To me that statement isn't positive or negative.
'If you are lost to despair then we will traumatize you so badly that you will either triumph or die', is how I take it. I think that's what Bruce Wayne's after, that clarity; since the trauma and stakes of his life (including numerous rebirths) have so far been unable to prevent an ongoing downward spiral in his spirit.
I would also say that I think that wound is the cumulative trauma of his life, all the way back to childhood and into his future - all the loss and randomness and unintended consequence of his life; and that Morrison's likely to try to take this one as close to the edge of the existential abyss as he can before he brings it back. It's Batman, his Hades to Superman's Zeus.
Something I thought about while re-reading the run last week: there are three Robin caskets in Bruce Wayne's visions - and I started wondering if the three ghosts of Batman, as tulpas or externalized traumas, aren't directly related to fears surrounding the death of Robin - the loss of specific charges or children. Most good ghost stories are really about regret. The first impostor was beaten to death with a crowbar by the Joker, like Jason Todd. The third one has Bruce Wayne tied to a chair to be tortured with a power drill, like Stephanie Brown. The only ones left are Tim or Dick. And BaneBats is still out there murdering women.
Joe Chill inadvertently created Batman, partially out of hesitation from the reminder of the son he'd lost. The cover of #673 looks like a birth gone bad, a miscarriage. I think Bruce is probably going to find out that he's somehow responsible for creating these impostor Batmen, and/or for something else equally horrible; possibly as a result of whatever did or didn't happen to Joe Chill that night he got his gun back.
Joe Chill In Hell. "Our father in Hell!" "The Batman failed to kill me when he had his chance. If he had, perhaps things might have been... different for all of us." "I shoulda shot the kid right there - I shoulda done him first. Three for three..."
One of the big comic book moments that sticks in my head from when I was a kid is from the Killing Joke - the pre-Joker, under the Red Hood and being confronted with Batman, saying "Oh dear God, what have you sent to punish me?" |
