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...

The Return of Bruce Wayne #5(of 6)

Overall: This issue starts off in the present with the Justice League planning what to do in the event Bruce was able to return to the present, since his reappearance would lead to... I guess the end of the world or some similarly dramatic plot device. While that is going on, Bruce is now in the recent past, and is tasked with playing the role of detective in the deaths of his parents. It seems his maternal grandmother feels that Thomas Wayne(there's that name again!)faked his own death and had her daughter(Bruce's mother)killed. And so Bruce(along with a femme fatal named Marsha Lamarr)dig into the case, meeting up with Martha's parents, searching Wayne Manor and getting closer all the while. Unfortunately for Bruce, Marsha betrays him, since her goal in this whole scenario was to impersonate Martha and sully her reputation. To this end, Marsha and some satanists knock Bruce out, take him to a crypt at Wayne Manor and tie him up, so Marsha(as Martha)can murder him on camera. Marsha sets Bruce on fire, but before she can finish the deed Bruce is once again pulled through time. Back in the present, bells begin to ring in the JLA Watchtower(why bells?)which Red Robin somehow figures is signaling Bruce's return to the present. Sure enough, Bruce, wearing a cape of wires and sporting a cybernetic eye(for some reason)comes strutting out of some transporter bubble.

Well, on the plus side, I found myself enjoying this story for the most part. I know, I'm surprised too! The middle of this comic was actually pretty good, with Bruce investigating the death of his mother and interacting with her family. Of course it all went to hell in a hand basket when Marsha is revealed to be a secret satanist, who was intent on destroying Martha's reputation(which doesn't make much sense since Martha was, you know, dead...), and then to top it all off, Robo-Bruce emerged from the transporter. What I wonder is how the hell Grant was able to explain this storyline to the editors at DC. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall as he was going over this mini-series... At least then maybe I might have been able to figure out what this whole sad ordeal was supposed to mean. God do I need some crib notes to help me figure out what the hell is going on here...

Score: 5 1/2 out of 10."In the name of the first red rock and the rage, and the angels and dukes of the dark side inferno pits." Did Grant mean for those words to come out together or did he just pick a bunch of random words out of a dictionary and type them out?!

The Return of Bruce Wayne #4(of 6)

Overall: We are now in the 1800's, and Bruce Wayne has taken on the role of vengeance seeking cowboy, hunting down some men who murdered a family and kidnapped a girl in order to get their hands on that bat-adorned casket that's all the rage in Grant Morrison's Bat-books nowadays. It seems that Vandal Savage wants to unlock the secrets of the bat-casket, but is being hounded by Cowboy Bruce. To deal with Cowboy Bruce, Savage hires Jonah Hex and tells him to eliminate Cowboy Bruce. Cowboy Bruce(now somehow equipped with tons of batarangs)moseys into Savage's town(naturally Gotham City)and begins to take out all of Savage's men. Savage tasks Thomas Wayne with getting answers out of the girl(who is being driven mad by Thomas' drugs)as to how to open the bat-casket, while telling Hex to keep an eye out for Cowboy Bruce. Eventually, Cowboy Bruce has taken care of most of Savage's men(with his limitless supply of batarangs)so Savage and Thomas grab the girl, along with the bat-casket, and decide to leave town. Cowboy Bruce tracks them down and knocks them out of their wagon, freeing the girl(as well as somehow curing her bout of madness). Thomas decides to shoot Cowboy Bruce, but Savage inexplicably hits Thomas from behind because... well I have no idea why. I guess he just felt like it. By this point Hex arrives on the scene and even though he sees that Cowboy Bruce was the good guy here, shoots him, sending him into a nearby pool of water. With that, the girl with the bat-casket leaves with another member of the Wayne family, they get married and build Wayne Manor, hiding the Bat-casket inside. As for Bruce, he wakes up closer to modern times but passes out due to the gunshot wound.

Wow... This was one of the most confusing things I have EVER read. Crazy Grant has really out-done himself here. I just don't know where to begins. First off, why are half the men in the Wayne family named Thomas? Is that deliberately being done to leave me confused, or are they all the same guy? Is Grant trying to say that Thomas Wayne has been alive for centuries, and that he's the leader of the Black Glove? Or is Thomas the only name they can think of in the Wayne family? Besides that, the story was abysmal(Why did Savage knock out his own man? Who were all of the Wayne's running around town? And finally, why was Cowboy Bruce a mute here?!?), the dialogue was horrendous, and the story was abysmal. What, the story was so bad I felt it needed to be mentioned twice. On the plus side the artwork was nice. So I guess it wasn't all bad. Oh, and we find out that the only way to open the bat-casket is by whistling at it. That leads me to my final question, what is Grant Morrison's obsession with whistling?! That's two straight issues of this series where whistling played a major role. And let's not forget about Superman whistling at Darkseid to kill him... Weird.

