The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh = Batman - Bruce Wayne (Not Just a Mask) [Fugitive, Ego, RIP, Failsafe, I am a Gun]

Who is The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh?

Link to Reddit Post

"Bruce Wayne is the mask, Batman is his true face"

A common saying among the fandom that's been popularized by statements from in and outside comics. This is something Kevin Conroy himself always stated. Batman Begins ends with it being reiterated on screen. Even the legendary Dennis O'Neil has said something similar. Indeed, if "Bruce Wayne" here is simply the apathetic, hedonistic, playboy persona the  public perceives him as, then yes that is the mask. Yes, Batman is the most important priority in his life.

But there is more to Bruce Wayne than that, and understanding who the real Bruce Wayne is, is essential to understand who Batman really is. 

Dick Grayson would agree. To him, it wasn't Batman who raised him. Bruce Wayne was his father, as he defiantly said in Batman: Fugitive:

As I've covered in other posts of other topics before, it's Thomas Wayne's respect for the sanctity of life as a doctor is a major factor for his ethics against killing. As seen in... 

...The Long Halloween (Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale), ...

...Batman: Fugitive (Ed Brubaker and Scott Mcdaniel) as I mentioned earlier,...

...and Batman: Ego (Darwyn Cooke).

Further it's Martha Wayne's compassion and love as a philanthropist and mother that compels him to extend the same to those struggling with grief, anger and pain like him. Whether that's his villains or his family.

But perhaps the best way to illustrate how important these aspects of Bruce Wayne are to making Batman who he is, is by showing who Batman is without them.

Perhaps the best story showing this distinction between Bruce Wayne, "Batman" without Bruce, and the Batman we know being both is Batman: Ego.

One of many great works by the great Darwyn Cooke, Ego always had its fans reached a newfound popularity recently when Matt Reeves' The Batman took inspiration from it, which impressed me when he first said he would back in Fandome. See my post here for more details. As I mentioned earlier and here, this book showed the importance of the Waynes, both in life and death, to shaping Batman's morality, personality and goals. 

This story had Bruce in a nightmare where his ego, fear and rage manifested in the form of a "pure" Batman entity that proposed a Two-Face like schism with their personas, or an elimination of one of them. Bruce ultimately refused, and continued to work as one.

But what if he didn't?

What would Batman look like if he wasn't "held back" by Bruce Wayne's ideals and traits.

Enter: The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh

For some background, the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh was originally from a Silver Age story involving Batman ending up on an alien planet which had a Batman of its own. 

He was named Tlano, and Zur-En-Arrh was his planet. His advanced technology included the Bat-radia gadget which he gave our Batman, who also happened to have super powers on his planet similar to Superman. This story was even adapted into animation with Batman: The Brave and the Bold.

Grant Morrison would take this along with many Pre-Crisis elements back reimagined for the modern day. This time, these adventures may or may not have been hallucinations from his time in isolation in another Silver Age story (only the trophy of the Bat-Radia and his Black Casebook say otherwise). This culminates in the climax of the first third of Morrison's run, Batman R.I.P. with art by Tony Daniel.

The phrase "Zur-En-Arrh" itself would become both the last words of Thomas Wayne warped by mishearing, as well as a key phrase used by Simon Hurt (who was retconned to be the doctor from that Golden Age story) to attack Bruce's psyche. The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh on the other hand is a "back-up" personality Bruce built as a contingency against psychological attacks. However, as a side-effect, this persona embodied a "pure" Batman without Bruce Wayne, one who actually was on the brink of his sanity, hallucinating talking gargoyles and Bat-Mite while being brutally violent and pragmatic.

As you can tell, this version of The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh is Ego incarnate.

It's a really interesting take that for years hasn't been used again.

Until now.

In this new era of DC, the batbooks have gotten some great new creative teams. Detective Comics has Ram V with Rafael Albuquerque and Ivan Reis has excellently been exploring Gotham's history with old and new elements such as the Orghams, Arkham and Barbatos. Talia, Two-Face and now Mr. Freeze are playing roles. Meanwhile, Chip Zdarksy with artists Jorge Jimenez and Leonardo Romero have also done great work bringing back and expanding Zur, his nature and origin.

As you can see from the top page I placed here, Zur's been leaking and been out of control for sometime. It's Zur, the pure Batman, who sees Robins as soldiers, but Bruce, the real Batman, who sees them as they are: his sons. 

In the back-up stories, we get an exploration of Zur in the past that evokes both Morrison's Sliver Age flashbacks as well as Batman: Ego.

Like Ego, Zur is a Batman who kills (or wants to), because without Bruce Wayne he has no real reason not to. Batman: Ego is a pretty standalone story which only mentions Dick as Robin and has Bruce wear a similar batsuit in this flashback, which he changes by the end with the classic blue and gray with yellow oval. I like the idea that this takes place after and Zur is indeed Ego transformed and allowed to exist. Or you could see it as the current canonical version. Similarly it does sort of potentially retcon RIP since there it's implied Bruce created the personality recently as he discussed its possibility in Nanda Parbat after the Thogal ritual.

Still, got to give credit to Mr. Zdarsky. Bruce's characterization was almost made purposefully off in the beginning to lead up to this, because yes maybe there is a part of Batman that wants to kill, that sees Robin his soldiers etc., but the part of him that is Bruce Wayne overrides that. 

Those two parts are often in conflict, but Thomas and Martha always ground him to the right path in the end.

The Batman we know is more than hollow anger. He's more than vengeance, ego and cold pragmatic logic. Batman is also Bruce Wayne, and that's what what makes Batman a father, a man of ideals, compassion, generosity and hopeful heroism.