Batman Eternal #5 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, John Layman, Ray Fawkes, Tim Seely (story), Andy Clarke (art), Blond (colors)

The Story: Red Robin and Batman briefly consider getting the band back together again.

The Review: Let’s review some Batman basics,* shall we? Great as the Dark Knight is, he’s still only one man struggling against a vicious city, which is why the Bat-family exists. But calling them a family gives an impression of a cohesive working unit when they’re actually more like a handful of government agencies. Their objectives and methods are different; they’re supposed to work in different spheres; and when they take jurisdiction over the same area, there tends to be more tension than collaboration.

Such is the way when you have obviously derivative characters trying to prove that they can stand on their own. Red Robin voices that conflict from the first page of this issue, rebelliously establishing his own data networks (his “Robin’s Nests“) in the city separate from Batman’s, declaring, “I don’t like people looking over my shoulder while I work.” Aside from that basic barrier to working with Batman, Tim reminds us of personal obstacles between them post-Death of the Family, Damian Wayne, and Dick Grayson. Gotham needs its heroes to stand together, but between Batgirl’s angry departure last week and Tim’s prickliness here, that’s going to be a very tall order.

Batman: Li’l Gotham #5 – Review

By: Dustin Nguyen (story & art), Derek Fridolfs (story)

The Story: Figures that the day Gotham turns nice, it freezes over.

The Review: Not that I expect Li’l Gotham to aspire to Alan Moore-esque heights of literary depth, but I always think that the series deserves to be more than just a load of cuteness.  The holiday hijinks have been sweet and entertaining in their elementary way, but without much in the way of mental stimulation.  The plots are often times so thin and underdeveloped that you can enjoy them even if you’re practically brain-dead.

However, it’s not lost on me that this series is supposed to be full of fluff.  I just don’t see why that has to be mutually exclusive from building plots and characters that grown-ups can enjoy, too.  Anyway, I’m not here to argue that Nguyen-Fridolfs should change up their style or mess with a formula that works for them.  But if the stories on Li’l Gotham don’t take on some new dimensions soon, I’ll quickly run out of things to say about it besides its sheer adorableness.

Batman: Gates of Gotham #4 – Review

By: Scott Snyder, Kyle Higgins, Ryan Parrott (writers), Dustin Nguyen & Derec Donovan (artists), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Dammit Tim, I’m a detective, not a historian!

The Review: With DC’s top creators on blistering track to launch their new lineup come fall and maintain a steady release pace afterward, it’s little wonder the current titles all have a rushed, cobbled-together quality about them.  You must have noticed the record number of fill-in writers and artists on everything, even on the three-issue Flashpoint tie-ins.  While some of these fill-in jobs have been acceptable, even praiseworthy, quite a lot more have been anything but.

For a while, Higgins as the executor of Snyder’s story worked out very well.  After it came out that Higgins would work on the upcoming Nightwing, Parrott came in as his backup. Gates of Gotham remained seemingly unaffected; last issue seemed on track for a great conclusion.  But, as in Supergirl #62, the grim effects of the lead creators taking less responsibility for the title sneak up on you, and here you get ambushed by any number of writing missteps.

For one, several principal characters experience dramatic personality changes.  While Nicholas Gates going into a very Gothamesque, homicidal bent makes some sense in light of his brother’s death, Alan Wayne revealing a sinister condescension feels inexplicable and forced, almost laughable.  Too bad his mustache isn’t a bit longer, because he might as well be twirling it as he haughtily tells Nick, “…secrets are influence…and influence is power.  But I don’t expect you to understand that.  After all, you aren’t one of us—and you never will be.”

Red Robin #24 – Review

By: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Marcus To (penciller), Ray McCarthy (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: I’m telling you, Tim, she wants you to put a baby inside her!

The Review: When people see a tightly woven, layered plot, they tend to wonder how the writer manages to foresee how little, early details can wind up playing a huge role in the final outcome of a story.  The truth is things usually work the other way around; when it comes time to figure out the big fat middle and ending, a strong writer will usually look to the details they already laid down to help them develop their story.

In this issue, Nicieza takes threads and characters he established from several previous story arcs (Red Robin’s escapade in Russia, his first encounter with Scarab, and most recently the threat on Lucius Fox’s life) and winds them all together into a cohesive storyline, and the twists never stop coming.  Crazy as it sounds, the Assassination Tournament merely serves as a cover for an even more intriguing plot, one with ancient, possibly supernatural roots.

Red Robin has largely been more of a down-to-earth kind of comic, with all its emphasis on technology and fighters using their wits, fists, and weapons to get the job done.  You’ll run into the occasional metahuman, but mostly Nicieza avoids any flashiness in the action department.  When he brings in this apparently otherworldly force to the table, the suspense feels that much tighter as you can’t imagine how Tim’s brains or martial artistry will get him out of this one.

The situation really calls attention to how much fun you get out of seeing Tim think his way through obstacles and enemies.  There’s definitely something very satisfying about seeing him take down an entire mob of Scarabs with the press of a well thought-out button.  But it’s also rather fun to how Tim can be a little too clever by half.  His own foresight winds up losing his target, as the flash mob he sets up to cover his escape actually covers Scarab’s instead.

It reminds us that Tim, for all his experience and prodigiousness, still hasn’t reached the peak of his prowess just yet.  With Batman, it takes a fairly substantial challenge to put him within believable danger, but almost every issue you feel Tim getting in just over his head.  It does credit to his opponents.  These are, after all, trained assassins; you wouldn’t take them too seriously if they can be taken down that easily by a kid whose martial artistry isn’t all there yet.

