Four Day Weekend!

Yeah that's right, I've got a four day weekend. Of course a majority of it will be spent driving, but I'll finally have a chance to read some comics, watch some movies, and relax for a while. Until then, it's COMIC BOOK TIME!!!

Hey, Batman doing "Batman" stuff! That's New!

Batman: The Return Of Bruce Wayne #6 (of 6)

While we already know that Bruce  made it through time just fine, we don't know exactly how that was accomplished. Well, once again Mr. Crazy-Omega Beams-Dr. Hurt- Existentialism Batman (aka Grant Morrison) has provided us some much deserved answers. Kind of.

When we last left Bruce Wayne in the previous issue, he had arrived in the Justice League Watchtower looking like a Terminator crossed with an H.P. Lovecraft monster. However, we learn in this issue that Bruce had actually traveled to the literal end of time and allowed himself to be fused with one of the "archive robots", knowing that his teammates in the Justice League would be able to defeat him. In exchange for losing his memory, Bruce finds a way to stop Darkseid's master plan, which was to use Batman as a kind of human "bomb" to erase all of time itself via the omega beams.

The biggest problem with this issue is that with Batman and Robin's new issue already out, all of the impact that this story could have had is now lessened. We know Bruce is back, and that he wants to turn Batman into Starbucks. At least after reading this issue, I get a better sense of Bruce's new stance on this "Batman, Inc." idea, with Bruce realizing that he was never alone in his fight against crime, and that he always had allies in the forms of Superman, Wonder Woman, and others, even if they didn't always agree on their personal stances on crime fighting.

This miniseries' biggest flaw wasn't in the storytelling (which was confusing at times), but in the fact that it was constantly delayed. While I commend DC for not rushing the project, they probably shouldn't have promised to have had this all wrapped up by the end of September unless all of the issues were done and ready to be printed.  Return Of Bruce Wayne offers a more solid ending than I was expecting, and introduced me to Bruce's new way of thinking, and while the miniseries may not have been what I wanted, it was still a fairly solid story. Now I wait for Batman, Inc., and count down until it is inevitably retconned in two years.

This should be a movie.

The Thanos Imperative #6 (of 6)

Not only are we getting the final issue of DC's mini-event this week, but we're also being treated to the finale of Marvel's latest cosmic event, The Thanos Imperative. This issue finds the Guardians of the Galaxy, Nova, and Thanos in the "cancerverse", a dimension in which death has ceased to exist. With no where for the teeming mass of creatures to go, they have torn through a dimensional rift between our two worlds and are now threatening our very existence. It seemed as if Thanos, the evil god who has been working with the heroes, had just turned on his allies and was ready to be killed at the hands of the evil Mar-Vell. Without spoiling anything more, I can tell you that what follows is one of the best final issues of an event in the past few years, and makes Thanos Imperative one of the best mini-series of the year.

The writing team of Dan Abnett and Andy Lanning have really outdone themselves with this issue, and really give every character a moment to shine. There was not one moment here that I knew what was going to happen, and the ending, while bittersweet, was the perfect send-off for what could be the last cosmic Marvel storyline for the time being, and it's my personal hope that we'll see a "Cosmic Avengers" style team form from this event, which would hopefully include members like Beta Ray Bill, Silver Surfer, Gladiator, and other awesome cosmic characters. If you haven't been reading this, then you owe it to yourself to pick up the issues (or trade if you've been waiting), or better yet, go all the way back to Annihilation and start from the very beginning!