When DC first announced that they were going to “kill” Bruce Wayne and that, while he was “dead,” someone new would take over as Batman, I wasn’t exactly excited about the prospect. In fact, I was…well, what’s the opposite of excited? “Apathetic” doesn’t really cover it, as it’s too neutral, and yet I wasn’t really anxious either. My exact emotional state was akin to excitement, only a bad kind of excitement. Like, excitement with a black goatee. Excitement that, if it touched the normal kind, would cause a huge explosion.

The reason for this was that I had already read a very long story about Bruce Wayne being forced to quit being Batman, and another, different character given the role for a while. As did many of you who were reading Batman comics in the last decade of the twentieth century.

It was called “KnightQuest: The Crusade,” and it was about a younger, edgier, more “now” version of Batman taking over, to remind readers just how cool and irreplaceable Batman really is. On that level, it worked pretty well, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy large swathes of it at the time, but it’s hardly a comic story I find myself wanting to reread, or loaning to friends who want to know what I see in these here comic books as a medium.

When Battle For the Cowl began, it seemed an awful lot like “KnightsEnd,” in which Dick Grayson and Tim Drake tried to wrest the Batman costume after a maniac former Bat-protegee who was going too far (with plenty of “War Games” and a touch of “Knight Fall” mixed it). And whoever ended up being Batman, it seemed like it would end up being a new version of a story I had already read or experienced.

The outside candidates were Jason Todd, who was the “bad” Batman unworthy of the name and costume, which would have been a repeat of “The Crusade,” and Tim Drake, who would have made for a teenage Batman, something we haven’t really seen in comics that don’t involve the words “Super Sons,” but was the premise of the popular Batman Beyond TV cartoon.

The most obvious candidate was, of course, Robin-turned-Nightwing Dick Grayson, and DC sure telegraphed that he’d be the last sidekick standing (Battle For the Cowl’s logo was in Nightwing’s colors, the first issue featured a cover of a figure that was Nightwing on one side and Batman on the other, dccomics.com ran Nightwing’s origin on the day the first issue was released, Nightwing was the only of the three not wearing a Batman costume by the time the first issue ended, etc.)

That too was something we had already seen, in another ‘90s Bat-event story, “Prodigal.” Why would DC want to just re-do “Prodigal,” which wasn’t actually any good (Unlike many of the other events of that period, Teenage Caleb didn’t care for this one at all, and sat out a great deal of it).

(After the jump, rambling about how I wrong I was!)

Well, DC is still rolling out the new and improved Batman line—Batman and Robin, Batman and Red Robin have all shipped, and Detective Comics and new books Batman: Streets of Gotham, Gotham City Sirens and Batgirl are waiting in the wings. (Ha ha! Wings! Like, batwings…? Nevermind).

And as much as I hate ever having to say I was wrong, even when what I was wrong about was just a guess, I have to admit that Dick Grayson as the new Batman again is a much more interesting and much different premise than it was the last time around.

I think there’s a couple of reasons for that. And I will now commence listing them.

1.) This time, there’s at least the illusory pretense of permanence. Even as a teenager, I got the impression that the reason DC did the “Prodigal” storyline at all was that they must have received a couple hundred letters during the curse of the Jean-Paul Valley-as-Batman story asking, “Hey jerks, why didn’t Bruce Wayne just have Dick Grayson become Batman?” He didn’t because Grayson would have been a decent Batman in the mold of the original, and the whole point of the story was to contrast the classic Batman character with a more ‘90s-style character.

But “in-universe,” the idea made sense, and so “Prodigal” seemed like a last-minute sop to those letterhacks.

After Bruce Wayne and his allies finally defeated John-Paul Valley an reclaimed the Batman brand name from him, Bruce Wayne decides to go on a secretive vacation of sorts, and asks Dick to fill-in for him as Batman for a while. So he does.

“Prodigal” ran through the Bat-titles at the time, with writers Chuck Dixon, Alan Grant and Dough Moench and their artistic collaborators  mostly going about their regular business, only with Dick Grayson under the costume; the stories weren’t all that terribly character-driven, and were still mostly Batman-and-Robin-fight-crime stories, only with a different dynamic between the dynamic duo, with Dick and Tim having more of a brotherly sort of relationship rather than a moody taskmaster/eager-to-please sidekick relationship.

Because everyone—the characters, the readers—knew that Batman was off doing God knows what and would be back in a bit, Dick Grasyon-as-Batman didn’t really feel like a very important step. Clearly it wasn’t the torch being passed so much as someone new holding the torch for a little bit. (By the way, did they ever reveal what Batman was up to? When he came back, he had a new all-black costume, so I guess he could have just been designing and sewing for a couple months?)

This time, the readers all know that Bruce Wane will indeed be back and Batmanning it up in a matter of time, but the characters don’t. As far as they know, Batman is dead-dead and staying that way; there was a body which Superman found (and he’s always looking at people’s DNA to confirm their identity and what not), it was buried, and from the looks of Blackest Night #0, there will be a zombie.

