Batman #10

[sherkahn]

Major SPOILERS as the Night of the Owls nears its conclusion.

Yeah, that level of spoiler.



Various clues Bruce has put together during his investigation with the Owls, now that the Talons are down, leads him to their home. But they have robbed him of his Dark Vengeance, as they are all dead, apparently by their own hand.

But something is amiss. Something still knaws at the Batman's mind, and the last piece of the puzzle comes together. Investivating the clues, Bruce finds the man who was able to do single-handedly what Batman and previous generations of strong men could not: take out the Court of Owls.

Bruce gets caught in a trap... and the villain monologues.





And so what we were thinking about who Dr. Hurt might be has turned to this, and the new Owlman has been staring us in the face the entire time.

Some what of a let down in terms of a climax, but still an interesting build up, and that leaves open the last question:


How much did Alfred really know?

Comments

[sun_man]

wait wait wait wait wait wait wait.





BRUCE HAS A #%$@$%$#@$%$#%*#$( BROTHER!!!!!!!!!


This is messing with a little too much continuity now

[darkknightjrk]

Relaunch/reboot. The Bats weren't heavily changed by it, but they were changed.

[junkurosu]

Well I need a drink.

I have no idea what I think about this.

[darkknightjrk]

...Damn. Props to Snyder--this reveal could have very easily been complete and utter shit, but he managed to have it make sense storywise and make me really look forward to how it ends.

[shadowpsykie]

but he managed to have it make sense storywise and make me really look forward to how it ends.

yeah the waynes putting him in a premier clinic instead of an asylum (which it later became) allows for the waynes to remain relatively blameless, but for the villain to still have motivation against bruce that did not seem trivialized...though i would be interested to knwo what the "accident was"

also he was a twin? or an older brother?

[zabilac]

I actually really enjoyed this issue and the reveal was really unexpected (at least to me).

[espanolbot]

Hrrm, well an Owlman that was an older or younger brother of Bruce has been canon in several sources other than this, in Morrison's story about the Crime Syndicate for one, so this isn't... ENTIRELY out of the blue.

And at least the Waynes had him sent to a good, well sorted hospital instead of a deliberately neglectful one. And Alfred might not have known as I think his father might have been the Wayne's butler at the time... Hrrm.

Okay, I'll buy this. Snyder's a good enough writer to make this work. How other writers handle it though, will be HILARIOUS to see.

[cypherfdp]

"Thomas, he needs to go to a hospital!"
"Right, let's take him to Arkham."

[stillanerd]

Okay, I admit I'm not all that thrilled by this reveal, not just because of the whole "I'm really your brother that you never knew you had" monologue, but because Lincoln March was the obvious suspect for being the mastermind behind all this. Not to mention to set-up for this reveal is way too similar to Hush.

Nevertheless, I will give props to Synder in that, however unoriginal the twist is, one cannot deny that the pieces for it fit perfectly, especially if one reads the Jarvis Pennyworth back-up story. Also, remember how there was some complaints the Greg Capullo drew Bruce Wayne and Lincoln March too much alike? Well now we know that was intentional given the fact they are supposed to be brothers. So kudos to Capullo for showing us the solution in plain sight all along without us realizing it.

[akodo_rokku]

You mention the set-up being way too similar to Hush, and I have to say that until the reveal I was expecting it to BE Hush.

But maybe Hush never existed in the New 52. That'd be neat.

[thatnickguy]

"The pin."
"What pin?"
"The pin with the power..."
"What power?"

No? Just me thinking that? Okay. :(

[sherkahn]

somehow our motto fails on this one... sorry.

[icon_uk]

Aside from being apathetic to this reveal, I have to wonder why in all the time that he was alive, Bruce never even HEARD of this brother.

Plus the ages down't quite work IMHO. If Bruce is three years older, then Thomas Jr would have been at most seven when his parents died, even if the hospital fell into disrepair, how did the child of millionaire couple the Wayne's fall through the cracks to THIS extent.

[sherkahn]

Aside from being apathetic to this reveal, I have to wonder why in all the time that he was alive, Bruce never even HEARD of this brother.


And how much has ALFRED known all along?

[thanekos]

The Court mask ruins the Owlman effect a little, I gotta say.

He's a little more than a Talon, of course, but he'd still look better showing off that nice undersheath's facial designs.

[drexer]

Ok, so first of all we had a Loeb twist death... I feared this might happen, but I kept myself hopeful Snyder wouldn't fall for that.

And then we get a hidden Wayne brother who was kept for 7 years in an hospital without Bruce's knowledge. What?

Am I the only one finding this very sloppy writing? This is the kind of thing that makes other people mock comics. There are writers that can write stories which are full of ties and coincidences and reveals after reveals(Urasawa is the greatest example that springs to mind), but this? Nope.

[mrstatham]

I don't think it's this kind of storytelling in particular that makes other people mock comics, given there's conventional literature that's far worse. The predilection of certain artists toward ridiculous T+A poses and more childish expectations makes people mock comics, frankly.

[mrstatham]

I like this. To me, it's the kind of reveal Doctor Hurt could have had before Morrison decided he had to make it a little too complicated. As clichéd as it is, "I'M THOMAS WAYNE!" has far more impact than "LOL, no, not really, I'm just some old ancestor no-one really cares about corrupted through some device from a guy you killed in your future." Granted, Morrison put a little tiny bit more poetry into it than that, but it did just get silly toward the end. This actually works, it's simple and concise and yet it has a hell of a lot of impact.

