Batman The Return of Bruce Wayne #1

Batman never died. Whoever said Batman died did not read the story-or at least not well enough. Bruce Wayne never died. The DCU thought he died but in Final Crisis Darkseid shot him with the Omega Sanction, which displaces you in time. The last panels of Final Crisis showed Batman at the beginning of time with Anthros. So this is not a resurrection, this is a rescue mission. And along the way we got some great action as Bruce takes on the immortal Vandal Savage and his horde of cave men, taking up the moniker of the bat once again until he's whisked away into another time period. Superman, Booster Gold and Hal Jordan just miss him as they follow the trail of Omega energy. Superman then gives us the foreboding message of if Bruce makes it back to the present on his own, it'll mean the death of everyone. But you know, if I was Tim Drake (he's believed Bruce was alive from the beginning), I'd be pretty pissed at everyone. See dammit, I was RIGHT! It's nice to see Chris Sprouse's art again, I wish he did more regular work. Grant Morrison's writing is top notch, but I may be a tad bias because I'm a Morrison junkie. I think the only slightly goofy part was that Batman's cave boy sidekick had the Robin mask on. Otherwise, a fantastic start.
 

Finally Siege #4 hits and surprisingly, it was really good. I was expecting something really bad, as of late Bendis endings have been pretty horrible. But no, this is great. Our heroes take on Sentry and his aspect of the Void. There are some amazing pages drawn here. Coipel has produced some of his best work to date. I think the best part about the story is that it's an actual ending--all the Civil War/Secret Invasion/Dark Reign/Siege story threads are all complete. Yes, it is the opening for all the new Avengers teams, but it's closed all the past stories and we are on to something new--something that's not an event comic. The only negative thing I have to say is that it would have been a better story if this final issue came out on time, the flow would have been more enjoyable. We had a boom-boom-boom fast paced storyline, then we hit a brick wall with a late conclusion. But if that's my only complaint, then I think they succeeded.