Today, Hickman’s Weaver’sand Strain’s SHIELD #2 finally came out. First off, let me say that I look forward to every issue of this book, and hope it enjoys a nice long run. Weaver’s and Strain’s art are amazing, and they make me want to do more beautiful work than I know how. It’s inspirationally gorgeous, just from a visual standpoint.  Then there is Hickman’s writing, which is pioneering a virgin path through the undiscovered jungle of my brain, taking me to places I’ve never imagined before. But I worry that if I only follow his lead I am missing what he is trying to tell us with the book. READ THIS BOOK TWICE.

This is an essay, not a review, so SPOILERS are below:

“Everything begins with an IDEA” is the opening line for issue 2. It mirrors a line from the same character in issue one, even mirroring the shot of the freaky cryp-typewriter and mustached man, whom I presume to be the Night Machine. On the very next page we see Nostradamus being force-fed crazy goo and commanded to “give a WORD”. WORD here is echoing what the Council of SHIELD in the Immortal City said in issue one about how “it began”.

I think you have to be fairly dull not to pick the motif, but it’s meaning might be more illusive. What does the Night Machine stand for?  Why is he opposed to the WORD in favor of IDEA?  Why does founder of the Immortal City, da Vinci, seek to oppose the Council of Shield, saying that they have “stood on [his] shoulders for far too long”? I think it is a story about innovation itself, not just the historical people who have caused it.

SHIELD’s ranks are filled with history’s finest and brightest minds, da Vinci himself being the epitome of innovation. These are the men with the IDEAS. They are the uncaused causers. They are the unmoved movers. It was by their innovations (technology and culture) that civilization continued and improved. But IDEAS are rare and dangerous. Everyone else in history has sought to steal, subjugate, suppress, exploit, emulate, or enforce the IDEAS and the people who have them. Just like the Utopia pontificated by Plato, there is no place in common society for IDEAS. IDEAS are useful to the masses, and the rulers of masses, only when they are crystallized, finalized, and communicated in WORDS.

WORDS are the contagious form of IDEAS, but something is lost in the transmission. WORDS are finite, they end, they are measurable. IDEAS just keep going.  IDEAS cannot be passed to other minds until they are dumbed down to the less pure, less powerful WORDS.  WORDS are more useful for the many, but are by far inferior to IDEAS. The rest of us live on WORDS while the fateful few have IDEAS, and try to lead us to a place where we can have IDEAS too! But instead, we content ourselves with a gluttonous feast of WORDS, ever failing and refailing to even reach for our full potential.

IDEAS are rare and dangerous, but are they really beyond us? Stan, Jack, and Steve came along in the 60′s and blew the lid off of comicdom, and almost every decade since, we have been re-eating the same meal over and over. What other innovations in technology and culture have we lazily lived on for “far too long”? Why are we still using a mouse to interface with data on a computer? Is that the best we can do, or is it easier to just keep doing it? What about fuel sources? What about transportation, medical procedures, government? Convention for the sake of consumerism is just WORDS. We need IDEAS.

A big part of me want to shoehorn Kirbian Antilife theory into this, but I don’t think it fits. It think this is articulating something very different, more elemental about history and implementation of imagination.

Or at least, that’s what I think he’s saying. I mean, it’s only issue 2, right? But even if I’m wrong (and maybe it’s not an matter of right vs wrong) at least I thought about all this, where I wouldn’t have if I didn’t read SHIELD #2. Plus I enjoy sounding nuts when talking about the Source of the Great Mechanism being the son of the Night Machine.

I crazy love this book.

(Here is the link to my essay on RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1, if you haven’t read it)

I’m back with another essay on the latest issue of RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE, written by Grant Morrison, images by Frazer Irving. Another lovely and mystifying issue, this week, but heed my all-caps advice: READ IT TWICE! It’s incredible that I , as a comic fan, don’t often do this as regular procedure. But there are some storytelling hiccups, in this otherwise brilliantly illustrated book, that require a second go around to understand. Also, the reveals in the story put the previous scenes in a different context on the second read. So I’ll type it again: READ IT TWICE!

Also a note on the structure of this essay, I will be going page-by-page and explaining all I can, with little regard for the revelations in the story space of the comic. This essay is suppose to explain and simplify, not summarize the narrative as it occurs in the book.

SPOILERS START BELOW, you have been warned.

