I hope there is an intention to go back and cover the whole run sometime in the future. I think there’s still plenty to talk about, even though a metric ton of it has been presented in the annotations.

I was too slammed at the time to comment on your last podcast about the structure of the show. There is only one thing that bugs me when I listen is that there have been a lot of times when you guys will talk right over each other and even though it might get your point across it really turns me off listening despite an otherwise awesome show.

Length isn’t really an issue. If it is a 55 minute Batcast or an 80 minute retrospective on Civil War, I really enjoy FBB for taking more in-depth examinations of works, their themes and their flaws.

It’d be great to see more discussion of politics, sex, race, gender, etc. One of my favorite pieces of comic-talk recently was an article on 4th Letter about black fiction and the characters who can embody aspects of culture, such as Luke Cage or Mister Miracle.

I know that doesn’t gel with her saying she loves Bruce and all…

Doug, that’s a really good point about the Outsider thing. More than any other story Morrison’s told in Batman, this issue really depends on being a Batman nerd more than the others - I guess if you don’t know ANYTHING you can just roll with the punches as they come, but anyone with cursory knowledge of Alfred or Kathy Kane would be really confused by this.

C’mon, dudes! Where’s the podcast?

However, THE DEVIL isn’t that big of a reveal. Batman fights the devil all the time, doesn’t he? Like, I remember Neron tempting him with Jason Todd in the ’90s, and there was that old Brave and the Bold team-up with Sgt. Rock where they fought Satan, right?

Beware: many, many words (all of which are really quite interesting)

I would like to echo the sentiments of a Damien/Alfred series.

The comments on the fourth page’s last panel seem to me to describe the bat mite. Specifically the comment “A scar on my consciousness” as there is the unexplained growth or scar on the bat mite’s back. On the next page the scar is referred to as something “tattooed” or “scabbed into place”. This is just before the mention of the cover personality.

They’re doctors too.

Jack Tango, it seems to me there’s a third man in the plane since it doesn’t look like Hurt would have time to move to the back, and the figure saying that doesn’t have a mask on. I thought it was an unrevealed face that was supposed to represent the fear in the devil’s eyes, but that would work for Hurt too, so I could have just been confused by the storytelling.

Great catch on the black gloves on the last page, I don’t know how I missed that, frisco.

I just wonder how much of this we’re supposed to take at face value? And did Bruce just recall that final memory? His dad’s last words, that Batman is a crazy concept, seem like the kind of thing that would weigh on him. Was the epilogue supposed to represent that memory coming out? Because I could see that having the give-up-the-cowl effect, maybe. I guess we’ll see next week, hopefully.

Couple more things:

Page 1) Batman was writing in third person because he doesn’t think of himself as Batman the person, Bruce Wayne the mask anymore.

Page 4) The second gargoyle is Dr. Hurt/The Devil (or Darth Maul, heh), the third is Jezebel Jet.

Page 16) Joker is definitely accusing Batman of having apophenia, but his statement of thinking outside the box then having a new box put around him means that Bats just makes the apophenia work; sort of as a self-fulfilling mental affliction. Joker *thinks* he’s not creating patterns, but Batman finds them, forces them into the patterns (essentially) and alluva sudden, the Joker’s back in the box again.

Page 26) What third man? There is the third Batman, Dr. Hurt and then a silhouetted figure who, if we are to follow standard rules of storytelling, is either the third Batman or Dr. Hurt, not a just-introduced character. Personally, before reading these annotations (well done, btw), I thought it was obviously Dr. Hurt, since it lines up with the side of the helicopter Bruce jumped to, and the side Hurt was on in the first few panels of that page.

I read some spoilers in advance and people just didn’t seem satisfied by the ending; I couldn’t disagree more. Well played, Grant. Well played.

Just a thought. :-)

DUN DUN DUN.

The whole betrayal of the son by the father, leading to the death of the mother seems very close to Batman RIP.

Thematically, Morrison’s entire run has been about the relationship between fathers and sons (or their surrogates) and, in particular, how the father eventually lets down the son- Even the Ras A Ghul crossover ties in with this theme, as Ras betrays his daughter and grandson in his desperate attempt to prolong his own life. Similarly, Batman betrays Robin with the relationship he forges with Damian, and there can be no greater betrayal for a son to discover his father being responsible for the murder of his mother.

Temporary replacement personalities for psychic take-overs, strength to escape death traps, back up plans with computers- all everyday occurrences for Batman. But coming face to face with a Freudian nightmare,** now that’s a killer.

*As to why the helicopter explodes? It definitely collides with the clock tower to knock it’s back rotor off, so I’d imagine it ruptures some fuel lines while doing so, leading it to explode when it crashes into the sea.

**Am I the only one to get a Sherlock Holmesian vibe from the climax? From a great detective meeting his ultimate adversary and both perishing over water, to the ‘alternate’ take on Moriarty proposed by the film The Seven Per Cent Solution’ where Holmes’ victimisation of an innocent maths tutor is given Freudian analysis. It transpires that,, when he was a child, Holmes mother betrayed his father by having an affair with Holmes’ maths tutor, leading to Holmes Sr killing her, and then taking his own life. The name of the maths tutor? Moriarty, of course.