And is that an Atari Force avatar I spy by your name?

In a weird sort of way, that series influenced my fanfic writing career (which started long before the internet). I still have the entire series AND the 5 mini-comics leading into it from the game carts.

However I am looking forward to Batman 682.

Basically, evil is less dangerous than simple irrationality, the dissolution of the level of the Imaginary itself through the violent irruption of the Real. Thus the Joker is a greater threat to Batman than the devil, or the evil of the (ultimately rather pathetic) Black Glove members.

Morrison does have a affinity for Lacanian concepts. Large chunks of The Invisibles were born out of ideas of Lacanian psychoanalysis (the entire ‘training’ of Dane by O’Bedlam is an exercise in Lacanian psyhchoanalysis).

I have agreed with most everything you’ve you said Omar, and I do think that Hurt is a symbol of the gap in the puzzle. Slavoj Zizek, a lacanian and constant analyzer of popular culture, would say that our analysis of whether Hurt is the Devil is because of our “over-proximity of the Real”. For Zizek, Hurt is a ‘void’, an ambiguous and unexplained quantity within the comic (this is what I think he means by saying he is ‘missing piece’). By making him the devil (or not, for the matter), we are attempting to ‘fill the void’ a created by his character. Zizek believes that when we do this, we remove the innate ambiguity of subjectivity, and in filling this void we are trying to avoid this necessary fact of subjectivity. Basically, we are trying to make it easier on ourselves by trying to say what Hurt is rather than just accepting the fact that we can’t/don’t know. I am as guilty as anyone else in doing this with just about everything. Zizek (and probably Lacan) would say that this discussion is a step in the right direction to accepting subjectivity. I personally find it interesting and certainly (in at least some way) of Morrison in that his comics provoke this kind of discussion.

Also, Satanism is a spiritual recognition of this subjectivity. Satanists believe that Satan is a symbol of the a ‘god’ that rebelled against objective truths and rigid, oppressive structure. For Satanists, Hurt is could not be Satan because he is too invested in structures (the black glove and his confrontation of Joker making another bet shows this). A satanist would not make Satan a servant to the social structure of the Black Glove or to one of the most far-reaching societal structure: money. Grant Morrison is a Satanist.

to continue this discussion and play devil’s advocate:

Sat

“If you read the entire part where the Joker speaks I think he lines it out well and clear that Hurt is the devil or being possessed by the devil, when he says i am not your servant I think this is because the Joker is beyond Good & Evil – he is Chaos.”

I don’t think Joker being chaos is an argument for Hurt being the devil. In fact, it is quite the opposite. In most Christian theology (consisting of both biblical and canonical writings) , Satan’s rebellion against God in Heaven is what brings chaos, not just physical chaos, but moral and ethical chaos. If Joker is chaos, then, as I earlier posted, would be the best candidate in the story to be Satan. Magic done by satanists is called Chaos Magic.

Brian O

There’s been a lot of “devil” stuff in this run, but most of it has been symbolic more than literally supernatural.

Um….where exactly does Hurt claim that he is “the Devil?” I haven’t reviewed every issue of this run, but I’m pretty sure this “claim” is on Page Nowhere of Issue Never. Batman suggests that the guy is the Devil. But the guy himself claims to be Thomas Wayne.

Dr Hurt taunts and threatens Batman with his identity. “If not Dad, have you dared consider the only alternative?”

To start with, Gordon asks Batman why he had to pick a fight with something “Old as time and bigger then all of us.”. That’s one of the first really blatant clues that when viewed outside of the rest of Morrison’s run just seems like Gordon making a broad statement in regards to Batman taking on “crime” or “Evil’, which it is, but it’s also allusions to “The enemy”.

Batman 666 is laden with Devil symbolism. The pentagram, blatant statements about the Devil and making deals with him. The whole thing just sets the tone for Morrison’s run.

In addition to that, Batman has to undergo the Thogal, Death and Rebirth, to even catch a glimpse of his ultimate enemy. In Death he sees the Devi, with fear in his eyes.

Moving on, we have the Black Glove, the hand of the Devil on Earth. What is it that they specialize in? The Corruption of Virtue. Specifically, the most greedy partake in the Corruption of Virtue. What was the goal in the actions against Batman “Nothing less then the complete and utter ruination of a noble human spirit.”. Not death, ruination. And that is what the Black Glove did, they ruined Jezebel Jet and turned into the same type of person who inflicted horrors against her. They take the noble and make them fall.

