From Batman and Robin #16 (MAJOR SPOILERS)

[stillanerd]

The last two pages of Batman and Robin #16 which came out today, courtesy of DC's The Source Blog.





I can just imagine the Q&A after this press conference:

BRUCE: So any questions? Yes?

REPORTER: Alexander Knox, Gotham Gazette. So are you telling us, Mr. Wayne, that you are, in fact, Batman?

BRUCE: What? Don't be ridiculous, son. Just because my company has been illegally financing and supplying a vigilante without their knowledge or consent for years and is now going to fund a private international security force comprised of other Batmen, or that my parents being murdered gave me a perfect motive, and that I happen to coincidentally have the same shape and build as the Dark Knight, this doesn't actually make me Batman. Next thing I suppose you're going to tell me is that my ward, Dick Grayson, and my boy, Damien, have been Batman and Robin all this time in my absence. You have no evidence whatsoever. Now, let me put on Wayne Enterprises' newly designed Bat-Costume so I can show you folks how cool it will look.

Seriously, I realize that comic books require a certain suspension of disbelief, but at this point, how could anyone in the DC Universe NOT know Bruce Wayne is Batman after this? I mean, even Tony Stark in the first Iron Man movie knew it was pointless to try to pretend otherwise.

EDIT: From an interview with DC's Editor-in-Chief Bob Harras, via Comic Book Resources

Q: Let's talk a bit about how this will affect the stories themselves. We knew the corporate concept would drive "Batman Inc.," and Grant spoke briefly with the AP about how this reveal reflects that concept, but can we expect at all for folks to be suspicious of Bruce Wayne being Batman with this news out there?

A: Grant's point of view is that this is the greatest misdirection of all time by Bruce announcing this. In the public's mind, it will separate him further and further from being Batman. This is the man funding Batman is how Grant is approaching this.

Comments

[terrykun]

>_> Anyone else a little creeped out by Tim's face and skeezy looking comb-over?

[sweettart1823]

And the look on his face :/

[hybrid2]

I dont like this...

[sun_man]

WOAH!!!!!!!!!!

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

Tim looks like K.D. Lang up there.

[taggerung301]

It's an interesting concept, but I kind of wonder how this is going to turn out in the long term

[sherkahn]

The Batman Inc. project will be corrupted and turn on him, forcing him back to basics. Give it 2 years.

[aelflar]

Gee..no one will ever be able to think Bruce might be the Bat now!

It sorta kills the mystery of the Batman with this whole "I`ve been financing him!"..kinda too much realism, y`know?

[starwolf_oakley]

Tony Stark used it for years. In retrospect, I'm surprised it has never been used before.

[silverzeo]

I would say this was jumping the shark, but Bats has been around for 75 years. I wonder how this can be retcon.... and it's a better twist to a character than making a deal with the devil and make it so that his marriage to love of his life for the last 20 years null and void...

[jogadoresesquecidos.blogspot.com]

This is a new Silver Age!

Next, bat-products, Bat-gadgets for sale, and even Batman Jones... again!

[aelflar]

Ok, from that perspective (New Silver Age) it could work!

[jeani-x.livejournal.com]

Guys...

Why is Tim so scary here? And he looks twelve. Isn't he supposed to be seventeen? But I do like that he's wearing a 'daddy's back' face. That's probably why he didn't object to Bruce's stupid idea. Too marveled to have him back to say 'hey, that's kinda dumb. but whatever. hug me?'

Damian looks cute, though.

[aelflar]

He even combed his hair like Bruce!

[cainofdreaming]

But Batman's just an urban myth, isn't he? You can't fund an urban myth, Bruce. Well, you can't fund one and expect that your staff won't try to dress you up in all white get-up. With long, easily tied, sleeves.

[darkknightjrk]

An urban myth that's been seen as part of the Justice League. The "urban myth" thing is really a harder sell then this.

[valtyr]

It seems... I mean, the parallels between the two companies are getting weird. Batman and Cap both 'die', turn out to be lost in time, are replaced by former sidekicks, return, and go franchise. Admittedly Cap's franchising the Avengers rather than the flag, but still.

[aelflar]

Yeah, I saw that. Hm.
Cap franchising the flag would have been interesting (albeit wrong) XD

[jaybee3]

The weird thing is that (in FabNic's Road Home: Ra's Al Ghul one-shot) after viewing Vicki Vale's wall of photos where she had connected the dots from Bruce to virtually every other vigilante in Gotham - including his various sons/wards (and Oracle and Stephanie), Bruce remarked to himself how "easy" it all once when someone actually made the connections like Vicki had done. So what does he do - give everybody on the planet a chance to connect the dots too!

What is Bruce going to say: "Hey, look at my various aged sons/wards all of whom have black hair and could correspond the body types/ages of (the former) Nightwing, current Red Robin and new Robin. But they are not any of those guys - really. Also, if anybody has any old photos of Batman it's just a coincidence that we might look the same if you compare my chin/height to his and my age (35-ish) with the number of years Batman has been around and even though I'm now admitting I've been financing Batman since the beginning I am sooooooooo not him! Pinky swear to infinity!"

