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Grant Morrison is a writer from Glasgow, Scotland whose penchant for mind-bending and metatextual storytelling left a mark on the DC Comics library of characters, from legendary runs on Animal Man, Doom Patrol, JLA and Action Comics to miniseries like All-Star Superman, The Multiversity and Seven Soldiers. Morrison has done it all, but perhaps most notable is the legacy they left for Gotham City, which deconstructed the idea of Batman through psychological horror and recontextualized classic continuity.
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth in 1989 was Grant Morrison’s first foray into the Batman mythos with artist Dave McKean, before Batman: Gothic from Legends Of The Dark Knight with Klaus Janson the following year. When Morrison took over the main Batman book in 2006 with issue #655, they launched a seven-year run that became one of the most universally praised eras of Batman comics throughout the modern age.
Rest In Peace, Batman
The Dark Knight Was Destined To Die
Morrison’s Batman run can be broken into three acts, the first of which culminated in Batman R.I.P. The hype was high since the story promised the death of Batman, who had never truly died before, despite the revolving door of death in superhero comics. Much like 1993’s The Death of Superman event, fans were divided and anxious to see how Batman R.I.P. would deliver the death of the most popular superhero in comics. The outcome was a symbolic assassination of Bruce Wayne’s sanity.
Tony Daniel provided artwork for Batman R.I.P., in addition to several earlier issues as a prelude to Batman R.I.P., which officially began in #676.
The previous 20 issues heavily set up the arc, and are littered with puzzle-box clues in their subtext and artwork that have obsessed readers for years with the obscure lore, literary and historical references, symbolism and specific callbacks that payoff classic issues of Batman and Detective Comics going as far back as the Golden and Silver Ages.
Dr. Hurt, leader of The Black Glove and its Club of Villains, drugs Batman and casts him into the streets, fracturing Wayne’s already fragile mind. Batman is forced to fend for himself without his utility belt or wits. A backup personality activates within his mind to survive. The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh emerges as a manic and violent version of Batman driven solely to protect Gotham City without the burden of Bruce Wayne. While Bruce’s mind reboots, Zur-En-Arrh works as a temporary measure.
Zur-En-Arrh isn’t simply a fun reference to the 1958 comic Batman #113 with «Batman — The Superman of Planet X» but becomes a metaphor for Bruce Wayne’s mental resilience. When broken, Batman refuses to die. He evolves into an archetype without the presence of Bruce Wayne, yet also free of Wayne’s flaws and inhibitions. Batman is an idea that survives beyond a single person.
Batman And Robin Will Never Die
An Idea Like Batman Is Bulletproof
Dr. Hurt is central to Morrison’s design as a villain who embodies generational corruption and an unknowable existential threat. His ambiguous identity serves as fuel for fan interest and speculation and allows the villain to claim to be everything from Thomas Wayne, as he wears a Bat-themed costume that once belonged to him, to Thomas’ body double, Mangrove Pierce, and as far as being the Devil incarnate. Hurt represents the ultimate fear that Batman’s origin, legacy and even sanity may be built on a lie.
Bat-Mite also appears as a hallucination, a major indication of Bruce’s ragged mental state.
The absurd Silver Age character is an imp from the 5th Dimension, which Bat-Mite states is the realm of imagination. Grant Morrison has a penchant for wacky sidekicks who may be imaginary friends, often used as symbols to literalize trauma and reveal the character’s reality as fiction, like in their Vertigo series Seaguy with Chubby Da Choona, the blue unicorn Happy! from Image Comics and Krakkl for The Flash at DC.
When the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh ultimately confronts The Black Glove, he is defeated by the Joker, who is there to witness Batman without his sanity. Batman is buried alive in a shallow grave, but while The Black Glove celebrate their victory, The Joker kills a member and takes their spot at the gambling table, confident Batman will dig himself out with his full faculties intact and destroy The Black Glove. The villain understands more than anyone that Batman is an idea that transcends death.
