In
Batman #297 (1978),
Bruce Wayne was on a horse-drawn carriage ride with current squeeze
Kim, when the
Mad Hatter robbed them and stole her pearl necklace.
Well, after a lot of running around,
Batman beat the Hatter, and got the pearls back, and...
As a result:
Yes you are, Bruce...
yes you are.
Which, of course, only serves to remind me
how much I miss Bruce Wayne as a character. For the past several years, it has been
all Batman,
all the time, with a few minor exceptions. It makes you wonder why
Alfred et. al. had to jump through the hoops to cover up the absence of Bruce after Batman's "death." After all, it's not as if Bruce was ever around anyway.
(Aside...maybe this is a new
DC tend? It's been
well over a year since we've seen
Clark Kent...and when was the last time
Hal Jordan appeared in his civilian identity??
DC--where our creators find it easier and preferable to gratuitously slaughter 100,000 people than actually show a hero's private life!)
That's probably why I'm so cold to
Grant Morrison's interpretation of Batman. Yeah, it's
wicked cool that he's "the most dangerous person in the universe" and that he has a plan for everything and that he can't ever be beaten
yadda yadda. The problem is, without a
personality, without Bruce Wayne there to fill the cowl, Batman is just a
Terminator--the character who can't ever be beaten or stopped, who can out think omnipotent gods and effortlessly take down infinitely powerful characters, is always prepared and never surprised. And frankly, that type of character is
boring, if there's no person we can relate to under the cowl. At least, I think so.
That's why
The Return Of Bruce Wayne is something of a misnomer, because all we've seen so far is the hyper-competent yet personality-less Batman without a cowl. And Morrison's
already told that story--multiple times. And so far, it's
not Bruce Wayne who is returning, it's The Batman.
Of course, maybe this is just Morrison's
motif for the character--in his run on
Batman And Robin,
Dick Grayson has pretty much been missing, as well, and the complete absence of supporting cast aside from Alfred makes you wonder what Dick and
Damian actually do all day while not on patrol. And in today's
Batman #700, covering three incarnations of Batman, there's no trace of Bruce or Dick or Damian actually having a life outside the cowl.
Given the critical reception to Morrison's
Caped Crusader, I guess a lot of folks like Batman that way. And there's nothing wrong with that.
But
me? I miss Bruce Wayne.
One more time around the park, driver!!