Oberon Sexton, crime tracker extraordinaire, is following the Domino Killer, who seems to systematically destroying the Black Glove. Well, I think it’s safe to say that Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne is, in fact, the Domino Killer and that he’s hunting down and killing all the other members of his  earthly Black Glove to start anew. I’ll get to this in a little bit, but it becomes a lot more clear as we go on, I think.

“They can bury the truth as deeply as they like, but good men always find shovels to dig with” – Beyond this being a clever reference to Sexton’s nickname of the grave digger (one job of the Sextons of old was tending to cemetaries), this also continues this theme of evil being a part of the ‘underground’ and technology (the shovel) of being the tools to defeat that kind of old world evil.

The power, electricity, is turned off in Wayne Manor. The immediate implication, given what we’ve seen before, is something sinister abides, or is about to happen. No technology is no good!

“Not all of the Waynes were Philanthropists, I’m afraid. That gap is the only acknowledgement of THOMAS WAYNE, the black sheep of the family. Back in the 1760s, Thomas led a rather disginuished sect of Devil’s worshippers apparently. They summoned an ancient Bat-Demon of the Miagani tribe and all kinds of terrible and bloody bargains were struck, or so the story goes…”

Okay, so this is probably the single most significant bit of the issue, an issue filled with significance. Dr. Hurt WAS in fact, Thomas Wayne. Just not the Thomas Wayne we THOUGHT he was. That alone would be enough to mull over, wouldn’t it? But questions ABOUND.

Morrison’s Batman, it’s recently been pointed out to me, is in part basing itself off of a French novel about Gilles De Rais (called La Bas), which chronicles the history of a supposed child killer and Satanist who fought with Joan of Arc and, before her death, was one of the purest, most noble men in all of Europe (anyone schooled in history knows that Perrault based his child-eating Ogre off this figure. His confession, however, was gotten after only much torture and 5 and a half centuries later a French tribunal reviewed the trial, decried it as a travesty and revoked the sentence. As Eduardo Galleano once said, “He was unable to celebrate the good news”).  

Digression aside, it appears that Dr. Hurt/Thomas Wayne/El Penitente is trying to do to Bruce Wayne what was done to Gilles De Rais, turn one of the greatest men of the 21^st century into a…well, a rapist and a murderer.  Morrison goes so far as to include a “Sexton”, who takes care of churches, when the novel (apparently)  is one of the only heroes of the book. 

Okay, now…Thomas Wayne. Who else do we know, historically, is named Thomas Wayne? Bruce Wayne’s brother, from Pre-Crisis. His dangerously unstable brother, who appeared in only two issues, was mentally broken by the death of their parents, and attacked Bruce as the “Boomerang Killer”. Okay, a forogtten footnote in history that no one could possibly include…except for Morrison, who is crazy about inclusivity. Is Thomas Wayne/Dr. Hurt/El Penitente Bruce Wayne’s insane brother (dead by Pre-Crisis continuity)? That seems unlikely, especially with his existence in the past. Unless, of course, Darkseid did MORE than just send Bruce to the past with the Omega Beams.

Look, the Omega Effect as it was used upon Shiloh Norman/Mr. Miracle (inhabited by the essence of Scott Free) didn’t send him in time or space or anything as mundane as that. It trapped him in a series of synethetic lives, crushingly absent of mythology, grinding down his soul incarnation by incarnation. What if, when Darkseid sent Batman away, he created a twin brother, always hounding him, always after him? His intellectual equal, his physical opposite? Always there to stop Batman, always there to challenge him, there to grind away at his resolve? What if he’s following him through time? What if he’s inhabited by one of Darkseid’s lieutenants, some minor ‘demon’ that Darkseid controls? “demons” that, maybe, take human form, wear “flesh suits”? Where has that idea come up before? And, out of curiosity, what does Darkseid need to remanifest himself on earth? The destruction of a noble human spirit? The shattering of an iron will?

Is it possible that Darkseid created this Thomas Wayne, this Dark Hurt, this Barbatos, to hound Batman all his days, to break him, to ruin him, as a backup vessel, even as he saw his own death approaching?

 Okay, uh, speculation, digression…apologies. It’s only going to get worse as, again, there is less literary meat here and more mysterious clues.

I love  the idea that the entire mansion is just one big clue. I find that fascinating.

“The cave is too cold – use the batmobile’ – I know you’re tired of it, but smug ass that I am, I’m going to mention it again…cold, dank cave is no good! Climate controlled technology, please!

“The constellation of ORION over the bay” – Wow, how coincidental that Bruce Wayne would invoke the name and image of Darkseid’s eternal adversary as a clue to his wherebouts, to the larger plot going on.

“The Mexican Train is on it’s way” -  A domino game, a game that was being played by Pearly last arc. Sexton is talking to the Domino Killer – who is also El Penitente, who is also Thomas Wayne, who very well may be the deamon Barbatos – and it’s possible that Pearly himself was working for the killer.

