Batman: Earth One Update(s) by Gary Frank

With Superman: Secret Origin finally came to an end, artist Gary Frank is going to be busy now in his next project, again with writer Geoff Johns, featuring a re-imagined Dark Knight tale, Batman: Earth One.



Below are his answers to the questions about “what’s going on now” behind this much awaited book.


How far along are you on “Batman: Earth One?”

Gary: I have 21 pages done so far.

Have you learned anything new about Bruce Wayne and Batman over those first 21 pages that you maybe hadn’t considered before?

Gary: At the moment, out of Bruce, nothing really, as you’ll see when you get this thing in your hand. Bruce at the moment is still a spoiled child. He’s not a particularly likable character. But the character that is the most fascinating at the moment is Alfred. We have a completely new Alfred. And he is going to be much, much more central to the character of Batman.



Yeah, instead of being a glorified butler, we find there is much, much more to Alfred. He is much more of a man of the world and a much wiser character. Well, I guess Alfred is normally fairly wise but I don’t know, I just never really felt entirely convinced by the current Alfred taking out swords and battling ninjas and things like that. So we have a character in Alfred, in the early days at least, who is quite an intimidating character for Bruce. Bruce is slightly over-awed and slightly frightened of him in the early days and the most interesting thing about the book, I think, will be the way that the relationship develops between the two of them.

Can you talk about the look and feel of your Batman? Are there some major changes that you’ve made to the costume?

Gary: There is but it’s going to be a progression. We’re not regarding this as a finished, archetypical Batman, so everything is in development. And when you see the first issue you’ll see what I mean. He starts out with quite a primitive costume. He hasn’t thought a lot of things through. He doesn’t really know what he’s supposed to do. He’s a young man, he’s an angry, young man and obviously for some strange reason he’s decided the best way to go about making himself feel better is to dress as a bat creature and go and solve crimes.



You’ve signed on for multiple volumes (Batman: Earth One) correct?

Gary: Yeah, for now, there are no plans to stop or do anything else.

Is there an ETA on the first volume?

Gary: Well, I don’t know. I have no idea yet. I know we’re going to make it so that we have a good wedge of pages done before we start talking about a release date.



Source(s): CBR, DC

Fabian Nicieza Talks about Bruce Wayne's Road Home

Bruce Wayne: The Road Home consists of eight self-contained, but interconnected one-shots written by various creative teams and each highlighting a major player in Batman's life and their reaction to his return to the modern day DC Universe.

Writer Fabian Nicieza, (current writer of Red Robin) talks about his participation in this project. Well, aside from the fact that he wrote three out of this eight one-shots, he’s also the man DC entrusted to design this whole ‘The Road Home’ thing. So if you want to know something about this project, who do you think is the right man to ask other than him?

Now, let’s hear it from the man himself:


'Road Home' titles seem to be exploring Bruce's return and the impact that he has on the lives of the characters

Fabian: Yes, but it's more than that, too. The way it's working out is that it's a continuing story told in self-contained single issues. There is an absolute running through line in the books. There's two running through lines, really. One of which is Bruce Wayne's return and how he is evaluating the current status quo of the individual characters that are involved in the one-shots, as well as gauging the role those characters may or may not play in his larger plans, which is "Batman, Inc." The majority of the characters he is evaluating don't even know that he's returned. Some of them find out during the course of their individual one-shots; some of them don't learn yet at all. It depended on how each individual story worked out, and that's part of the self-contained aspect of the issues. Each issue has its own story to tell that's part of what these characters do during their evaluations.

The second running through line in all the books - which is actually picking up cleanly off a running subplot that's been going on in the Bat-family for a year now - is Vicki Vale's knowledge of the secret identities of Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake. She has knowledge of this, but she doesn't technically have proof. She can't print a story until she has proof, so she's trying to find proof. That running subplot is picked up on to a lesser or a greater extent in the individual one-shots. By the later chapters in the event, it takes on a greater focus.


About him writing three out of eight of this one-shots

Fabian: Originally, I was only going to write one of the one-shots, two at most, but I lobbied to be able to write "Red Robin." Mike (Martz) wanted me to write the first "chapter" and the last one, which were the "Batman and Robin" and "Ra's al Ghul" one-shots, but I really whined a lot that I didn't really want anyone else writing the "Red Robin."




