BATMAN #681

Review by: lmiller31

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Size: pages
Price: 3.99

This review contains spoilers, click here to read

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 5 - Excellent

Comments

  1. I think one of the upcoming issues is going to show a flashback of what exactly went on in Arkham Asylum in between the events that happened after Batman #680 and before Batman #681.  There is something we defintely missed there. Batman is jumping through a glass wall dressed in a weird colored costume at the end of #680 with the Joker and Jezebel Jet right next to him.  Then he’s in another suit while in a shallow grave in the beginning of # 681 where he seems to figure everything out all of a sudden.  Something is definitely missing here and I think that is where this big "reveal" was supposed to have happened, if there really was one.  It seems as if the editors had that magazine totally skip an issue and not even bothered with the re-write, they just figured they’d explain it away later in some kind of quassy flashback form.

    Don’t get me wrong, I’m defintely not the kind of genius with an IQ of over 130 who can actually understand a story written by Grant Morrison, and I’m and on again off again Batman reader, but still, there is definitely something fishy going on here if you or I are a person who is fluent in the structure of storytelling…

     DEFINTELY

  2. It is a very fractured style of storytelling. I don’t think we need (or are going) to see anything else of what happened between 680 and 681, though. To me it’s pretty clear that 680 ended with Bruce losing consciousness (check the blurry p.o.v. panel) due to the Joker’s flower toxins. Then the Black Glove apparently got him back into his regular Bat-suit (which they took off him in the Batcave at the end of 677, after "shutting him off" then as well), put him in a straight jacket, and buried him alive before he regained consciousness. In the opening of 681, we see him regain consciousness and see the situation that the Black Glove has placed him in. It’s then revealed through flashbacks that Bruce knew quite a bit more about the Black Glove and Jezebel Jet than he ever let on.

    As to who "Hurt" is, while I don’t think we get a definite answer, we definitely DO get the closing hint that he might be the Devil. There are problems with this reveal, but it’s what we get. On the other hand, I’ve seen reviews and listened to podcasts in which various people are pretty sure that it’s really Mangrove Pierce, or Thomas Wayne, or Joe Chill–but always with the stipulation that the guy also seems like the Devil. Personally, I think the most interesting (and likely) explanation is that it’s the Devil inhabited Mangrove Pierce’s body. Pierce was an actor from the old days of Gotham, and he played a character based on Thomas Wayne in the old "Black Glove" movie. That’s my best guess, but I have to admit and also argue that pinning down much about the ending reveal is impossible beyond the fact that Dr Hurt SEEMS like a manifestation of the Devil on earth.

    In the next two issues (written by Morrison) we’re supposed to learn more about Batman’s history from Alfred’s perspective. Since already was involved in the social scene with the Waynes, Pierce and Mayhew, hopefully we’ll get a few more hints about what exactly happened with those people. But I don’t expect to learn anything that would definitely take the Devil out of the equation.

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