So, Batman is dead. And he is not, of course. Like Schrödinger’s Bat, he is both dead and alive, depending on which of many parallel universes you happen to examine at the time. Like Dracula, he will rise again as soon as some marketing executive feels a thirst for a sequel. What goes around, comes around. The life of an iconic superhero is anything but uncomplicated.
DC has an answer, I understand. It is Bruce Wayne who is dead. The Batman is not. There will be a new Batman, forever keeping the mean streets of Gotham City safe from crime. I don’t believe it. Bruce will be back sooner or later. If not yet in the “mainstream†DC Universe, then in a “Classic Batman†series that returns us to the way things used to be. Bruce Wayne and Batman are no more dead than Robin Hood, or King Arthur; no more dead than Superman, or Captain America (and if anyone thinks that Steve Rogers is dead, let’s not forget that Bucky was dead for an awful long time).
It is issues like this that Neil Gaiman must have struggled with when he was asked to write Batman’s eulogy. There he is, poor old Bats, lying in his coffin for all the world like Pharaoh off to his Batcave pyramid where he will fight crime for all eternity surrounded by the mementoes of his career. Except that his all eternity exists primarily in the pages of DC comics, where he will be alive for us. What does one say?
Well, the thing you do at funerals is celebrate the life of the dear departed; and you can do that whether the person in the box is actually dead or not, whether he is actually even there. This is what Neil does. And it soon becomes obvious why he is writing this particular story, because Neil has an enviable ability to be sentimental without being mawkish, to provide pathos without melodrama, and to provide dignity to a story that inevitably features a collection of crazy criminals, headed by a costumed clown.
Gaiman, ably assisted by Andy Kubert, treats us to a fond remembrance of the life of Bruce Wayne, caped crime fighter, as it was, and as it might have been. (As, inevitably, in some universe, it will be.) There are star moments for the most important people in Bruce’s life: Selina Kyle, Alfred Pennyworth, Dick Grayson, and of course his parents, without whom he would not have become the man he was. But also there are star moments for those other “parentsâ€, the men who write and drew Bruce throughout his career, and really did make him the man he was. Kubert does a great job of paying tribute to the various artists who have drawn Batman down the years. I suspect I would admire his work all the more if I knew Batman and his history somewhat better.
The downside of such a story is that it will not mean much to those who did not know Mr. Wayne well. There is little action, no crime to be solved, no villain to be defeated. DC chose to go with this story, however, because Mr. Wayne is rather well known. There are millions of us whose lives he has touched, and who will remember him fondly. Thanks to Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert, we will remember him more fondly still.
