Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne

Bruce Wayne lives! Grant Morrison takes Bruce Wayne on a time travel story to escape the stone age. [Link]

Debuting in April 2010, the aptly named Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne finds the character -- presumed dead after the events of Final Crisis but actually hurled into the far-flung past -- attempting to reclaim his memory and his place in time.

"Return is a fairly intricate time-travel story in which the world's greatest hero, the optimum man, is up against the supreme challenge to his ingenuity and skill," Morrison tells USA Today. "How does Batman get out of the ultimate trap? It has a mystery and an apocalyptic countdown going on, there are some major twists and reveals, and it sets up big changes to the Batman universe status quo."

The six-issue miniseries, which features a rotating roster of artists beginning with Chris Sprouse and followed (possibly) by Frazer Iriving, opens in the Late-Paleolithic Era and then moves on to 17th-century Gotham Village, and so on.

"Each of the stories is a twist on a different 'pulp hero' genre — so there's the caveman story, the witchhunter/Puritan adventurer thing, the pirate Batman, the cowboy, the P.I. — as a nod toward those mad old 1950s comics with Caveman Batman and Viking Batman adventures," Morrison says. "It's Bruce Wayne's ultimate challenge — Batman vs. history itself!"