Friday, April 23, 2010

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!

12 comments:

  1. I like the italics for your thoughts on the issue. That's the part I'm most interested in reading when it comes to reviews, and the change in font lets me see the difference in sections more easily.

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  2. Come on X, that was William Hurt, the leader of the Black Glove from Batman R.I.P., I'm guessing you haven;t read it or else I'm revoking your King of Comics title. I'm not a fan of the italics because I'm afraid of change, lol I's cool though, I'd suggest a new color over Italics but who cares what I think? :P

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  3. Italics are hard to read in large doses I find - new colour! Green for good, red for bad?

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  4. I think different colors are harder to read than italics. I remember trying to read a letters page in the back of an X-Men issue once with red and green font, and I had to stop after 30 seconds because it gave me a headache. I think subheadings to separate the sections would do just fine.

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  5. I thought that William Hand guy died or something at the end of RIP, JT. I guess not...

    Huh, I didn't think you guys would mind the italics that much. For the record, I posted tonight's reviews before I read this... Hmm, I COULD change the color, but I kind of feel that would draw the reader's eyes away from the upper part of the post. I know different colors tend to draw my attention. That's kind of why I didn't go with bold for my thoughts... Well, I guess I'll go back to the way I used to do it, no italics. I got you guys to read this blog with no italics, so I'll go back to that :-)

    If anything I'll just seperate the two sections like I used to, the upper part can be the review and I'll have a "What I Thought:" or something like that(and maybe I'll put that in different colored italics so as to please everybody!)

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  6. William Hand is Black hand. Simon (don't know why I typed William, moving too fast I guess) Hurt a.k.a. Thomas Wayne is the dude from Black Glove. So that's it, I'm taking your title lol. We're sharing it now as the KINGS of Comics.

    Here ya go X. "Hurt was believed to be dead after a helicopter explosion, but somehow survived and reappeared approximately six months later in Mexico, disguised as the drug lord El Penitente, but left to return to Gotham City."

    And you guys are right, the color would draw my eyes down, you're definitely right about that. Maybe no Italics and just keep it original?

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  7. Oh come on, I was only HALF off! I knew he "died" in the helicopter crash, I can clearly remember that, but I sure as hell don't recall him moving down to Mexico... What comic did you find that out in, because I really can't recall that. And you know I wouldn't give up my throne without a fight! I'll be like Loghian, holding on to what ever power I can by any means necessary!

    Yeah, I was thinking that if it was red I'd automatically start looking at the red font, because it's something different. I'll prob just go kind of retro and put the What I Thought thing back into the reviews so people can tell when the reveiw ends and when the commentary begins.

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  8. All of that El Penite stuff is mentioned in other issues of Batman and Robin actually, like the earlier one's. Only reason I remembered it's him is because he has that "W" on his back. And nah,too late, Co-Kings :P

    Btw that Logain reference made my night just because it came outta nowhere. And sounds cool, You know the saying, If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

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  9. "All of that El Penite stuff is mentioned in other issues of Batman and Robin actually" Oh, well then no wonder I didn't remember it! I don't know what's going on in this series half the time anyway! I probably saw him and just totally blanked on it... I guess if you want to be co-King that's cool... Just remember who really wears the crown around here! :P

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  10. Lol you can wear the crown dude, Cause I sits in the throne :P

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  11. Well thank ya, thank ya, thank ya very much. Get it...The King! Okay, they can't all be good ones. Puppies!!! See...The King...again...okay I'm leaving. Lol

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