If Batman’s going to die the story needs to be worthy of taking out such an important character.  We all knew that Superman was going to come back because his death was sudden, random and without purpose.  That might be the way that people die in real life, suddenly without much warning and for no larger purpose, but we expect our fictional heroes’ deaths to mean a little something more.

Since it’s pretty much been established that Batman can deal with anyone in the DCU, hero or villain, if he’s going to be dying during this storyline we need to believe that this is really a threat beyond anything else he has faced.  That leaves Grant Morrison with some serious leg work to do, as he’s forced to build up a foe worthy of killing Batman.

I’ve been on and off Morrison’s Batman run like a character in Trainspotting trying to kick heroine.  Some months I’m thrilled with Morrison’s old timey schlock and others I’m wondering where my life went wrong that I’m reading Batman prose fiction laid beside crappy Myst like digital art.  I only read a few issues of the Agatha Christie like Batman and Robin go to weird murder island, and so I’m not up on everything Morrison’s been up-to recently.

Morrison’s good though, he knows that a title that promises a dead Batman is going to get more people jumping on and when collected in trades will be read for decades by people who don’t have the context of his earlier run.  If you’ve been looking to check out Batman for awhile, this issue is where to get in because it’s as accesssible as anything that he’s done on the book so far.

So does this do the job of setting the stage for Batman’s potential fall?  Yes.  Between a sinister new secret society and bringing the Joker Morrison casts a forboding feeling over the book that suggests impending doom without being too obvious about it.  Creepy, bloody and yes even a little terrifying the book might not be how you get your ten year old interested in Batman but boy it’s got me hooked.

At least until the all silent issue inside Charles Xavier’s brain, then I’m back on methadone.