So we've gone from Batman being an urban legend less than a decade in ago the Bat-books ago to Morrison basically having Bruce winking/nodding at the world about him NOT being Batman.

[jarodrussell]

So? It's a different world than it was ten years ago.

Now? Everyone has a phone camera. Everyone is online. Wikilinks dumps hundreds of top secret documents a month into the public arena.

Vicki Vale put all the pieces together by herself, but who's to say she's the only one? In fact, we know she's not the only one. Savant figured out how to get to Batman through Oracle, how to get to Oracle through Black Canary, and that was before Barbara was shown on TV by Black Mask and had the Birds of Prey helicopter landing on her roof.

The kind of secrecy required to be Batman is a thing of the past. Plausible deniability like this is the best you can hope for in the modern age. What Bruce, via Morrison, is transforming Batman from a single point of failure into a network of heroes that can survive any attack.

Basically, he's taken the "Wolverine's in every book" joke and made it scale. It's brilliant!

[arbre_rieur]

"I mean, even Tony Stark in the first Iron Man movie knew it was pointless to try to pretend otherwise."

Maybe in the movie, but the comic had him pretending Iron Man was his bodyguard for decades, which proves it can work.

[stillanerd]

Oh, of course it could work (at least for awhile anyway), but I think the reason why in the movie they had Tony Stark reveal he was Iron Man--and also had him do the same in the comics--was the fact that, realistically, it wouldn't have taken someone very long to at least suspect that Tony and Iron Man were one and the same, especially since Iron Man is "employed" by Stark Industries and was built using Stark Industries own technology. The same logic can be applied to what's going on with Batman and Batman Inc. is all I'm saying.

[grimmbear]

OoooooKkkkkkkay.
I don't hate this idea. It's not too hard to imagine in a world where a pair of glasses can hide Superman's identity that Bruce can (and has in the past) keep people from figuring out that He's batman. Remember that people have come to that conclusion for years and have had it 'proven not to be true' with evidence from impeccable sources.
Really even if it was some anonymous person on the web you know Babs is all over it keep the 'family' safe so there is really nothing more than they are already doing to keep the rumors at bay.

[darkknightjrk]

I don't see the problem with this--WE's been shown to handle superhero stuff in the past, including building the JLA satallite. This is really the next logical step to that. Plus, revealing after this long that he's Batman's 'financeer' and not Batman himself is a solid misdirection, which would make other people trying to connect the real dots sound more like loonies than before.

[laddical]

And at this point, as a registered member of the JLA (even if he is a "part-timer") and a not-at-all-secret GCPD "para-partner" (whatever the term is for the independent psychics and what nots police use from time to time), I hardly think Batman's considered an outlaw vigilante anymore, so Bruce doesn't have much to worry about there.

[kirke_novak]

I smell a rat! Erm, sorry, meant to say "retcon".

[icon_uk]

Where?

[punishermax]

Welp, just got reaaaaallly interested in Batman and DC in general again.

[stig]

Ditto, ditto, ditto! Every time I get the blues that Morrison is departing from the Bat-Universe, he pulls out another strange new aspect to the character that I'd love to see developed. The next year's Bat-books are going to be excellent...

[jarodrussell]

I've said it before, and I will say it again: Batman is far more interesting as a social movement than a lone hero.

[evilsneak]

Isn't Tim supposed to be "crippled" now? Where are his crutches?

[daningram.insanejournal.com]

Why should Grant be required to respect any canon but what he himself has written?

[righthondude]

Bruce Wayne's PARENTS WERE MURDERED. His PARENTS ARE DEAD.

[flint_marko]

Does the public know that Hush wasn't really Bruce now?

[gtrout]

Right -- this! And what's Hush's curent status? I seem to have lost the plot.

[lonewolf23k]

Well, if Dick is remaining as Batman for a while longer, then Bruce is being 100% truthful here. He -is- just financing Batman.

...It's just he used to be financing himself for a while now.

[angelophile]

I suppose the lack of Steph makes sense, since her association with Bruce Wayne isn't public, but still, disappointing sausage fest on that final page. Babs, Steph, Helena, Selina and Kate no where to be seen. You'd think Selina and Babs could, at least, legitimately be there.

[arbre_rieur]

They all have secret identities. Except Catwoman, but she's a criminal.

[arilou_skiff]

This... Feels very Iron-manny.

[schmevil]

Yeah.

[thehefner]

Anyone else reminded of when Grant Morrison had "Xavier" made his press conference at the end of that first X-Men storyline?

[aelflar]

Yes...and he also revealed Xorn to be Magneto, the same as with Oberon Sexton turning out to be Joker. Morrison like recycling his stuff...