Batman Incorporated #10

[superfangirl1]

Gotham City is given 8 hours to dissolve and outlaw Batman Incorporated and submit Bruce Wayne to the authorities. During this time Batman prepare for battle with Talia.

The full "no more Batman" effort has gone into effect, with Gordon watching the Bat-Signal beig destroyed. While Lucius Fox tries to give statements to the press, informing them that Bruce will give a statement eventually. Later, Fox meets with Bruce as they go through many of the decommissioned Robats. The crystal Bruce got in issue one is still being worked on, but Bruce's attention gets drawn to an experimental exoskeleton that was never put into operation.







Elsewhere, Nightwing and Red Robin interrogate a Leviathan thug to get more info the 11pm plan Talia got plan later that night. Nightwing points out that we are about to see Batman at his most dangerous.

Batman inject himself with Kirk Langstrom's man-bat vial that he stole earlier in the issue.

Comments

[nightauditguy]

Wait, what?

[icon_uk]

Batman's just shot himself full of, at a guess, Venom and Manbat serum and is wearing an exo-skeleton.

Or something...

[bluejaybirdie]

This bullshit was not worth killing off a young character full of potential for.

[onceaskrull]

Agreed.

[aeka]

Seconded.

[mrstatham]

Thirded. And I didn't even like Damien that much - but that didn't mean I wanted him killed off.

[silverhammerman]

I'm glad we've finally reached the point where the tide looks to be turning, after 10 issues I was more than a little sick of establishing that Batman was in deep shit this time.

Did Bruce inject himself with Venom there though?

[superfangirl1]

He injected himself with Kirk Langstrom's man-bat vial that he stole. No idea on the gas through.

[flint_marko]

I hated the revelation that Talia had Jason Todd bugged when she raised him from the dead. It's just another retcon Morrison did to make her more evil and fit his version of her character.

[icon_uk]

Given how little sense that whole thing made, I'd be tempted to give her a pass on that one. (She revives him, but doesn't return him to Batman because her Daddy says Bats still won't love her... When giving Batman a catatonic Jason is either the perfect distraction if Jason doesn't recover (Since he'll be pre-occupied with taking care of him) , or if Batman CAN help him recover, Bruce will owe Talia BIG TIME!

[jaybee3]

Maybe it's Burnham's art but Talia's face doesn't look like it "regrets" anything.Morrison has pretty much destroyed Talia as a character, no nuance, no edges, nothing. Even Ra's had that. She has nowhere to go after this. I wouldn't be surprised if Morrison ends his "saga" by killing her off as well.

And if DC knew about the Damien thing coming before the reboot (and I assume Morrison did tell them he planned on killing Damien at some point since he's said he planned it before), keeping Jason Todd in the new 52 and/or the plot point that a previous Robin had been horrifically killed is more ridiculous - especially with the new convoluted 5 year timeline. Two dead sons/Robins in 5 years? At this point Bruce should be arrested for child endangerment.

[omgwtflolbbqbye]

Or DC will retcon it so that it was actually Nyssa impersonating and besmirching Talia.

[chrisdv]

No way that everyone knew - look at how many of the Requiem issues were simply "Oh, Robin's death is something that happened between this issue & the last".

[mrstatham]

At this point, I'd argue even the relatively poorly defined version of Talia in TDKR is more sympathetic than the hot mess Morrison's made of the comics version.

[akodo_rokku]

A recurring theme in Morrison's Batman work seems to be that evil constantly underestimates how much pure, uncut CRAZY Batman is holding back every single day of his life.

I mean, when the Black Glove thought they'd driven him insane he beat them by *already having driven himself insane* as a precaution. Here, Talia thinks she has him backed into a corner so he just decides he's out of fucks to give and loads up on unstable science, black magic, and cutting edge tech and then makes a solo charge on her headquarters *out of the fucking sky*.

I'll admit, I kind of love it.

[icon_uk]

Which I find terribly tedious, Batman ISN'T insane, he's very sane, THAT'S what makes him Batman. Batman going "Grrr" Argh" Rage!" rarely interests me.

[chrisdv]

This is stupid.

Like, REALLY stupid.

All of it. Stupid.

Oh, and Talia - Fuck you, stop playing the grieving mother when you ordered the disgusting murder of your 10 year old son.

[captainbellman]

To be fair, she didn't order Damian's death. It was the impulse of her large, unstable Damian clone and her Leviathan goons. She has the one kill the others in this issue.

[espanolbot]

Wait, why is Batman Inc being dissolved? Because of Talia's threats or because people think that there are legitimate issues with the way Bruce is handling it?

[chrisdv]

Because DC have had it with Morrison & his renegade ways?

[louisadkins]

The chess-board is very well laid out, though. The Red King is imprisoned, the Black Knight threatens the Red Queen. The Black King is being herded - there is only one direction for him to go (other than retreating.) Even the pane where he's talking about her having Damian killed is focused on the Red Rook capturing a Black Pawn. If you look to the board for clues, you can see that in moving the Red Rook to take the Black Pawn that Red has removed one of the major safeguards on the Red Queen. There is still a Red Pawn that protects the Red Queen from the Black Knight, but the more seasoned Rook is no longer in position to guard her. Point of fact, the Red Rook is in a sacrifice position with nothing to keep it safe from the Black Rook.

ETA: And, of course, the second to last panel where the Black Night takes the Red Queen...

Very nice.

[arbre_rieur]

I love Morrison's attention for the small details. It's one of things that separates him from the pack.

[captainbellman]

Also, who else finds it insultingly obvious that Kathy Kane - the original Batwoman - is heading up Spyral now? All of the agents are wearing a version of her costume, for Bob's sake.

[captainbellman]

Also also, the positioning in that Ra's/Talia exchange is weird. I sort-of imagine it went like this:

"Your endgame draws near, surely?"

*shuffle shuffle shuffle shuffle sit*

"They tell me you had your son..."

I imagine Ra's wears silk sneakers...for sneaking!

[featheredserpent]

I can't help but notice that Ra's is a *terrible* chess player, even against himself.

[mrstatham]

I think the entire point is that he's being 'terrible' at playing. One side of the table is meant to represent Talia, the other Bruce, hence the Black Knight taking the Red Queen as he indulges in some supervillain cackling.

[zapbiffpow]

I wonder what Mr. and Mrs. Wayne would think about all that's happened to their boy recently?

[icon_uk]

This remains my favourite take on them in many, many years

[mrosa]

Morrison killed Damien to make Batman all grimdark and angsty... about time he embraced the fucking '90s!