The problem with time travel

Last week, Greg Burgas at Comics Should Be Good mentioned his difficulty getting past the way time travel is being portrayed in The Return of Bruce Wayne.

So in this issue, Dick and Damian investigate the weirdo coffin in which Bruce was trapped and the Justice League checks out the cape that they found in the cave, and the God of All Comics is pulling it all together decently. But here's the thing: while Diana and the rest of the League and Dick and Damian are talking about all of this stuff, I can't get over the fact that the past and the present simply can't exist at the same time. It bothers the hell out of me that, in comics, a person in the "present" can be talking about events that happened in the past, and those events are being shown, not as if they're happening in a different time, but as if they're just happening at a different place in the world and at the same time. I can't get past that, I'm sorry.

Meanwhile, several fans have pointed out the obvious blunder in the art on page 15 of issue #3, which shows Green Lantern Hal Jordan sitting at the JLA table, even though he is supposed to be with Superman and the others hunting for Bruce. J. Caleb Mozzocco illustrates the mistake on his blog with some added dialogue.



Personally, what I can't wrap my head around is why when people travel to a different time they would then be absent for an extended period in the present. It doesn't matter if they go on a year-long journey, they could still return to the moment immediately following their departure. That's what the time machine is for! Why keep everyone else waiting for weeks?

Similarly, in issue #1, Superman and company showed up just moments after Bruce Wayne had disappeared from prehistoric times. Their reaction: "Oh, no. We just missed him. We have to keep chasing him through time." No, you don't! You know he was there 5 minutes ago, so just use your time machine and go back in time!"

It doesn't make any sense. But that's the thing with stories involving time travel - they almost never do. So I'm trying not to let this spoil my enjoyment of the series, which is really quite a lot of fun in many other ways. I'm just a little bit disappointed that Grant Morrison wouldn't treat time travel more intelligently.

Review: Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #1

BATMAN: THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #1
Written by Grant Morrison; art by Chris Sprouse

I said last week that the book I was most excited about was Birds of Prey #1, but that was obvious a lie. There was one book I couldn't to read when I got back home from the comics shop on Wednesday and it was this one. We've all known for months that Bruce Wayne is trapped in time and that in this mini-series he's going to gradually make his way back from pre-history to the present. The concept is outrageous and it's the kind of thing that very few writers could pull off. Thankfully, Grant Morrison is pretty much at the top of the list of the few who could. Bruce Wayne hardly says a word. He basically just looks cool and kicks ass. And that's perfect.

One thing that really surprised me was how little time Bruce spends in this first time period. I had always imagined that Bruce would spend years, possibly even an entire lifetime, in each period before getting zapped to the next. But by the looks of it he was only in pre-history for a few days. The fast pace of the story caught me off guard, and based on the last couple of pages, it looks like this kind of frenetic rhythm is going to continue in the next issue. I don't really understand how that's going to work in some of the upcoming issues (like the one where Bruce is supposed to be a private investigator) but I trust that Morrison will find a way to make it work.

Two things that make me a little bit wary:

1. The appearance of Superman & co. at the end of the issue. I had hoped that this whole Time Masters parallel series was just a blatant cash grab from DC attempting to capitalize on the buzz surrounding Bruce Wayne's return and that it wouldn't actually play a major role in Grant Morrison's magnum opus. The way they show up a few minutes late and claim to have "just missed him" is tacky and nonsensical – you have a time machine, just go back 5 minutes into the past and you'll catch him! – and it feels like something that editorial imposed on Morrison, rather than an organic element of his story. I would be more than happy if that was their only appearance in the series, but I'm afraid that we're going to get this same ploy in every issue. Which brings me to my second point...

2. The structure of the story works well for the first issue – we get lots of references to Batman mythos and Bruce's brief adventure in caveman land is like a condensed and transposed version of his history. While this is a lot of fun, I sincerely hope that Morrison has more in store for us in the next issues, because following the same basic structure and pattern for every issue is going to get very boring and very repetitive. It's a big challenge to tell a full story in a completely different setting with a completely different set of characters in each issue.

This is a great start, though, and I look forward to the next issue, which is coming out next week!