I even tried to see if Chris Yost had a free minute so we could co-write it. I was trying to get my fingers into that one, no matter what. I understand that having me write three of them are more than most readers, retailers and DC sales guys would prefer, but the only other option would have involved whoever else was chosen to write "Red Robin" dying in a tragic brake-line cutting accident before they could have finished their script. So, lots of whining, maybe an implied threat to the life of an innocent writer and several compromising pictures later, Mike acquiesced and let me write "Red Robin."


What can he say about Bruce's reaction to Damian being Robin and his thoughts on how Dick has been shepherding him?

Without giving too much away, Bruce's narrative in the story is about him coming to a sense of conclusion about how he feels about watching them in action. I don't want to give too much away about how he feels, because that's the emotional flow of the story, but I can say that you can imagine he might feel tremendous pride at what Dick has been able to accomplish, and possibly even a little bit of insecurity or jealousy that maybe it's been done far more easily than Bruce expected.


His approach to writing Dick and Damian as Batman and Robin

I approach Damian as who he is now: longing to be Robin. As far as Dick is concerned, he's my favorite character in comics and has been since I was about six or seven years old. I'm the wrong guy to ask, because in my opinion he should be the leader of the free DC Universe. The fact that he was able to assume the role of Batman - although he wasn't necessarily thrilled about it - and comfortably make it his own so quickly is a testament to the character. It's enjoyable for me as a reader to see other writers get it and have him smoothly assuming a leadership role in the Justice League with all the other characters accepting it, or to see writers understand how he would interact with Commissioner Gordon and handle Gotham City cops in a way that is so different than how Bruce does it. The writers who understand Dick Grayson, and I honestly don't think there are that many of us, have clearly had fun writing him, but they've enabled a whole lot of readers who didn't understand the character to see him shine in a new light.

Source(s): CBR, DC

Tony Daniel Returns to Gotham City

Last Wednesday, DC announced that Tony Daniel will return to his role as writer/artist for the Batman book after Batman 703.



Tony: “I’m excited to be back writing (and drawing) again. I’ll be hitting the ground running this next story arc. There are a few mysteries I want to keep secret, but I can say that I-Ching guest stars during my first arc back and Batman will need the blind mystic’s help to overcome the ancient evil that’s now taking root into Gotham’s Chinatown. Lots of swords, poison arrows, mysteries, puzzles, codes, a secret order, judo chops, punches, uppercuts, roundhouse kicks, horses, parades and fireworks, and well, it goes on.”

Now, let’s hear more of Tony’s plans and visions for the character as he once again stepped into Gotham City.

Tony: My next arc will flesh out [my] Batman. He'll really be putting his detective skills to the test this time as he goes up against a new evil that has planted itself into Gotham City. Though I will have him less reliant on his “Network” this time around, he will still have interactions with the likes of Selina Kyle and her new protégé, Kitrina (AKA Catgirl).

The backdrop to this first arc will be Gotham's seedy Chinatown neighborhood, where some new villains have cropped up in search of something hidden somewhere inside Gotham. Think Dan Brown meets Tony Jaa – big set-piece action sequences balanced out by a mystery that [our hero] has to solve piece by piece. So, new characters, appearances by older ones, detective work, martial arts, a new love interest, ancient relics and I-Ching. It's really, in my mind, a traditional Batman story.

threats or threads he'll be picking up from his last run

We may see what finally happened to the Reaper and we'll get to see what's going on with Kitrina as Catgirl. But the crux of the story will be dealing with something new. As for future arcs, there are always ideas spinning in my head.







Source(s): CBR, DC

All New Screen Shots of Batman: Arkham City

Plenty of game stills below, and when I say plenty...I mean it in a major way



just found these in the world wide web. Enjoy!












Cool right? Yeah? Yeah!

Source(s): BOF, CA

Pat Gleason Covers Batman and Robin

We are already informed that this November, Peter Tomasi and Pat Gleason will be teaming up to take over Batman and Robin,the book launched by Grant Morrison last year, will continue to star Dick Grayson in the lead role with Damian Wayne as his young sidekick Robin.

Newsarama had a chat with Tomasi about his debut on the said book. Read it HERE

Now, here's Gleason's covers for the 17th and 18th issue of Batman and Robin.

Batman 702 Annotations

PREVIOUSLY ON BATMAN
Click all the images to make it larger






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BATMAN 702


Title: RIP: The Missing Chapter
Part 1: Batman's Last Case
Writer: Grant Morrison
Artist and Cover: Tony Daniel
















Page 1

Days to Omega: 27
Location: The Hall of Justice

Superman declares “Condition Amber” to all the JLA members (Final Crisis #1 pg. 24).

