Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?: Difference between revisions

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'''''Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?''''' is a 2009 two-part [[Batman]] story written by [[Neil Gaiman]]. It was to be the 'last' Batman story after his Bruce's death in ''[[Batman RIP]]'' and ''[[Final Crisis]]'' and ended up more a summation of the Batman myth and a meditation on his character and its various interpretations. It was highly praised on its release, but remains fairly obscure{{verify}} considering the author's and the character's popularity, probably due to it still being relatively new.{{when}}

The stories and illustrations pay homage to many of the major periods and styles of Batman and interpretations of his character and relationships. After full stories from Alfred and [[Catwoman (Comic Bookcomics)|Selina Kyle]], the book then gives us only glimpses of those told by other characters. One thing known is that all of the stories conflict with each other. For example, [[The Joker]]'s story has him killing Batman in a scene very reminiscent of ''[[The Killing Joke]]'', Clayface's has him sacrificing himself in order to save Clayface and [[Superman]]'s has Bruce insisting that Clark take him into certain death, so that he can capture the villain's attention and divert them from killing innocents.

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* [[And Your Reward Is Infancy]] / [[Groundhog Peggy Sue]]: At the end of the story, Batman is reincarnated as ''himself''; his reward for being Batman is that he gets to be Bruce Wayne for eight years before he has to be Batman again.