Score: 2 1/2 out of 10.And Grant's obsession with whistling continues...

The Return of Bruce Wayne #3(of 6)

Overall: We begin this trip into the Twilight Zone with Bruce Wayne waking up next to Blackbeard the pirate in the year 1718. Yes, THAT Blackbeard the pirate. Blackbeard seems to believe that Bruce is actually a pirate enemy of his called the Black Pirate(jeez, I guess when you're a pirate you'd just add the word “black” to something and you'd get your nickname!). At first Bruce denies being the Black Pirate, but after Blackbeard begins to threaten someone else Blackbeard's pirates had captured, Bruce plays along and tells Blackbeard he'd take him to the Black Pirate's secret gold stash provided Blackbeard leaves the captive unharmed. So Bruce leads Blackbeard and company through some caves in old Gotham, passes a bunch of traps, and runs into the... *sigh* Bat-People... The Bat-People hang upside down from the cave roof and shoot bat-shaped arrows at people... Is this really happening? Anyway, it turns out Blackbeard's captive was the real Black Pirate and for some unexplained reason the Bat-People like him, so the Bat-People chase off Blackbeard and his men. The Bat-People can also recognize Bruce as their... Savior? Friend? Fellow Bat-guy? Well I don't know WHAT they recognize him as, but they allow him access to their top secret cave room where Bruce finds his old cape from when he was first thrown through time by Darkseid. In the end, Bruce gets tossed forward in time again, and this issue comes to an end.

Wow, I really don't know what else to say except that this was horrible. Yeah, I'm sure there are going to be plenty of folks(namely the hardcore Grant Morrison fanatics)out there who are going to disagree with me, but this comic was bad. Really bad. I have NO idea what was going on through half of the story, and the stuff that I did understand was boring. The Bat-People? A bunch of cave-dwellers who hang upside down under Gotham and worship an old Batman cape and cowl?? And the dialogue! UGH!! You know, I rag on Brian Michael Bendis for his dialogue, but Grant Morrison is giving Bendis a run for his bad dialogue money! No, scratch that, I'd go so far as to say that right now Morrison's dialogue is WAY worse than Bendis'. The good thing is that I'll never have to read this comic again. The bad thing is that I still have to read issues 4 and 5...

Score: 3 1/2 out of 10.What is with Grant Morrison and whistling???

The Best of the Rest!!! June 12th edition.

It's Saturday, which means it it's time for me to give my uninformed, overly sarcastic and at times offensive opinions on comic books and their creators, that's right, it's time for a new installment of The Best of the Rest! A quick word to the wise, if you have no sense of humor, or are easily offended by the opinions of other people, you should probably skip this post... Still here? Good! I fully intend on doing pseudo-reviews for four comics tonight, although I may do more then four. What do I know, I'm typing up this intro before I start the reviews, so who knows, maybe I'll be SO bored today I'll end up with a humongous BotR... Or maybe not. What can I say, I'm a man of intrigue and mystery! Um, I guess I might as well get started...

Brightest Day #2: Ugh, what a way to start... I'm tempted to just say, “A whole bunch of unrelated stuff happened and then this comic ended”, but I'll put a little(a VERY little)bit more effort into things... Firestorm explodes for some reason, and of course the Atom was present, because little GEOFFY would have cried if one of his favorites didn't appear in this comic right off the bat... A White Martian(or at least what I THINK was a White Martian...)bitches about the Martian Manhunter being alive again, and the Hawks continue to be uninteresting. The Martian Manhunter messes with an old woman's head because he can, and Deadman continues to be yanked around by his White ring, because that hasn't gotten REALLY old by now. And for whatever reason, this issue ends with Deadman being confronted by the Anti-Monitor. To it all, I say a very hearty, WHATEVER! All I want is a cohesive storyline, not a bunch of(for the most part)uninteresting dangling plot threads. On the plus side though, SAINT Barry didn't show up, so at least there's that... Score: 6 out of 10.But where's SAINT Barry!?!

