[incredibledave]

Heres my review of Return of Bruce Wayne #2 and its going to be chock full of spoilers, so dont say I didnt warn you.

Let me start off by saying that I liked this issue, I think, its hard to explain.

Let me start of by saying that I am a huge Grant Morrison fanboy. I absolutely adored the the first issue of this series while many didn't, which immediately triggered my "they just don't get it, they dont understand how deep it is" mechanism.

The first issue is basically the bare bones essential of a good Batman story, draped over a caveman setting with the goal of showing that Batman's force of will and personality is what make Batman great and not the Gothic city trappings or the gadgets. It was simplistic, but so damn FUNDAMENTAL, a distillation of who Bruce Wayne is.

Naturally this colored my expectations for the second issue, which turned out to be very different.

ROBW#2 picks up after the last page of #1, Bruce is fighting a Kraken-like monster with a sword in pilgrim era america. He is then nursed back to health by a creepy obsessive woman (think Marty's mom in Back to the Future) and the story then cuts to Superman, Green Lantern in Booster Gold taking a time machine to 10 minutes before the heat death of the universe in order to use special future science to track Bruce through time using maps in space time. And this is just the first 6 pages!

Following pages include Bruce resolving a mystery about a supposed killing by a demon (turns out it was just the wife who is then drowned for being a witch), Bruce makes out with that obsessive woman (who turns out to be a witch), fights the kraken monster again (which turned out to be a time fungus or something), obsessive woman is executed for being a witch just after cursing the villain of the story (who turned out to be Nathanial Wayne) and all his kin for all eternity, Bruce's head shows up in the hyper future and seemingly traps all of the other heroes there and then Bruce ends up on an island with Blackbeard.

So yeah...

As indecipherable as that all seems, I don't think I can really say its a bad story. You feel bad when the obsessive woman (her names Annie btw) dies, the villain is appropriately slimy, dramatic beats manage to really work (perhaps just because I read my comics out loud in the BTAS voices, but still), the art (while is a bit of an acquired taste) manages interesting flourishes and there is mystery that builds interest in upcoming issues.

But I have no fucking idea whats going on this comic. How is Bruce traveling through time? Who was Annie? What was her curse? How did she find Bruce? How did she find those symbols? How in the hell did Bruce manage to communicate to the other heroes in the extreme future? Did Bruce really make out with that chick? Who was doing that narration at the end?

Me thinks Morrison just needs a strong editor to occasionally real in his crazy. Its a strong issues with drama and suspense and action and all that, with occasional side trips into mind-fuckery. Hopefully future issues will be more gentle, but even if they're not, a confusing comic from Morrison is a damn sight more interesting than a straight-forward comic from Johns (take that Earl! I disagree with your taste in comics!)