Page 2-3

Batman takes the Radion Bullet and puts it in his utility belt to bring it to the Bat-Cave to further analyze it.

Note: Batman taking the Radion Bullet was first revealed in Batman #683 pg. 22 where he also began his recording regarding this event before his “death”.



Everything that Batman narrated in this issue is part of this recording which I suppose is addressed to Superman.

Page 4

Batman explains his theory (the Radion Bullet being the essence of all bullets) to Wally West, the Flash.

Note: We must remember that Wally West is the Flash from Grant’s JLA run so a chat between these two is not a surprise anymore.

This is also the theory that Wally mentioned to Jay Garrick in Final Crisis #2 pg. 28-29


Page 5

This scene, Superman talking to Batman outside the Hall of Justice first appeared in Final Crisis #2 pg. 20

“Essence of bullet” elaborated. Batman has this theory that the New Gods, their ways, and their artifacts are the essence of things rather than things themselves. For him, the New Gods are ideas that happen to interact with the real world. Just like Metron introducing fire to Anthro, thus born the discovery of fire to mankind. Darkseid’s Radion Bullet, the bullet that kills Orion, is the archetype of all bullets.

Note: In Final Crisis #6, Batman says “A gun and a bullet, Darkseid. It was your idea”.



At the time, it seemed that Batman was speaking only of Orion’s death, but here, he’s speaking of every such death. It is the origin of all the bullets that end many lives known to mankind, including his parents'.

Page 6-7

“that imprint on your palm”

Note: In Final Crisis #2, while investigating the crime scene (at Metropolis’ docks where Orion’s body was found) green lantern John Stewart was attacked by another green lantern, and was crucified by the attacker’s constructs to a shipping crate. Before he was put down, John tried to break free. He rips his arm from where it was pinned and punches his attacker’s hand.



Later it was revealed that John’s attacker is alpha lantern Kraken possessed by Granny Goodness, Batman discovered it when he saw the imprint of John’s ring in Kraken’s palm.

Batman calls for ‘Black Alert’. He tried to stop Kraken by killing the nerve cluster in her wrist but failed.

Kraken’s constructs are of giant centipedes. Batman says that her constructs felt like Joker Venom, Fear Gas, and Doctor Hurt’s smile all at once.



Note: Flowers in Arkham garden had these hideous centipedes crawling out of them in Joker’s fantasy of murdering Robin, Nightwing and Gordon using his Joker Venom, which he saw in the ink-blot test that Le Bossu gave him (Batman 676).






Batman believes that the New Gods are the essence of things. This suggests that Granny Goodness’ attack using Kraken’s constructs is the origin of all the things that Batman mentioned. Things that made him confront his worst fears.

“Too late I saw the shape of the trap that had been waiting for me since the day I was born.”

Batman blacked out after he vomited. The last panel is a black rectangle, the shape of an empty, deep grave. Death, his own mortality, is the ultimate trap, set for him since the day he was born.

Page 8

Days to Omega: 25
Location: Evil Factory, Bludhaven

Instead of Turpin, Batman is the one who said “there’s someone in my head”(Final Crisis #2 pg. 25).



Is this some kind of editorial error? Who knows?

Page 9

That “someone” inside Batman’s head is the Lump.

Note: The Lump is a powerful telepath and shape shifter from Apokolips.



In Final Crisis, Simyan and Mokkari used the Lump to help create an army of Batman Clones. The Lump toured in Batman’s mind for 25 days disguised as Alfred Pennyworth, His goal is taking Batman through his memories, to feed the clones with the determination and skill of Batman. However, Batman detected him which led to a mental battle between the two.

The emotional energy caused by this began killing the Batman Clones. To stop the mental link, Mokkari shot the Lump to death. Still inside Batman’s mind, the Lump feels he’s slowly dying. Batman swore if the Lump helped him, he would find the Lump's killers. From being an enemy, the Lump became Batman’s ally. Lump set Batman free before he disintegrates. Batman’s captors ran away when they saw him gets free, leaving Batman’s utility belt and the gun that they used to kill the Lump.

Lump’s tour inside Batman’s head is detailed in Batman #682-683.

Page 10-11


“There are HOLES in my awareness and they seem to be getting BIGGER”

As he breaks free, Batman sensed that he’s beginning to lose his memory, probably caused by the green syringes injected in his head.

