How to collect Morrison's Batman as Omnibi?

[K. Jones]

I just came back to have a closer look at this, and you missed out Return of Bruce Wayne #3, which has mention by Batman and Robin of Joker.

I literally just finished re-reading Return of Bruce Wayne on my read-through of the run, and in retrospect maybe I would split it up a little bit, but I want to re-read Batman and Robin Must Die first before finalising exactly how I want it split up. I definitely think RoBW #3 should be read amongst Must Die somewhere, but not sure exactly where yet.

I've had chronological order all mapped out for ages for the Morrison run, and it occurs to me that the only thing I ever had any real difficulty placing was Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul - because Morrison's two issues, besides being the best issues of the crossover, run with LOADS of themes. Life after death, demonic possession, astral projection, immortality cults, international hairy-chested Batman. I know "Resurrection" was sort of Dini's baby, but Morrison was neck-deep in it and it's chock full of Damian and a pre-Leviathan Talia, to say nothing of the first time Dick comes into much contact with Damian. There's other issues, though, as well. Batman 664 begins with Bruce at Gibraltar surrounded by KOed Man-Bats, implying a direct follow-up to "Batman & Son" - and would Joker have needed more time to recover from that bullet wound? Yet there's a teaser on the last page of Batman & Son that says "Next: Joker" or whatever. But Tim Drake's bust arm from the Bane-Batman carries over into the Club of Heroes stuff - Tim doesn't factor into Clown at Midnight, though, which makes sense if he's nursing a busted arm. Ultimately I choose to read Resurrection along with the full Morrison run, it's not essential, and in fact it kind of neuters or affects Talia's portrayal, as well as kind of not being as effective of an introduction for Ra's al Ghul as what we later get during Incorporated. But I'll put Morrison's two issues in here, they're hardly less jarring than say, Last Rites, riff on themes and more importantly, riff on Morrison's favoritism of the Seventies Batman, continue the "international" thing, and are the second major Damian appearance.

BATMAN
52, 655-658 (Son), 664-666 (Ghosts), 663 (Clown), 667-669 (Club of Heroes), 670-671 (Resurrection), 672-674 (Lane), 675-681 (R.I.P.), 682-683 (Rites).

Just a slight shift of Clown at Midnight's placement.

Leave Bruce's fate a mystery and basically you start and begin this "season" with these retrospective "Batman, This Is Your Life" moments. We shouldn't learn more about Bruce's mysterious whereabouts or death until around the same time that Dick and Damian are learning about it, which is three stories in.

BATMAN AND ROBIN
1-3 (Pyg), 4-6 (Jason), 7-9 (Clone), 700-702 (Time, and Missing Chapters), 10-12 (Vs. Robin), 1-6 (Return of Bruce), 13-16 (Must Die!)

The Missing Chapter is easy to place. Immediately after Blackest Knight, Dick admits Tim Drake was right and they begin searching avenues for the "temporally displaced". In # 700, Dick is stopped from visiting Carter Nichols to explore that avenue, but then in 701-702, we see Tim Drake shown with exploring the JLA option, listening to the recording, cavorting with the ROBW time traveler super-team. At this point it's okay to know "where Bruce ended up". Then the mystery or drama spins its wheels for a very short arc as Dick and Damian return to follow up on what Alfred has discovered at the mansion. ROBW is harder to place because yes, we were reading it alternating chapters with the main title, and then there was some delay stuff with the last issues. But given Dick's mention of Joker directly referencing #12, the "return to the hotel" in #13, and just how "in on it" Dick and Damian and Alfred all are, I don't think the moments lose their power if you know Bruce is on his way back. Well maybe "Gotcha!", a little, but that casket was only introduced a couple issues back anyway, it wasn't a long-running mystery that demanded a huge revelation. I also don't like reading them alternating because it kills the momentum of the three-issue arcs. I could see splitting the six-issue ROBW in half, though - doing "Batman vs. Robin", "ROBW 1-3", "Batman Must Die!", "ROBW 4-6", then ending it with Black Mass. That would be a cool way to read it. But personally I think all six together, people will breeze through ROBW, and that if you don't have them all together, some of that insane symbolism might get lost.

BATMAN, INCORPORATED
The Return, 1-8 (Mystery), One-Shot, 1-13 (War; except # 12)

Come on, Inc explains itself. Return should never be an endcap on the B&R chapters because it's so clearly a new "Chapter 1", not a coda. We excise V.2 # 12 because it's not a Morrison issue, but we GLADLY collect that issue, along with the stuff from the Incorporated Special, the Nightrunner stories from the Annuals the year before, and David Hine's crazy ass issue of Batman and Robin, in a big bundle of "BATMAN, INC.: COMPANION"

I've been fascinated all along about how it's what, almost exactly 75 issues? Broken down pretty well into 25, 25 and 25. Not by the number, but close to it.

[Rcn]

^That would be my preferred order, except for one little change: I'd put 701 between 681 and 682, and 702 between Batman and Robin 12 and Return of Bruce Wayne 1.

[PyroSikTh]

Leave Bruce's fate a mystery and basically you start and begin this "season" with these retrospective "Batman, This Is Your Life" moments. We shouldn't learn more about Bruce's mysterious whereabouts or death until around the same time that Dick and Damian are learning about it, which is three stories in.

