Embedded Files
BATMAN INCORPORATED: LEVIATHAN STRIKES! #1
Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes!
DC Comics, February 2012, Color, 80pgs, $6.99
Written by GRANT MORRISON ; Art by CHRIS BURNHAM and CAMERON STEWART; Cover by CHRIS BURNHAM
In this sensational, giant-sized one-shot spinning out of Batman Incorporated, Batman realizes to his horror that he's been outwitted as the true identity of Leviathan continues to elude him. Is his deadly adversary an old foe with a grudge to settle, a new face of evil…or something completely different? Only one thing is certain: You won't soon forget the shocking ending!
Cameron Stewart, Chris Burnham, and color artist Nathan Fairbairn pull out all the stops for the long-awaited season finale of Batman Incorporated with Batman and his allies trapped in a cold war brainwashing facility for the ultimate mind-bending battle against Leviathan and the diabolical Otto Netz, Masterspy. See the last hurrah of Stephanie Brown as Batgirl, in a sinister school for suicide spy girls! Find out what caused the Batman and Robin team to split! And witness the unmasking of Leviathan in a shocking final page twist that sets up 2012’s Batman: Leviathan, the epic concluding act of a Batman story six years in the making! With guest appearances by Batwing, Red Robin, the Hood, the Outsiders and more!
Commentary
Commentary
For anyone who's been hiding under a rock these past 4 months, Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes! is a giant-sized compendium of what was originally intended to be Batman Incorporated #9 and #10 - thankfully spared any last minute adjustments to fit into DC's 'New 52' continuity. In the interests of full disclosure I'll say right out that I'm not at all interested in how this issue does or doesn't dovetail with Flashpoint or the New 52, and am totally perplexed by anyone who says their enjoyment of this comic was in someway affected by the way it does or doesn't fit into the new 'official' continuity. Though its perhaps surprising to see DC trumping Marvel even in the "undo any indication that Grant Morrison ever wrote this title" stakes - at least the House of Ideas waited a couple of months after Morrison's New X-Men had finished before consigning it to the retcon dumpster - at least we're not in for another WildC.A.T'S - or even worse, The Authority - and Morrison will be able to finish his six year Bat-epic, hopefully relatively undisturbed, in next years Batman: Leviathan.
Though it's somewhat worrying to read Chris Burnham confirming that Leviathan has already been co-opted into the new continuity before its even begun, like Burnham says we should be confident that, when its finished, the people involved will keep it so the whole Bat-saga can be read and enjoyed without having to refer to non-Morrison line-wide crossover books that I have, frankly, zero interest in.
Onto the comic itself - it is, without question, a masterpiece - certainly the best work I've read by both Burnham and Stewart, two of the finest artists working in comics today, illuminated by the incredible Nathan Fairburn, and paired with a double whammy of Morrison's scripting at its best. This book is - in a way that Action Comics certainly hasn't managed yet (although the preview for issue #5 looks promising) - the reason I'm still reading comics and, as far as tights and capes comics go, is really out in a league of its own. Bravo gentlemen, bravo.
UPDATE - Thanks to Chris Burnham and the magic of Twitter, there are numerous additions and corrections in the annotations for Chapter 2 below. Straight from the extremely talented horse's mouth so to speak.
Annotations
Annotations
Cover - Originally solicited for Batman Incorporated #10, Chris Burnham's cover made the grade for this one-shot over his 'Batman punches out a schoolgirl' cover, intended for #9 and nixed by DC Editorial. We don't even get it as a variant, which is disappointing. Not enormously keen on the paste up job the design department have done on it, but I'd rather have this than have to wait another month to read it. We'll see a lot more of the remote-controlled Bat-robots in Burnham's half of the book.
CHAPTER 1: THE SCHOOL OF NIGHT
Page 1 - St. Hadrian's Finishing School for Girls, named for Adrian of Nicomedia, patron saint of soldiers, arms dealers and butchers (and 'communications phenomena' according to Wikipedia...) is inspired in large part by a similar institute run by Lord Marmaduke Ffogg (played by Rudy Valee) and his sister, Lady Penelope Peasoup (played by Glynis Johns) which appeared in a three part story ('The Londinum Larcenies'/'The Foggiest Notion'/'The Bloody Tower') from the the 1967-68 season of the Batman TV series. Lord Ffogg's Ffogg Place finishing school trained young girls as thieves and criminals in order to assist in a plot to steal the Crown Jewels. As a native of the British Isles, it is easily mine and most of my countrymen's favourite episode(s) of the Batman TV show, featuring as it does Londinium, pea-soupers and everything stopping for tea. You crazy yanks...
