Hold onto your grocery carts full of junk, it’s gonna be a wild ride.

We named it one of the most controversial comics of 2008. It’s only fitting that we explore why.

Batman: RIP Deluxe
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artists: Tony Daniel and Sandu Florea
Covers: Alex Ross

Summary: Legendary writer Grant Morrison concocts an unthinkable plot: The death of The Dark Knight! Collecting BATMAN #676-683 in an oversized Deluxe Edition, this volume features artwork by Tony Daniel. While Bruce Wayne drops out of sight, The Club of Villains begins a crime spree through the streets of Gotham City, while Batman’s allies attempt to keep order in the city and find The Dark Knight.

Review: Wow, where the hell do I begin with this? DC was nice enough to provide us with a copy of the Deluxe edition of BATMAN: RIP, and I’m glad they did. “RIP” reads better in trade format, so those of you who decided to wait until the hardcover came out won’t be nearly as frustrated as the rest of us were. (Lucky bastards.) The story was incredibly aggravating to read issue-by-issue, and to fans’ dismay, it constantly felt like Grant Morrison was treating the crossover like a side project. There was no overall flow, and even within issues it felt choppy and lacked tangible connections. Waiting for chunks of the storyline each month might have been torture, but now that we can read “RIP” in its entirety, is there any improvement?

Surprisingly, yes.  Well, okay, sort of. BATMAN: RIP is not a complete failure. In fact, it possesses some good attributes in the crazy mix of bad ones. There was a lot of confusion during “RIP” that was experienced all-around. However, a sense of clarity is available now that, in retrospect, seems to only come with an all-at-once story feed and probably the advantage of a second read-through. Still, that doesn’t explain why everyone was so annoyed during the DC event. But the problems do exist, and they lie within the construction. Let’s take a look at what works and doesn’t work in “RIP.” For those who want the short version, skip down below to the Bottom Line.

(Warning: spoilers!)

The beginning of “RIP” (”Midnight in the House of Hurt,” BATMAN #676) boasts the power of the Black Glove and its leader, Doctor Hurt (gee, clever name). Batman has recently learned that the criminal organization not only wants him dead, they intend to destroy everything he is and anything that holds meaning to him. Morrison sets up a lot of foreshadowing in this issue, and the fact that the Black Glove can manipulate records to erase any indication that Club of Villains member Le Bossu (meaning “the Hunchback”) killed the man outside their headquarters provides hints about something that stirs up considerable controversy. The Gotham Gazette wants to publish a story that will basically ruin whatever is left of the Wayne family name. Those of you who have read this part of “RIP” know just how vicious the evidence is; really, the so-called evidence is nothing more than scandalous lies cooked up by the Black Glove.

One of the main themes that runs through the story is whether or not someone who does everything to guard against every imaginable enemy attack and ploy could, in turn, become his own worst enemy. Bruce underwent a meditative experience in Nanda Parbat called the Thogal ritual; he remained in a dark cave for forty-nine days in the hope of gaining insight into what makes insane villains like the Joker tick. “RIP” initiates what spirals into a shared belief that the Bat has left the cave … err, the cave being his mind. “RIP” contains lots of imagery (repeated focuses on one of Batman’s black gloves, for example) and suggestions that Bruce is the story’s real Black Glove—the ultimate enemy that leads him to his own destruction. Morrison generates some very creative ideas that build upon years of working out Batman’s nature and character through comics. Honestly, there’s good evidence that supports that Bruce might be more than a little nuts. But the other side of the coin—sorry, this has nothing to do with you, Two-Face—persuades us that he might be on to something.

Early on, we see some random homeless guy, who tells the Dark Knight that he has a “very kind face.” Introducing Honor Jackson, who later becomes Bruce’s hallucinogenic best friend and closest drug addict buddy. The Black Glove—thanks to the trigger word “Zur-En-Arrh” that was planted in Bruce’s brain during his participation in a so-called government experiment led by none other than Doctor Hurt—manages to infiltrate the Batcave and incapacitate Bruce via the trigger word, kidnap his girlfriend Jezebel Jet, and ruthlessly beat Alfred. (Seriously? Just leave poor Alfred alone! It’s no wonder he just strokes out in Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns … albeit only after his master “dies”). They pump Bruce up with weaponized forms of drugs like heroin and crystal meth and throw him out onto the streets, where he befriends Honor. He gives Bruce everything he’ll need for his new “technicolor raincoat,” as Harvey Dent calls it in one of the tie-ins (okay, had to bring you in somehow, Two-Face). “Honor” leads Bruce to Crime Alley, where he learns from a drug dealer that the real Honor killed himself the day before.

At the end of the third issue, Bruce adopts the role of the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh (dubbed “Batman Z.” for the rest of this review), a hallucination world from a ’70s BATMAN comic where there were two Batmans (the other named Tiano) and Earth’s Batman had superpowers. Things really start to get crazy by issue four, “Miracle on Crime Alley.” Batman Z. carries around a cheap, broken radio that he calls the Bat-Radia, talks to gargoyles that inform him of the city’s “grids,” and is followed around by Bat-Mite, an “alien hyper-imp from the fifth dimension” from comics past. It’s almost too much when Bat-Mite suggests that Batman Z. quickly locate a tracking device that the Black Glove hid on him—that is, until there actually is one. Sick of playing games, Batman Z. attacks Club member Charlie Caligula (a Joker wannabe), who leads him to the site of the “final act” of the Black Glove’s danse macabre (”dance of death”) plans: Arkham Asylum, where Nightwing is being held captive and has been moved to the top of the lobotomy list by neurosurgeon Dr. Guy Dax—otherwise known as Le Bossu.

