The Grinning Leer of a Black-bearded Pirate

Batman: the Return of Bruce Wayne #3 of 6, by Grant Morrison, Yanick Paquette, and Michel Lacombe

I skipped the first two issues of this, thinking it looked like Grant Morrison taking the piss, but over on the internet I read indie pop sensation M.J. Hibbett saying that he liked it so I decided to give it a go. This is the third issue in and I bought it thinking that if I liked it I would go back and get the first two.

So what happens here? Well as part of the general return of Bruce Wayne storyline running through the Bat-titles*, this sees Wayne somehow travelling back in time to the colonial period, where he finds himself crossing cutlasses with notorious pirate Blackbeard (for no obvious reason given the name Edward Thatch rather than Teach). Yarrr. They explore the mysterious bat-infested caves under what will one day be Wayne Manor, and various strange things happen. It is rather intriguing, but it is a bit unclear as to what is going on – some kind of psychic time travel thing or something? Maybe reading the first two issues would make things fall into place, but knowing Grant Morrison I doubt it.


*Bruce Wayne seems to have not been dead for very long, even by the standards of comics characters and their tendency to resurrect at the drop of a hat.