Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne #2

Issue Details

Synopsis

UNTIL THE END OF TIME Bruce Wayne saves the woman named Annie from a tentacular monster, and she then nurses Wayne back to health. Just as he passes out, he notices she wears the Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman emblems he drew on the cave, back in the Paleolithic era. He finds himself in Gotham Colony, where he assumes the identity of the witch-hunter Mordecai and solves a murder, but clashes with the witch-hunting Brother Malleus.  Meanwhile, at Vanishing Point, at the end of time, Booster Gold, Rip Hunter, Green Lantern and Superman consult the "archivist," who explains that time is like a tangled loom, continually branching off and intersecting.   With only minutes before the destruction of the timeline, the archivist reveals himself as an older version of Batman himself, who steals Rip Hunter's Time Sphere and leaves the heroes to experience the death of the universe, while Superman pleads with him to stop. Superman tells him that, when Darkseid sent Batman back in time, he erased Bruce's memories but turned him into an unspecified 'doomsday weapon', knowing that Batman's powerful survival instincts would lead him back to the twenty-first century, at which point Darkseid's 'trap' will be triggered.   In the meantime at the village of Gotham, Annie takes Bruce to the caves where she found him and soon they are confronted by the monster again. Bruce stays and fights the monster and Annie returns to the village, looking for help. However, she is captured by Malleus, who accuses her of witchcraft and her punishment is death by hanging. Before dying, Annie tells him he'll pay though, as she knows his real name: Nathaniel Wayne. She curses him and all his descendants until the end of time, and is then hanged to her death.   After a brutal match against the monster, Bruce emerges from a large body of water, loudly yelling Annie's name. He stumbles onto the shores of a beach, right under the boot of Blackbeard, the pirate.