New Comics! (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Batman #10:  Since the start of the Court of Owls arc, Snyder has been building a story that promised to change our understanding of Batman, hinting at truths that we (and he) did not yet know about him.  Snyder has strongly hinted that we would learn that the Court of Owls had been responsible for the deaths of Bruce's parents and, as I've previously mentioned, he has so excelled at carefully weaving the Court through Gotham's history that I actually think I would've believed it, as if Kane himself had intended this version of Batman's origin story to be told one day.  Instead, Snyder goes somewhere else in this penultimate issue of the ongoing saga, summoning a brother "from the other side of the mirror."

I am cautiously optimistic about this turn of events.  We could be seeing the birth of a new Simon Hurt or Thomas Elliot.  A lot depends, however, on where Snyder goes from here.

All of the comments and questions that follow underline the most interesting thing about this issue, the fact that Snyder essentially shifts this story 180 degrees.  The Court of Owls suddenly goes from the primary antagonist to a simple MacGuffin, a means to getting us to the end, the revelation of Lincoln as the brother of Bruce.  Snyder pays lip service to the Court's importance, hinting at a larger conspiracy, other chapters in other cities.  But, it's Lincoln who steals the show.  March is essentially Hush with a soul, carrying a lament against Bruce that comes from a more emotional (and less sociopathic) place.  But, for Snyder to sell me this story in a way that doesn't feel like a cheap ret-con, even with all his talent, he needs to address some issues.

Let's discuss the questions he does answer first.

He seems to answer (though not explicitly) question #2 from my "On the 'Night of the Owls'" post, namely, whether or not the Court knew Bruce's identity.  Here, we learn that Lincoln figured out the fact that Bruce is Batman after he successfully survives the assassination attempt in issue #2.  I have to applaud Snyder for tweaking the age-old device, where heroes in their normal civilian identities are forced to engage in amazing physical feats to save a loved one, and the loved one decides, after the dust settles, that it was just an uncharacteristic athletic display inspired by the situation.  Instead, Lincoln does, in fact, realize that regular ol' Bruce Wayne could not fight a Talon as they entered a several-storey free fall, coming to the conclusion that he's Batman.  Snyder also informs us that the Court thought that killing Bruce would be easy, which seems to imply that the Court also didn't know.  As such, it seems feasible that, after Lincoln deduced Bruce's identity, he informed the Court, inspiring it to send the plethora of Talons after him in issue #8.  Snyder might do more to clarify this issue, but, if he doesn't, I'm still going to consider this question resolved.

He also seems to wrap up the Waynes' relationships with the Court (question #3, for those keeping track at home).  Snyder finally portrays the Court in this issue as the elites of Gotham who are using the Court as a way to remain the elite.  It's been implied previously, but we see it the most clearly here, with Batman's confrontation with the wealthy woman in her penthouse apartment.  It's pretty clear that the civic-minded Waynes wouldn't be part of any such organization, and, in fact, Snyder uses Martha's fight with the Mayor, who's pretty clearly allied with the Court, as a way to underline this point.  After all, the Court presumably went after Bruce (before it learned of his identity) because of his plans to change Gotham, so it's obvious that the Court has long viewed the Waynes as a thorn in its side.  I'm going to give Snyder credit for answering this question, despite the fact that I think we still need to hear more about it, particularly as it relates to the Court's relationship with Lincoln March.

OK, so, let's address Lincoln March.  I'm going to add two questions to my list that need to be answered for me to buy this story (and anoint Snyder as the greatest comic-book author of all time):

4) If Martha gave birth to another child when Bruce was a toddler, then why did Alfred and Bruce not know about him?  Lincoln pointedly notes that Bruce was old enough to remember his mother's pregnancy, and Jarvis explicitly mentions Martha's pregnancy to Alfred in his letter in this issue.  (Even if the letter didn't make it to Alfred, it seems pretty reasonable that, at some point, Alfred would've learned that Martha had been pregnant with another child.)  The only reasonable explanation is that Martha and Thomas led everyone to believe that he had died.  It's unclear what problem afflicted Lincoln (more on that in the next section), since he only refers to the fact that he was "born hurt."  Snyder is careful to go to great lengths not to paint Bruce's parents in too poor of a light, stressing that they sent him to the WIllowwood Home, the "satellite hospital for children suffering from mental illness and neurological disorders," and funded it to ensure that it was, in Lincoln's own words, "a premier children's hospital."  Now, the Waynes could've obviously still lied about Lincoln's existence, despite giving him excellent care.  However, I find it hard to believe that they hid his birth.  First, the whole story turns on the fact that Martha was wearing the WIllowwood pin in her portrait, something that I'm pretty sure she wouldn't have done had she been trying to cover up her child's presence there.  Why call attention to a child that you're trying to hide?  Second, from a practical stand-point, it seems like a stretch for us to believe that the Waynes left no instructions for the care of their second child in the event of their untimely deaths.  I mean, no one knew of his existence?  You'd think someone would've known and been able to inform Alfred that he needed to provide for the child.  Obviously, Snyder has to resolve this disconnect for me to buy this story.  After all, if the Waynes weren't hiding Lincoln's existence, then why didn't Alfred or Bruce do anything about him?  Did Alfred really just let Bruce's brother stay at Willowwod after the Waynes' death, not caring what happened to him?  If Martha had been public about Lincoln's presence at the Home, did none of her friends or associates "remind" Bruce of his brother as he grew older?  Given Bruce's obsession over family, would we really be expected to believe that he never researched him if he had known about it?  Snyder is going to have to be a lot clearer on the mechanics of how Lincoln was hidden, in a way that seems believable (and accounts for the Willowwood pin and the practical questions) for me to buy the story.

