Memorial Case Smashing: Bruce Wayne, Murderer?

[starwolf_oakley]

To the earlier request by Benicio127, here are some pages to BATMAN #600, written by Ed Brubaker and drawn by Scott McDaniel. It ended the BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER? storyline and started the BRUCE WAYNE: FUGITIVE storyline. It also (maybe) marks the first time Batman says "There is no Bruce Wayne" out loud.



We've seen the set-up elsewhere. http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/2058266.html

It should be noted that Alfred isn't there because he quit during OFFICER DOWN.
"You are not a child and it is time you ceased acting like one. Which means it is time I stop abetting you." Alfred came back to Wayne Manor during BRUCE WAYNE: FUGITIVE. He knew Bruce wasn't guilty for one reason: "I knew his father."







There's a pretty involved Batman vs. Nightwing fight, which does show that a LOT of the Batcave is built up. Which is kind of a given, with all the cars, plane, boats, rockets, etc. kept in there.





As everyone "stares bug-eyed," (according to Shortpacked) Batman makes his escape.



A narrative box says: "They could never understand. Bruce Wayne was surrounded by pain, but he couldn't react to it."

BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER would make a good animated movie adaptation, dropping some (but not all) of the more questionable Batdickery aspects. Batman deciding "I don't want to be Bruce Wayne anymore" makes for an interesting story point. An animated movie could really explore the "There is no Bruce Wayne" idea and show why it is true or not true.

Comments

[jaybee3]

The art is painful. Everyone's faces, particularly Cassandra's, looks like they're melting. The story was painful too. It had a good build-up but in the end basically became "The Tragic Love of Bruce Wayne and Sasha Bourdeux (aka Greg Rucka's pet character)". There was never any fallout of the Gotham P.D. failing to catch the real killer (Cain turned himself in) or arresting the most prominent citizen in Gotham on false charges within hours without doing any more detective work (i.e. no one checked whether Bruce's heir, Dick, a cop with the skills to do a frame-up job even had an alibi). Even when Renee Montoya (one of the arresting cops) or Commissioner Atkins started to have doubt about Wayne's guilt they did nothing, content to let him rot in prison (where apparently the warden/guards would let skinheads after the richest man in Gotham - with once again no follow-up when Bruce was cleared). And then of course, Sasha, who had been arrested as an accessory to Bruce's crime, CONTINUED to be in prison when Bruce was out and then she was "killed" in prison (a woman proven innocent) and still there was no hell to pay. It was like the whole Superman New Krypton mess. The re-set button was pressed. Renee and Crispus Allen (the arresting officers who screwed up) were just yelled out by Bruce's lawyer. Maggie Sawyer, who OKed Allen's harassment of Alfred when Bruce escaped, got even less than that. Atkins and the D.A. at the time apparently kept their jobs. And the murder of Vesper Fairchild and the idea that Gotham's favorite son (and #1 employer) was actually jailed for it - never really brought up again in the last decade or so.