The Once and Future Batman continues.

THE RETURN OF BRUCE WAYNE #2 came out this week. SPOILERS AHEAD!! Bruce has pinged from prehistory where we found him at the end of FINAL CRISIS. After defeating Vandal Savage he was somehow transported to colonial Gotham. His memories are gone, but his skills are still there. He's caught in the middle of vicious witch hunters and a strange otherworldly monster that appeared just as he did. Bruce takes on the identity of Mordecai Wayne trying to stave off the witch hunters.

Meanwhile Superman, Hal Jordan, Booster Gold and Rip Hunter travel to the end of time to the last outpost where the complete records of history are kept in hopes of tracking down Bruce. They find the last record keeper who lays out a map of time for them. It the final moments of existence the record keeper steals Hunter's time sphere and strands the heroes moments before the universe ends.

The record keeper was Bruce Wayne.

I theorize that Bruce Wayne has not escaped the Omega Sanction and is still caught in it. He's bounding through time heading back to the 21st century and we're told that if he's not stopped he'll destroy the world. Darkseid seems to have had a contingency plan. Fatally wounded by Batman, he managed to turn him into his last weapon to destroy Earth.

But Bruce seems to have other plans, even without his memories. He's planting clues throughout history. Starting with markings on what was the Batcave in the distant past. Its theorized that Gotham City was somehow programmed to create Batman, but was that programming created by Batman himself? The ultimate contingency plan subconsciously formulated and implemented as he bounces through time ensuring the Miracle of Crime Alley? Richard Grayson, Damien Wayne and Alfred Pennyworth are putting the clues together to solve the mystery that Bruce has been building through time, a mystery that has only been revealed once they became aware that it existed.

What was it that attacked Bruce Wayne in the cave? Can it be related to what attacked Richard Grayson centuries later? A monster that seemed more of a hallucination than real?

And if the Black Glove a part of it? He's already hunted by the Joker in the guise of the "Domino Killer" and Oberton Sexton "The Gravedigger". He cursed the Cape and Cowl and Bruce's very next case brought him against Darkseid. Could the connection be more than we thought?

Its stuff like this that makes me excited about comics.