The final Grant Morrison penned Batman and Robin issue arrives in stores today, and if you are wondering how Morrison’s new Batman, Inc. fits into all of this, then you are going to want to take the jump.
Yeah, the headline gave it all away, but I really like this turn as it will really open up future stories. Will the villains now start targeting Bruce Wayne and Wayne Industries? Will Wayne Tech stock suddenly shoot through the roof? Can’t wait to get my hands on this issue this week!
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So now Batman is now more like Tony Stark? Has ItsJustSomeRandomGuy’s influence extended THAT much? ;p
I’m going to predict that Marvel (In Joe’s spirit of wanting to one up DC) will have Iron Man do the same thing. It will fail. :p
Ok…just a bit of injected reality here. There have been, over the years, many people who were injured as “collataral damage” during Batman’s battles. The villian in the most recent “Imposters” storyline is a good example. Once these people find out that Wayne Industries has been the financial backing for Bats since the beginning there would be a GAZILLION folks lining up with their lawyers to sue Wayne & company. I mean, so does this mean that the members of the “Batmen of the World” get health insurance, 401K and benefits? If Batgirl falls and breaks an arm, is it covered by Worker’s Compensation? Is it a public company and how would you buy stock? (Screw Microsoft! I just bought 200 shares of Batman, Inc. at $1.34 per share!).
Reality aside, It was interesting to finally see the “boys” of the Wayne Family together in one panel (Bruce, Alfred, Dick, Tim and Damian). Maybe now Bruce can keep Tim and Damian from killing each other…but probably not.
In grant we trust.
He better know what he’s doing.
My god. I have so many questions! and TaZ brings up some really good points. When I first heard about this concept I had a picture of the robot Batmen from Kingdom Come – you remember those? An army of Batbots, keeping EVERYONE in Gotham under mortal terror.
My questions(and lets assume we live in a world where comics work to have questions like this actually answered instead of retconning or plain forgetting everything):
1. Will Batman legalize himself now instead of being a mysterious vigilante? If so, Dick is the perfect person to publicize the Bat.
2. Will Bruce Wayne now spend all his time being Bruce Wayne? He’s come back from the dead(kinda) and wants to begin a new chapter in his life? Is this Bruce’s brightest day?
3. What does Clark say about this?
4. Won’t Bruce’s stock plummet like crazy now? Not many people liked Batman. The Batmen have to be publically accountable now. No slinking off into the shadows every time one of them does something ruthless(albeit necessary). They’ll ALL be accountable now.
5. Will we see more of Bruce Wayne now? As like, a human being? I mean, uptil now we’ve just seen Batman, Batman undercover and Batman with his mask off brooding in the cave while Alfred tries to get him to eat.
6. Isn’t a whole bunch of Batmen JUST the problem the people of Gotham are afraid of now, after the whole ‘Imposter Batman’ arc?
7. Escalation effect. Bruce is making himself a Bat army. How many innocents will die as the villians retaliate with there own army? How long before Gotham goes to war?
8. How much money does Bruce have? Seriously? I mean, think about the tech he’s using. And the many many times it all gets destroyed, lost, damaged… and now he’s paying for a whole company of them? Please oh PLEASE tell me Oracle is siphoning off money from Lexcorp :P.
9. Oracle’s the heart of the operation, right? Keeping everyone connected? Because she’s GOOD at that.
10. How sexist is it that it’s called BatMAN Inc.?
That’s all I got for now. I know I have more.
Also, MaximusRift, I don’t think we’d ever see Iron Man Inc. because as paranoid as Batman is, I can see him sharing his legacy more than I can see Iron Man trusting a whole bunch of people handling his armor.
“Also, MaximusRift, I don’t think we’d ever see Iron Man Inc. because as paranoid as Batman is, I can see him sharing his legacy more than I can see Iron Man trusting a whole bunch of people handling his armor.”
James Rhodes and Pepper Potts not included, I presume.
His oldest friends. Yeah, excluding them.
Not to mention that the Wayne boys perfectly match the profile of the Batmen and Robins.
