That is the before and after. After almost seventy years of continuous sequential mythology, Bruce Wayne is gone, killed in the final frames of Batman R.I.P. this week in comic book shops everywhere. But what sort of death is it? In the words of its Chaos Magician creator:
“This is so much better than death. People have killed characters in the past but to me, that kind of ends the story!” said writer Grant Morrison.
“I like to keep the story twisting and turning,” he added. “So what I am doing is a fate worse than death. Things that no one would expect to happen to these guys at all.
“This is the end of Bruce Wayne as Batman.”
At the New York Comic Con 2008, DC Comics gave away pins featuring Nightwing, Tim Drake, Jason Todd, and Hush with the words “I Am Batman” beneath them.
The pins were also being given away at the Newsarama booth by DC’s executive editor Dan DiDio during HeroesCon 2008 in Charlotte, NC and again by DiDio at Emerald City Comic-Con in Seattle.
Which leads me to ask: Who do you want to wear the black rubber suit next?
I am rooting for Jason Todd.
Hook him up, he is ready to become the new Caped Crusader. Batman is Dead, Long Live Batman – hopefully with a Red Hooded dark side.
Full. Body. Transplant. 
It is time for Grayson to step up and become a man…a Batman!
It’ll be Grayson for a while – maybe six months, maybe as long as a year – but no way does Time Warner allow their single most profitable and important intellectual property be tampered with on a permanent basis.
(Besides – exploding helicopter? It didn’t kill the Joker in Death In the Family, it’s not gonna kill frigging Batman.)
Yikes!
I didn’t know this was a spoiler page.
I been sick all week so I didn’t pick up my comics. I will probably today.
To tell you the truth this may set me free of a few Batman titles. IDK.
Bruce Wayne/Batman is my favorite character. I don’t forsee this being the end of Bruce Wayne as Batman. I have read Grant Morrison comics for years & some of them are very very good. Morrison’s first JLA run was excellent. However many of his other books just try to screw with your head. There is a whole multiverse of Bruce Wayne Batmans. My vote is for Bruce from another Earth taking over. For those of you who read Countdown it may be nice to have the Bruce Wayne from where the current Jason Todd came from. I also wouldn’t mind a Kingdom Come Batman much like the JSA have done with Supes.
This isn’t the first time someone has taken over for Bruce/Batman.
The real question is were does the R.I.P story fit in with Final Crisis? I was really looking forward to seeing where Batman fit into the whole Final Crisis scheme.
Thus far
Batman = Dead
Superman is off planet
Wonder Woman is a justifier.
I was hopeing the trinity book will amount to something within Final Crisis. Oh well GO SONNY SUMO!!! GO Mr. Terrific!!!
Sheeshh! Does the server on realms really gotta go down all the time?
Anyway Stu on your post there for whom will be Batman next.
I vote for Damian. If you didn’t know Grant Morrison started writing the beginnnings of this whole Batman story arc before the resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul. (which was great)
You find out in the story that Talia has a son & Batman is the father. The sons name is Damian. He is as intelligent as Bruce if not more however he is as ruthless as Ra’s al Ghul. They even had a whole issue about him as Batman over a year ago.
Jon Stewart from JLU.
A shame they’re killing off Bruce Wayne. I always thought he and Victor Von Doom would have made great inter-company lovers.