5) Why did the Court decide to go after Lincoln?  Snyder does a good job making Lincoln's resurrection as the bad guy believable.  It makes sense that Lincoln used the Talon serum to cheat death, as does his decision to turn against the Court, given that it decided to try to kill him.  But, why?  Why did it try to kill him?  What wasn't he doing that it wanted him to do?  It's a key question, because it fuels his eventual rebellion against the Court (and the events of this issue).  It's pretty clear that the Court embraced Lincoln because of his connection to the Waynes.  Why suddenly cut loose that connections?  (Moreover, as a side question, how did they resolve Lincoln's disability, whatever it was?  I mean, if he were so disabled that he had to be raised in an institution, you have to wonder how he suddenly became the strapping man that we've seen here.)

As I mentioned before, one of the problems with this 180-degree turn is that I'm worried we're just going to leave some of the lingering questions about this arc behind.  As such, I hope Snyder returns to my only remaining question from my previous post, namely, what the Court intended to accomplish with the "Night of the Owls."  We see more evidence in this issue -- the Mayor's heavy-handed treatment of Martha -- that the Court has not acted as quietly in the background as we've been lead to believe, adding it to the revelations that several Talons have been exposed over the course of the Court's existence.  The Court clearly blew the lid off the jar with the "Night of the Owls," since it could no longer hide its presence in the city.  Are we supposed to believe that it was the actions of a rogue grouping?  Did the Court hope to so cower public officials that no one would've investigated their actions?  Both seem like serious stretches, and I hope we get some insight into the question.

Of course, in the end, March just might be crazy.  Bruce, after all, refers to him as "old friend" in the Morgue, leading me to believe that he knows Lincoln's identity and it's not his forgotten brother.  Is it Hush?  It could be.  It fits his M.O.  Is it Hurt?  It definitely could be.  Snyder is too careful of a writer to just throw out that sort of comment, so I'm not entirely sold that we've seen the real version of events in this issue.

I'd be remiss, before concluding, if I didn't mention the art.  First, we learn here why Capullo has been drawing March so similar to Bruce, for the obvious reason.  But, Capullo gives us all sorts of beautiful moments.  He truly shines with the owl motif related to the wealthy woman taking the elevator to her penthouse apartment on the first page.  From the necklace she's wearing to the insignia the doors sport, Capullo emphasizes the idea that the Court has been hiding in plain sight all along.  But, he also gives us subtler moments.  I thought he did a remarkable job somehow conveying the warmth between Alfred and Bruce's relationship in the scene in his den.  He gets across the sense of the love and affection that the two men share, but in a way that still keeps them stuffy and uptight like they always are.  It's truly remarkably to behold and reminds you why Capullo is an equal partner to Snyder in this venture.

Taking a step back, it's interesting that Snyder has decided to go this direction.  Given the nefarious organizations that seem to dominate the DCnU, from the D.E.O. to N.O.W.H.E.R.E., Snyder feints with another one, the Court of Owls, only to go down a more personal road, giving us a villain who strikes at Bruce directly.  The greatest tragedy of Bruce's life isn't just that Bruce lost his parents, but the concomitant loneliness that came with their sudden loss.  Writers throughout Batman's history have used that tragedy to create villains who take advantage of it, loved ones who betray him.  You have temporary characters, like Jezebel Jet, whose betrayals are more superficial, because they were an obvious means to an end.  But, you have other characters, like Jason Todd and Thomas Elliot, whose betrayals are all the more devastating for the fact that they come from personal vendettas born from the fact that they were within the small number of people that he has managed to consider his family.  The loss of Jason and the insanity of Elliot plague Bruce, because their hatred of him comes from who he is, not what he could do for them.  I could think of nothing more awful for Bruce than the loss of a brother that he had never known that he had, whose very existence, had it been revealed to him, would've changed the entire direction of his life.  Snyder seems to be creating a villain who strikes at the core of the Batman myth, and it's why I so desperately want him to answer the questions that I've posed here, to make this ret-con work so seamlessly that I buy it, hook, line, and sinker.  We need to know what the Court intended to do with the Night of the Owls, we need to know why Martha and Thomas hid Lincoln's existence (if indeed they did), and we need why the Court cut loose Lincoln (or, put another way, we need to know more about its relationship with Lincoln).  If we get answers to all these questions, this arc will be one of the greatest comic stories ever told.