Grant Morrison's legendary epic run on Batman begins with a bang -Batman shooting the Joker in the head? Except it's not Batman, it's an ex-cop dressed as Batman. With the Joker incapacitated, and Gotham peaceful after an anti-crime blitz, Bruce Wayne can take some time of doing playboy millionaire things uch as attending charity auctions in London. Ninja man-bats invade, bred by Talia al Ghul, daughter of the Demon, and she has a special surprise - Batman's son, Damian, a spoiled, vicious, dangerous boy. Meanwhile the fake Batman proves to be the first of three fake Batmen, and a sinister entity called the Black Glove is orchestrating murder and mayhem and Batman is about to be pushed to some very strange limits.

I can just about take Batman seriously as something other than a rich man who dresses up to beat down on the underpriveleged for kicks when he's up against the strange, the bizarre and the completely crazy. Ninja man-bats, strange alternate Batmen, hidden forces organising murder mystery weekends on luxury islands with a group of international Batman-types are the very stuff of fun Batman stories and Morrison knows it well. This is a big collection, and it's thoroughly addictive. The only thing that doesn't work is the Joker illustrated prose story, which is just a comic with nasty horror prose inserted between the story and the dialogue. Not awful, but a bit meh, though I think the new iteration of the Joker it depicts is relevant to the next part of the run.