Grant Morrison just fucked my mind.  There was no dinner or movie.  There was no romance and whispers of sweet nothings.  He just took my brain, threw it violently on the bed and had his way with it.  And it's a completely incredible experience.

For the last few issues, I've been trying to piece together the puzzle that this title has been.  I just couldn't put my head around it.  Thankfully, in just one page of this comic, Grant Morrison lays out a completely brilliant scenario that explains everything that's going on:  After being attacked by a hallucinagenic drug in the past, Bruce dreams of a world called "Zur-en-arrh" with two Batmen; one is super strong, immortal, and invulnerable while the other is technologically and mentally advanced.  Revealed through his time in a space isolation experiment for the army, Dr. Hurt (the leader of the Black Glove) decided to use "Zur-en-arrh" as a trigger to switch off the "Batman" side of Bruce's personality. But as Bat-Mite points out, which is where it gets uber awesome, Batman thinks of everything;  he created a secret side of personality to prepare for a psychological attack.

I'll pause while you let that stew in your mind.

This issue of Batman is probably the best of the R.I.P. storyline as it lays everything out on the table and blows away any sort of perception you have about the comics can be written and what kind of stories they can tell.  This is a prime example of why Grant Morrison is so highly regarded and also controversial.  Personally, this is fucking brilliant comics, and I can't wait to see where it goes next.

I did want to note that Tony Daniel's art in this is ridiculously approrpriate as he lays out his panels and drawings in a dynamic way that eerily shows the insanity going on in Bruce's world.  Daniel's art is only heightened by the fantastic coloring of Guy Major, who brings a real sense of "trippiness" to the story from Bruce's perspective.