Batman and Robin #26 & Birds of Prey #15

So the past couple of comic books I've read have been good. No, scratch that, they've been really good. As a matter of fact, this has been one of the better comic reading weeks I've had in a while. But you know what they say about all good things, right? They MUST come to an end, and damn did my good reviewing streak come to a thudding halt with these two comic books... Read on... If you dare!

Batman and Robin #26:

Summary: Batman(Dick Grayson), Robin and Nightrunner are all in Paris, where the Louvre museum has been turned upside down, inside out and all around thanks to four recent escapees from Paris's version of Arkham Asylum. The four crazies were sprung by a guy named the Son of Man. After some difficulty, the heroes manage to sedate all four of the villains and realize that they were being recorded by little portable cameras. The heroes follow the cameras back to the Son of Man's lair, where he gives his life story(of course...), before revealing that his father had slashed his face while he was a child to give him a Joker-esque smile. Before the heroes can attack him, the Son of Man reveals that he had rigged explosives up somewhere, and he'd blow them up if anybody touched him. Bats wonders why Son of Man was doing this, and he reveals that he was killing people for art(or something like that... To be honest I stopped caring a few pages back). That enrages Nightrunner, who goes after Son of Man, but he's stopped by Robin, who didn't want Son of Man to set off the explosives. In the confusion, Bats fires some quick drying gel at Son of Man's hand, preventing him from pushing the button... But wait! Son of Man then reveals that the explosives were in the portable cameras, and that they were voice activated. With that, Son of Man sets them off, and we find out the explosives were only powerful enough to destroy the cameras. From there, Son of Man reveals that he filmed the whole debacle for his father, who he cut into pieces and put in a giant tube, where his father would watch what had happened on an endless loop.

Thoughts: After I read a comic book, if I'm not near my laptop, I'll usually jot down the title of the comic, the score, and a few words about the comic for when I do the review. For this comic, I put down the title, the score, and one word, “Rubbish”... That, in a nutshell, was exactly what this comic was. Garbage. Seriously, it was one of the worst one-and-done stories I've read in quite some time. The worst thing was the fact that I was kind of looking forward to this issue because I saw that David Hine was writing it. I'm not even going to bother wasting any more time on this comic. If you enjoyed this issue, kudos. Me? I absolutely hated it.

Score: 2 out of 10.Damian has definitely seen better days...


Birds of Prey #15:

Summary: Huntress, Black Canary and Manhunter head to the warehouse where Lady Blackhawk and the Phantom Lady had been captured by clones created by a dead Nazi scientist... Yes, this is one of THOSE comic books! The clones use some sort of evil Nazi machines to recreate the dead Nazi scientist, and the now alive Nazi scientist begins to take the pieces of his persona that he hid in Blackhawk and Phantom Lady's heads WAAAAAAY back in 1940's/1950's. Huntress, BC and Manhunter finally enter the warehouse and the Nazi scientist mistakes BC for her mother and tries to get the final piece of his persona out of BC(since he hid the third piece in BC's mother). Since BC doesn't have the missing piece, the Nazi scientist starts to go crazy and begins absorbing the clone's life-forces to empower himself. Unfortunately for the Nazi scientist, he absorbs too much power and explodes just as the women escape the lab. For the sake of my dwindling sanity, let's just say the issue ended there and leave it at that.

Thoughts: Ugh. Going in I expected this issue to be bad, and boy did it meet my expectations! The story didn't interest me last issue, and it was more of the same this issue. The storyline was basically a spotlight on Phantom Lady and Lady Blackhawk, both of whom I could care less about. Yes, it was cool to see Manhunter, but she didn't really DO anything... Same for BC and Huntress, the two BoP that I like the most. If your idea of a great comic is obscure female DC characters dealing with crazed Nazi clones, then THIS is the comic book for you! For the other 99.99999% of us? Pass.

Score: 3 1/2 out of 10.Hit the Nazi, NOT the wire!!