Bruce Wayne and the Joker have a conversation

[cyberghostface]

"Ultimately, Bruce is asking the very questions that Joker is constantly trying to inspire in him.

Bruce is saying, 'Does my life mean anything? What's the point if you do stuff and it's cut short and it comes to nothing, and you never finish the narrative?'

And Joker's the one that says, in a lot of ways, 'that's OK.'" -- Scott Snyder

Warning for discussion of suicide

#47...

At this point Bruce is recovering from amnesia.





#48...















It's at this point that Bruce becomes Batman again.

In #51 after Batman has officially resumed his duties...

Comments

[lucean]

That was such a powerful scene in an awesome story and the way Joker keeps imploring Bruce not to return still hits all the emotions as then so does the Joker need to return.

It also again reminds me why that run by King was so atrocious for me as Snyder set up this awesome element for the return of Joker and King again shrugged as he is one of those writers who wants to change everything without having to pay any attention to what anyone before him did.

[aperturedreams]

For the most part I agree, though to be fair, Snyder himself had Joker pop up in Dark Nights Metal with no explanation after this.

[lucean]

Damn it, forget about that. Thanks for the correction and pointing out how my disdain for King clouded my judgement here.

[aperturedreams]

Eh, no worries. I liked his run plenty at first but after "The Gift" and his botching of Booster Gold's character it did tend to go quite off the rails. Not to mention Heroes in Crisis and what happened to Wally...