10 Batman Fates Worse Than Death
8. Being Painfully Blasted Backwards Through Time - Final Crisis/Return Of Bruce Wayne
Final Crisis is one of DC's most epic tales, and is notable for a host of reasons.
Written again by Morrison with art from J. G. Jones, the comic saw the reemergence of Darkseid as the Lord of Apokolips finally attained the Anti-Life Equation, the secret to universal dominance. In his way stood the Justice League, and a mortal he underestimated in particular - Batman.
The Dark Knight isn't able to deliver the final blow to stop Darkseid's rule, but he does weaken the New God enough to allow Superman to free the universe from his control. Bruce Wayne confronts Darkseid with a gun that fires Radion bullets, which are lethal to New Gods, breaking his one rule with the universe on the line.
Sadly, although Batman is able to get the ever important shot off, Darkseid's omega beams turn him to dust. The idea at the time was that Bruce had perished, but it was later revealed in The Return of Bruce Wayne that the OG Batman hadn't died at all, and had instead been painfully blasted backwards into the timestream, forced to fight time itself to return to the present.
The upside to this is that Bruce was able to accomplish the impossible and return in 2011, some two years after his initial demise, but any other human would've been driven insane by such a task. Bats did also have the benefit of amnesia to lessen the blow of going from the 21st century to the dawn of time, but it's still a terrifying thing to be confronted with all the same.