Comic Books

BATMAN THE RETURN #1

The event of the year is here! Bruce Wayne made his long journey back through the timestream in RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, Dick Grayson and Damian uncovered important secrets in BATMAN and ROBIN, Gotham City’s bravest heroes made their mark in BRUCE WAYNE – THE ROAD HOME…and now it’s time for BATMAN to return! What happens to Dick Grayson now that the “real” Batman is back? How will Bruce Wayne handle a reunion with his son, Damian? This special one-shot bridges two exciting eras of The Dark Knight and sets up a surprising new status quo that’s just on the horizon.

Featuring the talents of Batman mastermind Grant Morrison and superstar artist David Finch providing interior art, this issue is a can’t-miss for comics fans!

Written by GRANT MORRISON
Art by DAVID FINCH and SCOTT WILLIAMS
Cover by DAVID FINCH

Price: $4.99
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 9.3%

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Avg Rating: 4.3
 
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Comments

  1. Over-sized, though $5 is expensive.  I hope this is worth it.  Should be good.

  2. Awesome. 

  3. The two Return Of Bruce Wayne stories have been pitch perfect, and I’m highly looking forward to this conclusion issue.

  4. With GM writing this and Finch drawing, this is really the only "Return" book we’ll ever need… I hope.

  5. I love how they always call the artists "superstars". like alybody would recognize them in the street.

  6. Yay.

  7. Sweet! GMo and Finch? I’m there. Some might consider this arbitrary, but personally I love when DC takes the time to deal with ramifications of big events. It give things a nice, smooth landing and can help set the new status-quo. There nothing worse than dealing with the emotional, character work after it’s way too late and the impact is lost.

  8. I didn’t even know this was coming out.

  9. How will it all be addressed?

    Can we forget that advance solicts and interviews tell us already what happens?

    Tune in on Wednesday to find out! 

  10. It’s Grant Morrison and Daivd Finch together on a Batman book; I don’t really care if I know what has or will happen because it’ll be an awesome story either way. I’m in it for the ride on this one, not the destination.

  11. @TNC: What exactly are you complaining about this time? This is a denouement one-shot. It focuses on the after-effects of Bruce’s return. With Morrison at the helm, I’m sure we’ll get a few twists, but I doubt any plot bombs are going to be dropped here. It’s a clean-up story. Also, there’s a real easy way to avoid solicit-spoilers; don’t read solicits. Most of your snarky rants center around delays and creator changes, so maybe you’ll be happier as a result. But then, what would you whine about? Silly me.

    Negativity is too damn high.

  12. $4.99 is a bit much but the heart wants what the heart wants :/

  13. Well, I’ve read all the solicits and Morrison interviews and I still have no idea how this issue will play out.

    Will it explain certain details of that past few Morrison issues so that everyone understands them, not just the obsessive rerereaders like myself? Will it tie-up the few dangling plot-threads that no one really knows the answers to (why was it so important for Alfred to set the clock to that time? how did Hurt get the idea that the casket would offer immortality?)? Or will it focus more on the future rather than the recent past? Will there be any action in it, or just talking for 40 pages?

    We really don’t know anything about what exactly will happen in this issue, just that it’s a "bridge". I’m excited for it.

  14. Best time to be a Batman fan since Dark Knight/Strikes Again…@edward – no anti-Batism here.

  15. Yeah @edward "… if you’re not with us, you’re against us…" – Bruce Wayne

  16. IDK, but I’m hoping it clears up some stuff I didn’t understand about Return Of Bruce Wayne.  Like 60 percent of it.

  17. This will be my last Morrison Batman for a while. Personaly I think it’s had its ups and downs. I’m going to check out Snyder and Jock’s Detective series, and JHW’s Batwoman.

  18. Cant wait for this one!

  19. Almost 60 pages of Morrison Batman goodness? SOLD.

  20. $4.99 wow i hope batman is included

  21. Solid 5 for me, only 29 pages of actual story though. The rest – sketches and script.

  22. @meanmrmustid–seriously?? over half the page count is filler? That could be a dealbreaker. Is this a wrap up issue to the Return of Bruce Wayne or more of the Road Home one shots?

  23. Yeah, padding the page count with sketches is usually pretty lame, but here we get six pages of Morrison’s script which, in my opinion, totally justifies the extra buck.