Age of Heroes #1: I guess I really felt like wasting $4 last time I placed a comic order, because I'm not sure why else I'd have brought this comic. We have four stories in this comic, one starring he of the Hitler mustache, J. Jonah Jameson, a story on the love-life of Doctor Brother Voodoo(worst name EVER!), a little snippet(yes, a snippet!)where Capt. Rogers tries to steal Capt. Britain from the MI:13, and a one page Spider-Man story... That's right, a ONE page Spider-Man story! How weird is that?! Did Marvel put together this comic and realize they had a floating page, and decide to toss in a ONE page Spidey story?! Weird... Each story seemed to be worse then the one before it, with the Jameson story being the strongest one of the bunch... I do have to say though, I just can't buy Jameson as the Mayor of NYC... The guy has a Hitler mustache for crying out loud!!! What self-respecting New Yorker could possibly pull the voting lever for a guy who's wearing Hitler's mustache!?! Sure Rudy had that awful comb over, but still! I don't know, maybe it's just me... Score: 5 out of 10.Who knew one day Hitler would be elected mayor of NYC!

The Return of Bruce Wayne #2: Oh man, it just keeps getting worse! I must have really displeased the Comic Gods today, 'cause they're tossing a bunch of really bad comics my way! I'm not even going to try to do any kind of proper review for this comic, because I honestly don't think I'd be able to... I'm just going to hit on the main points(or the main points that I could understand...)and then complain about this series, Grant Morrison and DC until I get bored and feel like moving on. So Bruce Wayne is slowly traveling back to the 21st century because Darkseid infected him with some sort of catastrophic doomsday weapon(sort of like a REAL bad STD)that's going to kill EVERYBODY if Bruce returns to the present, I guess because Darkseid knew he'd lose in the end... Huh, so among all of Darkseid's other faults, I guess he has some very low self-esteem. Annnd that's about all I got out of this comic... Yeah, it was THAT bad... Let's just pretend this comic never happened and move on... Score: 1 1/2 out of 10. Why a 1 1/2? I don't know, why not. I don't think I've ever given out a 1 1/2 before, so at least I can check that off my list of blog accomplishments.I once had a nightmare that looked and sounded like this... I woke up crying, and slept with the lights on for a month...

Gotham City Sirens #12: Man, sometimes it's really tough to do this job... I mean just look at the last three pseudo-reviews! Those were some BRUTAL comics! If things don't pick up here, I quit! Okay, with that empty threat out of the way, let's see what's up with GCS this month. Catwoman has suddenly decided to find her crazy sister(better late then never, right?), and has attacked a priest to steal some files about her sister... You know, it's ONE thing to steal from a church, but it's another to attack a priest while doing it. That's probably not the smartest of moves... Anywho, Catwoman finds the file she was looking for, and is joined by Harley Quinn, who is just sort of there for some reason... I guess she was bored or something. Meanwhile, Poison Ivy breaks out of the plant deathtrap she was snared in last issue and decides to give the woman who was going to kill her a job, because... well, I really don't know why. Maybe Ivy's brain-damaged after being stuck in the big plant dehydrator thing. Selina's crazy sister attacks and kills an exorcist and takes all of the dead exorcist's weapons so she can exorcise Catwoman. While going through the dead exorcist woman' stuff, she gets possessed by a crazy angel, and the two decide to do crazy things like hunt Catwoman down. So Catwoman's crazy sister(now possessed by a crazy angel)sets up a meeting with Catwoman at a crazy cemetery(what? I've got a theme going on here!), which leads to Catwoman's crazy sister hitting Harley Quinn in her crazy head, ending this crazy issue. Hmm, I think I may have gone a tad overboard with the word “crazy” here... Oh well, what's done is done! Score: 9 out of 10.What's scarier then a nun with a sword? A FLYING nun with a sword!!!

RED ROBIN #13!: Yes, obviously from the fully capitalized title, I'm pretty excited to FINALLY be able to read an issue of Red Robin. Since the first 12 issues were written by a writer who is SO terrible I won't even bother typing his name(yeah, I REALLY don't like him), I refused to read 'em. Now that Fabian Nicieza has taken up the writing chores, Red Robin is finally on my monthly pull list. Huzzah! Needless to say, this was a set-up issue, and since this isn't a real review, and is instead only a PSEUDO-review, I'm not going to bother getting too in-depth with stuff here. Basically Tim is working out of Gotham and living with Dick, Alfred and the tyke from hell, Damian. Tim decides to take down the head of the Golden Dragons gang, Lynx, and does just that, although Lynx claims to be an undercover cop from Hong Kong after Tim busts her. Oops! Tim hands her over to the fuzz regardless, but is a bit conflicted about whether or not he did the right thing. Huh, Tim was giving off a really strong Spider-Man vibe here... DC would be really smart to play that up, but I'm sure they won't... Score: 8 out of 10.I figured posting a pic of Tim Drake in the shower would get me more followers. Sure they'll all be women or gay men, but beggers can't be choosers! And so a hearty welcome to my new followers!!! :P