Morrison introduced several new villains into Batman’s legendary rogues’ gallery throughout the run, which is a feat in itself, but their most significant addition to the mythology was the prior first appearance of Damian Wayne in issue #655, revealed to be the unknown biological son of Bruce Wayne and Talia Al Ghul. Damian and his mother arrive just in time to help Batman clean up loose ends, along with the League of Assassins, who inject themselves with Man-Bat serum to stop The Black Glove’s escape.
Final Crisis Ushers In Death And Transformation
Batman As A Symbol Becomes An Entire System
Dr. Hurt curses Batman that the next time he wears the cowl, it will be his last. He also attests that The Black Glove always wins, just as Batman’s fist, wearing its signature black glove, breaks through Dr. Hurt’s helicopter, and lands the definitive punch. However, Hurt was correct that the next case would be Batman’s last adventure. His literal death occurs soon after in Final Crisis, where Batman confronts the evil god Darkseid before he is seemingly killed when struck by the Omega Sanction beams.
Dick Grayson becomes the new Batman and Damian Wayne is Robin, headlining a year in the Batman & Robin series, also written by Grant Morrison. Batman and Robin’s roles contrasted their typical portrayals as the series featured a light-hearted and joyful Batman, carrying over Grayson’s attitude as the original Robin, alongside a much more serious and violent Robin in Damian Wayne, who reluctantly warms to Grayson as a mentor. The unpredictable new status quo further underlines the theme that Batman is not just a man, but an ever-evolving role, as Grayson steps into the identity he was always destined to inherit.
However, as Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne reveals, Batman is not actually dead but thrust into the timestream with Darkseid’s Hyper-Adapter creature.
Its dark energies corrupt Bruce’s ancestor, Thomas Wayne of the 18th century, and make him immortal, going on to take on the identity of Dr. Hurt, unifying all of the potential theories regarding his true backstory, though he believes he was cursed by the devil Barbatos, the bat-demon later revealed as the force behind Dark Nights: Metal. Eventually, Tim Drake and the Justice League realize Bruce is still alive and launch a rescue mission, as the crux of Morrison’s second act.
Upon Bruce Wayne’s return, he publicly announces to the world that Wayne Enterprises was funding Batman all along and launches a new venture called Batman, Incorporated, also the title of Morrison’s next series. The goal was to create a network of Batmen in every country, representing order through inspiration and symbolism, to combat the ensuing threat of Leviathan, a secret society centered around chaos through indoctrination and control. Morrison’s third act for Batman, Inc. examines how once the symbol of Batman is industrialized as a brand, its meaning becomes vulnerable to manipulation by commercialization.
The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh eventually resurfaced during Chip Zdarsky’s time on the Batman book in the 2020s. Zur-En-Arrh took on a life of its own outside of being simply a dormant partition within Bruce’s mind. Zur-En-Arrh created an artificial intelligence named Failsafe as a paranoid contingency to stop Bruce Wayne if he were to ever kill. Zur-En-Arrh eventually implanted a backup of its consciousness within the android and allied itself with Amanda Waller during 2024’s Absolute Power comic event.
Grant Morrison returns to the Caped Crusader in 2025 for Batman/Deadpool #1 with artist Dan Mora, the first book in the next generation of DC and Marvel Comics crossovers. Deadpool’s chaotic humor and meta-awareness make him the perfect character for another mind-bending adventure for Morrison to push comic book conventions with commentary on the nature of superhero fiction. The story is bound to not simply feature Batman and Deadpool but speak to the ideas that they represent.
While Morrison’s contributions to Batman live on, especially in Damian Wayne, once controversial but now a core character, their greatest legacy is in redefining Batman, for an era obsessed with tracking continuity and retcons, into a character whose vastly different eras, from the smiling Silver Age to the brooding Bronze Age, can coexist in cohesion rather than contradiction. Batman isn’t just one man or idea, but a myth that contains multitudes and validates every fan-fave version as being simultaneously true.
Batman
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