This comic really makes me anxious to see Neil Gaiman’s upcoming arc.

It’s nothing against Mr. Morrison.  I love most of what he’s written, The Invisibles, The Filth, Animal Man, and The Authority were brilliant, and his X-Men run was epically good right until he wrote the giant middle finger to Marvel ending.  I even didn’t hate his JLA run, which is more praise than it sounds, as I’ve never been intrigued by the JLA or JSA titles.  All that said, I was slightly dissapointed in RIP, and completely bored with this follow up issue.

I’m not exactly sure where Morrison lost me on this Batman run.  I liked the creation of Damian, the interaction with the Al Ghuls, and the idea of the Black Glove.  I understand that oen of the main reasons I didn’t get all there was to understand in Batman RIP is because, in the last issue he tied in things from the Robin, Nightwing, The Outsiders, and Detective; all of which I read in trade, but not in issues.  I also stopped reading the main Final Crisis story, as it seems too schizophrenic (while all of the tie-ins I’ve read have been focused and afuckenstoundingly good).  So I have to reserve judgement on RIP until I read everything its related to.  The same isn’t true for Last Rites.

This issue seems epiloguish, while, at the same time, is a super compact retelling of The Batman mythos.  A story that’s been hashed, rehashed, hash browned, hash piped, hashished, and then hashacalifragelisticexpialidoshished again.  The occasional retelling is neccesary to draw in new readers, I understand that.  But a compact retelling of a mythos should either include some new reveal to intrigue long time readers, or else be simple enough for new readers to understand.  This issue was just a clusterfuck of memories.  Pretty to look at, but empty at the center. 

Maybe the next issue will wrap everything up into some sensical order, but I doubt it.  This is Morrison, a great writer who doesn’t always wrap his stories up into neat little packages.  In fact, sometimes you unwrap his shiny wrapped presents and discover you’ve been given a ripped cardboard box full of someone else’s broken teeth.  And not even a complete set of teeth.  And what teeth there are have been chipped.  But, uh, I guess the box was pretty.  That’s, at least…something?