Page 1-2: Bruce is fighting an example of what is later called “hyperfauna”. It is unclear what other specimens might fall into this category, but the term is useful for indicating that the beast is not of terrestrial origin in the stick sense. It is from somewhere else, and broke through to the puritan settler era of Gotham City almost simultaneously with Bruce. It wasn’t revealed if it was the presence of Bruce or the beast that attracted the other. The dead guy you can barely see, who was also on the last pages of the previous issue, is Brother Mordecai, as Witch Hunter who was trying to kill Annie before she called for help and summoned both Bruce and the beast.

Page 3: Annie the witch is nursing the wounded, confused, and amnesia plagued Bruce back to health in her dwelling. Bruce spots the necklace charms of the Wonder Woman and Superman symbols hanging from above. Annie is sensitive enough a magician to know that Bruce had been affected by Darksied’s powers, when she states, “A great dark god has set his hand upon you.” She also confesses timeless love to him, which I think may be a result of Bruce’s Antilife infection, but that isn’t sufficiently explained in the story.

Page 4-7: The Vanishing Point is like the coolest thing ever. It’s not only the last thing in the DCU ever, but it’s also the gathering point for the archives of the unabridged history of life, the universe, and everything. Oh, and the Biorganic Archivist is secretly Bruce Wayne, wealthy young man about town. Bruce claims that he is archiving all information ever to preserve it in a blackhole for past or future universal oscillations to enjoy.

Bruce then explains the structure of reality and time itself using simple geometry as a metaphor. The big bang that began the DCU is represented as a dot. Every moment after that dot then stretches to form a line, a timeline. But there are multiple timelines stretching from other dot all existing next to one another in a plain or polygon, which would be the DC Multiverse. Also, each timeline could be said to be a specifically tuned string on the guitar neck of the Multiverse, each resonating at a unique frequency. This ties into THE FLASH #123, wherein Barry Allen vibrates himself into Jay Garrick’s timeline when he accidentally matches frequency with the neighboring universe. However, there are other plains extending laterally from the Multiverse in what Rip Hunter, Time Master, calls “Cube Time”. Which would Morrison shattering the forth wall, telling us that comic books are pressed and preserved images from whichever respective universe you are purchasing your reading material.

What I really love is how this scene extends the adventures of a Superman who is actually smart, like he always is when Morrison writes the character. Superman comments that the Archivist’s, Bruce’s, explanation is conclusive with his own experiences in the Multiverse, like in the Morrison scripted SUPERMAN BEYOND. He is also the only one who seems capable of perceiving all the information in the omniarchive to the point of actual literacy. He is trying to read the archive for the “Omega Trail” that Bruce is leaving. The Omega Trial is the residual energy from Darksied’s Omaga Sanction, which is responsible for Bruce becoming unstuck in time. They had traced it to the Vanishing Point in the first place, which should have been a big clue to the identity of the ONLY OTHER PERSON THERE, but hey, I didn’t see it coming either. Haha

Page 8-11: I know you it’s not really clear, but the pilgrim looking guy that takes the knitting pin out of dead bat, that’s Bruce. He has been integrated into society as a Witch Hunter, having assumed the identity of Brother Mordecai, the dead guy on page one. He is investigating the murder of Goodwife Tyler’s husband. We see Bruce, though he is still very confused about who he is, is ever the detective. He deduces that Goodwife Tyler murdered her husband with her iron ladle, stanched the body in the woods, then pinned a bat the church door with her knitting needle to frame the devil. Bruce knows it’s not witchcraft, only an abused wife with not legal or spiritual protection, taking matters into her own hands.

At the bottom of page 10, we see two new characters: the over zealous Witch Hunter, Brother Malleus, and the Flemish painter, MartinVan Derm. Malleus has choosen his name to protect his true name from the witches he hunts, but Morrison probably named him so for the famous 15th century document “Malleus Maleficarum”, which is a treatise on the proof of witchcraft in argument against those who refused to believe the dark powers at work in the land. Malleus the character sees witchcraft in everything, just as the document would likely suggest. Van Derm will come up later.

Page 12-13: Bruce askes Annie to take him back to the cave where she found him and the monster, claiming he remembered seeing the symbols of his fellow heroes. This is also the cave where Anthro died and Bruce first appeared in prehistoric times. If the symbols are the same that were drawn on the cave in Anthro’s era, then it is safe to say that all this time Anthro and Vandal Savage where walking on the Paleolithic site of GOTHAM CITY. By extension, I will assert that above Anthro’s cave is the future site of stately Wayne Mannor, and the cave itself will one day serve as the Batcave. Want to take bets?

