Detective Comics 853

Detective Comics 853, part 2 of Neil Gaiman's "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" is exactly the conclusion I was expecting, and nothing like it at all. The funeral, the parade of Batman's friends and foes telling contradictory versions of his life and death, does indeed turn out to be a near-death experience. Bruce Wayne may not yet be deceased, but "very close," and it's not just his life flashing before his eyes, but all the lives he could've lived. Together, the stories show him that no matter what else may change, the Batman will always be fighting the same fight, and the only way he'll ever quit is to die, which was the same theme I picked out in my review of part 1. The woman heard talking to Bruce in the story's first half, it turns out, is Bruce's mother. She's shows him one more life he lived, for far too short a time: the life of an unusually happy child (Bruce Wayne? Who'da thunk it?), taking great joy in a simple picture book. And she hints that he's about to live that life all over again, to enjoy those too-few happy years once more, as the cycle begins anew.

Is Bat-continuity headed for another reboot or retcon? Is Bruce Wayne somehow being reincarnated into his own former life? Or is it all just a story being told and retold? In the end, as Mrs. Wayne encourages her son to tell the tale himself in the form of the classic children's book "Goodnight Moon," I realize that "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" is less of a plot and more of a graphic poem. And it all leads up to a truly stunning transmogrification of the Bat-Signal, a two-page spread that alone is worth the price of admission.

When I closed the comic, I thought all that was missing was a punchline for the gag in part 1 about the kid who parked the Joker's car. And then things got interesting.

I put the comic aside to take a nap. And as I slept, I dreamt that I flipped back through the comic again, certain a master like Gaiman wouldn't have set up such a great gag in part 1 and failed to follow it through in the finale, sure that I must simply have missed that page or panel. And sure enough, in my dream, I found it: a page where that kid grows up with that fear of the Joker, that certainty that death is waiting for him around every corner, and the fear turns him into Joe Chill. He murders Bruce's parents, becoming part of the endless cycle. Was this page somehow real? Could there be a secret piece of "Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" that can only be read between falling asleep and waking? If any comic creator could craft such an experience, it would be Gaiman, wouldn't it?

- JC