Spoilers for Batman #681

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Well, that was a big piece of shit.

I didn't like the run up to the story, but against my better judgment I actually got sucked into the momentum of the last couple chapters . . . there was the promise of a truly awesome finish, based on Morrison's well-known ability to conjure up awesome climaxes out of disparate ingredients. But no, the last issue was pretty much the most awful thing ever, deflating the mysteries of previous issues and sort of retroactively making the pieces seem far less interesting than they had initially seemed. It's not just online hype and anticipation - the story itself seemed to be building to some kind of awesome cosmic slam-bang ur-Batman finish. And then, what? The villains are exactly who you'd expect them to be, the "revelations" don't make a whit of sense (there is a strong odor of editorial fiat) and then the titular hero has the least convincing death ever - incidentally the same death Green Arrow had back in issue #101 of his 90s series. Did anyone else notice that Batman #700 is coming up in a year and a half? Gee, I wonder if they'll bring him back for the round number . . .

Was the issue rewritten? The end is choppy enough. Unusual for mainstream writers, Morrison is really good at endings. Sometimes he can even redeem mediocre premises with strong finishes. But this is a mess - I'm sorry, I'm not going to put lipstick on this pig. At the very least, if he leaves DC after the end of Final Crisis I imagine we'll end up with one brutal exit interview on Newsarama or whatnot. Isn't this how his run on New X-Men ended - in truncated endings, yelling and tears? This issue can't be what Morrison intended it to be - otherwise, he's lost it pretty spectacularly. And, you know, I haven't really warmed to a lot of his recent stuff - but maybe he's just tired of spandex. It happens.