Page 14-15: Bruce is having his portrait taken by Martin Van Derm. The Van Rijn that Van Derm claims to have studied under has the famous first name Rembrant. Van Derm is in the narrative to reinforce the themes of recorded history and legacy in the series, just like the cave paintings and the Vanishing Point archive station. Malleus comes in to get Bruce to go monster hunting with him, and screams at Van Derm for drawing. Drawing his a mockery of God’s creation, is what he says, which sounds very Kirbian Antilife theory to me, almost like a line straight from Glorious Godfrey.

Page 17: Goodwife Tyler’s husband’s body was eaten post mortium but the monster from page 1. The eclipse that Bruce freaks out about is the one he saw after he beat the crap out of Vandel Savage in the previous issue.

Page 18-21: Annie meets Bruce in the cave and talks about how she summoned the monster, and Bruce was “riding on it’s back” when he came. Coupled with what the villager said about the monster’s appearance on Page 16, the imagery seems to point to the truth that Bruce is the Desolating Abomination, the ANTICHRIST, doing the will of Darksied by spreading the Antilife throughout the timeline.

Also, the “Bat-People” is probably what Anthro’s grandson renamed the Deer People after his ordeal with Bruce in issue #1. Annie admits to being a witch, that she worships the “Old Lords of Land and Sky” etc. She is probably talking about the religion of the Anthro’s tribe based on the his encounter with Metron in FINAL CRISIS #1, and with Bruce himself.

Page 23: Malleus take’s Annies necklace charms. Yep, another antigonist swipes a woman’s necklace and murders her, just like Vandel Savage, just like Joe Chills.

Page 26-27: As the Archivist, Bruce locks up his friends in an force field of the future that they can’t break out of. He reveals his identity and tells them to trust him. This seems to indicate that at some time in the future, Bruce realizes what is happening to him, and formulate a plan. A plan that apparently includes locking his friend in the Vanishing Point archive station with three minutes to complete universal heat death.

Superman yells to his best friend that Darkseid has turned him into a “Doomsday Weapon and aimed [him] directly at the 21st century!” This is conclusive with my theory that Darkseid did not intend to kill Bruce with the Omega Sanction, but intended to send Bruce through time with the Antilife Equation to end all everything.

Page 28: Annie is hanged for being the witch that she actually was, and summoning the killer monster she actually did summon to kill someone that actually was killed. The system works. But some how she also knows Malleus’ true name, Nathaniel Wayne, and uses it to curse him and his entire family line “Until the end of time!” It is a curse that may well be partly responsible for the murder of Bruce’s parents, as well as his current problems with the Omega Sanction.

Page 29: Bruce is once again transported through time via body of water. Van Derm witnesses the hanging of Annie the Forth World Witch. At some point, Van Derm finishes his oil portrait of Bruce with the book in his hand, and the book itself is passed through the generation of the Van Derms to a point where I assume Bruce will find it and begin to piece together his greatest mystery yet.

PS: Grant Morrison is smarter than all of us.

I don’t normally do this kind of thing, but I’m going to pontificate for a bit on today’s release, RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1, written by Grant Morrison and exquisitely rendered by Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, and Guy Major.

In order to understand this one comic, you need to have read at least… 1 hardcover, 3 trades, and 4 omnibuses worth of comics, not including a few helpful interviews and critiques (FINAL CRISIS, SUPERMAN BEYOND, 7 SOLDIERS OF VICTORY, and THE FORTH WORLD omnibuses respectively) . This is not a bad thing. It’s what makes all what makes me love it so much. It says, “Hey, comic fan, you read comics, this is one of those too.”

Honestly, I can’t understand why people who regularly flaunt their knowledge and literacy of comics belly ache about one that finally takes them seriously enough not to hold their hands. I mean, imagine if OLD MAN AND THE SEA had notes from the editor popping up at the end of every paragraph just to make sure you aren’t lost. Similarly, Morrison isn’t insulting the reader by bogging down the books with cliff notes and summaries. He’s challenging the reader to think about the comic after the copy is slid back into it’s card-backed bag. It’s not a brewski, it’s a dry wine.

I’ll just overtly state my bias, I loved it. My heart pounded and my mind spun as the freshly turned pages pulled me right back into the grand narrative that Morrison has been telling for years. It’s like I get to be a post-mosaic Hebrew celebrating the retelling of the Pentateuch. Something epic is being told, and it celebrates the core of what makes comics, art, and living important to me. It is a serial tale of Life versus Anitlife.

