Special Preview: What Comes After "Batman Inc."

Grant Morrison has spent the past several years implementing his "everything counts" theory on Batman, where every story published is really in Bat-continuity--albeit sometimes only as hallucinations or drug-induced fantasies that didn't really happen...so I guess they don't really count after all...? "Everything counts--but it was only a dream?!?"

Anyway, Morrison gleefully brought back stuff from the daffiest Silver Age stories, and now, in the pages of Batman Incorporated he's bringing in villains from Batman manga of the 1960s. There truly are no limits to what he will bring into the stories.

Except...where's the Bob Haney? There were no stories daffier, no takes on Batman more insane, than Haney's run on The Brave And The Bold. Bob Haney--who had Batman fake a love triangle with Batgirl and Wonder Woman to bring a villain out of hiding! Bob Haney--who had Batman...not Bruce Wayne, but Batman...be the godfather of a child who turned out to be an evil demon!! Bob Haney--who revealed that the UN has a special anti-industrial spying division, headed by Wonder Woman, who helps Batman fight off a squid, a killer whale and a surgeon gorilla to help one evil billionaire recover his stolen property from another evil billionaire!!!

All I'm saying is, Bob Haney's stuff was just as stark raving mad as anything Morrison has used so far. So, if "everything counts," where's the modern callbacks??

Well, here at Slay Monstrobot we're glad to announce that, after a deep undercover investigation (editors note: there was no investigation!), we've discovered that Grant Morrison will be using a Bob Haney concept. When Batman Incorporated runs its course, after the world knows that Bruce Wayne is funding the Batmen Of The World, there's really only one place left to take the Caped Crusader:

SENATOR BATMAN!!!

Fact: Bruce Wayne was actually a U.S. Senator for about five minutes. In Brave And The Bold #85 (1969), there's an assassination attempt on Senator Paul Cathcart, to prevent a vital anti-crime bill from passing. Cathcart survuves, but he's out of action, the Governor (of whatever the hell state Gotham is in) appoints Bruce Wayne to the post, because Bruce has been a big advocate of the bill, and without his vote the bill will fail (don't ask). Oh, yeah, and Green Arrow gets involved, and there's a crime syndicate headed by Mr. Minotaur, and...well, bottom line is, Batman has to fight his way through assassins and thugs to make it to the Senate chambers just in the nick of time:

Really, that's how the U.S. Senate works.

"There's no Senator Batman in congress--YET!" That's is a clarion call for the obvious follow-up to Batman Inc. In a time of controversial appointments to the the Senate by governors; in a time when our political discourse has devolved to a lower level than a comic geek flame war on the internets; in a time when Grant Morrison is declaring that everything counts; that, my friends, is time for Senator Batman!!!

Please, Grant??