(THIS IS THE BIT WHERE I RAMBLE.)
Having pondered my initial response during a recent excursion to Parts Unknown, Texas, my point of view has undergone a u-turn (quite a common phenomenon for we who prize our thoughts as superficial) - OF COURSE, Batman is perfect grist for the perpetual motion "Who's Blue In The DCU?" crossover event (currently calling itself COUNTDOWN TO FINAL CRISIS)! One imagines his demise will prove a power chord driven martyrdom, a double splash-page of J. G. Jones melodramatics (the kind denied poor Barda, sez my churlish inner fanboy) likely to recoup the considerable financial losses of COUNTDOWN in one fell swoop.
Death being most often a pin-point and rarely a terminus in these here four-color existences, has the determined lad who went from filial grief to lifting that entire weight one-handed within three panels final escaped the cycle of cause-and-effect? Not likely, but you knew that. Thus, extrapolating upon a rumor, the fanciful notion of Bruce Wayne becoming the new Deadman strikes me as a distinct possibility. With this A) Vertigo gets, once again, the middle finger from DiDio and B) the Nanda Parbat fixation that Morrison goes on about gets concrete (if non-corporeal) results.
So - with our beloved Dark Avenger now adrift in Neal Adams Nirvana, WHITHER THE MANTLE OF PAPA SPANK?
U-DECIDE! (listed in order of most to least likely)
Poll Results
| Option | Votes |
| Werner Herzog | 3 |
| Thomas Wayne (who never really died, it turns out) | 3 |
| Grant Morrison | 1 |
| Leee | 1 |
| Metron | 1 |
| D-Man | 1 |
| Jason Todd | 0 |
| Dick Grayson | 0 |
| Mystery, Master Of The Pick-Up | 0 |
| The Goddamn Batman (induction into the DCU proper in COUNTDOWN: ARENA!) | 0 |
| Luba! | 0 |
| Ray Palmer | 0 |
| Bat-Mite | 0 |
| The current Robin, whose name I forget | 0 |
― R Baez, Saturday, 10 November 2007 19:45 (eighteen years ago)