“I can remember the smell of ANTISEPTIC, fear and human waste. It was as if I’d woken in a prison hell of BROKEN GLASS and chemicals where the dead men in the jars all had MY FACE.”


Note: This echoes the memories that the Clone-Batman repeats to Damian in Batman and Robin #9.















“I realized THEY hadn’t prepared for ANY of this.”

“That Hole in Things was EVERYWHERE. It was there in every BEST LAID PLAN.”

Batman remarks of his escape from the Evil Factory as what the Evil Gods hadn’t prepared for. Darkseid’s best laid plan succumbs in failure. Nothing’s perfect.

“They ran and left my belt behind…”

Note: Man, if you’re going to trap the Bat make sure that his utility belt is nowhere near him. With his mind and that belt combined, he’s invincible.

Batman found the Radion Bullet still inside his utility belt. Beside the belt is the gun Mokkari used to kill the Lump.

He loads the God-bullet in the gun then walks to find and confront Darkseid. He remembers his chat with Jim Gordon asking him “Why did you have to choose an enemy that’s…bigger than all of us Batman?” (Batman #665 pg. 18)

“I figured I could take him” Batman replied.

Page 12

Seconds to Omega: 00.53
Location: Depths of Command D-Bunker, Bludhaven

Batman came face to face with Darkseid. (Final Crisis #6 pg. 26-27)

“He might have been a WOLF once, a DRAGON or a TYRANT.”

“How MANY TIMES in human history had his moment played out?”

“The MONSTER…and the MAN standing in his way?”

How many times indeed? Whether real life or fictional? A brave knight fighting a dragon, a lone hunter face to face with a fierce wolf, and stories of people who stood up against tyranny.

Page 13

“He knew I WOULDN”T kill his human host but he didn’t knew I had the RADION bullet.”

“And a NEW MYTH of my own”

As Batman fires the gun, Darkseid’s Omega Sanction came out.

“A myth where Ultimate Evil turns its gaze on humanity and humanity gazes right back and says…”

GOTCHA.

Darkseid is the archetype of all terrible beings/ things that have plagued mankind. Batman stood up and fights the Ultimate Evil in front of him. Thus, his counterattack becomes an archetype, too. He now became humanity’s representative to stare down evil and strike fear into it. Batman altered the myth of evil and gave birth to that well known myth titled "Miracle in Crime Alley", Where a young boy gazed back at evil and vows to fight it. ^_^



Page 14-15

Darkseid’s Omega Sanction struck Batman. (Final Crisis #6 pg. 28-29)



And that brings us to this issue's biggest revelation. The Ancestor Box, unlike the “ping ping ping” sound of the Mother Box, this box creates this bell-like sound “domm domm domm”. Perhaps this is the “Bells of the All-Over” that people throughout history hear when they open the Bat-Casket (Return of Bruce Wayne). In addition to that, this box has a many tentacle thing creeping from it. Perhaps the hyper-adapter which the box contains creates the hyperfauna (Return of Bruce Wayne #2). It is likely that of which Jack Valor cannot speak (Return of Bruce Wayne #3) and that which Alan Wayne calls "sickening" (Return of Bruce Wayne #4).







“Then I GOT it.”

“Somehow I knew WHAT he was turning in his hands…”

Page 16-17

“It was TIME”

“time is PLIABLE”

“As I stayed IN PLACE, he manipulated whole CENTURIES around me”.

As the Omega Sanction struck Batman we can see his life flashes before our eyes as time bends and the coincidences and events became a conspiracy meant to trap and bring him Death.

Darkseid described the Omega Sanction as a trap that uses your history and your timeline that will bring you death over and over. It brings its victim in a series of alternate realities, each worse than the previous one.

Being struck by it, Batman’s reality is trapped (e.g, his various death and funeral in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader - pg.16 panel 4) and his entire history is manipulated (e.g. Willowood Asylum – pg. 17 panel 1).

Trivia: Willowood Asylum is the place in a Pre-Crisis(1) story where Bruce's brain-damaged evil brother Thomas Jr.(2) was sent.

(1) Because of the extensive and substantial changes that the storyline Crisis on Infinite Earths implemented on many titles published by DC Comics, the series became a defining and critical moment in DC Comics' long-standing continuity. Characters and other elements established before the series, especially those eliminated by it, were referred to as pre-Crisis, while revised ones were considered post-Crisis.

(2) Thomas Wayne Jr.