It also simplifies down the nature of the Owlman character, and yet doesn't rule out the notion of Owlman on a Crime Syndicate Earth.

[arysteia]

Call me a traditionalist, but shouldn't Thomas Wayne Jr be the *eldest* son? A small detail, I know, but it bugs me nonetheless.

[icon_uk]

He should, and it would work better narratively if this had all over and done with before Bruce was born.

[auggie18]

Well, I like this. I always was a fan of Thomas Wayne Jr and got kinda sad when he stopped existing. So bully for them bringing him back!

(Haven't been following this story, like, at all, so not commenting past that.)

[protogarrett]

Oh fuck this. I'm done.

[lonewolf23k]

Of course, there's always the possibility he really IS completely bugnuts, and all this "I'm Thomas Wayne Jr" is just his particular brand of Insane Ravings.

[coldfiredragon]

I don't think this is the case. There are too many little hints littered in the past 9 issues of Batman. Snyder set this up well.

[robinzegblu]

From the moment I heard about this whole Court of Owls thing, I thought it was an Owlman story. I was surprised to find out it wasn't, but now it suddenly is. So...yeah.

Was Owlman actually Bruce Wayne pre-crisis? I just assumed he'd always been Thomas Jr. but that BleedingCool article indicates otherwise.

[atom_punk]

Kinda going into meta-territory, but I remember that way back when Lincoln March was introduced someone complained (maybe even on this site) that he looked so much like Bruce Wayne (strong build, blue eyes, black hair) that when they were standing next to each other it was hard to tell who was Lincoln and who was Bruce.

Reading the issue I dismissed it as just the nature of the art. After all in his identity as Bruce Wayne, Batman doesn't really have any immediately visible identifying features that an artist can use to set him apart.

But now there is an in-universe reason for their strong similarity, being biological brothers. If that was all intentional, then bravo Mr. Snyder and Mr. Capullo. I can honestly say I was not expecting that.

[maxisanacorn]

I thought Doctor Hurt was the Thomas Jr. they sent to the hospital?!
I thought Morrison was pretty explicit about that.

Dunno how to feel about this. A literal brother? That puts the Waynes in such a terrible light.

[mrstatham]

No, Hurt was never Thomas Jr. - Hurt was actually a Wayne ancestor present at the Barbatos ceremony depicted in Dark Knight, Dark City - which Morrison recreated as another manifestation of the thing Darkseid unleashed to hunt Bruce across time, I believe. Interaction with the thing (I forget the name) made him immortal and more than a little nuts, but when he turned up in Gotham around the time the Waynes were still alive, they tried to help him. Naturally, that didn't work out.

Also, I don't see how it paints the Waynes as terrible people; The baby was born prematurely and terribly injured, supposedly - putting him in a hospital out of the gaze of say, newspapers who would want in on the Wayne family's tragedy, and the criminal element of Gotham - who we know disliked the Waynes - seems like the best bet to me.

[azurelightbeam]

Dun Dun DUUUUNN!

So its good Wayne vs bad Wayne. Nice.

Anyone else think that Ra's Al Ghul could be the mastermind behind this court of Owls? Maybe he is their official leader or something. They could be a sub section of the League of Assassins. Ra's could not have Bruce as his heir so perhaps he wants his brother.

[md84]

So the whole reason this version of Owlman wants to hurt Bruce is because he blames him -- and 8 year old at the time -- for their parents being shot in Crime Alley after taking Bruce to the movies?

I guess some people just need something or someone to blame. Not too different from little Bruce when he went owl hunting, believing the Court -- which coincidentally turned out to be real but had nothing to do with the Waynes' demise -- was to blame. But young Bruce was able to learn the lesson: sometimes tragedy and death are random and meaningless. His whole career as Batman has been an ongoing fight to make life less random and meaningless.

His brother on the other hand becomes Owlman because he's always wanted someone to blame for the misery in his life and now he finally has a target.

[lieut_kettch]

Thomas Wayne, Jr? Hmm... makes you wonder if in the Antimatter Universe or on Earth-3, Bruce was the one hidden away in Willowwood, and a Batman/Court of the Bats will soon reveal itself to take down Owlman.

[icon_uk]

IIRC on Earth 3, Thomas Wayne Jr was Olwman after Bruce was shot dead along with Martha during the mugging and Thomas Wayne Sr went on to become Police Commissioner

YYESSS!!

[big_daddy_d]

I KNEW IT! From the get go, I had a thought that this will lead to a reveal of Thomas Wayne Jr. as Owlman! YESS! I AM HAPPY! This is something I really wanted.

[cypherfdp]

Look out Snake, Liquid is right behind you!

!

[sleepymax]

Haha, totally thought the same.

[cypherfdp]

"Who? I ask, like the Great Owl, WHO?! Now wait there while I spit up pellets like the Great Owl."

[lascoden]

I know that the villain blaming Batman is nothing new, but I like this. One, similar to Hush, he's a Bruce Wayne villain, as opposed to a Batman one, but done much better. Two, I like that his origin is the same as Batman's: The death of Marla and Thomas Wayne. I think that's an interesting twist to things, that the event that created Batman is the same exact event that created Owlman. And, I like that it took a bit of old Golden Age history (or was it Silver?) and threw it back in there.

Also: I'm assuming that Alfred did not know about Thomas Jr. I think that the Court would have been able to erase all traces of him, by destroying any paper trails, along with Jarvis' journal.