Fairly extreme hazing ritual going on here, bearing more than a a passing resemblance to the initiation ceremony of the Freemasons. The girls in skull masks are all wearing copies of Kathy Kane's Batwoman costume...
Page 2 - Set up way back in Batman: The Return, Stephanie Brown's trip to England to investigate St Hadrian's took a long time coming, derailing her solo title somewhat with a lead in to this issue published six months ago in Batgirl #22. DC, justifiably worried that a certain section of comics fandom will avoid any book that doesn't 'count', initially planned on changing her back to her previous costumed identity of Spoiler for this issue in order to better align with the 'New 52' but, thankfully, soon thought better of it. You can see some of Cameron Stewart's roughs for this issue featuring Spoiler over at his Tumblr.
By the time this issue was published Stephanie had been sent back to comic book limbo and Barbara Gordon was Batgirl again. A shame as, like last issue's Oracle story, Stephanie's a compelling character who could easily be very popular in the right hands.
The gardener is of course the big pay-off later in the issue...
Page 3 - The teachers at St.Hadrian's are all drop-dead gorgeous stone foxes, and each takes their look from an A-list celeb. Though I got very excited that the three teachers correspond to Talia's henchwomen Dragonfly, Tiger Moth and Silken Spider (last seen in the 'Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul' crossover) , Cameron Stewart very kindly let me know that that wasn't what was in the script but could have been something that Grant was intending. So convinced am I that this is the case though, I will persevere. And convince you too...
Dragonfly, the brunette, is here in the first panel looking remarkably like Katy Perry, while her boss, Miss Hexley, bears a striking resemblance to Madonna.
"...Proud Venus Fly traps, not Shrinking Violets!" These girls are not to be messed with...
Notice the Pandora charms on the pistol grip. Awww...
Page 4 - I suppose Stephanie is the only one-time Robin who's old man isn't Batman, as he adopted Dick, Jason and Tim, and Damian is actually his son...
"The events of this issue take place before FLASHPOINT and the NEW 52" Good, thanks for that. Who cares?
Page 5 - Charms on the grip, rhinestones on the barrel...
Page 6 - Is that Rihanna? Or Silken Spider?
Page 7 - Notice the Scorpiana portrait above Stephanie's head, alongside an unknown, red-suited fellow assassin.
Una Clairmont, the Olympic gymnast "personally selected ... to test the Leviathan technology", fought Batwoman (whilst wearing a Kathy Kane costume) back in Batman Incorporated #4. Tristessa Delicias ("delightful sadness") was the alias used by Scorpiana when she tried to kill Bruce Wayne and The Gaucho in Batman Incorporated #3.
The Highwayman was mentioned in the back matter of the second Batman and Robin hardcover as one of the British criminals who opposed the Knight and the Squire, We didn't get to see him in the story. From Grant Morrison's notes -
"Stand and deliver! I saw the Highwayman as a cross between Adam Ant and Russell Brand: a dashing gentleman bastard who plies his devilish trade on the motorways of Britain. He rides his big black stealth cycle alongside tourist coaches, delivery trucks and especially security vans before robbing them blind and making off with the loot."
Page 8 - 'Sexiest Super Criminals Polls'. Nice.
I think that by the end of the Batgirl series it was revealed that Stephanie's father the Cluemaster, some time Bat-villain and one time member of the Injustice League and the Suicide Squad, was actually still alive. He was created by Gardner Fox and Carmine Infantino and debuted in 1966's Detective Comics #351
The mysterious headmistress... more of her later.
Page 9 - Lady Gaga at the shooting range. By my reckoning also Tiger Moth... Convincing you yet?
Zedette Makarov, apart form having an awesome name, is probably named either after the Makarov pistol or a recurring character from the Call of Duty video game series (who definitely is named after the pistol). Jolisa Windsor is the Highwayman's daughter, who Stephanie was talking to outside the headmistress's office.
