Batman Incorporated v2 #12 Annotations
Waiting for Bruce on the roof are Talia in her Leviathan mask, The Heretic - who lost an eye fighting The Squire back in issue #6 - a clutch of League of Assassins henchmen and a flock of Ninja Man-Bats.
Page 2-3 - Bruce is wearing Azrael's Suit of Sorrows beneath his Bat exo-skeleton, an enchanted (or cursed) suit of chainmail armour that greatly enhances the wearer's strength and provides a degree of invulnerability to harm. I was surprised to find out it first appeared during the 'Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul' crossover, mistakenly thinking that it had been part of the Jean Paul Valley Azrael series too. After Batman put it on display in the Batcave following the events of 'Resurrection...', it was stolen at some point during or soon after R.I.P. (by Talia or her agents?) and eventually ended up back in the hands of it's original owners, the shady Order of St Dumas. The suit subsequently played a large role in the second Azrael series that launched out of Tony Daniel's Battle for the Cowl.
The ninja Man-Bats harken back to the very beginning of Morrisons run, appearing as they did in his first issue of Batman, #655.
BATMAN INCORPORATED v2 #12
Fatherless
DC Comics, August 2013, Color, 32pgs, $2.99
Written by GRANT MORRISON ; Art by CHRIS BURNHAM; Cover by CHRIS BURNHAM & NATHAN FAIRBAIRN; 1:25 Cover by GUILLEM MARCH
Leviathan and the Heretic are on the ropes...could Batman be on the verge of avenging all he’s lost?
Commentary
The penultimate chapter of Morrison and Burnham's Batman Incorporated, and of Grant Morrison's Batman run as a whole. Not a huge amount to annotate this time around but that's all to be expected as we hurtle toward the conclusion.
Annotations
Page 1 - Picking up from the end of issue #10, heat-packing Batman is heading for the besieged Wayne Tower for a final showdown with Talia and Leviathan, accompanied by a flock of bats whose bite carries a cure for Kirk Langstrom's Man-Bat serum.
Page 4 - 'SSKKKRRRIIIIIII' Batman seems to be talking to the bats, directing them to attack their ninja humanoid brethren. Presumably this Dr. Dolittle-esque ability is a side-effect of his exposure to the Man-Bat gas in issue #10. (Update: Thanks to @theMAC for pointing me back toward Batman and Son for this one - back in issue #656 Batman picks up the ninja Man-Bats' echolocation squeaks on his cowl mike. Is he using some sort of recording of that against them here?)Some great work from Chris Burnham here, and throughout this issue (hell, throughout this entire series). The kenetic panel design of the Bruce-Heretic fight pages is a continuation of the 'broken glass' motif used for the battle inside Wayne Tower lobby in issue #8 and #9. I also really like the half Man-Bat/half human hand right in the centre of the page.
Page 5-6 - As you might imagine, Bruce's rage at the death of Damian has upped the ante considerably. Throwing villains from a great height through a water tower and then electrocuting them isn't exactly Batman's usual M.O.
Page 7 - The meta-material suit is a pay-off of a plot point that's been dangling since the first issue of Batman Incorporated back in 2011 - that issue opened with Batman and Catwoman teaming up to steal a mysterious diamond from the laboratory of Shazam villain Doctor Sivana and tangling with an invisible monster guard dog. It's come up a couple of times in the second volume of Inc, most 'visibly' (arf, arf) in the Morrison-Burnham penned zero issue where The Knight uses an invisibility suit to sneak up on Dark Ranger.
Page 9 - DAMRUNG (from the side of the zeppelin, a pun on Samsung/Götterdämmerung - The Twilight of the Gods) has been Chris Burnham's go-to electronics brand during his run as Batman artist, also appearing in his first issue, Batman & Robin #16 and his first issue of Batman Incorporated, volume 1 issue #4. It first appeared in Morrison and JG Jones' Final Crisis #1 as the brand name of the phone the Human Flame used to film the Martian Manhunter's murder. The electronics blowing out on the signage as The Heretic's impact deforms the balloon is a great bit of detail, carried through to the following page where the letters on the still-sparking illuminated sign have actually begun to drop off.
