Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Batman #683
DC Comics
Morrison, Garbett & Scott

Last Rites wraps up as does my love-hate relationship with this title since RIP began. This issue is far more satisfying if you are looking for connections to the ending of RIP than the last issue. However, it really doesn’t wrap much up as you need to find out what really happens to Batman in Final Crisis #6. In the end, this story is good, but it wont blow your mind as anything more than a fill-in-the-blank (somewhat) of how Batman could possibly take part in Final Crisis after he seemed to have died in his own title at the end of RIP.

The issue begins with more images from Batman’s past, but the scene quickly shifts to a Bruce Wayne, who is not nor has ever been Batman, talking with Alfred. This Bruce Wayne, while working as a doctor, is robbed by the Catwoman and then tries to find his dog in a well only to discover a body of a circus boy who was killed some time before. The obvious connection is this was the fate of Dick Grayson at the hands of the Joker. The non-Batman Bruce Wayne’s discovery of the body triggers the real Batman into action.

You see, the real Batman is actually sedated and being fed false memories so that his real memories can be siphoned out of his head to be implanted in a clone army. When the unconscious Batman sees these false images that he doesn’t quite agree with he fights back in the mind. When he fights back his handlers switch gears and play with actual memories. It’s a brilliant idea. This would have been cool to see in RIP, but whatever.

Unconscious Batman then watches his mistakes play out again with regard to Jason Todd and his eventual death. He also watches the Joker shoot Barbara Gordon. Finally, the dream sequence Batman confronts Alfred about a statement Alfred made that the real Alfred couldn’t know about. Batman is onto the game and is snuffing it out. Then, out rolls the Knightfall saga memories and this angers unconscious Batman more.

Finally, the unconscious Batman makes a deal with the “lump” or the thing talking inside his head and figures out a way for Batman to escape. His final memories seem to lead the timeline up to the events right after RIP. I guess Batman didn’t die in the helicopter explosion – go figure.

It’s a great issue except for the problem that readers not following Final Crisis (like me) are really left in the dark. I mean, we follow an arc called “RIP” and then an arc called “Last Rites” and we are told to buy Final Crisis #6 to see how it ends. Say what? That’s a bunch of crap. It’s really bait-and-switch and I’m fairly mad about it I might add.

Some of the nuggets in here that I really liked include when Batman talks about Doctor Hurt and all the damage he’d done. Batman was most upset that Hurt was wearing his father’s bat costume when he crashed to the bottom of Gotham River. It’s just brilliant storytelling to capture all that is Batman in a line like that. I also loved how Batman figured out his brain was being invaded. This issue was very, very good.

The artwork had some high points. One piece of the art or its direction that I particularly liked was the page layout with Alfred, Batman, the lump and his handlers. It’s two pages with 42 panels. Some of the panels form one picture while others give close-ups with only portions of the character’s faces. I found these two pages to be very striking and really made the comic more of a story than in its text. I also liked the big page of bats when the non-Batman Bruce Wayne finds Dick’s corpse.

As I said, this issue really made things tie up nicely. I would guess if you are reading Final Crisis you might find this kind of useless, expecting Final Crisis to provide the real bang. For me, this story helped bring RIP to a satisfactory conclusion. I haven’t got a clue how this tale is supposed to be told from Alfred’s standpoint, but it is a good read for those that followed RIP. I guess he really did survive RIP.

4 out of 5 geek goggles