“Belial, Zepar” and an unmentioned ‘demon’ – Jumping ahead a little bit, if one accepts the idea that Dr. Hurt is in fact Barbatos, or believes himself to be Barbatos, or is trying to call Barbatos (whichever), he should have command of 4 demon underlings (according to Wikipedia). With himself, that would make 5, which would be the number of fingers on a Black Glove, incidentally. Anyway, those are his demon underlings, coming to destroy the enemy Sexton.

“Mordecai doesn’t fit in with the genealogy” – Obviously, since it’s a time traveling Bruce Wayne.

“Joshua and Solomon are so called conductors are the underground railroad”, leading the way to Bruce’s salvation undoubtedly.

“If my father returns, can be we can’t be Batman. And Robin, anymore” I love Damien this issue more than I have since he was first introduced, if only because we’re getting a little more insight into his own weaknesses, his own insecurities, but also the kind of inner strength he has to have resisted his mother like that, and the kind of respect, admiration and genuine LOVE he has for Dick Grayson and the mantle of Batman and Robin. It’s touching, subtle enough not to be heavy handed, and much appreciated. 

“The Hunter, over the fire…the three stars of Orion’s belt, in order of magnitude” – Again, Orion is the Hunter, the Anti-Darkseid leading Batman and Robin to Bruce’s salvation. Order of magnitude perhaps indicating some direction.

“You’re wrong. Dick Grayson is…” – Again,  just a beautiful scene as a whole for Damien Wayne. Heartbreaking to find out what kind of life he’s led, the loveless and cold existence he’s had to endure, touching to see that Dick Grayson may well be more a parental figure to him than anyone he’s ever known. And it just continues this concept of the characters in the book throwing off the roles prescribed for them by authority figures in an effort to find their own identity. Dick, by the end of this big event, will undoubtedly discard the mantle of the Bat despite all pressures to wear it, while Bruce will literally fight the devil and history itself to gain it back. But Damien will not be a conqueror, he will be a hero. And, as last arc made painfully clear, he’ll probably die for it. His inevitable fate is making scenes like this all the more bittersweet.

“Once you see the pattern, it’s everywhere” – He seems to be talking about the stars of Orion, but SOMETHING also seems to have set off some sort of mental programming, encourage Damien to kill Dick Grayson/Batman. I’m a little unclear as to what might have done so, as it seems unlikely that the pattern set by Bruce would do so, but it couldn’t have been something Talia activated earlier or it would have manifested before they entered the secret passageway. Once Grayson is gone, the control is also gone, but is that because Grayson left or the “star of Orion” was broken?

 Either way, I’m loving Grayson’s nonchalance which is, again, right on the money, even if it seems a little insensitive or brusque. And then he sees that Damien just tried to kill him, and his response is “something is weird with Damien”…hilarious.

“Barbatos” – Okay, here we go again. This is a reference to an old Milligan arc, “Dark Knight Dark City” which thematically works really well here, as the demon Barbatos takes over another villain (the riddler) causing him to be considerably more ‘evil’ than is normal, even for him.  Sort of Dr. Hurt’s M.O., right? It was also implied that this was the cause for a lot of the darkness that pervades Gotham City. There are really a number of theories that work here – Thomas Wayne was undoubtedly one of the guys who was around to summon  Barbatos, and the fact that the Noir “Return of Bruce Wayne” issue is the one that is going to deal with the occult might be fodder for most of these reference not to have anything to do with Darkseid, but instead to focus on Barbatos.

In other words, Darkseid sends Bruce back in time, and in the course of his travels and travails he encounters Thomas Wayne, his ancestor (which would be little more than a veiled reference to that old Worlds Finest plot) who is a Satanist trying to summon the Barbatos. He partially succeeds, gets inhabited by the creature and strides the earth, a force for evil for centuries from then on, only to confront Bruce Wayne as Dr. Hurt now in an effort to fully manifest himself on the planet. I say that because in the original Dark Knight Dark City, the ritual to summon Barbatos was never completed. It could be that he’s just trying to complete it. And as I think on it, this is a far simpler explanation than my Darkseid/New God supposition above.

“Corpse Road” and “Garden of Death” – Corpse Roads were used to connect outlying, satellite Churches to their “mother” churches, which had exclusive burial rights. One has to wonder to what church Wayne Manor was connected, or if it was connected to this “Garden of Death”, and what that signifies. Could the Wayne Manor been some satellite Church for demon worship? Or perhaps the main church? Could something of important be buried in the Garden of Death?

The “next issue” seems to confirm that El Penitente is, indeed, a Wayne (something that we all suspected since his appearance in the Tan arc, with the “w” scars).

Lovely issue. More thoughts as they come to me, but really, really worked for me. Maybe even better than last issue, maybe the best issue of the series thus far.