Page 10 - NLP, or Neuro-Linguistic Programming is a sort of motivational speaking taken to the nth degree. It is very similar in how it works to Grant Morrison's own descriptions of magic. You can see some of its techniques in the routines of magicians like Derren Brown or hypnotists like Paul McKenna. Most NLP books you can check out form the library or buy in the high street are actually using it on you (in a positive way of course - "You can do it!" sort of stuff) rather than you learning how to actually do it. Presumably that's what you get the Mentor qualifictaion for...
Page 11 - See? Gaga has a stripy bow in her hair, like a tiger moth?
Page 12 - Johnny Valentine, aka Janosz Valentin, first appeared alongside Una Clairmont battling (the new) Batwoman in Batman Incorporated #4. Obviously, his dad, Laszlo Valentin aka Professor Pyg, appeared as the antagonist in much of Morrison's run on Batman and Robin. The dresser laid out in front of him contains deadly versions of the original Batwoman's paraphenalia, all based around beauty products (hey, it was the 1950's, what you think she's going to carry a gun?).
I can't find a specific reference for the boot print on Pyg's mask, but I assume its from when he's captured late in the Batman and Robin run? If that is the case though, how did Janosz get the mask?
Page 13 - The wafers obviously reference the Christian communion wafer, and were also seen in issue seven, where Red Rippa and his gang were doling peppermint flavoured versions out to the local disaffected youth.
A horrendous nightmare version of getting into trouble for passing notes in class...
Page 14 - Nice that Morrison slips in the safety warning, even for a picture of someone larking about with a noose round their neck. 'Weaponized' has easily been one of Grant's favourite words throughout this run, going right back to the 'weaponized PCP' in 'Batman R.I.P.'
Page 17 - And here comes...
Page 18 - Batman! Outstanding work indeed. If Batgirl had a comic this awesome out every month I'd snap it up...
Page 19 - Gaga, Katy Perry and Rihanna (or Tiger Moth, Draginfly and Silken Spider) get out as the shit hits the fan
Page 20 - After reading both chapters of Leviathan Strikes!, it seems pretty apparent that the headmistress is Kathy Kane. but you can't always take these things for granted...
Page 21-22 - The action scene Stewart pulls off here is breathtaking. The whole staging of it is so, so good, culminating in Batman catching the crossbow bolt. Amazing stuff
CHAPTER 2: LEVIATHAN STRIKES!
Page 23 - The 'diamond' that Batman and Catwoman took from Sivana's lab back in Batman Incorporated #1. Photonic crystals are, very simply, crystals that let only certain frequencies of light through. Though extremely difficult to manufacture (in real life), three-dimensional photonic crystals potentially have far-reaching applications in computing and communications. That it has a 'negative refractive index' suggests that it reflects light in a manner that isn't visible in the electromagnetic spectrum, i.e. that it can make things invisible, as it did with the 'guard dog' in Sivana's lab. Invisibility is not a property found in nature and so this crystal is classified as a metamaterial (more of that on the next page), that is a material designed to artificially produce properties that don't occur naturally. Metamaterials have been theorised that not only work in the electromagnetic spectrum, but also in the acoustic and seismic wavelengths - materials that could potentially negate soundwaves, or shockwaves from earthquakes.
As usual with all this Morrison science talk, all of these things are taken from real, cutting edge science, albiet with a healthy dose of artistic licence. Apologies in advance to any visisting scientists for my clumsy, ham-handed explanations, please consult the Wikipedia links for the bewilderingly complex version.
Page 24 - The Brunnian Ring, first seen in the note fake Dedalus passes to his guard in Batman Incorporated #4, is, just as Lucius Fox says, a mathematical model of a potential 'new' form of matter, following solids, liquids, gasses and plasma (and Bose-Einstein condensate!). Its structure is closely linked to the Borromean link - three interlinked circles where all are released if one is broken- ... Borromean links appear in heraldry, Celtic knot design, molecular biology, corporate iconography, complex mathematics and in the DIscordian mandala, making them in many ways the ideal Morrisonian construct.
How Bruce links the metamaterial to Oroboro and a perpetually renewable energy source must be down to a Adam West-style leap in logic.
