DC Reveals Gatefold Cover to BATMAN#19 - Who Is Bruce Wayne's Greatest Enemy?

WTF?!

@impossibilly said:

I've never seen Jim Gordon and Joe Chill in the same place at the same time now that I think about it.

Please say you're joking.

This just got even more interesting

I was thinking Joker or Talia, but now...huh.

First Damian, now Gordon... Snyder kills the Batman Universe!

Is this part of Zero Year? If it is, that would make sense...

@DonFelipe said:

First Damian, now Gordon... Snyder kills the Batman Universe!

I'll let you think about what you typed for a minute.

@LarryDavis: that would be great, but then issue 21 would start Year Zero, and that would mean just a short story for Hush. I'm pretty sure he deserves much more than just three issues or so :P

@Saranth: this seems very possible... would be kinda lame though, not so WTF-worthy... at least in my opinion.

EDIT: Scratch that thought. This might be Hush seeing as the cover for issue 20 is Batman punching "Bruce". The Bruce seen in the cover might be Hush...

Bruce has finally gone loco.........

Well colour me curious. Snyder does have something up his sleeves after all. Maybe Jim has linked Robin's death to Damian or something like that. Not too much of a spoiler fortunately since there's some context needed as to why Bruce would point a gun at Jim Gordon. Can't wait for this issue!

@SmoothJammin said:

@DonFelipe said:

First Damian, now Gordon... Snyder kills the Batman Universe!

I'll let you think about what you typed for a minute.

Oh my, dunno how I could come up with this but I am sober now! My apologies to Morrison and Snyder for confusing them. The last Batman issues I had read before were Batman & Robin and Batman. Tragic!

I haven't read the other comments yet, so someone may have said this already,but my guess is that 'Bruce' here is actually Clayface.

@VaizD said:

I'm thinking it might really be Hush. First of all, it says BRUCE WAYNE'S greatest enemy, not Batman's, and as far as enemies of Bruce Wayne go, Hush is pretty much the worst. Also, remember that issue 20's cover depicts Batman having a fist fight with Bruce (or someone who looks like him). So Hush or not, I'm 90% sure that's not Bruce on the cover holding the gun.

My thoughts exactly

Probably just a dream sequence. Scott Snyder has already stated that the next two issues are an homage to the animated series. In the episode "Over the Edge" Batgirl has a nightmare that she died in the line of duty, and Commissioner Gordon hunted Batman down 'til the ends of the Earth. Best episode for sure. It wasn't revealed it was a dream until the very end, and I could imagine Snyder doing this so he doesn't leave any sort of huge hanging plot threads for his year long Zero Year arc where we (most likely) won't see any developments on what's going on in the present.

Here's the first part (rest of the episode on the uploader's channel):

@RayeGunn said:

I haven't read the other comments yet, so someone may have said this already,but my guess is that 'Bruce' here is actually Clayface.

This makes more sense to me than Hush when I look at the cover for issue 20.

But people make good cases for several possibilities; I'm not in a hurry to figure it out ahead of time.

Certainly is an eye opener there! Sure wasn't expecting that, I tell you what...

WTF certified indeed. I'm pretty intrigued to see how this plays out next month. The best double cover so far has to be for Earth 2, I really didn't see that character coming. The Dial H and Stormwatch covers were also shocking to say the least. I don't like the Red Hood and The Outlaws or Batwing covers at all, as they seem to hint at more unnecessary negativity in the bat series. It's sad that Batwing, Static, and Cyborg were DC's best shot at introducing a high profile black character, and in all three cases they sabotaged the characters into failure.

I've always considered Bruce Wayne's greatest enemy to be Batman. Batman became the dominate personality and made Bruce the fake, the mask Batman wears. Batman doesn't allow Bruce to keep friends and have relationships outside Batman's life. Everyone in Bruce's life is related to the mission of Batman in one form or the other, or eventually becomes that way. All his real relationships are Batman's. Bruce's are mostly faked and part of the "act" that is Bruce Wayne. All of Bruce's activities secretly serve Batman's. Bruce Wayne died in Crime Ally with his parents. Batman skinned Bruce's corpse and wears it as a disguise sometimes.