[3] Paul Cornell and Scott McDaniel created a three-issue arc before the new ongoing creative team, the former Green Lantern Corps duo of writer Peter Tomasi and artist Patrick Gleason, began their run with February 2011's issue #20.
A third volume was launched in 2023 with Bruce and Damian Wayne as the lead characters in conjunction with the Dawn of DC initiative by writer Joshua Williamson and artist Simone Di Meo.
[5] In regards to the style: "I've asked [Quitely] to re-introduce the much-maligned sound effects to superhero comics, but in a way that integrates them more closely with the art".
Saying the password "zur...en...arrh", it is revealed that Dick, after the conclusion of the Blackest Night storyline, moved the body of Bruce Wayne into the more secure location.
They encounter Batwoman, who is alerted that Dick is the new Batman, and she tells them that King Coal's men planned to sacrifice her to a new God of crime that is supposed to rise on that night.
The dead clone is, in fact, the body recovered by Superman in the climax of Final Crisis after Darkseid sent the real Batman into the past with his Omega Sanction.
Dick takes a plane suborbital, and is able to make it to Gotham in 25 minutes—just in time to catch Damian, who has been cast off the top of Wayne Towers by the cloned Batman.
After grouping that fact with his incredible battle skills, detective abilities, and stealth, asks if he is Bruce Wayne, the real Batman.
The Joker (wearing his Oberon Sexton get-up and mask) is then seen preparing another attack on the Black Glove, implying that he intends to use a trussed-up Robin.
The story then shifts to the present, with Hurt revealing that the shot to Batman's head is not fatal, but in 12 hours would result in a hematoma that would leave Dick incapacitated for life.
", the issue begins with a flashback to the 18th century depicting Simon Hurt's encounter with Darkseid's hyper-adapter during his cult's attempt to summon the demon Barbatos in a seance.
Batman reveals that Hurt is neither his father nor Satan, but a delusional maniac driven insane (but granted extended longevity) by an encounter with an extraterrestrial weapon, who was treated by the real Dr. Thomas Wayne in the years before Bruce's birth.
As Bruce dives into the Batcave's waters to retrieve his butler from a flooded cockpit, Hurt flees the manor, only to be poisoned and buried alive by the Joker outside.
Waking near the beach, she manages to return home and discovers she has Dandy Walker syndrome, which has allowed her to survive despite the gaping hole in her head.
The breaking point comes when she sees that Bruce Wayne failed to attend, and Una removes her bandages, her obsession with absence forged.
Batman and Robin manage to escape the conflagration, and regroup in the Bat-Bunker, where Damian muses on his father's habit of pretending to like women as a disguise.
Meanwhile, Vicki Vale is attempting to write an article in her new apartment when she is confronted by the Absence, wielding a scissor and a bag of body parts belonging to Bruce's old girlfriends.
Batman and Robin deal with the White Knight, a luminous villain whose modus operandi is to force family members of Arkham inmates to commit suicide in order to cut off their bloodlines, thus ending what he believes to be the insanity running through their veins.
Bruce warns Batman and Robin to keep a close eye on Red Hood; meanwhile, Jason proceeds to cause havoc on the minimal prison he is incarcerated in.
Before Batman and Robin can arrive at the scene, the convoy transporting Jason is ambushed, and he is sprung free by a group of mercenaries with features like that of animals.
At that moment, the mysterious person who orchestrated Todd's escape tells the Red Hood that she holds his previous sidekick, Scarlet, in a similar predicament.
The two crash the meeting, thanks to the Batmobile's stealth mode and a tracer swallowed by Todd, after which Batman, Robin and the Red Hood fight off their opponents together.
In it, Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne team up with Batman Incorporated representative Nightrunner to stop a breakout in Le Jardin Noir (The Black Garden), which acts as the Parisian equivalent of Arkham Asylum.
The three attempt to quell a riot at the Louvre, which was incited by four Black Garden inmates, led by the mysterious Son of Man (garbed after the famous Magritte painting).
The Son of Man (whose face is not shown throughout the course of the issue) reveals himself to be a red-haired lookalike of the Joker, after which he attempts to blow up the heroes using a remote-control device.
After his arrest, another surprise is revealed: the Son of Man, obsessed with the surreal, has managed to keep his father alive eternally by taking apart his body, encasing each part (including the organs) in a glass case.
His father, now dismembered and arranged to form an art sculpture, is forced to watch the same sepia-colored home videos of his infant child in a continuous loop.
Following the timeline-altering Flashpoint storyline, DC Comics cancelled all of their ongoing superhero titles and relaunched 52 new series, all starting with #1 issues in an initiative called The New 52.
[35] The team of writer Peter Tomasi and artist Patrick Gleason return to the title upon the relaunch, telling a story of a man from Bruce's past arriving in Gotham as both a vigilante and enemy of Batman, as well as trying to seduce Damian away from a form of crimefighting that defies his lethal and unpredictable skill and nature.
However, it is discovered that Alfred has been harboring feelings of tremendous guilt as he allowed Damian to leave the house against Bruce's orders the night that he died.