Just how dead is Batman?

If I ever had to get a tattoo, it would be the words "What Would Batman Do?" on the inside of my left wrist. Batman is my inspiration, my moral compass, and my favourite character in fiction. Obviously, then, the thought of a world without him is pretty troubling.

That's why, like comics fans everywhere, I've been holding my breath like a champion free-diver as I waited see if the current Batman storyline, Batman RIP, would actually bury him. Well, the final part came out this week – and it's the disappointment of the year.

For several issues now, Batman has been under attack by a mysterious entity called the Black Glove. The end of Batman #680, the previous instalment, found him decisively beaten: cut off from his allies, betrayed by his lover, and driven into a kind of savage fugue state by hypnotic manipulation. In Batman #681, he is buried alive, escapes, finally turns the tables on the Black Glove – and then abruptly gets blown up in a helicopter. No body is found. Gotham is left without a protector, at least until next year's series Battle for the Cowl, in which one of Batman's protégés is expected to take over the role.

Getting blown up in a helicopter might be a fitting end for, say, the villain of the next Die Hard sequel, but for the World's Greatest Detective, it's poor show. Earlier this year, at the wake for a fellow Justice League member called the Martian Manhunter, Superman exhorted the assembled superheroes to "pray for a resurrection". This was a sly reference by Scottish writer Grant Morrison, who's responsible for both that story and Batman RIP, to the fact that comic characters almost never stay dead for long. When Marvel Comics recently killed off Captain America, the only way they could convince fans they actually meant business was by having him shot through the head in broad daylight. Short of time travel or black magic, there's no going back from that. By comparison, Batman's demise has no conviction at all. There's not the skimpiest pretence that he won't be back, stronger than ever, within a year or two. And, adding insult to injury, we never really found out who the Black Glove is.

Were we wrong to expect so much? Were we suckers for the hype? Well, Morrison did assure an audience at New York Comic Con that Batman RIP would end with "possibly the most shocking Batman reveal in 70 years". It certainly doesn't – but then, while Morrison was firing up the speculation, his own characters, in keeping with the metatextual games that he's played throughout his career, were puncturing the fourth wall to damp it down.

"You think it all breaks down into symbols and structures and hints and clues," cackles the Joker at one point, for instance. "No, Batman, that's just Wikipedia." This was a reference, surely, to the way fans have desperately trawled every inch of every panel of every page for answers. The Black Glove is Alfred the butler, some said. He's Thomas Wayne, Bruce Wayne's father. He's Joe Chill, who killed Bruce Wayne's parents. He's Joe Chill's son. He's the Batcomputer, turned sentient. He's the devil himself. Whatever the case, the answers are there, if you just look hard enough - right? Perhaps not. The Joker later accuses Batman of apophenia, a disease where you see patterns in random data, like faces in clouds.

Yes, fine, the Joker might be right that we're fools to expect rigorous logic from one of the most experimental Batman stories in years. But we're not fools to demand a satisfying denouement. Of course, a large part of me is relieved that my hero won't be gone for long. But another part – and I never thought I'd say this – wishes he really had died. That would have been an ending. This is just a bit of a con trick.