Well, it looks like I’ve reached the end of my wild, weird, and wonderful journey through Grant Morrison’s gonzo take on Batman, but I can’t start celebrating yet! Is still have one more book to review. Batman Inc. is the final in print volume of the Bat-Quest, and boy was it crazy. In this one, Batman sets up an organization of global Bat-Agents who are sworn to fight crime in their respective areas. Unfortunately, a mysterious villain had the same idea, and had set up its own organization of mind controlled assassins called Leviathan. This book was more of a traditional adventure than its predecessor, but turned from a story of global Bat-Antics, to a wacky international spy mystery.
While Leviathan’s plots didn’t make sense half the time, I realized that they weren’t supposed to, because their main master planner, a sort of elderly Blofeld called Dr. Dedalus was suffering from advanced stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. This had potential to be an interesting concept, but wasn’t explained enough to be interesting, but the crazy global villains including the Japanese mass murderer Lord Death Man were morbidly wacky, and made up for how incomprehensible Dedalus’ plots were. I liked how Morrison brought back Batwoman as a supporting character, though, and the 1980′s British superteam Morrison creates is cool, but unexplored. Although, the stuff with Leviathan’s agents were gory and frightening, and I still don’t understand what SPYRAL was.
There were so many zany concepts introduced in this volume that it provided for entertaining reading throughout, though, but the cliffhanger ending was cheap. Yanick Paquette’s art was the best of the collection, and the worst was the art in the arc that takes place in the internet. Look out for Bat-Quest Conclusion to the Conclusion, though, that will review Batman Inc: Volume 2 and finally end this epic saga. Overall, an incomplete, but rousing conclusion to a great run.