Batman I.N.C (Invisible Natural Connections)
Invisible Natural Connections, or synchronicity is the angle in Grant Morrison's Batman. Morrison has dug so deeply in Batman's history that it is hard to tell if he is writing Batman or is Batman writing itself from within him. I say that question because those who worship Morrison's writing can likely see the connection to The Invisibles. I cannot stress how important the relationship to Morrison's work The Invisibles are, in this case this issues starts off with a team that is from the future and it looks like they are being set up as an invisible cell, even if he never directly refers to them that way.
This issue is also a new story arc of sorts, since Bruce is done with Japan for now, he is now in South America, so this book is "accessible" in a superficial way, but with Morrison the more you read the deeper you can get into the layers.
My absolute favorite part of Grant Morrison's Batman is that he is bring the Detective work back into Batman. To truly understand what Morrison is doing and to understand why it is so good, you have to do the detective work. This issues is nice in the fact that Morrison give us some HUGE CLUES: The Oroboros and possible meanings.
"a circular symbol of a snake or dragon devouring its tail, standing for infinity or wholeness; also written uroboros or {Ouroboros]"
The Oroboros is an symbol that is not alien to comics, Alan Moore explores it in Glory, Doug Moench explored it in the Legends of the Dark Knight story arc " Conspiracy", which was collected and released a week before this issue mind you. Now Morrison broke it down some more with defining Oro which means gold and "B" is the Hebrew letter for "Beth", which means house.
The Metaphysics start to become more clear in this issue and with that in mind it ties back to my review of Batman: The Return, where I mentioned Morrison is playing games with us, because he is.
If Morrison has continued to keep the "demonic" undertones of Batman in his story, then Leviathan seems to be extremely important. Water is Leviathan's play thing and so far all three issues deal with people's lives in risk by drowning.
Another form of detective work needed is the decipher the Argentinian language, I have yet to find time for it since the issues came out today and I had work and other books to read. But that is the fun and value of Morrison's Batman, the rereads and the detective work is why his books are great investments.
Cheers
- Silkcuts