Joker is all over the place with devil references. The forked tongue, allusion to Jezebel’s role as the Serpent in the Garden of Evil. “Devil is double deuce, my dear Doctor, and Joker trumps deuce.”. Joker is not just saying he trumped The Black Glove, he’s saying he is beyond the simplicity of the Devil’s evil. He is chaos, the unyielding storm. And he continues “Pleased to meet you, admire your work but don’t. don’t call me servant”. Anyone who says that isn’t a Rolling Stones reference is nuts.

And continuing? What is Dr Hurt’s response when the Joker threatens the lives of the Black Glove. “But you CHOSE to be here. All of you high and mighty rollers. Your sins have found you out.” Hurt does not seem concerned, why? Because the moment those people became the fingers of the Black Glove, they were corrupted(damned). They were IN The Black Glove, the Devil’s Grasp, and now doing his bidding on Earth by continuing the cycle of Corrupting Virtue. But the Devil does not care if they are lost, because they are already his. He holds their souls

The offer to Bruce Wayne, “Dedicate yourself to the Corruption of Virtue!”. He offers him his parents reputation and wants Batman’s soul in return. And I do mean “Soul”, because that is what the Black Glove wants. The “corruption of virtue” is claiming their soul.

If we follow that train of thought all the way back to the Wayne’s murder, we see that was the Black Glove’s goal as well. To corrupt a Young Bruce Wayne and ruin him. Just like the tragedies the Dr Hurt inflicted on the Three Batmen, that corrupted them and turned them into monsters, Dr Hurt(The Devil) intended this same fate for Bruce Wayne. But instead, there was a “Miracle on Crime Alley”. The ultimate act of corruption birthed the most noble soul. “Miracle on Crime Alley.”

And we all know the Devil is greedy and hates to be denied what he wants. RIP is him reaching out to claim what he feels should be his, the corruption of Bruce Wayne, his soul. But Batman is his hubris, born from the tragedy the Devil so loves to spread.

It’s all there.

“we certainly don’t “need” answers about Hurt or what happened in the cave at Nanda Parbat in order to continue the story of Batman.”

But you do need answers about Hurt to continue the story about Hurt. By refusing to answer whether or not Hurt is really the Devil, or just a crazy human, Morrison has effectively placed him off-limits for future stories. (Not completely and totally, of course, but I defy anyone here to look me in the eye and tell me that they don’t hate mysteries that go on too long because the writer’s not willing to commit to a solution. It’s the common complaint about series like “Lost” and “The X-Files”, about characters like Wolverine and the Hobgoblin…”Oh, they tried to stretch the mystery out, and I eventually just stopped caring.”)

If anyone ever wants to bring back Hurt again, they’re going to sooner or later need to pick an answer and stick with it. If nobody ever wants to bring back Hurt again, then this becomes an interesting curiosity, another Morrison plot cul-de-sac that the next writer has to wiggle their way out of. Either way, Morrison needs to understand that ambiguous endings don’t work in stories that don’t end.

I’m starting to wonder whether Morrison wrote the ending specifically for the internet fanboys.

Either way, he stirred up something.

For those who say that Batman can’t be involved in the supernatural, you’re clearly forgetting that smoe of the earliest Batman stories were steeped in mysticism, including Batman hunting werewolves through Gotham City, and that he’s the character most associated with Deadman.

There’s absolutely no argument that convinces me that Dr Hurt wasn’t the devil, saying that though, there’s also no real evidence to say he was.

And Batman’s not dead yet, Batman RIP’s set before Finhal Crisis, which is where we’re supposed to see the final fate of Bruce Wayne.

If you read the entire part where the Joker speaks I think he lines it out well and clear that Hurt is the devil or being possesed by the devil, when he says i am not your servant I think this is because the Joker is beyond Good & Evil – he is Chaos.

Bruce writes in his narrtive that he sees the devil as well which leads you to think its the devil.

Also I think that if the Devil is testing Batman and the Human spirit the way he would do it – would be to try and be subtle and corrupt the spirit as by being overt its just no fun.

At the end i do firmly believe the Devil is scared of the Human spirit and how Batman has defied him again. Also the Zur en Arh where Bruce says “what?” i think is great as this insinuates the devil has been behind it all.

Well thats my meagre view.