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Batman Inc #8 – An Early Review. With Some Spoilers. But Probably None That You Don't Already Know.

So you know how this ends.

It was rumoured certainly, especially when DC rang round retailers telling them to up their orders on this comic. And then when the cover was leaked by an online retailer who, it seems, knew someone at DC or at a printer or at a distruibutor, with a camera. And then DC Comics arranged with the New York Post to run an article yesterday giving away the ending of the comic in full graphic detail.

I'm continuing in the presumption that you have read the New York Post article. That  you know how this comic book ends. The cover itself pretty much gives it away. And maybe that's the point, you're meant to know. There's a study that suggests that spoilers actually increase the enjoyment of a narrative, you pick up on foreshadowing easier, you're seeing things that otherwise you might not. And that's how it is here.

In previous issues we have seen the cloned brother of Damian, grown by his mother into a behemoth. Now we see Damian and Dick Grayson, fighting together as they did as Batman and Robin, but against something they have no hope of defeating. Indeed we see Damian fighting his nemesis in an immensive sequence that contains callbacks to Batman's fight with Bane.

But because we have been spoiled, we know where this is going, there is an inevitable tragedy to it all, a realisation that Batman just can't escape that fast, run that fast, fly that fast, to save the day. The surprise may be gone, but the heartbreak is magnified.

Grant Morrison giveth us Damian and Grant Morrison hath taketh away. At least we have Chris Burnham and Jason Masters to ensure his final resting place was such an attractive looking one. Indeed, they make so much of the comic cute, that it only makes the ending even more terrible.

And now we wait to see what this means for The Batman. For Talia. And for the monster, the behemoth, the leviathan.

Grant Morrison will leave Batman soon, a character he's written for seven years. He has brought much, and now he is leaving. We've had far better Batman stories than we deserved as a result.

And that's why we are truly spoiled.


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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