The only real problem with this is, if you read Final Crisis, it's not a mystery anyway. That's why Missing Chapters works so well in it's place. Missing Chapters also explains what the hell is going on in Last Rites with Sivana and the Lump.

I literally just finished re-reading Return of Bruce Wayne on my read-through of the run, and in retrospect maybe I would split it up a little bit, but I want to re-read Batman and Robin Must Die first before finalising exactly how I want it split up. I definitely think RoBW #3 should be read amongst Must Die somewhere, but not sure exactly where yet.

On this note, I read Must Die last night, but I honestly couldn't see anywhere else to put Return of Bruce Wayne without it cutting up the flowing narrative. It's fairly evident that Dick and Damian wouldn't get a chance between issues to go to Bludhaven in RoBW #3. The change I'd make shift RoBW to the other side of Must Die because Must Die flows into Black Mass effortlessly. It makes sense to explain Bruce's return before he makes a surprise appearance in B&R #15. Although of course, it wouldn't exactly be detrimental the other way. It's just having a big 6-issue "flashback" story wedged just before the final chapter would really disrupt the flow.

[nepenthes]

Weird that they're not collecting the Batman chapters first, but I guess need to start somewhere

Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison available December

[t hedge coke]

Weird that they're not collecting the Batman chapters first, but I guess need to start somewhere

Batman and Robin by Grant Morrison available December

It's still weird to me, to have "Planet Gotham" appended to the end of Batman and Robin.

How does that not belong with Batman Inc?

[JBatmanFan05]

To me, there are only two ways to collect Morrison's long Batman run:

Way #1 (two or three Omnibi):
1. portions of 52 #30 and #47
2. Batman run with FULL Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul story (including Dini's Resurrection epilogue issue, which is oddly not included in Resurr tpb)
3. Include Final Crisis (the Morrison reading order, which is just the existing new edition trade (which is the Absolute))....Morrison explicitly said the Last Rites issues are PART OF FINAL CRISIS (if they're part of Final Crisis and part of the Batman run, then Final Crisis is part of the Batman run!)
(And no 701-702 can't make up for the fact that 681 and 682 are meant by Grant to read as part of Final Crisis)
4. On Batman & Robin, Return of Bruce Wayne, and Batman #700-702: Use Chris Burnham's order he offered here on CBR twice
BR 1-9
B700
BR 10
ROBW 1
BR11
ROBW2
BR12
ROBW3
B701
B702
BR13
ROBW4
BR14
ROBW5
BR15
ROBW6
BR16
Batman The Return (think it mostly relates to INC) + Contents of Absolute Batman Incorporated trade


(Way #1 is how my custom bind of the run is)


Way #2
-Same as Way #1 but just like with old Marvel tpbs, include Morrison's Ra's Resurrection's issues, but just use summaries before, in between, and after, summaries perhaps including some panels to illustrate is probably the best way, so the reader kinda feels like they got the whole gist of Resurrection of Ra's. Can do this for Final Crisis as well maybe.



What DC will probably do is not include any of Resurrection of Ra's or Final Crisis. For Resurr, DC will just ignore Grant's two whole issues despite them foreshadowing possession some and driving home Grant's father/son dynamic with Sensei/Ra's and more Silver Age revival in the Insect Girls (Tiger Moth, etc). And for Final Crisis, DC will ignore that Grant said post-FC that 681 and 682 were supposed to be read as part of Final Crisis (and new readers might be confused by them divorced from it.."Who is that Lump guy?"). Final Crisis should be read anyway for Darkseid, who's really the big bad (alive and dead) of Morrison's run (not Hurt, not Talia). Plus, FC has other Batman scenes of note and help and importance.

All in all, the truth is that DC needs to acknowledge the unorthodox inobvious nature of what's in Morrison's Batman run (and what order) and accept it for what it is. This is not a run where it's like #XXX-XXX, Annual 6 & 7, it's more complicated than that.

[Dispenser Of Truth]

Vol. 1: Batman & Son, Black Glove, R.I.P., R.I.P. Missing Chapter (aside from there being something in Thomas Wayne's study that connects to Hurt, this doesn't really reveal anything that Final Crisis doesn't itself make clear, and it fills that gap well; I'd put Batman 682-683 in between the pages of Batman 702)

Vol. 2: Batman & Robin 1-10, Return of Bruce Wayne 1, Batman & Robin 11, Return of Bruce Wayne 2, Batman & Robin 12, Return of Bruce Wayne 3, Batman 700, Batman & Robin 13, Return of Bruce Wayne 4, Batman & Robin 14, Return of Bruce Wayne 5, Batman & Robin 15, Return of Bruce Wayne 6, Batman & Robin 16

Vol. 3: Batman: The Return, Batman Incorporated 1-8, Batman Incorporated: Leviathan Strikes, Batman Incorporated (New 52) 1-11, 13, maybe the Peter Tomasi/Ian Bertram story from Detective Comics (New 52) 27 as an epilogue for good measure

[Meow]

Just a question here. I want to buy some Grant Morrison Batman Tpb which ones should I get? Thanks in advance.