a selection of reviews from our database
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Batman and Robin #3 Posted 14 Sep 2009Writer: Grant Morrison
Reviewed by Adam McGovern |
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A young man with fresh energy takes on a neglected legacy of leadership. The problems he faces may already be insurmountable, and he can’t be sure if even his closest traditional allies have his back or are preparing to stab it. We haven’t mislabeled the review for Obama: The Ongoing from IDW or anything, but draw your own conclusions.
The title and design of Batman and Robin had made me expect a return to the happy-warrior Caped Crusaders of yore, especially since the eternally upbeat Dick Grayson was getting promoted to the left side of the logo. But the good old days aren’t what they used to be, and in the same way that the psychedelic sideshow set design of the mid-’60s Batman TV show was partly an anarchic embrace of the counterculture and partly a nervous lampoon of social breakdown, this new comic’s Great Society-era graphics are a flash of tenacious optimism in the midst of the most modern despair. The awesome/ridiculous gadgets are there, as well as the loopy acrobatics and no few allusions to the visual conceits and villainous menagerie from Bob Kane’s Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse cartoon. But Grayson and his new sidekick, the cult-raised and thus ya might say at-risk Damian, have debuted right in the middle of several existential crises.
“We know that Bruce Wayne will be back, but at least in this book, we have no idea if Dick is going to make it.”
Morrison always plays for the highest stakes, and he’s devised another terrifying, indiscriminate yet comprehensive menace for the ordinary people of Gotham and all their social institutions, at the hands of deranged criminals based on some creepy Weimar version of Beatrix Potter or Mother Goose. Frank Quitely’s storybook style is tailor-made for this, and it veers right in the middle of the princely fancy of All-Star Superman and the grimmer fairytales of We3 here. The Batman strip’s roots in Depression anxiety and goth bizarreness are traced directly, as is the exhilaration of later incarnations. Quitely’s choreography is intricate yet elegant, his flights through skylights and tangled fight scenes and shattered layouts all welcome refreshers in how lovely a comic can look and how seemingly effortlessly it can move along. We feel the fear of Commissioner Gordon, his force and his city’s people as they don’t know what to make of these new champions; we watch the wavering allegiance and moral center of Damian; and we see the strain on Grayson as he fights to embody the right thing and convince himself and others. This edgy book’s source of strange charm is our knowledge that, however bad things get, Dick will stay better than them, and that’s something to start from.
At three issues, Batman and Robin is the “Batman Reborn” book I’ve lasted the longest with. Of the ones I gave up after one issue, Detective/Batwoman, though sublimely drawn, read like a bad reality dating show (Meltdowns with neglected girlfriends! Tours of the upscale bat-loft!), and the smack-talkin’ Gotham City Sirens read like a bad reality dating show without the dating. I went two rounds with Streets of Gotham and Red Robin, which had strong and unusual starts but soon felt straightjacketed by editorial plot imperatives. My shortest run was technically with Batman itself, whose slow-moving soap-opera schmaltz lost me before I’d finished one issue. In general, the other books are already making the Dick Grayson phase seem less like an era and more like an interlude. There are few reasons to stay around for the details of how a foregone conclusion plays out. Not so in Batman and Robin. It’s the story of a newcomer who’s in over his head (and yes, up to his ears), who’s feeling his way with as little certainty as we are but in whose next move we’re very invested. We know that Bruce Wayne will be back, but at least in this book, we have no idea if Dick is going to make it. With heroes who mean well and have our interest at heart, that’s reason to keep watching carefully and show support. The strange decision not to suspend Batman while Batman and Robin unfolds suggests that this is not the “official” batbook. But it is the essential one.
[Thanks to Steve Price for spotting the cat and mouse.]