Page 25 - More real! science! for you - X-aerogels are a light, very strong material derived from silica. Aerogels, "The World's Lightest Material", are very light and heat resistant, but can be brittle and can shatter like glass when put under certain pressures. These problems appear to have been taken out of the mix by the invention of x-aerogels. If you'd like to know more, there's much, much more here...
Graphene is a kind of carbon chicken-wire, one atom thick, that is often described, fittingly for its use here in the comic book world, as a 'two-dimensional material'.
The Burt Ward punching-the-hand thing the robots each do in turn is a fine flourish from Burnham.
The bottom half of this page, chronologically, occurs around about page 38. Netz's recorded monologue draws us, the readers, in to the endlessly circular Labyrinth of Doctor Dedalus.
Page 26-27 - In case you've forgotten, since most of these characters were rebooted in the DC relaunch in September, from left to right we have Batman (original Robin Dick Grayson), Red Robin (most recent but one Robin Tim Drake), Batman (Bruce Wayne) and the current Robin (Bruce's son Damian).
The doors and their corresponding colours (Black - Earth, Red - Fire, Blue - Water, Yellow - Air), come from Aleister Crowley's Golden Dawn sect's 'colouring' of the Enochian tablets, transcribed by John Dee and Edward Kelley from a 'language of the angels' in the late 16th century. The tablets, colours and their corresponding meanings and applications in Enochian magic are extremely complicated and, in the opinion of many adepts, either incomplete or deliberately obscured so as to stop their immensely powerful magics falling into the wrong hands.
The 'choose a door' deathtrap was employed many times in the 60's Batman TV series starring Adam West.
Though the commentary implies Batman has chosen the white door at least once before, presumably that's a 'false memory' brought on by the Alzheimer's gas. This is the only time we see the whole Bat family together so this must be when they first arrived onboard the Leviathan. The smoke around the edge of the central chamber is the same as that which makes up Dedalus' 'cloak of smoke'; is this the gas that's causing the disorientation and time displacement?
This spread says it all about the home stretch of Morrison's Batman run really; Enochian magic via Batman '66 in a room full of gas that simulates the effects of Alzheimer's.
Page 28 - "Come into my parlor...", said the spider to the fly.
Dedalus' chair is straight out of Number Two's lair in Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner, though the spider legs are a new addition. The whole setup is very reminiscent of the last episode of The Prisoner, 'Fall Out'. Well worth watching if you haven't already.
"You met the warden of my jail -- The last man to walk The Sprial --" - the 'fake' Dedalus in Batman Incorporated #5
Lazlo Valentin is, of course, Professor Pyg. Created by Morrison, he first appeared in the 'Damian is Batman' future of Batman #666, before making his debut in the present day in Batman and Robin #1. His previous appearances have cast him as the leader of an extreme circus troupe (ties to circus owner Kathy Kane maybe?), and heavily hinted that his psychotic state was as a result of the maneuverings of Simon Hurt. The latter appears to go out of the window here as Dedalus takes the credit for Pyg's 'creation'.
Page 29 - The rebreather, highlighted in the second inset panel, appears and disappears a number of times over these pages, all contributing to the disorientation and uncertainty caused by the gas.
"The belly of the beast", though of uncertain provenance, probably refers to the Biblical tale of Jonah, trapped in the belly of the whale. Joseph Campbell equated this with various archetypal stories of the hero's descent into the underworld. In this story Batman descends not just figuratively into madness but literally into the depths of the ocean too.
Chris Burnham manages to make each stage of the countdown very dynamic and interesting, without it getting repetitive. Good show, sir.
Mtamba, the home of Bruce's ex-beau and member of criminal gambling syndicate the Black Glove, Jezebel Jet, is also the home of Batwing. That's been altered post-New 52 but, as above, I don't care about that...
Page 30 - This is the first hint we get that Batwing, David Zavimbi, is mixed up somehow in the upper echelon's of Mtamban society. Previous appearances haven't touched on Batwing's alter ego at all. 'Jez' (Jeebel Jet) was the figurehead leader of Mtamba until her disappearance at the end of 'Batman R.I.P.'. Jacob Nkele was Jezebel's 'father', also a member of the Black Glove and a stereotypical Big Man in Africa, who won Jet and her mother in a wager and ruled the country with an iron fist after murdering the ruling family. He was killed by Jezebel, who succeeded him as ruler, a short time before she met Bruce Wayne in London way back in Batman #655.
