Batman & Robin #11

Huh, it's been a few days since I posted my last review... As such, expect these next few reviews to be a little bit worse then usual(which is REALLY saying something!), since my brain is a bit fried from all of the schoolwork I've been saddled with these past couple of days. OK, enough wasting time. Let's start to get these reviews up before my new comic pile gets EVEN bigger! Before I get started, you'll probably notice something a little bit different about my reviews tonight. I'm going to do the review itself in regular font, and my thoughts on the book in italics. Let me know if you like/dislike/could care less about this change.

Batman & Robin #11: Writer: Grant Morrison. Pencils: Andy Clarke.
Last Issue: 4 out of 10.

We open with one of those famous Grant Morrison, “What the hell is going on here?!?” scenes that involves some rich guy getting the letter W whipped into his back while DEA agents assault his home. Ultimately the guy gets dressed and hops a helicopter headed for Gotham City... OOOOOOOOOOK then... Back at Wayne Manor, Damian and Oberon Sexton fight off a bunch of assassins in the Wayne family graveyard. While this is going on we discover that Damian's mother, Talia Al Ghul, had something placed in Damian's skull that was allowing her to take control of his actions. Strangely though, instead of seeing through Damian's eyes, all of Talia's monitors were watching Damian from behind. While Damian and Sexton are taking care of business in the cemetery, Dick Grayson is still wandering around the underbelly of Wayne Manor, ultimately finding a huge statue of Barbatos(an evil bat god thing), which was apparently put there by one of Bruce Wayne's ancestors, Thomas Wayne, way back in the late 1700's. Back on the surface, Sexton and Damian mop up the goons and get to talking, which leads to Damian beginning to suspect that Sexton could possibly be Bruce Wayne... Well that would make the whole Search for Bruce Wayne rather easy, wouldn't it? We then head back to Talia, who hands control of Damian's body over to one of Dick's arch-enemies, Deathstroke the Terminator(!?!). Damian, now Deathstroke's thrall, knocks out Sexton, and when Dick makes his way back to the surface, emerging from one of the Wayne family crypts, Damian clocks him with a shovel and sets up the killing blow, ending this issue.

Not bad. Not bad at all. There were a few things that bothered me, such as the utterly bizarre opening scene, the nonsensical muttering between Sexton and the assassins in the graveyard, Talia monitoring Damian from behind(what does she have, an invisible flying camera following him around?)and the fact that Deathstroke was the mystery villain working as Talia. Now, make no mistake, Deathstroke is one of my favorite DC villains, but his appearance here just seemed so out of character to me... First off, Deathstroke is more of a hands on assassin, so I found it hard to believe he'd use Damian to kill Dick, you'd think he'd want to actually kill Dick with his own two hands when the time came. And besides that, after the Teen Titans Blackest Night x-over issues, I had thought Deathstroke was working with his son Jericho and had(kind of)turned over a new leaf... I guess not. Besides that though, I actually did get into this comic. I enjoyed the mystery surrounding Dick and the underground of Wayne Manor, and I'd have actually preferred it if this comic had spent more time following Dick as he explored the catacombs of the Manor, but I guess we couldn't have that in Damian's comic. Speaking of Damian, I like that Talia has a way to control/make him seem vulnerable, because usually Damian just walks through any challenge like a super-hero with 4 times his experience, so it's nice to see him in a situation where he has no control. So yeah, I was definitely pleasantly surprised with this comic. Here's hoping next issue continues the trend.

Score: 8 out of 10.In a strange Morrison-esque sort of way, it would make perfect sense if Sexton WAS Bruce Wayne!