Batman R.I.P.

OK, I came into this storyline way too late to be able to hunt down back issues etc and cath up the proper way so I've been scouring the net and watching video reviews to try and keep up... and I'm confused as hell.

Basically the story is that a load of Batman super villains including the Joker (and some new dude/organisation called Black Glove) have come together to destroy Batman. To do this they decide to ruin his mind rather than his body. From what I can gather the end result is going to be that the twisted part of Bruce Wayne's mind that NEEDS him to become the Batman each night is to be eliminated leaving ONLY Bruce Wayne and NO MORE BATMAN.

Somewhere in there Bruce transforms himself into a twisted new Batman he calls the 'Batman of Zur-En-Arrh' (WTF?)

It seems Bruce's current love interest, Jezebel Jet, is a major player in the destruction of Batman (she is the infamous Black Glove who masterminded Batman's head-fucking). She know's Bruce is the Bat, has been in the batcave etc.

The original Robin (Dick Grayson, now known as Nightwing) may well be in line to take over the mantle of the Bat once Bruce drops out (and fair enough I say). However another contender for the cape and cowl is Bruce's love child with Talia Al Ghul, Damian. He beat the crap out of Robin (Tim Drake) in the batcave and took over as Robin for a while there coz he felt it was his birthright to do so.

The future for all of this seems to be that a new storyline for next year is about to unfold called 'Battle for the Cowl' in which a number of peeps (Mainly Tim Drake, Dick Grayson and Damian Al Ghul) will be vying for the right to officially take over as the Batman (and Robin) from here on out.

Phew, did you get all that? I fucking didn't. I'm confused as shit. I'm gonna have to wait for the TPB to read this thing start to finish and piece it all together finally. But it's been fascinating me no end.

The final issue of the storyline (Batman #681) will be out soon and all will be revealed. I'll update once I know what's going on. On a side note, DC are cancelling their off-shoot series 'Robin', 'Nightwing' and 'Birds of Prey' so I'm assuming that has a lot to do with this new 'Battle for the Cowl' series.