Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #6(of 6)

Overall: This issue was one of the most convoluted, confusing things I have EVER read, so if this review doesn't make sense, that's why. We begin with Bruce Wayne arriving at Vanishing Point and getting sealed in a weird suit after telling the robots there to wipe his memory. Rip Hunter, Booster Gold, Hal Jordan and Superman arrive at Vanishing Point, discover that Bruce was already gone, but that he left them a Time Sphere. Meanwhile, Bruce(now in a creepy wired costume)arrives at the JLA Watchtower and meets up with Red Robin. Due to the robots erasing his memory, Creepy Bruce doesn't seem to know he's Bruce Wayne, although Red Robin is pretty sure he is. The two chat for a while until Cyborg and the JLA walk into the room and Cyborg freaks out and tells the JLA to bring Creepy Bruce down. Creepy Bruce trounces the JLA, which confirms to Red Robin that Creepy Bruce HAD to be Bruce Wayne. Red Robin unmasks to Creepy Bruce and questions him as to where he was/what he had been doing. The two talk and Creepy Bruce only seems to understand roughly half of what Tim is saying. In the end, Tim first says, “We can't lose you again”, and then in the very next panel, he says, “We have to stop you, Bruce.”... Um, what? By this point, Wonder Woman walks into the room and explains to Tim that Bruce was emitting Omega radiation, before wrapping Bruce in her lasso. This gives Bruce his memories back(huh?), and he tells WW that now that he knew he was Bruce Wayne his weird costume was going to attack him, which it then does, because as WW exclaims, “The technology's possessed!”... Hmm... WW tells Tim to run away(which he doesn't)and the Time Sphere arrives. Superman helps WW tear the possessed costume off of Bruce, and Bruce tells them to throw it into the Time Sphere. It seems that Bruce had foreseen the fact that he would become possessed by his costume, so when he created the Time Sphere back at Vanishing Point, he built a self-destruct into the Sphere. With the Creepy, Possessed Costume safely locked in the Sphere, Bruce sends it back in time in an endless loop. Bruce himself picks this moment to collapse dramatically because he was still full of Omega radiation. Superman calmly explains that the radiation will only leave Bruce when he died, so WW and Supes(what the hell happened to all of the other heroes?)let Bruce die, but Supes freezes his body and WW absorbs the radiation away from Bruce. Tim then chimes in that Bruce will come back to life if they tell him Gotham was in trouble(?!), which seems to work. Okay then... This issue ends with Bruce donning the Batman costume to take care of Gotham City.

...... I really don't know what to say... This was an absolute mess. I mean, what did it all mean?! I honestly didn't understand anything about this comic. The dialogue was absolutely horrendous, the story was all over the place, and it seemed that Grant Morrison(writer)kept forgetting what heroes were there and which ones weren't. For example, once the Justice League was defeated by Creepy Bruce, they just sort of disappeared. Same with Green Lantern, Rip Hunter and Booster Gold. After they emerged from Time Sphere they sort of faded away. But for me, the dialogue was just unforgivably bad... Here are a few examples... When Batman was “dead”, he saw Metron, who says, “The Fifth World is my absolute experiment. All time is now. Can man confront evil's challenge? Turn it upside down and end it?” “Summon the all-over.” If ANYONE can translate that into English, I'd definitely appreciate it. Or how about this one? Bruce tells the heroes this, “Hyper-Adapter... Hunter-Killer... A living curse made to destroy Batman and the world... A Death-Idea that never tires, never stops...” Or how about Wonder Woman with this beauty, “Gods and New Gods like Darkseid are self-aware ideas. They use concept-weapons, anti-life equations, hunter-killer metaphors.” Wha?! I mean seriously, would it have been too much to ask for this comic to be written in something resembling sense, instead of nonsense? What an absolute mess. The ONLY thing I understood out of this train wreck was that Bruce Wayne did indeed return. How did he return? I sure as HELL don't know! Thankfully this mini-series is over, and I'll never have to read it again.

Score: 1 out of 10. I'd have given this issue a 0, but since I liked the artwork, I didn't want to give this comic the dreaded 0 score. But storywise? This comic deserves a -1!The best thing about this mini-series? Those two words in the lower corner of this page...