Death’s Door
Credits: Chuck Dixon (writer), Tom Grummett (penciler), Ray Kryssing (finishes), Albert De Guzman (letterer), Adrienne Roy (colorist)
Summary:
Robin and Nightwing are aghast at Bruce’s actions, as opposed to the recently-arrived Lady
Shiva. She tells Bruce his training is complete
and takes the Tengu mask with her. After she leaves, the master begins
to revive, and Robin and Nightwing understand that Bruce used a
non-lethal maneuver. Meanwhile, the cyborg defeated by Jean-Paul
implicates Batman to the police in what could be his final breath.
Jean-Paul escapes the crime scene and tracks down more gunrunners.
Later, Bruce dons the Batman costume again, ready to retake Gotham.
“Huh?” Moment: Bane somehow has a mystic connection to Batman that lets him know when Bruce has donned the cowl once again.
Review:
Hey, wasn’t that cover blurb the name of a crossover in the early
‘00s? Did that storyline ever expect you to believe Bruce Wayne killed
someone, or did we always know he was framed? Back in 1994, DC was
serious about the feint, for the entire week or two in-between Legends of the Dark Knight #62 and Robin
#8, at least. Like the ending of the previous chapter, Dixon gets a
lot of mileage out of the shock value, even if it makes the inevitable
revival of the master feel like even more of a copout. Thankfully, this
tease only lasted for a week or so. Given DC’s track record for its
‘90s event comics, I wouldn’t be surprised if a dozen issues teased the
idea of Bruce killing someone at the end of his ninja training before we
discovered he’s actually innocent.
After
the Shiva training scenes are mercifully over, we’re treated to even
more pages of Jean-Paul brutalizing gunrunners while on his hunt for the
mysterious “LeHah.” Those are about as entertaining as you might
expect, but fortunately the remainder of the issue is dedicated to Robin
and Nightwing’s growing relationship. Dixon handles both of the
characters well, and Grummett shows he’s just as adept at conversation
scenes as action scenes. And seeing Bruce don the cowl again is kind of
an emotional moment after such a lengthy storyline, but it’s marred by
the knowledge that DC goes another six months before truly restoring
Batman.
2 comments:
IIRC the early 00s crossover had Bruce Wayne framed for murdering someone who found out his identity, so he had a motive. I don't think they expected anyone reading an early aughts Batman comic to actually believe they were going to have him murder someone in cold blood though.
It was a decent crossover (along with Bruce Wayne: Fugitive) from what I remember
Yeah, I'm pretty sure the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer" never expected the readers to think he was guilty, but was still a pretty good story. If memory serves though, by the time it and "Fugitive" ended, it wrote out Sasha Bordeaux, Bruce's bodyguard/love interest/budding vigilante sidekick at the time, which bugged me, cuz I kinda liked her (she ended up getting dragged into that whole Coundown/Checkmate/Infinite Crisis mess).
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