Aside from all the Secret Invasion, this week also brought the latest issue of Batman RIP.

I’ve always been a fan of the Bat-books, however due to budget concerns, I tend to avoid picking them up.   I prefer to simply trade-buy arcs that looked interesting.

However, all the hype about Batman RIP got to me, and so I thought I’d pick it up.  It started off promisingly, with Bruce’s secret being revealed to his latest girlfriend, while the shadowy Black Glove plots his downfall.

There’s a lot of interesting stuff going on, regarding the Waynes, and how Bruce’s vision of them may be rose-tinted.  There’s certainly a lot of deconstruction of Bruce’s character going on, with major hints that the trauma of his parents death affected him far more deeply than he realised.

Its all pretty interesting stuff, however this latest issue was just weird.  And not in a good way.  It certainly takes Bruce to a low point.  Following the activation of some sub-concious, post-hypnotic command, Bruce seems to have lost his memory, and is a down-and-out while the Black Glove takes over the Batcave and takes Alfred prisoner.  Nightwing is captured and imprisoned in Arkham (interesting, since this has been rumoured to be Bruce’s fate) and Robins on the run from a group of attackers.

The problem is that the post-hypnotic stuff seems a bit vague, and isn’t really making sense at this point.  And the ending of the issue was just really odd.   I’ve got a lot of faith in Morrison though, so I’m hoping it all makes sense as the story goes on.  I’m not convinced the integration of silver-age parts of the mythos is working as well as it does with Superman however.

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