or Bat-People) dating back 11,000 years to the first issue.

There’s an interesting scene with Wonder Woman and the JLA, where she refers to Bruce as a “world threatening rogue Batman” and says it’s their job to keep him from returning; though it’s not really clear why the JLA suspect Bruce as being “world threatening,” or why they would want to stop Bruce’s return. This may end up having much to do with Darkseid’s original plan to use Batman as a kind of doomsday weapon.

This doomsday theme, referred to in this issue as the “All-Over,” again goes back to issue #1 and the cave people’s own theory of the end of the world.

Grant Morrison is doing a fantastic job of handling so many different plot lines throughout his time with Batman, a lot of which is tying into his work in Batman and Batman and Robin.

If you haven’t been keeping up with Batman until now, you may be left scratching your head all throughout this series, but, though very weird and absurd, each adventure and case Bruce Wayne encounters is both fun and meaningful to future events. And Bruce, even when lost in time, is ever the detective we know and love.

Once again, Bruce is moving forward in time, and we catch a glimpse of Bruce’s next task with familiar scarred bounty hunter, Jonah Hex, who is apparently involved.

An overall highlight of this series so far is the work of all the different artists we’re treated to with each issue, and Yanick Paquette certainly did not disappoint.

This series, with the help of Batman and Robin, is shaping up to be one of the deepest and most complex stories to be featured in a comic book in a long time. I’m very intrigued to see how all these events play out and what they mean for the future of not just the Dark Knight, but the DCU as a whole.

Andrew Hurst
andrewhurst@comicattack.net