Tuesday
Feb222011
DB Short: Return of Bruce Wayne Explained
Tuesday, February 22, 2011 Filed in DB Short ;)
Scott Dunlap of the Upstate Comic Book Club attempts to explain the convolutedness that is the Return of Bruce Wayne. For those of you afraid to jump into current Batman continuity maybe this will help. Maybe it will lead you to catch up on the New Gods stories you’ve always wanted to read.
Runtime 25 minutes 39 seconds
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Find out more about batman, bruce wayne, db short, explained, grant morrison
batman, bruce wayne, db short, explained, grant morrison
Reader Comments (11)
Any storyline that takes someone 20 minutes to explain will have to count me out. I have no interest in reading something that convoluted. And YAY! The Mike Carey interview is coming!
Joel, that is a bullshit comment. Scott could have very easily ad superficially explained Return of Bruce Wayne in like 2 minutes just like I could very easily take 20 minutes to explain Y the Last Man so you could read the last issue.
Batman get shot and sent back in time which also causes him to lose his memory. He then, during eclipses, travels forward in time by jumping to all of our favorite adventure periods in time. At each jump he learns a little about himself. Meanwhile, there are other characters who try to stop him from making it back to his "normal" time. While he travels through time he caries all this explosive energy with him that may destroy all that is if he makes it back to "normal" time before something can be done with it. He goes to the end of time where they put him in a cocoon that cleans him of the explosive energy. He returns to normal time and the JLA fixes him.
Bruce Wayne learns on his journey through time that he couldn't have done it all without the help of others so he starts Batman Inc.
On a side story Thomas Wayne may not be dead and had his wife killed.
I beg to differ. My comment is not bullshit. There is a famous quote attributed to Mark Twain, Voltaire, and others that says "I didn't have the time to write you a short letter so I wrote you a long one instead." Now that you have had time to think about the Batman tory of course you can refine how to explain it more succiently but put on the spot if it takes that long something is wrong.
Someone, somewhere needs to rein Grant Morrison in. It seems he is determined to drive closer and closer to the cliff of complete self-indulgence and it will be interesting to see the wreck.
Honestly, I think Scott did a great job. In the 25 minutes he took explaining Return of Bruce Wayne he also explained some of the little things in the story I had problems with (like why they had the Waynes' deaths play out in the '40s and what "Gotcha" had to do with the box). Kudos.
Yeah, except that quote has nothing to do with what just occurred. I've heard Scott explain it a total of 2 times. Once on Monday and Once last night. I haven't read a single book of it. If it comes down to explain the basics its pretty straight forward. It took me all of 4 minutes to type that summary up. Like Mitch said it was the details that mattered and covering details can take time if done right.
I may not go back and read the Return of Bruce Wayne stuff, but I feel comfortable picking up Batman again.
Adam and I discussed Grant Morrison last night and we both agreed that he has been wrong so far and he sees how insightful and correct my observations have been.
I believe what happened is I threw down the gauntlet and you were too afraid to pick it up.
You pick the time and place my friend. High noon in the middle of the street is fine by me. And if you'll remember correctly my stunning logic smacked you so hard that by the time you wiped the tears from your eyes you had to go finish editing the Mike Carey interview.
If I recall it was your flawed logic and unwillingness to accept reason that caused me to throw up my hands in disgust and do something productive.
I've got to say I'm with Joel on this one. It wasn't just the necessity of multiple re-starts, but also the numerous times Scott had to say "I don't think they explained why..." or "I don't think I understand why..." that have convinced me not to bother picking this up, though I had been planning to.
I'm still waiting to read something I genuinely enjoyed by Morrison. Thanks to the DB, looks like I won't bother seeing if Return of Bruce Wayne could be the first.
The big things that need to be pulled away from RoBW are:
1) Bruce Wayne is back
2) Morrison has consolidated the Wayne family tree to something manageable
3) The whole experience drives him to create Batman Inc.
If you wanna skip the story, totally understandable. The story most likely won't stand the test of time, but it was fun and ultimately works to reinforce the "ultimate survivor" mythos of Batman.