In "To Quote a Phrase," I spotlight memorable quotes from comic books.

Today, we look at the culmination of the first "Act" of Grant Morrison's epic three act stint on the Batman comic book series. Morrison initially took over writing duties on Batman in 2006, following Infinite Crisis and the "One Year Later" idea, which showed that Bruce Wayne took a year off from being Batman to travel the world with his two wards, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake. Early in Morrison's run, Batman discovered that he had a son, Damian Wayne, born to Talia Al Ghul and raised by the League of Assassins. Young Damian wanted to be his father's new partner, but he had trouble coming to terms with being a true hero like his dad (since he had been raised to be a killer by his mother) and at the end of the storyline, Damian had seemingly been killed off. Obviously, we all knew he would return.

In Batman ##664 (by Morrison, Andy Kubert and Jesse Delperdang), Bruce Wayne began to date an Angelina Jolie-esque celebrity named Jezebel Jet. They talk about their shared loss in their childhood, with both of them losing a parent at a young age...

Bruce's reaction there would turn out to be key later.

Anyhow, Batman then began to run afoul of a mysterious organization known as the Black Glove. They began to commit more and more horrible crimes as they tried to sway the control of Gotham City away from Batman and to them.

In Batman #675 (by Morrison, Ryan Benjamin and Saleem Crawford), Jezebel challenges Bruce on the superficiality of their relationship...

Things change, though, when she discovers his true identity at the end of the issue...

Even as Batman explores his new relationship with Jezebel, with the increased freedom of her knowing his secret identity, the Black Glove ramps up their attacks on Batman, including leaking fake diaries painting his dead parents as monsters. Batman takes Jezebel to the Batcave and he bares his soul to her, but she questions if perhaps he has not just snapped and all of this is in his head (from Batman #677 by Morrison, Tony Daniel and Sandu Florea)...

Batman then seemingly DOES snap, taking on the identity of Batman of Zur En Arrh...

Eventually ,the Black Glove capture Jezebel Jet and Batman goes to save her, but when he does so, he discovers, to his apparent shock, that she is one of the Black Glove herself! They have all been working against him!

So they then capture Batman, subject him to poison and they lock him up in a straitjacket inside of a coffin and buried him alive, to give him a torturous death.

There's only one thing that they forgot...

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Batman #681 (by Morrison, Daniel and Florea) opens with Batman seemingly up a creek without a paddle, but then we get the money quote.

"That's the thing about Batman. Batman thinks of everything."

We see a flashback to when an agent of the Black Glove tried to poison Bruce Wayne but he failed and Bruce let them know he was ready for them...

Yes, Batman had been preparing for this attack for a year. He was immune to the poison. He created the "snapped" identity as a psychological barrier to protect his psyche from psychological attack. He had known Jezebel was full of it from way back to that moment where he gave her that look in Batman #664! So now he he just had to escape from the "Death trap" and, well, come on...

Morrison is famous for writing Batman as a sort of "Bat-God," but boy, while his early work in the first JLA arc with the Hyperclan comes close, never has he quite so perfected that "Bat-God" angle so well as the end of Batman R.I.P. here.

"That's the thing about Batman." What a tremendous line.

If you care to suggest cool comic book quotes that you'd like to see spotlighted here, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com. There's a decent enough chance that if you think the quote in question is super cool than I, too, will find it super cool and feature it here. Not a 100% chance, though, of course. Let's say roughly a 60% chance. Then again, this is only the second one of these features that I've done in three years, so who knows when I'll do the next one. Let's hope sooner than three years from now!!