I don’t exactly think that this is a move that ties Bruce Wayne and Batman directly into business together with Wayne responsible for Batman’s actions but rather a good marketing tactic. The spirit of his “relationship” with Batman combined with a clever project title (Batman, Inc.), leaves Wayne the option to support heroics across the globe without actually getting into legal obligation for their actions. As Batman, he’ll likely scout out worthy causes/allies and as Wayne set up finanical institutions to support local law enforcement with the authorities. He can write it off as a partnership with the the local government if they sanction their heroes (much like they do with Superman and much of the JLA who are deputized law officers across the globe).
Sure, Wayne painted a target on his head for people like the Joker and Luthor. But after his return, I’m sure he considers that somewhat more trivial now.
Whoa, wait, how is Bruce Wayne not legally responsible for superheroes that HE is funding? And even if her isn’t, everyone is going to associated Bruce Wayne with the Bat family now. With that one conference, he’s tied himself to them forever in the public eye.
Ok so you get Batman Inc… how does Batman inc makes money? do you charge people for saving their live? sell equipment? This feel inspired a tiny bit by Invincible Inc in the pages of Invincible. but I have to admit,I’m buying these books :D
Is anyone else bothered by the logistics of the poses on the cover? Is Damien really springboarding off Dick’s crotch?
Does Batman, Inc. have a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy?
Batman Inc. supports full equality. Why, Bruce had Dick in short green pants for over 40 years, so to speak.
I’m so excited to read this!
…
But I’m waiting until The Return of Bruce Wayne hits the shelves.
Stupid DC…
*grumbles*
Morrison’s stuff isn’t mean to be read chronologically. He’s like Tarantino. Think of final crisis six when superman is holding batman’s corpse. If you’d have known it was a clone it would have been, like, so what.
I agree that sometimes his stuff makes more sense out of chronological order but something (the creative teams who worked on the other return stories) that there was a bit of a hiccup in the release order and this isn’t one of those times.
Course, what do I know…? I actually like Morrison’s work (and apparently that makes me uncool these days).
Ok, here’s my theory on that. People in charge of things tend to be in their mid thirties to mid forties. Comic book fans in that age range tend to be more into Marvel comics, because when they were kids and just cutting their teeth on comics, Marvel was the superior brand.
Now I don’t read Marvel, but from what I gathered that has changed. Marvel is in the house of mouse, and DC currently has a reputation for giving their artists more artistic freedom, that’s what I’ve read.
But as I said, Big Fanboy is run by people with an emotional connection to Marvel and have gotten old and jaded and don’t really want to invest themselves in a mythos that they aren’t already into.
So there is an institutional bias against complicated DC stories. I’ve noticed that the Marvel inclined writers and fan sights prefer DC stories that are one shots or three issue arcs, because it doesn’t require as much of a commitment to get to the point.
And of course reading Grant’s stuff is exponentially better the more effort you put into it.
So Grant’s still big it’s the attention spans that have gotten small.
The routine discussion about Batman is to question which is the mask and which the true face. I’d say for most of his past, Batman it the true face and Bruce Wayne the mask. Maybe after events, this is a sign of a reversal. This move doesn’t make sense for Batman, but it *does* make sense for Bruce Wayne.
The only thing thing that concerns me is that The web did this with his webhosts and it failed…. heres to hoping that Bruce is more selective (I imagine he will be)
An interesting discussion would be how they will write themselves out of this corner…
Personally I’m for a story line with Bruce saying that Batman forced him to say this, then everything returns to the way it was.
Personally I’m for a story line with Bruce saying that Batman forced him to say this, then everything returns to the way it was.
Maybe he can trade Silver St. Cloud to Neron in return for the resurrection of Martha Wayne and the status quo?
What if this is why a Superboy is back! He’s going to punch everyone and reset the Batman thing!
I don’t know if this was a great idea or not, it does bring up a lot of legal issues. Maybe that’s just the thing DC needs in order to get a new Manhunter title up, unless you know a better lawyer type character they could use.