R.I.P.

I have urgent news. I want you to go into your children's rooms and wake them up. If they're not asleep, put them to bed and wait until they're sleeping peacefully before violently shaking them awake. If you don't have children, make some. It's easy. Wait until they're five, then do this: As they grumpily rub the sleep from their eyes, sit down on the corner of their mattress and tell them very seriously that, "I have something to tell you. Batman is dead."

Give them time to register this information. Break down crying just to drive the point home. They should be crying too. If they're not crying, you haven't done your job. Start to panic. Say, "We have to get out of here. It's not safe anymore!" As you begin hastily stuffing your belongings into a suitcase, your spouse should come in and see what you're doing. If you don't have a spouse, you should get one. It's easy. They should demand to know what you're doing. An argument should follow and you should strike them. At that point, run out into the street until your run out of breath and fall down to your knees. Raise your hands to the sky and scream, "Why God, why?"

Why? Because Batman is dead. He's not dead yet, per se, but he will be soon. They're killing him. DC Comics is killing Batman like they killed Superman, only this time it's at the height of his popularity. As with Superman, they created a character specifically to orchestrate his murder. With Superman it was the mentally retarded Doomsday with one hand tied behind hid back. With Batman, it's the Black Glove, a former psychiatric researcher now posing as his dead father.

No one knows how long he'll be dead, or if he'll be different when he comes back. I expect a much darker Dark Knight existing somewhere between the movie version and Frank Miller. Superman was much changed when he returned to comics. In the interim period, he had not one but five impostors to his name, each with their own comic title. It's expected this will happen with Batman as well. There is to be a replacement Batman coming.

To this end, DC has cancelled three of the Batman Family comic series, each with issues numbering in the the hundreds. They are: Nightwing, Robin, and Birds of Prey. Each series was spawned directly from Batman and focused on his former sidekicks. Their sales numbers were never that great, however, so they're getting canned. That's not to say they weren't great series. Birds of Prey even had it's very own short lived television series, and Robin (Dick Grayson) almost got a pilot for his own series as well, even if it didn't resemble the comic in any way, shape, or form (for one thing: the series was to be set before he became Robin, ie. he's a travelling circus acrobat. They changed his name, and I think they made him black, because being a Gypsy isn't enough of a minority). Each of these series has had crossovers with the main Batman title at several points, as well as the major DC Universe. I think I may have read them all, and found them memorable. They had their own cast of villains, like Blockbuster who became something of a major crime lord, and friends, like Spoiler who went on to become the fourth Robin, but alas, no more.

The rumour is that one of these heroes might replace Batman, much like he was replaced by Azrael during the Knightfall Saga. These aren't outsiders that Batman brought in at the last minute, however, these are people who've been there for most of his adventures. Nightwing and Robin were both chosen to be his successors, but there's other choices as well, like his newly found son: Damien, or the second Robin returned from the dead, Jason Todd. It might be that none of these character takes up his mantle, but rather form a new team, which would be a logical decision to most. Nightwing, Oracle, Robin, Jason Todd and Damien together could probably handle Gotham as well as Batman did. Each one of them meets if not excels Batman in some fields. Nightwing is more agile, Oracle is more tech-savvy, Robin's every bit of a detective as his mentor, Jason Todd's more willing to cross that line, and Damien's a wild-card.

Perhaps the Batman reset isn't such a bad idea. For one thing: Batman comics over the past four years or so have been completely Batshit insane, much like the Spider-Clone Saga of Spider-Man's comic-arches. It all began with Jason Todd coming back from the dead as the Red Hood. Everyone was with Batman as he tried to uncover the Red Hood's real identity, and they were just as shocked as he was. For one thing: Jason Todd was dead. Not just pretend dead, like a character coming back and telling everyone how he miraculously survived, or faked his own death, but he was dead and buried. He dug his way out of his own grave after being worm food. The explanation for this is that Superboy Prime as part of the Infinite Crisis Saga, who'd never even met Jason Todd, was so distraught over the fact he was dead that he punched the dimensional barrier sealing him away from the rest of the universe so hard that it magically brought him back to life... so yeah...

No, it's not supposed to make sense. Neither is the fact that after being beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker Jason Todd is more interested in getting back at Batman. He does go postal on the Joker, but that only distracts him for a few minutes. His story is further complicated by the fact that after crawling out of his own grave, he's essentially brain dead until being picked up by Ra's Al Ghoul who's daughter defies by giving him a bath in the restorative magic water that keeps her father alive. Jason Todd comes away better than ever, with Ra's skunk patch in his hair. At the end of the saga, he dies again, along with the Joker and Batman, but none of it matters because the universe was destroyed and recreated at that precise moment as part of the Infinite Crisis Saga.

After that, Batman takes a year off, and for some reasons he decides to let Two-Face watch the city for him while he's gone. Yes, Two-Face. The bad guy. Only he had therapy and some reconstructive surgery so he was good again, and all the murders and robberies were instantly forgiven. Then he goes bad again the second Batman questions him. Go fig.

Meanwhile, anyone who's ever been dead is somehow magically back. Spoiler, who died as Robin, came back, and Batman's like, "Oh, I knew all along." Except he didn't, because we have issues of him trying to avenge her murder. The Riddler, another criminal, is now a respected detective after getting amnesia.

Then, as the pinnacle to all things soap-opera-style: Batman suddenly has a son he never knew about, and he's a martial arts master and a complete asshole. Plus Ra's Al Ghoul come back to life for like the millionth time. Oh well.