Only Legends Live Forever is a Justice Society of America storyline by DC Comics. It was featured in Adventure Comics #461-463 in 1979. Though this is a Justice Society storyline, its story heavily deals with Batman characters.
Within the Multiverse, there are multiple versions of Earth with different histories. On Earth-Two, Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman started their iconic heroics in the mid-1930s. Their heroics would inspire other heroes and they would form a team, the Justice Society, to aid in the war effort of World War II. When the Society broke up afterwards, the three would continue their heroing. On this world, Bruce would find love in the form of Selina Kyle, Catwoman, who was tired of being a thief and wanted something more of her life. The two would get married and had a child, Helena. However, years later, a former mook of Selina's blackmailed her into returning for One Last Job, which ended with her death. Like her father before her, Helena took up her own costumed identity, the Huntress, and brought her mother's murderer to justice while Bruce would retire fully, becoming Gotham's new Police Commissioner.
However, not all would be well. A small-time crook named Bill Jenson escaped jail and made his way to the Gotham Twin Towers, demanding Commissioner Wayne as he believed Wayne set him up. Even worse was that Jenson was now in possession of incredible power. The event would lead to the unthinkable - the death of Batman and forcing the Society to find out who gave Jenson the power to take their old friend.
The storyline would hold a lot of purpose throughout the remainder of the pre-Crisis era as Bruce's death would hang over Helena as she sought to figure out what he would do in certain situations. In Infinite Crisis, Kal-L would tell the post-Crisis Batman that this was the point where everything fell apart and the reason the Multiverse needed to be recreated.
Tropes Featured in this Story:
- Big Bad: Frederic Vaux, a sorcerer for the Lords of Chaos.
- Explosive Overclocking: How Jenson dies, his anger boiling over upon learning Batman was Bruce Wayne that his powers overloaded and exploded, taking them both.
- The Hero Dies: An iconic example as one of the first heroes of the DCU would end up dying.
- Internal Reveal: Dick Grayson reveals that he figured out that Helena Wayne was Huntress in issue #461. In #462, the world learns Batman and Bruce Wayne was one of the same, though that's quickly erased.
- One Last Job: Bruce had retired from being Batman after Selina's death, having burned his costume. However, he finds a spare and dons it one last time. Later stories suggest that Bruce was already dying of terminal cancer (suggesting that his constant pipe smoking caught up to him), thus he was going to go out with a bang.
- Reset Button: A minor example. Bruce stays dead, but Vaux's tampering with reality allows Dr. Fate to erase the memory of Bruce Wayne and Batman being one and the same, allowing Helena and Dick to continue the good fight unimpeded.
- Ret-Gone: Frederic Vaux plans to do this with the superhero population so that the Lords of Order and Chaos can fight without their interference. Fortunately, the plan doesn't work.
- Self-Serving Memory: Jenson believes that he was set up by Bruce to make himself look good and rants and raves that as he demands him to show up. Bruce points out that the man was such a terrible crook that it was probably his easiest case ever.
- Stay in the Kitchen: At the start of the story, Wildcat shows off a bit of misogyny by suggesting that women belong in the kitchen after an upset Power Girl blows him off.
- Take Up My Sword: Defied. At Bruce's funeral, both Helena and Dick think that the other is going to try to take up the mantle of the Bat, but both of them decide that there should only be one Batman. Interestingly, this is revisited in Convergence: Detective Comics where Dick ultimately decides to become Batman as he realizes that Batman isn't a man, but a symbol.