Green Blogger Corps #1: Before you check out this review, you should DEFINITELY read the first issue of the GBC here. Why not read it, it's free!!! Okay, now to the review... This was one of the better first issues I've read in quite some time! We get to meet the main characters AND get a pretty sweet battle scene. If only certain OTHER writers knew how to put a comic together like this... *coughMORRISONReturnofBruceWaynecough* Anywho, we meet JT Jordon of the Green Blogger Corps, as well as several of his fellow GBC members, including the intelligent Falisha Ferris, the gruff Nagash Gardner, the artistic Marc Rayner, and the gruff Kellowog... Wait, I already used “gruff” didn't I... Um, and the surly Kellowog(there, that's better!). Sure, all of these characters were great in their own way, but none of them compared to the AWESOME Sinestr-X. Sinestr-X WAS the star of this comic for me, hands down. Every scene he was in was pure magic, and when he wasn't around, I found myself wondering(oftentimes aloud), “Where's Sinestr-X?!?” He was THAT good! I'm definitely looking forward to the next issue of this series, and as long as Sinestr-X is tearing stuff up, I know I'll be happy! :D Score: 10! out of 10.But where's Sinestr-X?!?

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1(of 6)

Oooookay... Tonight's going to be an interesting pair of reviews... One comic I thoroughly enjoyed, while the other one is probably in the running for worst comic of the year thus far. Well there's no sense delaying the inevitable any further, let's get this over with...

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1: Writer: Grant Morrison... Pencils: Chris Sprouse.

Review: This issue starts off with a bunch of cavemen checking out a crashed spacecraft. Being a spacecraft, the cavemen believe it to be holy, so they mill about and babble in a manner that I won't even try to explain. Eventually, Bruce Wayne emerges from a nearby cave and talks gibberish to the cavemen... Yes, gibberish. Crazy Bruce wanders over to the spacecraft and opens it up, removing a bat-symbol(which promptly disintegrates), and Superman's cape(???)... The cavemen bury the dead old caveman that Bruce was apparently living in the cave with, and then Bruce and the cavemen decide to sit down to have a meal... Is this really happening? Vandal Savage and his band of EVIL cavemen attack Bruce and his cave-buddies and Bruce proceeds to save the youngest of the cavemen. After watching from the shadows as the good cavemen were being routed, Bruce springs into action and eventually gets beat down by Savage's EVIL cavemen. Savage figures that Bruce is a god, and as such he wants to eat him, so he has his men tie Bruce down for the night, because I guess he wasn't hungry at the time. During the night, a giant bat visits Bruce, because... well I really don't know why, but it does. The young caveman that Bruce had saved earlier arrives on the scene, dressed kind of like a Robin(if Robin was a caveman)and cuts Bruce free. The next day, Savage wakes up ready to eat Bruce's brain or heart, he's not very specific on which, and is infuriated to discover that Bruce had escaped. Bruce arrives on the scene, wearing the remains of a giant bat, and uses the contents of his utility belt to confound Savage's men, until he ultimately defeats Savage in battle. Savage's EVIL cavemen are none too pleased by this turn of events, and as such begin to launch a barrage of arrows at Bruce and caveboy Robin. The two leap from a high cliff and land in the water below, and when caveboy Robin arrives from the murky waters, he discovers that Bruce was gone. A little later on, Savage's group pf EVIL cavemen toss Savage out of their tribe, just as a time bubble arrives. Superman, Green Lantern and Booster Gold emerge from the bubble and Supes realizes that they were too late and that Bruce had once again moved through the timestream. Then he ominously states that if Bruce returns to the present, everyone will die!!! For some reason... As for Bruce, he emerges from a pool of water now further along in the future(and not speaking in gibberish anymore for some reason)where he discovers a huge sea monster about to attack a woman... Oh, and for some reason, Bruce has a big sword now... And yes, that ends this one.

What I Thought: What can I really say here? This was horrible. I'd have easily scored this comic a 0 out of 10, but at least the artwork was okay. Cavemen, Bruce speaking gibberish, giant bats, what the bloody hell was Grant thinking here?!? This was nearly epically bad. There's a part of me that's actually looking forward to the second issue just to see how much worse this can get. If this first issue was any indication, this mini-series has the chance to be one of the worst things I have EVER read, so I guess that's something to look forward to, right?

Score: 1 1/2 out of 10.What can I POSSIBLY add to this scene?!