Batman's Craziest Persona Just Became a Multiversal Threat

Batman is a complicated character with many strange layers – but recently his most wild (and most controversial) persona, The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh has made a resurgence. Now, in the milestone issue Batman #900, it's revealed in a massive cliffhanger that the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh has grown from a personal threat to Batman himself to the next Batman-themed threat to the DC Multiverse! 

Who Is The Batman of Zur-En-Arrh? Explained

The "Batman of Zur-En-Arrh" started out as an alien from planet Zur-En-Arrh" who took on the Batman persona on his homeworld. Thanks to comic writer Grant Morrison's 2000s retcon, "Zur-En-Arrh" was re-imagined as a backup persona Bruce Wayne planted into his own mind as a counterattack to brainwashing or mental coercion. Zen-En-Arrh is a purely "Batman" version of Bruce's persona that is more unhinged (and violent) without the civilian identity to ground it. 

Comic writer Chip Zdarsky has taken Grant Morrison's divisive take on the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh a step further, with the pivotal "Failsafe" storyline in recent comics. As it turns out, one of Batman's times as Zur-En-Arrh involved the wild persona secretly constructing an android perfectly suited to counter and neutralize Batman, if Bruce ever lost control and turned villain. When that android, "Failsafe," gets activated by accident, it ends up beating Batman, Zur-En-Arrh, and ultimately sent Bruce Wayne into an alternate dimension. 

Batman #900 Spoilers

The conclusion of Chip Zdarsky's "The Bat-Man of Gotham" sees Bruce Wayne battle the top crime boss of Gotham City in this new reality: Darwin Halliday, the Red Mask, a version of The Joker who never went insane. Red Mask's plan is to send his mind into Joker's, in order to gain the "freedom" of insanity. Instead, Red Mask and Batman end up going on a big chase across the DC multiverse, colliding with Batmen and Jokers from across the entire movie, TV, gaming and Elseworlds comics spectrum. 

In the end, Batman captures Halliday at the end of the Multiverse and is able to find his way home thanks to Tim Drake's Robin providing a helping hand. All's well that ends well – until the final page reveals an unexpected consequence of Batman and Red Mask's mad chase: A collection of Batman of Zur-En-Arrh variants from across the multiverse, who have seemingly banded together to launch their own vision of what it is to "fight crime." 

The implication is that this ending is just a new beginning, of a story that will eventually take shape, as these Zur-En-Arrh variants will presumably be working from the shadows to somehow 'end crime' on their various Earths. If Batman has been split from his Zen-En-Arrh persona, it's about as dangerous a foe to face as the Failsafe android was. 

Batman #900 is now on sale from DC.