This is "How Can I Explain?", which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable comic book plots.

Today, we look at whether Batman should have been a Black Lantern during the epic crossover event, the Blackest Night.

It all began during an earlier crossover event called Final Crisis. Coming right off of an adventure in his own series called "R.I.P," Batman was captured by Darkseid. Darkseid came up with the idea of cloning Batman and having a whole army of soldiers with the skills and physical abilities as the Dark Knight.

However, in Batman #683 (by Grant Morrison and Lee Garbett), we see that the clones are unable to handle the pain of Batman's life. Yes, Batman found a way to weaponize his own miserable trauma...

The clones tore themselves apart to release themselves from the pain of Batman's life experiences. As it turns out, one of Batman's greatest skills is just to be able to deal with how horrible his life has been without breaking. Okay, so the clones were now taken out and Batman also took control of the being who was used to leech his memories. It was a matter of due time, then, before Batman just escaped captivity.

He tracked down Darkseid and then used a special bullet to kill Darkseid, but not before Darkseid unleashed his omega beams, which seemingly flash-fried Batman right as Batman was celebrating his victory over the mighty villain...

Beautifully drawn by JG Jones, who only drew a little bit of Final Crisis #6 (which was written by Grant Morrison). The artist who drew the bulk of the issue was Doug Mahnke, and Mahnke had Superman arrive at the scene super angry. He was especially distraught when he picked up the seemingly dead body of his buddy, Batman...

Here's the thing, though, the final issue of Final Crisis, ended with the revelation that Darkseid's omega beams did NOT kill Batman. No, they actually sent him back in time instead...

Batman being Batman, he eventually worked his way back to the present (something that Darkseid assumed that he would be able to do, so he set up a trap that would kick in when Batman returned to the present. That's a story for another day, however). Still, everyone assumed that he was dead in the comics, due to the whole "dead body" thing.

While the CHARACTERS thought him dead, the WRITERS knew otherwise, and yet, in Blackest Night #5, the crossover event revolving around the fact that "Black Lanterns" have shown up on Earth that are re-animating the dead bodies of various superheroes and supervillains (by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis and Joe Prado), a Black Lantern ring shows up and takes control of Batman's dead body and uses it as a special tool to take control of the select group of heroes who had PREVIOUSLY been dead but were now alive...

Creepy and cool stuff there by Johns and Reis.

Okay, so that sure seems confusing, right? How could Batman be a Black Lantern?

As it turned out, it was even more complicated than that...

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Grant Morrison and Cameron Stewart's Batman and Robin #8 revealed that the body that the heroes THOUGHT was the real Batman wasn't even buried in a grave like Blackest Night showed. It was kept in Wayne Tower. In that issue, Dick Grayson decided to take Batman's dead body to a Lazarus Pit and bring him back to life. It did not go well...

Yes, as you can see, this was one of the aforementioned clones made for Darkseid. One was decided to be kept separately as a perfect clone of Batman so that he could be "killed" as part of Darkseid's scheme to send Batman back in time where Batman would have to fight his way back to the present, which was just what Darkseid wanted. If the other heroes did not think Batman to be dead, perhaps they would have brought him back to the present without tripping Darkseid's trap!

In any event, in the next issue, Robin (Damian Wayne) confirms that this is not the real Batman...

So, in effect, this all makes Blackest Night's usage of Batman not make any sense, right? He was never really "Bruce Wayne" rising since Bruce Wayne was never dead!

Confusing stuff, I know.

If anyone has a similar inexplicable comic book plot (it can be any comic book plot that did not have a good explanation for it, like the X-Men never letting anyone know that they were alive after surviving the explosion of Magneto's Antarctic base despite multiple opportunities to do so), then drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!