Batman #681: Batman R.I.P. Conclusion.

For the record, I haven't read any of the past Batman R.I.P. comics, so I can't claim to be an expert on what I am about to read. With that said, on with the review.

Overall- I am actually a fan of most of Grant Morrison's work. I liked his work on (New)X-Men, although I am at odds with alot of my fellow X-fans over this, as many X-fans hated Grant's interpretation of the X-Universe. I also LOVED his mini-series, "Marvel Boy", which he penned for Marvel a few years ago. However, with that being said, even after stating that I am a fan of Grant Morrison, I have to admit that alot of the time I have absolutely, positively no earthly idea what the flaming hell he is writing about! This comic book was definitely one of those times. I don't even know if I can possibly recap what I just read, because I'm not sure what the f### was going on in this comic! Now, this is probably my fault, thanks to the fact that I didn't read any of the Batman comics leading up to this final chapter in the Batman R.I.P. crossover. But Grant sure didn't help, as he was his regular confusing self in this comic. I'm probably going to do a lousy job reviewing this book, but I'll give it the old college try anyway.

Batman is buried alive by members of the Black Glove, thanks to some help from the Joker. Joker figures that Batman will escape the grave, reasoning that he always does, and decides to leave. Well, that's the most sane thing I've ever seen Joker do! Joker tries to leave in an ambulance, but as he is trying to cross a bridge, he is hit head on by Damien Wayne, who was driving one of his father's Batmobiles. The crash sends Joker and the ambulance careening off the bridge and into the waters below.

The Black Glove is led by some nutcase named Doctor Hurt, and counts Jezebel Jet as one of its members. Batman ultimately does escape his grave and attacks the Glove and their cronies. Batman chases down Doctor Hurt, who claims to be Bruce Wayne's father(?), but Batman disproves this, by stating that Hurt was actually his father's double, whatever the hell that means, and Hurt tears the cape and cowl off of Batman before attempting to escape in a helicopter. The unmasked Batman lunges at the copter and catches it, causing it to begin a tail spin. Batman then punches in the window of the copter, causing it to crash in a fiery explosion into the Gotham harbor.

Robin and Nightwing arrive on the scene of the crash, but all Nightwing can find is Batman's discarded cape and cowl. Talia Al Ghul also arrives on the scene with her Manbat ninja's and tells them to get retribution on Jezebel Jet, who escaped onto an airplane. When we see Jet next, her airplane is being attacked by a swarm of Manbats. We don't actually see what fate befalls Jezebel though. The comic ends 6 months later with some criminal about to torture a member of the Gotham police force to death. Before he can act though, a familiar bat signal illuminates the room the criminal is keeping the cop in. Is this Bruce Wayne, or someone else altogether? That will be the question posed in the Bat-books over the next several months.

Much like I said earlier, I was pretty lost for most of this comic. I'll probably try to get my hands on the last couple of issues of this series(if that is even possible, since these comics have been selling like hotcakes!)to see what exactly I missed leading up to this comic book.

There were some things with Robin and Nightwing in this comic book that happened, but I neglected to mention them, because I couldn't figure out what was going on in those scenes. They didn't seem connected to the main storyline, so I figure I could get away with excluding them from my review. Other then that, my main feeling after reading this comic was one of utter confusion, but to be honest, I really did expect to be horribly confused while I read this comic book. No matter how much I enjoyed Grant Morrison's work in the Marvel Universe, he is not a very accessible writer when it comes to new readers to his work. For a score, I'll have to go with a 4 1/2 out of 10. I guess this comic will have huge ramifications throughout the DC Universe, but I think I missed way too much to fully grasp what was going on here... My loss I guess.