Seven plus years in the making, this is how Grant Morrison’s Batman ends.  Gotham is on the brink of explosion.  Damian is dead.  Batman is wanted by the GCPD.  How will he get out of this one?

The influences of the recent film trilogy are evident here, and clearly intentional.  Like the movie, a long, brooding story ends with a huge knock-down-drag-out full of explosions and mayhem.  Hell, the final word in the comic book is “Rise!”

Morrison has said how much he admires Christopher Nolan’s films but, more importantly, he appears to be connecting on an artistic level.  Like them or hate them, there is no denying that Nolan’s films have a broad theme and a progressive character arc that logically takes Batman from inception to retirement.  So, too, does Morrison’s comic book epic.

And now that Nolan is done, someone else will reboot Batman and start all over–as if Nolan’s films never existed.  And so, too, is Scott Snyder erasing not only Morrison’s work but Frank Miller’s seminal, career-defining work on Batman: Year One.

Perhaps one of the saddest things about this last issue is the effect on Batman, Incorporated.  It was announced at the end of a triumphant, shattering run of Batman and Robin in which Morrison replaced Bruce with Dick and Dick with Damian, and made the DCU a better place for it.  Not so, Batman, Inc.  Unlike Damian Wayne and Dick Grayson’s Batman, who appeared all over the DCU, I don’t think any other DC comics even mentioned Batman, Inc.  Yeah, there’s that Batwing book but nobody’s reading it and it doesn’t tie in with anything.  So in this final issue of the series, Morrison has Bruce Wayne “quit” (for about a page) as Batman and fold his international organization after being told by Kathy “Batwoman” Kane to butt out of international affairs and stay in his Gotham City foxhole.  I can’t say with surety, but I’d bet anything that this is a reflection of Morrison’s view of the New 52.  He had a grand vision to transform Batman for the 21^st Century into DC’s true flagship character.  The Nolan films only encouraged that plan.  And then Geoff Johns and his ilk decided to destroy everything, and suddenly there was no room for the gradual, decompressed character change Morrison had been engaging in for seven years.  Instead, he was forced to turn the character over to fit Scott Snyder’s grossly inferior vision. 

It’s as if Morrison recognizes that no matter how well he writes, or how brilliantly he develops Batman, as soon as he’s done Bruce Wayne will be back in the cowl matching wits with the same old villains.

But Morrison doesn’t appear to be bitter about it.  He makes lots of connections to what Snyder is doing.  He’s more matter-of-fact, almost Zen about it.  Enlightened.  Just like his hero, who proceeded through the steps of the Goat Herder to recognize and accept his own place in the world.

There are many who will dislike this issue for not having enough of an ending, or for not including Batman’s greatest foe, The Joker.  But all of Batman, Inc. volume 2 has been about the Ouroboros–a snake eating it’s own tail.  A circle that consumes itself.  Morrison makes the circular nature of his story clear in many ways: Both the first and last issues of Batman Inc. volume 2 show James Gordon arresting Bruce Wayne (although there are some continuity errors—Bruce is completely beat up in #13, but not #1).  The first arc involved mutated versions of man bats and Batmen, as does this last issue.  In this regard, having the book end with more of a whimper–and a promise of more of the same to come–makes complete sense.  By showing us empty graves, Morrison forces us to acknowledge that Talia and Damian will be back, even though we’ve not had any time to accept their deaths.

A final word, about the “hole in things” that Dr. Hurt mentioned in his first appearance, in which he said that by being a bad guy, he was the hole that could never be filled: There will always be villains.  The words rang through Batman’s head during his journey through time, such that it started to seem as if Bruce Wayne was the hole in things: The hero, not the villain, was the one that could never fit.  But then he traveled through time and insinuated himself everywhere.  Therefore, in this last issue, we do believe there always has been, and always be, a Batman.  But there will always be villains, too.  The empty graves are both Damian and his mother: The hero who gave his live to save Gotham, and the villain who killed her son(s) trying to destroy it.

And so Morrison says goodbye to Batman and, soon, to DC Comics and all superheroics.  At least for a while.

