Batman #11

I hope Batman doesn't decide to walk out on this comic like he walked off Justice League International #11.

Batman was just about to beat the crap out of his estranged, dead, reanimated, younger brother when last issue ended. So let's just get on with it already!

If those are the kinds of cliche lines Thomas Wayne, Jr, is going to use, I sincerely hope he isn't the star of the new Talon series.

Batman beats on Thomas for a full page. Or should I call him the Talon? Batman is still unconvinced that they're related. But I'm reading the Jarvis Pennyworth story in the back of the comic and that tale's backing up Thomas' claim. Of course there is still one final part which might show the whole thing is nonsense! After a page of beating, Thomas decides his jaw has had enough and he takes the offensive.

I know this is an old building but the walls! The fucking weak walls of Gotham! Batman gets smashed through four in a row here!

The Talon (Lincoln, Thomas, some other crazy freak show!) can fly in his super Owl suit. He also has an Owl-grapple which he uses to haul Batman around the city, flying him into skyscrapers and church bells. The whole time, Talon is telling his sob story. How he was born premature in the car crash. He was placed in a hospital, unable to talk, barely able to see. He was visited by Bruce's mother every day until she died. And then only the owls visited. The owls who told him who he was and told him about his brother.

I'm sure this story is true, from Lincoln's point of view, is true. But it doesn't mean Martha was his mother. Perhaps she visited all of the children on the ward. His being born in the crash and his identity and being Bruce's brother: all of that could just be lies told to him by the Owls to create this living weapon that could take out the Batman. Seems a little late to help the Owls at this point. But whatever they did to Lincoln, they did it well. He's loony tunes. And then the trip down memory lane is over.

Whoops!

Batman catches on to the lip of the engine and hangs there without getting sucked in and killed. This is probably the weakest part of this whole story line. My suspension of disbelief can reach pretty remarkable places, especially with Batman, but this is a bit much. Plane flying hundreds of miles an hour. Batman exhausted. Engine which can suck a man through it from half a dozen feet away if he's careless. But Batman manages to blow up Lincoln with a small charge he'd slapped on his back and then crawl up onto the wing of the plane. And then he succumbs to exhaustion and falls through the air.

Although this falling scene is nice and lures me right back into the story. Sorry I left, Batman!

Of course the building Batman swings into (breaking not just through the outer glass window but through a few of Gotham's cotton candy walls as well) contains Lincoln March who survived the detonation of Batman's explosives. And he's in much better shape after the whole mid-air accident scene.

The Talon (Lincoln March or Thomas Wayne, does it matter?) sets a bunch of explosives in this building that was the centerpiece for Bruce's revamping of Gotham. He plans to bury himself and Batman in the rubble. Of course, he'd come back from death. But once again, he just talks and talks and talks and can't shut up until Bruce sees his chance and puts out his eyes. Bruce manages to get away as the building crumbles around him.

Later, as Bruce Wayne, he's discussing the building's destruction with Commissioner Gordon when Dick Grayson comes to visit.

Yes, Dick! Knock the old man out!

But before Dick socks the old man, here's the update on Brother Wayne.

A lot of the scenes between Dick and Bruce are really nice. I love how Dick has become a peer and no a one time sidekick.

And more of what these two have here:

Maybe Dick can pay Alfred to beat Bruce with a cane while Bruce is sleeping.

In the end, Batman finally realizes that Gotham isn't his and never was. He had begun to see it as his because it was his job to protect it. But the Owls, in trying to show him the city belonged to them, he saw that it belonged to everyone. So Batman learned some humility? Get out! I bet he still bosses around the other Justice Leaguers!

And that's the finale of the Court of Owls! Until they come back, of course. Now on to the Jarvis Pennyworth story!

Jarvis dies at the hands of the Owls' Talon and the letter he was writing Alfred warning him away from the Wayne family burns in the fire that will be blamed for Jarvis' death. Nobody knows that this actually happened except the reader though. But even with the suspicion from recent events, Alfred knows everything he needs to know. Unlike Batman, he can accept the way things are without needing facts to back them up. He's content with knowing if the Owls had something to do with Jarvis' death, Batman's actions against the court are justice enough.

Batman #11 Rating: No change. Of course.