Now for the content of the actual comic. SPOILERS, dirtbags! The story opens with cavemen, including Anthro’s grandson, discussing the composition and structure of Superman’s babybasket spaceship, when they notice the booted tracks of Bruce Wayne leading to the cave where Anthro lays dead. Bruce walks out and clearly doesn’t know what’s happening. This isn’t the world’s greatest detective; it’s a dazed time traveler sleep walking around looking for something to punch. (EDIT: Batman was transported back in time by the Omega Sanction, which is predicated in FOREVER PEOPLE, when he did the same thing to Sonny Sumo.  Yes, it happened before.  Like I said, you need to have read the FORTH WORLD books.)

At this point I need to interrupt to note that the big dude calls Anthro “Old man”, Anthro’s son “Man”, and Anthro’s grandson, “Boy, here to learn to be Young Man.” Anthro, of course, translates to “man”, and so it is that we know this is Anthro and his family.

Soon, All of Boy’s cavebuddies are killed in an ambush by a rival tribe. He is saved by Bruce, who, acting on autopilot, saves the youngest person there as Boy’s father and friends are murdered. This reminds me of DETECTIVE COMICS #500, when the Phantom Stranger has Batman go save an alternate version of the Wayne family from the same fate that his suffered. Bruce has devoted his life to the juvenile dream of saving anyone and everyone from ever suffering his own loss, and so is compelled to act but actually perpetuates the cycle of loss in doing so.

Bruce tells Boy to stay in hidden then goes back in to get his face beat in with a rock the size of a honeydew melon by the tribe’s leader, Chief Savage. Chief Savage is Vandel Savage, by the way, the world’s first super villain. He also rob’s Man’s lifeless body of his grandmothers white bone necklace, which looks a lot like Martha Wayne’s. See, it’s the cycle.

Bruce is then taken back to murderer’s camp to be ritualistically killed at a later date. They tie him up to the ground next to the carcass of a giant bat slain in times past and hung up as a trophy. Some wild dogs show up in the night, while the murderers are asleep, to devour Bruce’s sweet abs. It looks bad for the helpless hero, when suddenly shadowy glyphs leak out of Bruce and into the giant bat carcass, which momentarily animates the bat.

There is a sweet spash page here, but just read the captions: NIGHT TERROR SUPERSTITIOUS OMEN CREATURE BLACK TERRIBLE BAT DISGUISE MAN BAT. These do describe Batman, but they are not positive, they are antilife. When Bruce was struck with Darksied’s Omega Sanction in FINAL CRISIS he was not just sent back in time, but sent back infected with antilife. The antilife seems to have affected Boy, because he shows up in domino mask war paint holding a batshield. Antilife is the subjugation of one’s will to another’s. It is turning others into yourself for the sake of domination itself. It is NIGHT TERROR SUPERSTITIOUS OMEN CREATURE BLACK TERRIBLE BAT DISGUISE MAN BAT. Also, Boy calls Bruce “Man of Bats”, which is the name of the Native American Batman in the League of Batmen from the BLACK GLOVE story that Morrison wrote (So you could add an extra trade to the list of required reading if you wanted).

Bruce leaves to fabricate himself a Batman costume with his utility belt, the giant bat carcass, and some Stone Age arm spikes. Bruce then is the first superhero in the world, and gives the first super villain the world first super ass kicking via MORTAL KOMBAT Scorpion style grappling action. It rules.

Bruce and Boy run from the rest of the tribe and leap from a waterfall. When Bruce hits the water, he is teleported further up the timeline. When Boy hits the water, he is still Boy. When he surfaces he is Young Man. Can’t help but think that is a commentary on the role that Batman has played for so many of us, learning about morals and heroics from comic pages.

Superman, Green Lantern, Booster Gold, and Rip Hunter all show up after the fun is over to look for Bruce. They are trying to chase him down and keep him from reaching the 21st century, because if he does, as Superman says, “…Everyone dies.”

Superman is probably talking about the Antilife Equation that Bruce will be releasing all along the way, turning the people he encounters into visions of himself. But wait, isn’t more Batmanses a good thing? Nope. More Batmanses because of manipulation by the Antilife Equation is a really bad thing, a cataclysmically, apocalyptically bad thing.

What is interesting to note is that in the earliest appearances of Darksied in the NEW GODS, he is looking within the minds of humans for the Antilife Equation. What Morrison has done is explained why it’s there in the first place: Batman put it there.