Will DC be recycling Talia and Damian soon?  Sure.  I’d bet within the next 12 months.  But one thing is clear: Morrison won’t be.  He’s done.

It’s well known that Grant Morrison loved Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy, and this final arc seems heavily influenced by the films.  It’s a huge knock-down drag-out, in which Talia destroys Wayne Tower (in a very thinly veiled 9-11 reference), and (somehow) figures out where the Batcave is and shows up for a final showdown—to occur in #13.

Set aside the fact that #11 is pure filler and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on the main story.  No, scratch that.  Don’t.  The deadline problems that have plagued this title have indeed made it difficult to keep up the pace, particularly because these final issues all take place on the same night.

Wonderful tribute to one of the best movies ever, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.  Followed by this tragic panel of Damian dead.

Note: This time, he saved the girl.   Remember in Batman and Robin, Damian failed to save a girl from having the Dollytron mask grafted to her face, which led her to become an evil “Robin” to Jason Todd’s evil “Batman.”  All of these characters are being redeemed through this arc.

The death-panel is also a mirror of the panel where Damian wasn’t dead, in Batman Inc. #1, as well as many, many death panels throughout Morrison’s run.

In these issues, Batman follows a variation of the Buddhist path to enlightenment known as the Ten Bulls.  As a Buddhist myself (but not a Zen one), I found this a particularly interesting arc.  The Ten Bulls are a series of illustrations and poems, which proceed sequentially through a goatherder’s journey.  The first stage is the search for the bull…

…Morrison inserts Damian’s discovery of the cat he calls Alfie (who appears throughout the 666-timeline), and also has shots of Batcow as well–in case you missed the analogy.  The next stages of the path involve finding footprints, seeing the ass of the bull, and catching it.  Through the comic, Batman proceeds through the wreckage of a Leviathan headquarters, doing what the goatherder does in the parable.  When he finally tames the goat–”a test of touch”–we see Damian doing the same.  And there’s another brilliant connection there when Alfred offers to cover for Damian, who has been ordered to stay out of the battle.  Alfred offers to lie and say Damian overpowered him to steal the costume–which Damian actually did way back in Batman and Son.  Damian has tamed Alfred, or at least wooed him.  Or maybe it’s Damian who has become domesticated?

Ultimately, Batman reaches the top of the building, and proceeds to the final frame, in which he is supposed to return to society, Talia’s other, bigger son (known as The Heretic) catches Batman and hurls him off the top of the building.  Batman falls, just like Gordon fell in the opening frame of Batman and Son, where all of this began.

But through it all, Batman refused to make the Sophie’s Choice offered by Talia in the beginning: Give up Damian or give up Gotham.

And so the final battle begins, to stop Talia from exploding the Oroboros bomb in Gotham City.

Most of these two issues is a slam-bang battle wonderfully illustrated by Chris Burnham, who by this time has surpassed Frank Quietly as the Greatest Grant Morrison Muse of all time.  (And their styles are pretty familiar, too.)

But we also start to see how demented Talia has become.

Like Batman in “Batman and Son,” Talia has become her mask.  She does not exist if she is not Leviathan.  And Leviathan has become more important than her family.  It’s actually brilliant: Batman’s character arc over these 10 years of comics has been to embrace family and to see the Batman mask as something that can be worn by many people who are pure of heart and full of justice.  Talia started the arc as the doting mother who only wanted to be with Batman, but ends the arc a murderous beast whose sole purpose is to destroy her own offspring, as well as their father and the city that represents his soul.  The Bible quotes are from the Book of Job.  I’m not a religious guy, so someone else can do that analysis.

Issue #5 takes us back to future Damian, one last time.  We see that in this future, Dr. Hurt sits at the right hand of the President of the United States, and gets him to launch a nuclear strike on Gotham.  The message is clear: If Damian is alive in the future, then evil does in fact win.  Batman knows this because he saw the future (during the Return of Bruce Wayne) and so, once again, Morrison tells us that he plans to kill Damian.