Batman: Gates of Gotham #1 – Review

By: Scott Snyder & Kyle Higgins (writers), Trevor McCarthy (artist), Guy Major (colors)

The Story: How’s that song go again?  “Gotham Bridge is falling down…”

The Review: One special, endearing feature of the DCU is the multitude of fictional hometowns for its heroes.  As the characters have grown in stature, so have their cities, to the point where they have as much of an iconic status in our culture as the heroes they host.  While Metropolis will always be the shining city of tomorrow looking to the future, Gotham is a city mired in its past, with little hope of escape.

Snyder opens the issue and follows it up with exactly that premise in mind.  The Gotham of 1881 already has as many shadows as its modern-day parallel, but Alan Wayne and architect Nicholas Anders’ concept for the city shows how at that time, there was still hope Gotham could reach the brilliant heights of Metropolis.  It makes a commentary on the value of architecture: the building of bridges and skyscrapers, beyond their practical uses, symbolize the promise of better things.

And when those structures fall, so too does the city’s pride.  In this case, the destruction of Gotham’s major bridges preludes an attack on its proudest, oldest families, obviously including the Waynes and therefore giving Batman a personal stake in this story.  But this mysterious vendetta also intriguingly targets some unexpected Gotham bluebloods: the Cobblepots and Elliots, whose infamous successors are the Penguin and Hush.

In making these connections, Snyder shows us how world-building can be so valuable to a story.  When you can take the threads of this fictional history and wrap them together, the current action takes on that much more life.  And the fact Snyder ties these threads so tightly to Gotham really makes the city itself a kind of omnipresent character in the plot.  Note Dick’s personification of the town: “I forget how much the city’s been through—how few things rattle it anymore.”

Though Gotham at large may be untroubled by the recent tragedies, the Bat-family can’t let them go.  These disasters are exactly the kind of thing our only too human heroes are least equipped to handle.  They dedicate much of their vigilantism preventing such things from taking place, so it’s no wonder they take a failure to heart—especially with a firsthand view of the casualties, as Dick gets seeing the bodies of victims drowned and suspended in the river’s dark waters.

Red Robin #23 – Review

By: Fabian Nicieza (writer), Marcus To (penciller), Ray McCarthy (inker), Guy Major (colorist)

The Story: Seriously, Tim—what is up with all these women who want you dead?

The Review: The detective aspect in a lot of comics has faded in recent years, having become much harder to write on a lot of levels.  One: science and technology have advanced to the point where you need to put in some serious research to put out a credible mystery.  Two: a true-blooded mystery requires a fairly intense commitment to thoughtful and farsighted plotting.  Three: it’s just plain difficult creating suspense out of detective work in a comic.

In Detective Comics, Scott Snyder generates that suspense by instilling a sense of horror to Dick Grayson’s CSI-type work.  Here in Red Robin, Nicieza goes for a more action-thriller feel, building up the layers of Tim’s more FBI-like operations until they reach Mission Impossible proportions.  Tim’s a one-man unit out to take down whole networks of crime—that’s about as impossible as it gets.

Red Robin’s preference for going it alone really allows us to enjoy how meticulously he plans out everything.  With Batman, you take it for granted that a lot of prep-time is involved, but you actually get to see Tim’s thought processes, a fun mix of gumshoe narration and his own dry sense of humor (“So when I hit the apartment of Jimmy Li…the leader of the Golden Dragons took exception.  And then she took me out the window.”).  He lacks the physicality of the other Bat-guys (as he himself notes looking at Dick’s aerial acrobatics), but his clipping brainwork brings its own kind of excitement.

Tim does tend to handle his dirty work solo most of the time, but that doesn’t prevent Nicieza from using recurring characters as a revolving supporting cast.  As great as it is to see Bruce and Dick following Tim’s lead, even despite their doubts over his questionable decisions, it’s Lynx and her inscrutable loyalties that really spices up Tim’s life: tackling him out a multi-story window and then making out during the free-fall—talk about having it all.

The strength of Red Robin comes mostly from Nicieza’s crafty plotting.  He has a great handle on technology, or at least he makes it seem so to someone as technologically ignorant as me, and can use it to create and develop leads and clues for his story: the issue starts with a website giving backdoor access for kill orders; it ends with the revival of the Assassins Tournament, a kind of hit man’s Iron Chef with international CEOs being the theme ingredient of choice.

Teen Titans #92 – Review

By: J.T. Krul (writer), Georges Jeanty (penciller), Rob Hunter (inker), Jason Wright (colorist)

The Story: These exploding Calculator robots are really harshing these Turkish clubbers’ buzz.

The Review: In crossovers, besides the stickiness of mixing up different characters (who may or may not be a good fit for each other), you’ve also got the issue of how the different styles of the writers will work together.  It’s usually best for them to co-write the story; you get a more cohesive product that way.  You also avoid the position of comparing one writer to another, which may be uncomfortable for the one who comes off weaker.

In this second half of a crossover with Red Robin, Krul shows with painful obviousness that his writing has a ways to go, quality-wise.  He’s simply not as deft or nuanced a writer as Fabien Nicieza, who wrote the first half of this story in Red Robin #20.

Their different approaches to dialogue say it all.  Nicieza’s takes for granted that these characters have history and know each other.  When Tim says, “We should—oh, sorry, Cass—you go,” he doesn’t have to explain what he’s sorry for; you get that from the context and what you know of them.  Krul feels the need to make everything explicit, resulting in chunky, in-your-face dialogue like: “Because you didn’t know [he was an android].  And killing him would have felt very real.  I couldn’t let you do that.”

The major weakness to Krul’s dialogue has always been that it doesn’t let the characters show distinctive personalities.  Most of the lines feel like babble: “If the circumstances were different, this looks like it’d be a fun place.”  Not only is this remark just silly (if there weren’t exploding robots around, everyplace would be more fun), but it’s lifeless as well—anybody could have said it.  It feels like filler, padding the time until something more meaningful happens.