Presumably Desmond Zavimbi, puppet 'ruler' of Mtamba is kind of like an African King Ralph; a distant relative of the royal family brought in to give a sheen of respectability to the real forces in charge (i.e. the military). There's an implication that he and David Zavimbi, alias Batwing, are playing at some kind of Man in the Iron Mask style identity-swap shenanigans.
I can't think of any reason we've seen why Desmond would be 'wanted in Europe'.
Page 31 - There's a possibility the two ladies accompanying Batwing are Thunder and Lightning, ex-Outsiders and daughters of Black Lightning. In the truly horrendous conclusion to the most recent Outsiders series, all of the Outsiders past and present jump in a plane with Batman to join him in his exciting Batman Incoporated adventures, though what with many of them being terrible characters most of course fade away into comic book limbo. Obviously the 'core team' have already shown up in issue 6 (and later this issue), but it's not totally unreasonable that they'd send other team members to back up Batwing - and Morrison has written one of them before in Final Crisis: Submit. They don't use any powers though, suggesting it might not be them, and I have no idea who the big guy behind them is (though I feel like I should), so maybe its just two kick-ass Mtamban heroines we haven't met yet...
UPDATE - Chris Burnham confirmed that those aren't Thunder and Lightning, but two kick-ass Mtamban heroines that we hadn't met previously named Tik and Tok. The big guy is also a new, as yet un-named, creation.
No sign of Traktir and Spidra, the Russian heroes introduced in Batman: The Return who we last saw fighting alongside Batwing in Mtamba. Wonder what happened to them?
Page 32 - In three pages Morrison has given us a Batwing setup that's infinitely more appealing than the drab New 52 version...
Batwing's mission then - to uncover who's really in power down Mtamba way. Obviously he's discovered it's not Jezebel and, as we hear later, at some point off-panel he's found her body, sans head.
"My God is that... Bat... wings?" - The Ninja Man-Bats who attacked Jeebel's plane at the end of 'R.I.P.' strike again. I really hope Batwing and his team make it out of the other side of this one...
Page 33 - Again, very Prisoner-esque. The Alzeihmer's bit is very good; chilling...
WAGs - Wives and Girlfriends; an acronym coined by the British tabloids to describe the collective of footballers' significant others that descended on Germany during England's moribund 2006 (football) World Cup campaign, popularly blamed for England's early exit from the tournament.
The building in the last panel is MI6 (the British Secret Intelligence Service, roughly analogous to the American CIA) headquarters, an absurdly conspicous building on the bank of the Thames in London.
Page 34 - The Hood engages in a bit of Bond/Moneypenny style banter with the secretary while checking out the files on Leviathan
Though I can't find any oil tankers used as mobile interrogation facilities in real life, there is an Israeli bus manufacturer called Merkavim (part owned by Volvo) whose prison transport buses are also used for interrogation on the move.
The Hood's story thread seems the biggest casualty of Batman Incorporated's supposedly curtailed run (it was originally announced the first arc would run 12 issues). Ever economical, Morrison still manages to give us a good idea of what the Hood is about in this all too brief coda to his 'infiltration' of Batman Incorporated, before he's apparently killed by his boss, Matron (as we mentioned in the annos for Batman Incorporated #5, probably inspired by The Avengers' Mother). There's still a lot of questions about Kathy Kane's role in all of this that this issue's big reveal does nothing to answer. Bring on Batman: Leviathan!
Page 35 - The first panel echoes David Mazzucchelli's iconic cover to Batman #404, the first part of 'Batman: Year One', accompanied by an Adam West-style sound effect. The second, with Pyg's 'mummy made of nails' from the Frazer Irving drawn arc of Batman and Robin sporting Martha Wayne's pearls, uses the actual 'Kapow' title card from the TV show. Presumably it was here that Laszlo Valentin gave in to the Labyrinth and went mad. Dedalus big psychological push seems to be some sort of mother complex - we've already seen in 'Last Rites' how far the bad guys are going to get trying to break Batman psychologically...