After having read Batman and Robin #1, I wonder if DC might have been able to make readers believe Batman were really dead this time, or at least increase the convincing nature of that premise of permanence by ending Final Crisis differently. That is, not showing Bruce Wayne alive and well in caveman times, drawing bat cave art. Readers would naturally assume he’ll be back eventually—if Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, Oliver Queen and Jason Todd can’t stay dead permanently, you’ll never convince anyone that Bruce Wayne can—but I think more of us might have been fooled (or willing to allow ourselves to believe) that this might be more of a Hal Jordan/Oliver Queen dead-for-years-and-replaced-with-a-legacy type of death then an Aquaman/Martian Manhunter dead-for-a-little-bit-so-we-can-have-cooler-Black Lanterns-then-just-Vibe-and-Pantha sort of death.

(It is perhaps worth noting that having Batman’s role handed down to his all-grown-up sidekick at the same time that DC’s in the process of having The Flash II’s all-grown-up sidekick seemingly preparing to give the Flash name and role back to his returned from the dead forebear does take some of the drama out of the Batman storyline. At least in terms of the DC Universe as one big story; it’s clear that the guard never really changes, just grows to include more versions of itself).

2.) This time, a lot more has changed. Part of what was so fun about Batman and Robin #1 was that it wasn’t just Dick Grayson accepting (if not yet embracing) his inevitable Batmanhood, but everything else seemed new too. Batman had a slightly newer costume, there was a new Robin, also with a new costume, the relationship between the two was a new one, they got a new Batmobile and some new gadgets, they had a new Batcave (or at least a different one than has been used for a really long time) and there were even new villains.

In fact, the book was about as new as it could be without breaking. The core concept of Batman—a living Batman logo that fights crime—was intact, and had just enough connections to previous comic books to be a Batman comic.

If Tim Drake stuck around as Robin and they just went about the usual business of fighting Killer Croc and re-capturing Arkham escapees, it probably would have read like “Prodigal” redux.

How this “new-ness” will translate into the other books will remain to be seen. I only skimmed Batman and Red Robin at the shop this week, but they seemed more concerned with what Characters C, D and E thought about Characters A and B doing this or that, and I’d honestly be surprised if other Bat-writers tried too hard to introduce new villains. In today’s comics, writers and artists are understandably reluctant to handover character creations, and Grant Morrison seems somewhat unique in his readiness to pump out new characters (Kurt Busiek being another, as I mentioned last week).

The rest of the line does seem to be adhering to a “new” mandate though, with Tim Drake taking on a new identity and new status quo, something in the works for the Batgirls (present, past and future, I imagine) and the new books offering opportunities for more supporting characters to similarly get new status quos.

The effects of the changeover will be wider-spread this time. I don’t know if this has something to do with the way DC’s editorial offices are structured and run now versus they way they were in the ‘90s and before, or if the historic downward slide of sales in general means constant crossovers are a financial imperative now, but what happens in one book or group of books now seems to effect the rest of the DCU line much more rapidly and more often now.

Dick Grayson has only been Batman for a week this time, and, in addition to Batman books, he’s already shown up in Booster Gold. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to see this Batman showing up in the books that had either Batman or Nightwing in them previously in the near future, like JLoA and Titans and certainly the upcoming Blackest Night.

3.) This time, the change will last longer. Looking back, “Prodigal” only lasted three months, which translates into 12, 22-page chapters, a small enough story to fit in a single trade paperback (which is currently out of print). Since we’ve already seen solicits through August, and there will be more than the three Batman books (plus Robin) that were there in late 1995, that means the adventures of the new Batman should last longer and constitute many, many more pages this time around.

4.) Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely. I hate to over-praise this team, since they get so much praise already but, well, it’s really hard to overpraise them, as they really are that good. Their Batman and Robin #1 wasn’t their very best collaboration so far, but it was damn sight better than any Batman comics since Morrison collaborated with J.H. Williams III for a couple issues, and, because Quitely’s work is relatively rare (and Morrison working with an artist who meshes with his style perfectly is so rare), the launch of the new Batman feels special.

This won’t be anything DC can maintain for long, as Quitely’s only due to stick around for two more issues before the guy drawing a Green Lantern arc for Geoff Johns in a poor-man’s Jim Lee style comes aboard, but for the launch at least the company gave the impression that they were bringing out the big guns.

Contrast that with “Prodigal,” in which the regular creative teams for the books continued to do them for the new Batman. I don’t mean any disrespect toward those creators, and certainly getting new ones would have in some cases produced worse work, but it didn’t give the impression that a page was turning. Which ties back into #1 up there, I guess.

5.) Dick Grayson no longer has the mullet he had during “Prodigal.” I don’t think the importannce of this factor can be stressed enough.

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