Batman and Robin #5 – Review

by Grant Morrison (writer), Philip Tan (penciller), Jonathan Glapion (inker)

The Story: This issue is narrated from Scarlet’s point of view, and jumps off (literally, for the Penguin) right where Morrison left us on the cliff’s edge last issue. Batman and Robin have their hands full, trying to manage the Red Hood and Scarlett, but do make away with the Penguin. They stake out the watering hole they know will draw the Red Hood, but things don’t always work out.

What’s Good: If you like creepy, boy, is this issue for you. I really shouldn’t have read it during lunch. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not gratuitously violent. The violence and brutality are a necessary part of the setting, revealed in incrementally escalating doses. The depraved villains, who would have made a 1950’s horror comic writer proud, serve to set into starker and starker contrast the moral choices Dick Grayson has to face, both against all of Gotham and even against his own sidekick who looks more and more like he would have been more comfortable as the sidekick to Elektra or Wolverine.