Batman and Robin #4 – Review

By Grant Morrison (writer), Philip Tan (artist), Jonathan Glapion (inker)

The Story: A dark knight and a mysterious sidekick turn Lightning Bug into burnt leftovers. The vigilante talks about being scarred. Batman (Dick Grayson) and Robin (Damian Wayne) are too late to stop him. Dick and Damian attend a Wayne Enterprises cocktail party and meet Sexton, a mysterious figure who is masked because his face was scarred by his wife’s killer. Then Dick and Damian decide to go on the hunt in nocturnal Gotham for the vigilante killer.

What’s Good: This is either the start of a new arc after Professor Pyg’s capture, or the continuation of a much larger tableau, where Pyg was just the feeder fish. It’s a good launch. The writing is lively and dynamic. The criminals were written in the lunatic tones that Morrison used for his villains in the first three issues, but they are more serious, closer to us, despite their obvious insanities. It was a lot of fun to watch Red Hood gush over the self-absorbed, psychologically unhinged Scarlet like an artist over a muse.

I also like the pair of dynamic duos Morrison is offering (Batman and Robin vs. Red Hood and Scarlet). Both pairs are driven by their particular obsessions and mental issues, while each has their own internal conflicts. Both pairs choose to fight crime, and they differ in their ethical lines and methods (in essence, how they choose to serve justice). In creating the alternates, Morrison invites us to pick between the moral choices. However, I think Morrison is being honest with us and himself in that Red Hood and Scarlet are not straw men arguments set up just to be knocked down. A whole lot of heroes nowadays use lethal force, and seeing all those villains around the table, talking about how they were going to make addicts out of school children, housewives and judges, I can’t say I was upset when Red Hood came in and gave them a talking to in his own language. Morrison made me think about something outside the book, after I finished reading, and I think that’s the best compliment I can give him in this review.

Art wise, this was also the first issue sans Quitely. Although I love Quitely, Philip Tan’s style worked well with Morrison. The villains were menacing. The layouts were impressive (especially the building to building leap Lightning Bug makes in the first scene). The level of detail was as high as Quitely’s and the realism sharp. And, both Dick and Damian cut the iconic figures they have for Batman and Robin to work. Hats off to Tan. Tan had big shoes to fill, and he didn’t disappoint.

What’s Not So Good: Despite the great writing and art, I didn’t get a sense of urgency or tension in this issue as I had with the first three, partly because the victims of the crimes were just other awful people. But that was part of the calculus Morrison had to do to make his issue work as “The Fight Against Crime Grows Up.”

Conclusion: Very solid storytelling opens up bigger and more dangerous things for the new dynamic duo. Get on board.

Grade: A-

-DS Arsenault