UPDATE - This page also features Chris Burnham's multi-layered homage to Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. I'll leave it to you to work out what form the tribute takes...
Page 36 - Burnham's kenetic fight choreography just gets better and better.
Bilal Asselah, Batman Incorporated's French operative Nightrunner, was last seen taking on Leviathan in issue six.
Page 37 - Though we also saw the new Night Ranger in issue six, this is the first time we learn his secret identity, Johnny Riley.
Though some folks have complained that Tim Drake hasn't been given enough 'screen time' in Morrison's Batman run, he's consistently been the character who get to the bottom of what's going on before anyone else. The rotating drums within drums brings to mind the 1997 movie Cube.
Page 38 - As Burnham said in the interview linked in the Commentary, when the scenery shifts to the decrepit and ruined version of Dedalus' control room, the art takes a decidedly sketchier turn.
Another movie springs to mind though I wouldn't imagine its deliberate. In Kerry Conran's 2004 film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, the villain, seen in newsreel footage as vintage clips of Laurence Olivier, is revealed to be long dead at the film's conclusion, his end-of-the-world plot instigated by robots and recordings after his death.
Page 39 - Netz's role as a assassin of super-types puts a new spin on his encounter with the Victory V's back in Batman Incorporated #3, and maybe even on Kathy Kane's off-screen 'death' back in 1979's Detective Comics #485
The biblical Leviathan was a sea monster (probably actually a whale) who dwelled at the bottom of the sea.
Page 40 - Leviathan's orbital platform, last seen in issue five. Halo, Looker, Metamorpho, Freight Train and Katana of the Outsiders are on the case; perpetual cannon fodder as noted in the annotations for issue six.
Page 41 - The 'nomads' bit is a pretty clear pointer to Talia's reveal. Well, pretty clear in hindsight anyway...
As predicted by pretty much everybody, Lord Death Man managed to make it out of his satellite prison and onto the Leviathan space-station, just in time to blow it up and 'kill' the Outsiders. Morrison has already written a comic where he blew up a satellite with Metamorpho and a bunch of second string heroes on board, in JLA #1 from 1997. In that one, Metamorpho formed a sphere around them and got them safely down to Earth, though he rendered himself 'inert' for his troubles.
Page 42 - Oracle, kicking it Minority Report style, reappears in her Bat-avatar guise. Burnham pretty much goes with Scott Clark's redesign from last issue over David Finch's original from Batman: The Return.
UPDATE - Chris Burnham points out that this page features the debut of the new Bat Boat, a Batamaran no less.
The bottom half of this page, chronologically, occurs back before pages 26-27, and before any of the preceding stuff happened. That does however, throw up a big question surrounding The Hood's death. He was the agent to die on the ten minute mark of Dedalus' countdown, but he was killed whilst reporting the location of the Leviathan ship to Oracle, so he must have been killed (if he's even 'really' dead) before the countdown began. What's all that gas filling the room? Have I got any oxygen left in my rebreather?!
Page 43 - Argentina, Britain, France, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. The significance of the locations, beyond being where the story has taken us in Batman Incorporated so far, escapes me. Anyone any ideas why these specific places are Leviathan's targets and not anywhere else?
The 'chalk' outlines on the floor - the three dead marines killed en route to the Falklands in issue three/four? Or, as someone pointed out on the DC Comics message board, the three dead/unconcious Leviathan agents seen in each version of the room, gradually becoming more abstract as the effects of the mind eroding gas take their toll on Batman?
"She told me he liked puzzles..." Kathy? Or Talia?
The 'meta' in 'meta-bomb' then is presumably in reference to the meta-materials rather than 'meta-human' as I originally thought. Though given the Argentinian one was based around a mystical super-hammer, maybe there's some double meaning going on there. The pearls have been one of the defining motifs of Morrison's run, especially during the Return of Bruce Wayne mini-series.
Page 44 - The Tango of Death, last danced in issue three.
Page 45 - Effectively, Dedalus has beaten Batman here; only the 'chance' element of Damian's involvement saves them all, albiet in a somewhat 'extreme' fashion.
Page 46 - Netz' monologuing continues to flit between spoken and recorded speech.
