Reviews: Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5 and Time Masters: Vanishing Point #4

Reviews of recent issues from the two miniseries dealing with Bruce Wayne's travels through time: Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5 and Time Masters: Vanishing Point #4. Read on to see what I thought.

Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #5

• Written by Grant Morrison
• Art by Ryan Sook
• Cover by Andy Kubert

Well, I complained about the last issue having too little of Bruce Wayne and too little meat — just a “Batman as [fill-in-the-blank]” story. This one has plenty of Bruce, but too much “important information” and not enough of the time period. I actually can't tell when this is supposed to occur — there are (seeming?) anachronisms all over the place. (This is set in a time where hand-held video cameras exist? Really?) It's decent enough as a detective story, but that doesn't set it apart from the other issues of this series, as most were detective stories as well as being in their respective time periods.

I do like the art. It's very detailed, with a light inking job that allows all that detail to come through. It has a sort of delicate look, but that doesn't detract much from the intended noir-ish feel — the designs and colors nail that in spots (in other places, even the story doesn't give a noir-ish feel, even though it seems like it should). Apparantly, all that detail took Ryan Sook too long because there's a fill-in artist for the last third of the book (Pere Perez), but I didn't notice until taking another look at the credits page.

With only one issue left after this, I feel like Grant Morrison has used this and the previous issue to cram in all the pertinent huge-arc ideas that he's been building on for some years with the Batman titles he's worked on. I'm a little lost on a few, as I haven't been reading all of that stuff, and I can accept that I'll need to feel my way around with some of that. The problem here is, this book is too largely dependent on that, to the extent that it doesn't quite hold up on its own. This is a miniseries unto itself, and there should be enough

Time Masters: Vanishing Point #4

• Written by Dan Jurgens
• Art & Cover by Dan Jurgens & Norm Rapmund

Dan Jurgens starts to get back on track in this latest issue of Time Masters: Vanishing Point. There's still not much in the way of moving the plot forward — though it pretty much has to next issue — but we do get some character work. Superman stops being so bull-headed and admits that he actually has limitations (with regards to time travel), and Green Lantern almost stops being a complete jerk towards Booster Gold. In the funniest moment of the book, Booster psychs Hal out by telling him he has a reality show where he takes civilians out with him to battle evil and the last one still living wins. Hal's response (You … have no soul.) and expression are great. But, then he goes back to bad-mouthing Booster.

Superman sees the most character work here. I feel like he's really stuggling with this time travel thing. He's, for once, out of his league, and he has to admit that he doesn't know how to handle it. He tries, though. He keeps saying that he'll get them out of this or that mess, but he's just grasping for something he can get a handle on. I think the most telling moment is when they're all being sucked through a time portal, and Rip Hunter is telling them there's nothing any of them can do but ride it out. Everyone's falling head-first through this time tunnel (of sorts), but Superman is facing the other way, trying to fly his way out. It's going to be futile (his cape shows he's falling just as quickly as the others), but he's still trying. It's one of the best moments in the book.

So, yes, there's some good character work here, but in the end, our heroes are barely further along than they were in at the end of the second issue. With two issues left, there's still plenty of time to get back to what I found so compelling from those first two issues — and this is a step in that direction. Let's hope that comes next issue. This series started off with a bang, and it's still been enjoyable enough, but I'd like to see it finish with the same mix of character and story that it had in the beginning.