Batman at his core is a detective. After all, he originally premiered in the first volume of Detective Comics, the comic book which set up DC as a company. Over the decades Batman has evolved to be a phenomenal superhero, battling cosmic demons and interdimensional beings, which often means that action comes before deduction in these stories. Fans absolutely love Batman’s more fantastic adventures, but seeing the Dark Knight tackle a good mystery will always be a recipe for success and is great to see. These mysteries only get better if they include the more fantastic elements of Batman’s mythos. In the Detective Comics Annual 2025 we see just that, with Batman facing a self-contained mystery that expands to him gaining the ability to stop and possibly control all of time, something that could have serious consequences.
Videos by ComicBook.com
Asking Batman to… Not Solve a Murder?
It all starts with the Batcomputer picking up a strange auto-generated tune being broadcast across Gotham, spelling out Batman in morse code. Batman traces the sources to the impenetrable bunker of tech billionaire Cody Morse, who lies dead on the floor with a knife sticking out of his back. More interesting, however, is that Cody spent his last few seconds writing out a message in his own blood; “Batman, do not solve my murder.”
Naturally, this just makes the Caped Crusader all the more curious to learn what happened. Batman pokes around Cody’s bunker, noting how there’s no evidence of anyone having broken in, and finding that the entire place is fully automated. Batman deduces that the bunker itself was turned against Cody, with the voice controlled kitchen having been hacked to attack whoever turns it on. Interestingly, while there is an entire “library” dedicated solely to digital copies of books, Batman finds five physical copies of a book titled How to End the Universe by Arthur Milligan. It is a book on quantum mechanics, and all the copies have the same four pages torn out with no record of them in the library.
Following the lead, Batman goes to York to find the book’s publisher and discuss with physics professor Dr. Jenny Sykes. She informs him that Milligan was a physicist some fifty years ago and came up with the idea that if you can observe the universe the right way you can totally change how it works, based on the observer effect.
Milligan was apparently a bit of a laughing stock, but he claimed to have discovered the equations that would solve how to observe the universe this way. Back then, however, the equations were impossible to do. Nowadays, Batman notes, any computer could handle the calculations. Dr. Sykes says that Milligan only managed to publish five copies of his book, and only those because the publisher owed him a favor, so Batman heads to the publisher to see if they kept any proof copies around.
RELATED: Grant Morrison Confirms They’re Returning to Batman (& Why That’s Exciting)
After a brief detour to stop the British superhero Templar’s villain Mr. Mystic, Batman finds the final copy of How to End the Universe, with the pages on the equations intact. Just then, Batman receives a call that Dr. Sykes has been taken hostage, and her capture is demanding the book. Batman returns to the college and faces the brain behind this plot, Cody’s business partner Paul Briar. Briar wants that book, and after Cody refused he sent the signal to Batman. Even if Cody destroyed his copies of the book, he figured the World’s Greatest Detective could figure out how to find the info, and he had. Now, Briar had strapped a bomb to Dr. Sykes and set to a deadman switch, so she’ll explode if Batman does anything to make him take his hand off the button. Seemingly out of options, Batman tosses Briar a page from the book, which he immediately scans into his phone.
Physics shatters around Briar and the world is flipped inside out, and when it finishes the villain is trapped in what is effectively a glass bubble of solidified time. Batman only tossed Briar a single page, which had Milligan’s equation to break physics in around an eight foot radius. With the murder solved, Batman returns home, the equations to break the world solely in his grasp. He says he knows he should destroy it, knowing that this knowledge could end the entire universe in the wrong hands, but the comic ends with Batman merely pondering how this mystery will end.
So Batman Can Control Time Now?
Batman is the only person in the world, who isn’t trapped in a bubble of no-time, that has access to any part of this universe shattering equation. Even more importantly, Batman has the entire equation, which could be used to apply its effects to the entire universe or anything the user wants inside it. While the comic ends ambiguously as to whether Bruce destroys this information or not, if he doesn’t, this could be a massive game changer for the future of the DC Universe. Batman is notorious for keeping contingency plans in case any hero or villain needs to be stopped, and this is basically the best counter to everything.
If he decided to store that equation away for a rainy day, then Batman has a power that can change anything at his fingertips. As if he wasn’t dangerous enough, now Batman can literally turn physics off. This is a power of massive magnitude and while it’s one that perhaps no one should be trusted with, odds are that if anyone can keep it contained, it would be Batman. Until a villain hacks the Batcomputer and steals it, anyways. The real question is what Batman will do with this power… and what will happen when it eventually falls into the wrong hands.
Detective Comics Annual 2025 is on sale now!