Page 47 - 'Bis Das Schicksal Dich Ruft' translates as 'Until Fate Calls You', apt given Netz's comments on the previous pages about waiting for the opportunity to use the dagger on the World's Greatest Crimefighter.
Page 48 - Damian, the Fallen Son, murders Netz to stop him from killing his dad. We've come a long way from his beheading the Spook way back in 'Batman and Son'. His little face in that third panel... poor lad. You get the impression that Damian is really going to be put through the ringer come Batman: Leviathan...
The robot bat cavalry descend into the deeps to raise the Leviathan.
Page 49 - Proof positive - or as good as we're going to get at this stage - that Kathy Kane is not only alive but also the sinister Headmistress, seen in the shadows in Chapter 1. But what is her connection to Leviathan? And is their more to British spymaster Matron than what we've seen so far?
The house of cards starts to fall as Morrison shifts gears and ramps up to the big reveal. Netz, the big player over pretty much the whole of Batman: Incorporated? Misdirection. That inconsequential little 'Batman and Son' four parter way back at the beginning of the run? Well, sure it introduced Damian but other than that it doesn't really have anything to do with anything does it? Everything's about Doctor Hurt right? Right?
"The World in flames... Two headstones... Kali the Destroyer" A vision of Damian's future from Batman #666? The Kali Yantra-esque sigil of Leviathan...
The Eye of the Gorgon; Algol - The Demon's Head. The original inspiration for Ra's (and by extension Talia's) name and also for the title of one of Morrison;s very first published works, 1979's Starblazer #15 'Algol the Terrible'
Page 50 - Looks like Jezebel really did die when those Ninja Man-Bats attacked, eh? But why the eye trauma? Again, the juxtaposition of a severed head with the Adam West Batphone (like many things in this issue, last seen in R.I.P. when El Sombrero booby trapped Wayne Manor) just encapsulates the run so well.
The expression Burnham gives Batman in the bottom panel is heartbreaking...
Page 51 - Park Row, later known as Crime Alley, is where Bruce Wayne's parents were killed that fateful night. The Monarch Theater is the movie house thay had just left after watching the Mark of Zorro. Interestingly it seems to have been given the Monarch name in Tim Burton's 1989 Batman movie, which then moved across into the comic continuity rather than vice versa. Didn't Pyg use it as a hideout during the later issues of Batman and Robin too?
Turns out that 'Batman and Son' arc wasn't so inconsequential after all. And, unbelievably, Simon Hurt was more of a sort of subplot, or B story...
"Give or take four letters I practically signed my masterpiece" Take the E V H and N from Leviathan and you have...
Page 52 - Talia al Ghul, daughter of Ra's and now firmly an international criminal mastermind in her own right. She first appeared in 1971's Detective Comics #411 and was apparently created by Denny O'Neil all on his own. Rumoured to appear in the upcoming Dark Knight Rises movie, Morrison obviously has big plans for pushing her into the big leagues. Given the 'glimpse of the future' from #666, the 'Two headstones' prophecy, the (hopefully) now out-of-continuity conclusion and the promise of a showdown in Crime Alley, what are the odds that Batman: Leviathan sees Damian's defining family tragedy? His mother? His father? Both?
The Heretic, behind Talia's chair, is a mysterious figure intoriduced in Batman: The Return. Also called 'Fatherless', that he's the clone of Damian seen in Batman and Robin #9 seems almost too obvious. Lots of internet speculaltion that he might be Jean Paul Valley aka the original Azrael, for some reason, though there's probably just as many speculating that he's the one in the Wingman suit, another plot point not picked up in this 'season finale'.
So, no solicitation as yet - judging from the CBR Chris Burnham interview I think its probably fair to speculate no script yet - but Batman:Leviathan is definitely coming in 2012. Plan is that I'll have the whole Morrison Batman run annotated on Deep Space Transmissions before Leviathan #1 drops so that, along with the ongoing Action Comics annotations, should keep me busy for the next few months...
UPDATE - Batman: Leviathan, now re-titled as volume 2 of Batman Incorporated, is due to go on sale on May 23rd 2012. You can see two pages of Chris Burnham's interior art, with Batman and Damian facing down Goatboy, here, and Burnham's incredible cover for the first issue here.
As usual, comments, corrections and additions always welcome - please get in touch! See y'all in 2012!
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