The quote from the I Ching that Morrison uses to frame the story is memorable: “The superior man thinks of evil that will come and guards against it. Before reading this, I highly recommend reading Batman: The Black Casebook which contains some stories from the 50s and 60s that the omnibus references.

By the way, while we’re listing random things I love about Morrison’s run, I love the fact that this Mad Hatter’s obsession with hats to the point of sending Batman back in time to recover “the brim size of Alexander the Great” renders him “tediously sane”in comparison to the rest of Batman’s foes. The hardcover doesn't look bad, but it would look prettier if it featured the same artwork as the soft cover protector. I love that he borrows the imagery of the well from Batman Begins, a portion of the mythos I haven’t seen beforehand.

On the other hand "The Three Ghosts of Batman" is something totally different: a bizarre "Black Case" that goes back to the silver age weirdness of Batman and effortlessly melds it with Morrison's ongoing story. He’s no longer the handy-go-lucky prankster of the fifties and sixties, he’s suddenly Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight. While they are generally unrelated to this 2006-2013 run, if you’re settling in for 7 years worth of comics reading there’s no harm in adding two more stories to the start. Like him or not, Grant Morrison’s arrival on a superhero title almost always makes for appointment comics.

I found the big finale to be very satisfying, with lots of action and characters having so much to do.It includes Batman and Son, The Black Glove and Batman RIP, as well as two Morrison-written issues of The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul (with the rest of the story arc tied together by Chris Burnham-penned and drawn recaps) and two issues that tie into Final Crisis (again, with only recaps of the event itself to get you more or less up to speed). Pairing him with the most-popular comic book hero in the world was a lightning-in-a-bottle moment for DC. So, some years ago, Batman underwent something like a sensory deprivation experiment or an isolation chamber experiment (I'm not sure how to explain it), hosted by Dr Hurt, in an effort to experience and understand Joker's madness. It’s quite fun and diverting and energetic, but it feels pretty much like filler – as if Morrison suddenly felt his Batman ideas were moving too quickly and he suddenly needed to slow down to let us all catch up. Dark, wacky, tender, adventurous, inventive, surreal, and always boldly illustrated, Morrison’s Batman is an archivist’s dream.

Flashbacks reimagine the original meeting of the Club of Heroes in a Silver Age style, complete with Ben-Day dots to stand in for the cost-cutting process used for coloring. Definitely a fantastic read, though if you are new to Batman, this is not the book for you as it really delves into Batman's history and brings back very obscure things that new readers will definitely not understand. Using the soul-destroying Anti-Life Equation, Darkseid is remaking the heroes, villains, and everyday people of Earth in his dark image…and destroying the very fabric of reality itself in the process. His long list of credits includes Batman: Arkham Asylum, All-Star Superman, JLA, Green Lantern, Animal Man, Doom Patrol, The Invisibles, WE3 and The Filth.If that would happen in the odd page, it wouldn't be a big deal, but sometimes there are over 10 pages in sucession without numbering. But this is Damien trained by the league and his insane mother, so he's vicious, a asshole, and beats the living shit out of Tim and even offends alfred. The first arc of the series is titled “Batman Reborn” and centers on establishing this new crime-fighting duo. He’s prepared for all that world can offer “but this world of gods and aliens… it’s hard to prepare for this.

This Batman would, after all, use time travel to go fifteen minutes back in time and phone a tip to the GCPD, so why not go back and save his parents?

The front cover and the spine of the dust jacket are beautiful and look great on the shelf, and the hardcover itself has a nice Black and White Batman logo on it. In addition to expanding the DC Universe through titles ranging from the Eisner Award-winning SEVEN SOLDIERS and ALL-STAR SUPERMAN to the reality-shattering epic of FINAL CRISIS, he has also reinvented the worlds of the Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN AND ROBIN and BATMAN, INCORPORATED and the Man of Steel in The New 52 ACTION COMICS. Batman dies at the end, but then he dies again almost the same month in the other Morrison’s written event series Final Crisis.