Scans-Free, Spoiler-Heavy Post: Return of Bruce Wayne 6, Red Robin 17
Short take: I'm tempted to stop reading comics altogether now, simply because I'm unlikely to ever read two comics back to back that will make me so happy again. :D
So at the end of RoBW 2, Bruce appeared to have left Clark, Rip, and Booster (oh God, and Hal, I honestly forgot to mention him) trapped at the end of time, with time collapsing all around them. Jurgens "Time Masters" mini argued that "something happened" and the group got flung off into time, which was driving me crazy because it meant Clark couldn't be there when Bruce got back.
Well, in RoBW it turns out Morrison has just blithely ignored Time Masters, which is...okay with me. Instead, Bruce has constructed a super-advanced NEW Time Sphere around them (the collapsing bubble was the forming sphere) and they get out of there with it. They arrive just as Bruce comes through, partially possessed by Darkseid (I'm compressing the plot at points, forgive me!)
The fight that follows is pure, pure awesome, and features Tim, Clark, and Diana being fantastic. Tim especially is just amazing. He stands down Darkseid!Bruce, reaches Bruce and helps him remember himself. Bruce fights off the "infection" with help from Clark and Diana (Clark even takes the time, in the middle of fighting a possessed Bruce, to note that he's really glad to see Bruce! AWWWW). They have to induce physical death in Bruce to drive the infection out, and Tim says they can bring him back by telling him "Gotham needs him." The Darkseid techno-infection is thrown into the past, where it manifests...as the giant bat that Vandal kills and Bruce wears as a cloak. Bruce has one of his regularly-scheduled but delightful epiphanies about how he has friends and people who love him and stand by him: there's a wonderful little moment where the Darkseid!contagion is whispering to him and tells him not to listen to Wonder Woman: "Father needs you! Stay lonely!"
He does not.
Red Robin 17 just caps everything off, with Tim visiting Cass in Hong Kong and giving her a Batsuit, telling her not to forget she has a family. He meets up with Bruce and...well, they are absolutely adorable together, and Bruce hugs him, and they snark a little in a cute way about Damian and how good Dick with him, and then Bruce says "Let's have some fun," and they swing off into the night and OH MY HEART.
"Let's have some fun." Oh yes, LET'S. <3
So at the end of RoBW 2, Bruce appeared to have left Clark, Rip, and Booster (oh God, and Hal, I honestly forgot to mention him) trapped at the end of time, with time collapsing all around them. Jurgens "Time Masters" mini argued that "something happened" and the group got flung off into time, which was driving me crazy because it meant Clark couldn't be there when Bruce got back.
Well, in RoBW it turns out Morrison has just blithely ignored Time Masters, which is...okay with me. Instead, Bruce has constructed a super-advanced NEW Time Sphere around them (the collapsing bubble was the forming sphere) and they get out of there with it. They arrive just as Bruce comes through, partially possessed by Darkseid (I'm compressing the plot at points, forgive me!)
The fight that follows is pure, pure awesome, and features Tim, Clark, and Diana being fantastic. Tim especially is just amazing. He stands down Darkseid!Bruce, reaches Bruce and helps him remember himself. Bruce fights off the "infection" with help from Clark and Diana (Clark even takes the time, in the middle of fighting a possessed Bruce, to note that he's really glad to see Bruce! AWWWW). They have to induce physical death in Bruce to drive the infection out, and Tim says they can bring him back by telling him "Gotham needs him." The Darkseid techno-infection is thrown into the past, where it manifests...as the giant bat that Vandal kills and Bruce wears as a cloak. Bruce has one of his regularly-scheduled but delightful epiphanies about how he has friends and people who love him and stand by him: there's a wonderful little moment where the Darkseid!contagion is whispering to him and tells him not to listen to Wonder Woman: "Father needs you! Stay lonely!"
He does not.
Red Robin 17 just caps everything off, with Tim visiting Cass in Hong Kong and giving her a Batsuit, telling her not to forget she has a family. He meets up with Bruce and...well, they are absolutely adorable together, and Bruce hugs him, and they snark a little in a cute way about Damian and how good Dick with him, and then Bruce says "Let's have some fun," and they swing off into the night and OH MY HEART.
"Let's have some fun." Oh yes, LET'S. <3