Batman By Grant Morrison Omnibus: Volume Three

Batman By Grant Morrison Omnibus: Volume Three by Grant Morrison
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Batman By Grant Morrison Omnibus: Volume Three collects material from Batman: The Return #1, Batman Incorporated #1-8, Batman Incorporated Volume 2 #0-13, Batman Incorporated: Leveiathan Strikes #1, and Batman Incorporated Special #1.

Officially, Bruce Wayne publicly linking himself to Batman by funding Batman Incorporated is something I'm not a fan of but after enjoying the first and second Grant Morrison Batman Omnibus, I had to complete the run. I am quite glad I did.

Despite my initial poo-pooing the idea of Batman Incorporated, I loved the shit out of this. Freshly back from the dead, Bruce Wayne takes Batman worldwide and funds Batmen in places besides Gotham. You get Batman in Japan, England, France, Australia, South Dakota, Argentina, and other places. A worldwide Batman needs a worldwide foe and we get that in Leviathan, an organization with a ring of bombs around the world.

Taking on another secret organization so soon after beating The Black Glove (and probably Court of the Owls but I have no idea how the various timelines work out) seems a little repetitive at first glance but the stories aren't that similar. Leviathan has agents everywhere and a leader near and dear to Batman's heart. We get Batman and Damian dealing with their new father/son relationship while the world hangs in the balance. I also like how Damian clearly prefers working with Dick Grayson than his own father. Batman's probably as warm as Red Forman so that's not exactly a surprise.

Grant Morrison's "all the stories are true" approach makes Batman a richer character and the Batmen of many nations expand the Batman mythos quite a bit. I'd read 50 issue runs of Batman Japan or Man-Of-Bats and Raven Red. He works in a lot of callbacks to Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams run featuring Ras Al Ghul and also nods to Dark Knight Returns and Kingdom Come.

The art team knocks it out of the park. There are a lot of black haired guys in this and there's a concerted effort to make them actually look distinct from one another. I would say Chris Burnham and Yanick Paquette were my favorites but a lot of people did a lot of great work.

Taken as one work, Grant Morrison's run on Batman is one long epic about the family Batman lost and the family he built for himself to replace it. As much as I complain about modern Batman, this was a great super hero tale. Five out of five Batarangs.

View all my reviews