We find Bruce waking up in Arkham Asylum, finding out that he never has been Batman, that he is still very young, and yet he knows that all that doesn’t feel right. We find out that Bruce is in a future where everything has been devastated and he failed. There are interesting revelations on how the end came about, the collateral damage done, and ultimately the path that Bruce decided to embark upon. 

Is this post-apocalyptic Batman canonical? Is this the near-future of the DC Universe? It’s hard to tell. The Black Label by DC is meant for creators to tell stories that are not canonical, Elseworlds-styled, and or completely mature. What makes this difficult to discern is that Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo are picking up on some story threads established in their run on Batman [ research the machine that Bruce Wayne made to ensure that there is a Batman clone of his that pops out on a regular basis ] and some of the story threads involving Lex Luthor in the Justice League. 

This will be the last Batman story to be told by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo. It already has the hallmarks of Snyder story: story that is huge in scale and a bit disorienting. Capullo’s strong pencils and paneling sense works in tandem with Snyder to expertly chart that journey. Lately in Snyder stories, there has been an overreliance on exposition boxes. I think that this is a result of having too much story to tell in too few pages. That is not the case in this issue. Scott and Greg are finely honed team in balancing out a story told by what is shown, what is uncovered in character dialogue, and exposition boxes only when needed. There is a lot of potential from the world building they set up in this first issue and I cannot wait for the next ones.