By: Grant Morrison (writer), Frazer Irving (artist), Janelle Siegel (assistant editor), Mike Marts (editor)
The Story: Batman and Robin Must Die, Part I: Morrison serves us up a split narrative: today, when Batman and Robin are prisoners of Thomas Wayne, and three days earlier, when everything started to go down the toilet.
What’s Good: Oh my frakkin’ god! The art is amazing! Irving’s pencils, inks and colors leap out of the page, grab you and yank you into the story. Irving’s art hadn’t impressed me in the Return of Bruce Wayne. Maybe it was hard to tell what his style was doing in the late 17th century. Here in modern Gotham, doing the Joker and Thomas Wayne and Dick and Commissioner Gordon, not to mention Gotham itself, Irving’s skill and talent just blew me away. In my opinion, Irving was made to draw Batman and Robin, moreso even that Quitely, and I know how much that says. If you doubt me, check out the Joker, in any panel of this book. Irving’s style has a European flavor and the subtlety of his expressions is brilliant. Check out the six expressions on display on page two. Not a one is alike; he is capable of expressing a range of emotions. His shadowing is weird and compelling, while his scenes of surreal debauchery and the Joker’s insane faux-sycophanty were lurid and haunting.
And speaking of haunting, Morrison, who has received some bad press over the early issues of Return of Bruce Wayne and who has delivered some confusing or sub-par issues later in this series, moved to another level. Morrison has written more than noir here. He has captured the tortured, insane soul of Gotham and has splashed Thomas Wayne’s story across it. His insight into the Joker, through the eyes of Damian Wayne, is brilliant. Damian is downright chilling on page 22, when, after an act of abject brutality, he tells the Joker “They say you’re mad, but I say you’re not.” The page before, the Joker, in monologue, speaking of Damian, says “You sound just like him…” meaning Bruce Wayne. It’s very spooky to see that kind of deep insight coming out of the Joker. Morrison’s Gotham PD have a similar insight into Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne, when Commissioner Gordon tells Dick “…most of my cops prefer you to him.” This says a lot about Dick, Bruce and where Morrison will be taking both of them once Bruce is not a WMD.
What’s Not So Good: This issue was a bit dialogue heavy, but Morrison made it work, and made it necessary. Psychological drama can play out only so far in art alone. The weakness with dialogue-heavy books is that there are more places to mess up tone and have the dialogue sound stilted. There were a few moments like this, but not enough to seriously affect my enjoyment of this book. Artwise…flawless.
Conclusion: New arc, new creative team, brilliant book. Pick this up. Trust me. I don’t give out a whole lot of grades like this…
Grade: A
-DS Arsenault
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Conclusion