[Criticism Corner] The CRAZIEST Batman Story Ever! (Patreon)

Okay guys, this next video is going to be ALL OVER THE PLACE because it's such a complex story.  I'd love to get your take.  Is this coherent?  Does this really make sense?  Please let me know. :)

Fun fact!  Batman once “died”, but in all actuality went hurdling through time where he was a caveman, witch hunter, pirate, cowboy, and private detective before coming back to life! ...Because comics.

- Intro - 

Hello and welcome to Because Comics the show where we look at all of the crazy, strange, and straight up bizarre things that make comic books... comic books.  I’m your host, Drake McWhorter.

American comics sometimes get a bad reputation for how gingerly they handle deaths and resurrections and sometimes a character can die and come back not even a year later, but Batman, one of the biggest most iconic characters of all time?  Well, he did die and come back... technically.  It’s very strange and uniquely bizarre so let me explain.

Everything that I’m about to talk about was written by comic book legend Grant Morrison, a dude notorious for making things really convoluted and trippy.  Anyway in the Final Crisis storyline, Batman discovers that the New God, Orion, was killed by a special bullet which he kept to analyze.  Shortly thereafter though, Bruce was kidnapped by the evil New God, Darkseid, but escaped… because Batman.

In an attempt to take down Darkseid, Bruce broke his “no guns” policy and shot him with the bullet that was used to take down Orion.  At the same time however, Darkseid shot Wayne with his deadly Omega Sanction, seemingly killing the Dark Knight.  Nope.  Turns out that the attack just sent Bruce back in time, but we’ll get back to that in a second.

Even though he was sent back, Superman still found Batman’s corpse and Wayne was mourned by the superhero community.  Turns out though that this was just a clone made by Darkseid.  Sure.  Why not?  This body was buried, Dick Grayson (the original Robin) took over as the new Batman, and the Bruce clone was temporarily resurrected as a Black Lantern for a bit during the Blackest Night event.  It’s also discovered that Bruce (now lost in time) was leaving clues of his existence throughout all of history prompting Tim Drake to ditch the mantle of Robin, strike out on his own as Red Robin, and try to solve this mystery for himself.  Yeah, the quote unquote “death” of Batman led to a LOT going on.

But if you think this was a lot, let’s hop back to Bruce’s journey through time.  So Wayne first ended up thousands of years ago in the age of the cavemen, but every so often, he would involuntarily make jumps through time, collecting something called omega radiation all the while.  If Bruce was able to time jump back to the 21st century then all the omega radiation in his system would cause him to unknowingly explode like a bomb.  Because of this, Superman, Rip Hunter, Booster Gold, and Green Lantern are tracking the radiation throughout time to try and find Batman before he goes boom.

In the era of cavemen, Bruce had amnesia and was discovered by a group that called themselves the Deer People who thought that he was a god, but they were attacked by a warlord named Vandal Savage and his Blood Tribe.  Fresh off the heels of killing a monstrously huge bat, Vandal Savage wanted to kill Wayne and consume his heart.  Thankfully, Bruce was freed by a young surviving member of the Deer People who brought him Bruce’s utility belt.  Wayne donned the pelt of the bat Savage had killed and defeated the Blood Tribe with the tricks in his belt and superior fighting skills, saving the day and inspiring the Deer People to become the Miagani bat tribe.  Shortly after, Bruce was sent into the future.

Now, Wayne ends up in the 1600s where he takes up the identity of a witch hunter.  He doesn’t really try looking for or encountering any witches at all though…  What he does find however is a big sea monster… thing.  This is the “Hyper-Adapter”, an ancient beast contained within a device called an Ancestor Box which was opened by Darkseid so it could torment Bruce throughout time.  Because comics.

After staving off the beast, Wayne was flung forward in time once again and this time, Batman was a pirate, but not really.  You see, this was just a really cool cover and that’s not the actuality.   On the bright side, Bruce was discovered by the legendary pirate, Blackbeard, who thought that Wayne was a famous pirate himself named well… the Black Pirate.  Legend has it that the Black Pirate was the guardian of an ancient treasure, relics from the Miagani bat tribe.  Turns out they were some of Bruce’s Batman gear that was left behind in the age of the cavemen.  No time to dwell too long though since you guessed it, another time hop.