  24. So this is actually Batman Inc. #1. It flows almost directly into Inc. I would’ve preferred a double sized Inc. #1 with Finch and Paquette splitting the art detail, but oh well.

    I thought this was great. Finch was born to draw Batman as far as I’m concerned, and this made me excited for Dark Knight. The meeting with the Batfamily in the beginning was probably the highpoint for me. What was with Barabara’s folder? Hmmm. And I laughed at how Bruce dismissed Stephanie’s whining entirely. Welcome to the family, Steph. Damian’s stuff was great as usual. Nice to see Lucius. The scene with Alfred and Bruce packing was great character stuff. Almost touching.

    And I’m definitely intrigued by the Arab Batman. Morrison’s references to something that won’t happen for another 10 or 20 issues is one of my favorite things about him.

    Good start to Batman Inc. so far this week. Lookin forward to where this goes.

  25. The story is probably the most important and interesting recent Morrison Batman away from Batman and Robin, so I still think it was just worth the 4.99 price tag – certainly more the 3.99 for Batman incorporated.  Haven’t gone through the script section yet so hopefully this is of value.

  26. @Wheelhands  Some spoilers: He almost seems like an Arab Anti-Batman with Robin included.  He really reminded me of The Third Batman from way back.  The art of the of the guy though was great, and bumped this up to a 5 for me.

  27. Ok, so, I guess I’m the only one who felt like this was half an issue, cut off in the middle for sketches and scripts (which I quite enjoyed). Bad taste in my mouth, cleansed by the genius that was Batman Inc.

  28. Come on DC. what’s with the filler?

    Does Joe Quesada work for DC now?

  29. So yeah, what’s with Bruce’s giant camel toe on two page spread in the beginning?

  30. This was a nice one-shot to get everything going for Batman INC. I would’ve loved to see more aspects of Bruce reeling from the end of Return of Bruce Wayne…..but I guess the more we stop focusing on it, the better the stories we’ll get. What Morrison brought to the table here is really intriguing and I like the aspect of a Cobra like counterpart for Bruce to fight. It’s a shame that Finch’s pencils were really hampered with Batt’s inks. I’m starting to really loathe this inker because he is not very good. Seriously; look at Finch’s original pencils in the back matter and look at the final pages…..Just appalling how bad Batt inked it.

    3/5 (Mainly a lower score because of the inking) 

  31. As much as Im a morrison fanboy I just wasnt feeling this issue

    Finch’s art isnt my cup of tea, half of it was padding (even if I do enjoy getting a look a process stuff) and too much of it felt like Bruce walking around explaining whats going to happen in the other batman titles (that I don’t read). Also not a fan of the robot suits, but thats more of a personal preference thing.

  32. My shop ran out of this. So I was handed the Ha! variant for cover price. "Ha!" is all I could muster.

  33. This was a good read. Excited for the new direction. I could have passed on all the back matter. Really nothing of interest there, at least not enough to justify the extra buck. 

    5/5 because it did a good job setting things up, good Finch art, and I’m so damn excited that Bruce is back. 

  34. WayneTech’s Internet 3.0 = DCU Online it seems

     I wonder if they’ll manage to incorporate that version of Batgirl into the game somehow.

  35. Loved this outright.  I think Morrison’s straddling the line between classic Batman lore and doing something new perfectly.  He uses the "bat through window" sequence as a regular touchstone as if to remind the reader how much affection he has for the past.  At the same time the moment Bruce tells Alfred how refreshing it is to be witnessing a beginning rather than an ending, for the first time in a lot of years, was lovely.  It was also part of several beautiful pieces of character interaction.  I’m glad he slowed the pace of Batman and Robin enough to have the Batfamily stand around and talk to each other in a meaningul way about where they stand with each other.  And his Alfred was spot on as ever.  5 stars all the way.

  36. The story was really good, but the backmatter was a total rip-off and unnecessary. Save the fancy cover stock paper, and give more story. This issue was priced $2 higher than it deserved. 

  37. Did anyone catch Morrison’s script saying Batman hits the bad guy like a Quarterback? I think he meant a linebacker …

  38. This book was great. 5/5 for me. It was better than Batman Inc, I thought. Loved the art.

    Also, would two Batmen be confusing? Apparently so: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK7djOwK0es

     

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