"YOU were ARTIFICIALLY AGED in a VAT" as seen in Batman and Robin #12 and the Secret Origin of The Heretic in Inc. v2 #7.
Page 10 - For all that he's a frighteningly ruthless gigantic brute, as his dialogue shows here ("There's nothing! Wrong! With my jetpack!") The Heretic is really just a big-ass petulant child.
Page 11 - As we'll see when the knives come out on page 14, that's the same school bus full of brainwashed junior Leviathan agents we saw in Batman Incorporated #7.
Page 12 - Red Robin and Nightwing arrive at the dockfront lair of the School of Night, last seen in back in issue #10, when the new Knight and The Ranger tracked the kidnapped Jason Todd here by following a trail of his urine. He was kidnapped from across town though, so some epic peeing work from Todd.
Notice the panel layout change from the jagged angular panels and black gutters of the Batman-Heretic showdown, back to a more sedate regular grid with white borders
Page 13 - Is-he-one-of-us-or-one-of-them British superspy The Hood's true allegiance is finally revealed. The motivations behind Spyral's presence in all of this and The Headmistress's proclamation that "This is bigger than any of you. Including him." play heavily into the big thematic wrap-up next issue. Nightwing does know the Headmistress of course, though we won't have our suspicions confirmed until issue #13, so I'll leave that one until then.
Page 14 - These are the same
kids who attacked Nightwing and Commissioner Gordon back in issue #6 and appeared on the cover of issue #7. With backup on the way, Bruce ditches the exo-skeleton.
Page 15 - After Dick and Damian's ineffective double punch in issue #8, this time around Dick and Beryl take the rocket-propelled double escrima stick approach.
Page 16 - "I ignored you, like every other time." A great bit of Bruce and Dick dialogue, highlighting in one line that this is just as much Dick's mission of vengeance for his fallen brother as it is for Bruce.
"Sons are born to die in war", a truly astonishing panel that raises all sorts of questions about Bruce's 'righteous' fury and exposes Talia as a true monster.
Page 17 - Rejected by his father, The Heretic retreats to the loving arms of his mother, The Gorgon. The tumbling Wayne Tower 'W', dislodged by lightning, a symbolic reflection of the Wayne family legacy - smashed and in pieces.
Page 18 - 'I'm the Wire Mommy' references Harry Harlow's horrifying animal experiments, also heavlly referenced in the Professor Pyg tale way back at the beginning of Batman and Robin. There are hints at various points that nearly all of the major villains of Morrison's run seem to have had a hand in Pyg's creation - Talia, Doctor Hurt and Otto Netz. In any case, Talia's speech and actions here truly mark her out as the Bad Mother to match Hurt's ultimate Bad Dad. The Red Queen to Hurt's Black Glove. Dispatching one more of her own 'children' with a cold, cruel hand.
As usual, comments, corrections, omissions, all that jazz, drop me an email. Thanks for reading!
Talia's Doctor Hurt-esque cloak and mask are an indicator this is all coming to a conclusion now - not just Inc. but Morrisons entire 70 issue run on the Bat titles. Everything has been leading toward this...
"To the death, my detective" isn't a direct quote from O'Neill and Adams' Batman #244 (with the classic shirts-off sword fight between Batman and Ra's Al Ghul) but it's almost certainly referencing it.
The last two thirds of this page, with Talia traveling through the study and into the Batcave, is based on a similar sequence by Chris Burnham from Batman and Robin #16 (actually his first two pages as a Batman artist). The panel angles, layout of the study and descent into the Batcave are all closely mirrored.
Page 19 - Is the power failure because Oroboro has been activated? Netz mentioned something to do with controlling the weather back in volume 1, is that what's behind the lightning?
Wayne Tower gone, and another appearance of the broken glass motif as it goes up.
Page 20 - No power at Wayne Manor either. Like Arkham Asylum, I don't think DC have an 'official' version of the Manor that Burnham is referencing here, rather they seem happy to let each artist do their own take on it. I could be wrong though. (Update: I am wrong, kind of. Burnham's overhead shot of the helicopter flying over Wayne Manor references the building blueprint seen on page 11 of Batman and Robin #12 by Grant Morrison and Andy Clarke. Thanks Chris!)
