Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne is a 6-issue American comic book limited series published by DC Comics beginning in May to November 2010, written by Grant Morrison and featuring a team of rotating artists starting with Chris Sprouse and Frazer Irving.
The series picks up from Final Crisis #6. The series detailed the journey Bruce Wayne takes through the timestream of the DC Universe after being deposited in the distant past by Darkseid in Final Crisis. Wayne has to overcome amnesia and "history itself" in order to make his way back to present-day Gotham City and retake his rightful place as Batman. The series ran for six issues, each covering a different time period. The time periods are prehistory, the witch hunts, pirates at sea, the Wild West, 20th-century Gotham City just a few months after Thomas and Martha Wayne were murdered, and the present day, and usually depict the Batcave or Wayne Manor. Bruce Wayne also visits "the end of time".
Publication history
In an interview announcing the series in USA Today, writer Grant Morrison describes The Return of Bruce Wayne as, "...the latest chapter in the long-running, 'definitive' Batman epic I've been trying to pull off since 2005". Branching out of Batman and Son, The Black Glove, and Batman R.I.P., as well as Final Crisis, with connections to Batman and Robin, Morrison purports that the return of Bruce Wayne to Gotham City and the DC Universe will, "[have] a mystery and an apocalyptic countdown going on, there are some major twists and reveals, and it sets up big changes to the Batman universe status quo". Morrison also said that the title is mostly related to the Dark Knight for the majority of 2010: "I'm doing at least another year of stories with Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne in the Batman and Robin book before that book starts to dovetail with Return and we rush headlong and screaming into the next big, earth-shattering, game-changing twist in the life of Batman".
Morrison described the vastly different time periods in each issue: "The first episode is set in the Late-Paleolithic Era, the second is in Pilgrim-era Gotham Village, and we also get to see Gotham in Western or noir style. Each of the stories is a twist on a different 'pulp hero' genre — so there's the caveman story, the witchhunter/Puritan adventurer thing, the pirate Batman, the cowboy, the P.I. — as a nod toward those mad old 1950s comics with Caveman Batman and Viking Batman adventures. It's Bruce Wayne's ultimate challenge — Batman vs. history itself!"
As far as his artistic collaborators on the limited series, Morrison explained, "...each issue is drawn by a different artist, so that side of it has barely got underway. I know Chris Sprouse is penciling the first one, so I'm fairly confident it'll be the best comic set in the Late Paleolithic Era that you'll have seen for a very long time. I'm a huge fan of Chris' work, so I'm keen to see what he's done. I think Frazer Irving might do the second one, cementing his reputation as the comic world's most prominent Puritan Goth Adventure artist". Irving's involvement in the second issue was confirmed by Batman title solicitations released through DC's blog, "The Source". Yanick Paquette did the art on the third version featuring pirates: "I was with my family at Disney when they asked me to do it. So I spent an extra ride in Pirates of the Caribbean, because I knew I was going to do a Batman pirate".
The writer-artist team of Dan Jurgens and Norm Rapmund released a companion series titled Time Masters: Vanishing Point that stars Rip Hunter, Booster Gold, Superman, and Hal Jordan. The series follows the heroes' journey to find Batman who was lost in time following Final Crisis.
Artist Cameron Stewart didn't handle the art duties on the fourth issue and was replaced by artist Georges Jeanty.
The final issue was released in November 2010, with Ryan Sook sharing art duties with Pere Perez on his issue.
Plot
Caught in the explosion of the time-and-space-bending Omega Beams of the New God tyrant Darkseid, an amnesiac Bruce Wayne is cast back in time to the dawn of history. Nearly killed by a tribe of Neanderthals led by the immortal caveman who will become Vandal Savage, Wayne is rescued by a younger human, who returns his utility belt to him. Operating more on instinct than actual knowledge, Wayne dons the pelt of a giant bat and uses the tools in his belt against the cavemen, but is eventually forced to flee by jumping over a waterfall. When he recovers at the bottom, he finds he has jumped further forward in time, arriving in Puritan times.