In “The Thin White Duke of Death,” Batman enters the Asylum and faces the Joker, who has been indirectly cluing Batman in on the whole game from the beginning. So what’s the “big reveal”? Jezebel Jet—betrayed repeatedly through the book by red and black color patterns—is a part of the Black Glove. “Hearts in Darkness,” the final issue in the arc, lets us know that Batman has been playing everyone from the start. He already figured out that Jet is against him, and the “Bat-Radia” really is nothing more than a broken radio … that Bruce rigged so he could override Arkham’s security and lock the Black Glove and the Club of Villains in Arkham, right where he wanted them. Batman wasn’t the only one manipulating behind the scenes, though. The Joker stops playing by the Black Glove’s rules, basically only waiting around to watch them get screwed over by Batman before he makes his escape—but he receives the short end of the stick when he’s hit by the Batmobile, driven by Batman and Talia Al Ghul’s reckless and spoiled son, Damian. Err, yeah. (It was kind of funny, actually.)

The story only becomes more and more ridiculous as it progresses. Doctor Hurt, so obviously not Thomas Wayne—seriously, that dude’s not fooling anybody, although he likes to think he is—almost manages to escape after what he hoped would be a dramatic, badass exit. Uh, yeah. Batman crashes his helicopter into the Gotham River, but he takes the dive with them. As a result, Batman is presumed dead, and the last panel of the comic shows Nightwing, his brain thankfully still intact, holding Batman’s cape and cowl.

What’s worse about the fate of the villains—besides how pathetic most of them turn out to be—is how easily Bruce kicks Jezebel’s ass. He pretty much takes care of her in the span of three pages. One of the significant problems of “RIP” is how predictable it is—when you’re not counting the general insanity, of course. Not only is the writing choppy—the main reason the story was so difficult to follow over the months—but by the time Jezebel slides into her villainous role, nobody cares. Bruce Wayne’s girlfriends turning out very different from what meets the eyes is nothing surprising; it’s even less of a “revelation” that Bruce ends up with his heart broken … again. Plus, Doctor Dax is clearly Le Bossu, so his dramatic transformation near the end of “RIP” wasn’t opening any eyes.

More frustrating, perhaps, is what Grant Morrison was endeavoring to accomplish in the first place. According to the flackback in the concluding issue (BATMAN #681), Batman Z. was deliberately created by Bruce in case something happened to overload the Bat-computer that is his detective brain. Now, Batman wonders whether in his attempt to understand evil, he became it—and saw the Devil waiting for him “with fear in his eyes.” Uh, what? No, that’s just the Black Glove spewing garbage. I thought the whole point was to prove that you can take Bruce Wayne’s memories, money, and hop him up on hard drugs—but he’ll still be Batman, and he’ll still do good and kick you in your fancy rich-and-bored pants. Batman is more rooted in his bones than playboy Bruce Wayne is, and as Bat-Mite says, “it doesn’t pay to underestimate Batman.” You’re making less sense than the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh, Morrison. It doesn’t help that you show him running around Gotham wielding a bat and hatefully beating henchmen like Caligula with it. Really? You don’t need to resort to lame puns to communicate your point that Batman Z. emerges when you take Bruce out of the equation.

We’re not even going to touch the assortment of unnecessary inclusions—like the overly “impressive” return of the Club of Heroes, Nightwing’s foamy stay in Arkham Asylum, and Gordon’s random and useless trip to Bruce’s mansion. Err, Morrison, if Gordon and everybody else can’t connect the dots with how obvious you’ve made it that Batman is Bruce … yeah, I kind of feel bad for them.

Bottom Line: There are some good things about “RIP.” Besides Tony Daniel’s fantastic art and Guy Major’s beautiful colors, I think the one consistently enjoyable thing about “RIP” is the Joker. That’s one sick dude. I mean, he slit his tongue with a knife—go Morrison for making the Joker so damn twisted, just the way we like him. The writer lays out some intriguing and progressive notions regarding Batman and his psychology, but unfortunately, he just doesn’t make them work in any significant way. Many plot threads were either ridiculous or just dropped. BATMAN: RIP was too over-hyped: It was a complete letdown and would probably be an utter disgrace to the villain community if it weren’t for the Joker’s awesome derangement. If the Joker (read: Grant Morrison) has to scream to Batman (read: the fans), “Now do you get it?” in the second to last issue, that’s just not a good sign.

On the surface, BATMAN: RIP reads as a decent, interesting, and fairly cool story, but when closely read, “RIP” simply falls apart—accomplishing nothing and instead leaving the entire Batman world in tatters. Well, for doing a make-shift job, I guess that’s pretty impressive. In a bad way.

The Deluxe edition of BATMAN: RIP comes with the two “Last Rites” stories—”The Butler Did It” (BATMAN #682) and “The Butler Did It Again” (BATMAN #683)—as well as a beautifully-drawn sketchbook by Tony S. Daniel (and Grant Morrison, but we’re not counting his layout suggestions).

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

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