This one doesn’t have much to it.  Batman’s a kick ass cowboy who throws Batarangs instead of using a gun.  He’s trying to track down Vandal Savage who has gotten his hands on a Miagani artifact.  Savage hired a bounty hunter named Jonah Hex to protect himself, but both were defeated by Bruce and he left the artifact with one of his ancestors, Alan Wayne.  NEXT TIME JUMP!

Bruce has now been transported to right after his parents were shot, but this whole setup is just… weird.  Okay so remember how Wayne has had amnesia this whole time?  Well now he has it again, not remembering any of his previous time jumps.  Wayne was injured and put into the hospital where he’s found by Marsha, a friend of his mother’s.  She pays for Bruce’s medical bills and clothes him in exchange for researching the Wayne’s death.

The two make out after some investigation, but Marsha betrays Bruce, looking to sacrifice him to a dark god referenced several times during this storyline, Barbatos.  To make things even more crazy, this sacrifice was being filmed with Marsha dressing herself up as Martha Wayne to make it look like the Waynes were a part of a psycho-cult!

Well the goddamn Batman performed his last time hop at the perfect moment, saving his life.  This final destination for Bruce was the very end of time, the Vanishing Point.   However, the Hyper-Adapter managed to infect Bruce.  Thankfully, the Justice League steps in and manages to separate Batman from the Hyper-Adapter and seal it away inside of a time machine.  As it tries to break out, the Hyper-Adapter takes the form of a monstrously huge bat, but the League sends it back in time… to the age of the cavemen.  YUP!  That big bat that Vandal Savage managed to take down before Batman was sent back in time?  The same bat who’s pelt Bruce wore later on?  That was the Hyper-Adapter.

There’s still the matter of the omega radiation though.  Wonder Woman’s plan to get rid of it?  Batman must die.  Bruce’s heart is stopped and he’s rendered clinically dead for two minutes, allowing for the radiation to escape.  Then the team resuscitated him and the day is saved.

See, that’s the weird thing about this story.  Despite all of the over the top comic book shenanigans, how Bruce TRULY dies and comes back to life is something that commonly happens everyday in hospitals around the world.

So yeah, Bruce was dead and came back to life, but he actually didn’t jump right back into being Batman right away.  In fact, he still let his former protege be what the fandom likes to call “Dickbat” in Gotham, and he even travelled the world as he established a new company called “Batman Incorporated” where Bruce would publicly fund Batman operations not just in Gotham, but around the world.  Now, every country would have their very own Batperson to protect them.

Ordinarily, that would be the end of things, but these time traveling shenanigans were used as the basis for a huge DC Universe event called Dark Knights: Metal.  I’m not going to get into all of the minuta of convoluted multiversal stuff, but to make it simple, it turns out that Barbatos is in fact a real dark god, a powerful entity from the Dark Multiverse.  When Batman was first sent back in time, Barbatos took notice and apparently manipulated events in Bruce Wayne’s life so that he could actually BECOME Batman.  This dude even claims to be the same bat that crashed through his window which gave Bruce the idea to make his superhero persona a bat in the first place.

Well as a part of these schemes, Barbatos made it to where Batman would be infected with several important metals over the course of his life, specifically his adventures post-Flashpoint.  Electrum, Dionesium, Promethium, Nth Metal, and the appropriately named Batmanium.   Because comics.  After being exposed to these metals, Barbatos was able to use Batman’s body as a portal into his multiverse and he brought with him a ruthless team called the Dark Knights, a bunch of evil alternate universe Batpeople with extra fun and dangerous powers.

Metal was a crazy event that requires a video in and of itself, but Barbatos and the Dark Knights were defeated by the Justice League clad in a special metal called Element X, a material of pure possibility and imagination and you know what, I don’t know if anything is more because comics than that.