The second son of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and the elder brother of Bruce/Batman. As an infant, Thomas Jr. had suffered head injuries in a car accident, and had been confined to Willowood Asylum for life. Upon his escape, he was manipulated into becoming the assassin known as the "Boomerang Killer" until Batman learned of his existence. In World's Finest #227, Thomas Wayne, Jr. appears to die, sacrificing himself to save his brother's life.



Question: By opening the gates of the said pre-Crisis asylum, could Morrison be opening the door to Thomas Jr. being Doctor Hurt?

Answer: Definitely, NO.

Thomas Wayne Jr. was only three years older than Bruce, Doctor Hurt on the other hand was already an adult in 1980's, clearly too old to be the son of Thomas and Martha.

And we flash to Superman, Tim Drake and Rip Hunter at the JLA Watchtower listening to Batman’s recording device. Somehow Batman’s buddies found his utility belt and listened to these notes, and that might be how they know that Darkseid turned Batman into a Doomsday Weapon. And now they’re (Superman, Hal Jordan, Booster Gold, Rip Hunter) doing all they can to stop him returning to the current timeline, for his return indicates his and humanity’s end.

Page 18

We can see Bruce’s funeral (first seen in Batman #673 and was detailed in Batman #687), and his gravestone beside his parents’.

During his heart attack and his near death experience in Batman #673, did Bruce saw his future? That we don’t know. What we know is, that wasn’t him they buried. It was the Clone-Batman which Dick resurrected using the Lazarus Pit in Batman and Robin #8

“I’m not dead”.

“I know you’ll search for me”.

We can also see Bruce plunges deeper into Darkseid’s trap with his cape and cowl glowing with Omega Radiation indicating that it’s the Doomsday Weapon.

Page 19

Bruce is now inside his pre-historic Bat-Cave. He takes off the cape and the cowl. He has to, because if being Batman is going to lead him to being Darkseid’s greatest doomsday weapon, he’ll have to be just Bruce Wayne to get through and survive. We should know that there’s no such thing as Batman and Bruce Wayne, because both are one man. With or without the cape and the cowl, there’s no doubt that Bruce Wayne IS Batman.

“I can’t remember my NAME anymore”.

Bruce slowly loses his memories as he leaves everything about him being the Batman.

Page 20-22

(Final Crisis #7, Epilogue)

As Bruce goes deeper in the cave he found Anthro who died peacefully upon sensing his arrival.

“I have to crack this maze. Before I forget EVERYTHING.”

“Like Theseus…leave a trail…And mark it with a BAT”.

“My last case…my ultimate trial…”

“Don’t FORGET. SURVIVE”

Bruce takes off his utility belt, and takes out his recording device (which shows us exactly when he last recorded all this information as he lost his memory).

“I should have known when I CHOSE to walk this path”.

“IT NEVER ENDS”.

Note: The path he is referring to is his decision on that very day when he dons the cape and the cowl and vows to fight evil.

Bruce draws the bat on the cavern wall. Now with his memory all gone, he steps out of the cave into the red dawn/dusk which is the very beginning of Return of Bruce Wayne #1.

"Bahala Na Si Batman" - Exploring one of Filipino's famous expression

One famous characteristic trait of Filipinos is the ‘come what may’ attitude, and we have this odd but famous saying/expression “bahala na si Batman” which is “leave it all to batman” or “it’s all up to batman” when translated in English. But what does this saying really means?

"Bahala na" is usually said in a difficult maybe hopeless situation when things are left to fate. It's like when you have to take an exam and you didn't review, you're gonna say "bahala na si Batman" because you wanna take the exam and you know you have to but you don't care anymore whether to passed it or not.

Batman in this context is taken to be a super persona of some sort who decides one's unchangeable destiny. It’s as if you don’t have any choice and you have to put all your hopes to a certain someone, in this case it’s Batman.

So why Batman? Of all the superheroes, why him?

Maybe, it’s because at one point an old geezer can’t think of any superhero when he invented this saying.

Maybe, it’s just because “Batman” and “Bahala na” starts with the same letter and its sounds nice to the ear.

Maybe, it’s because Batman’s an inspiration for he always finds a way to survive in any given situation because he's greatest weapon is his mind and his incomparable resolve .

Maybe, it’s because Batman is a superhero without any super powers. Thus, he can be looked up upon by any man because he’s a superhero that can actually exist.

Or maybe I just made this whole “why batman” stuff.

But we really do have that kind of saying. ^_^