Trying Way Too Hard To 'Fit In'
This issue alone is pretty mediocre, but that cover is GLORIOUS. The overwhelming black and red with a skeletal Batman and Robin atop a pedestal of bones and death in front of an eclipse? And the sort of 'totem pole' poses for the two of them centered in the cover is just amazing, along with the logo at the top on the rim of the eclipse.
nd thAnd this issue comes in with a great start, there's a nice scene with Batman and Robin that really emphasizes the father/son bond between them. Up in the sky they talk about Batman's contingencies, teaching Damian what he'll need to use in the future, and Damian's mother. This whole scene is just chock full of the same kind of raw emotion and touching interaction that really made the first arc work so well. And of course Patrick Gleason's artwork is dark and filled with that nice 'Batman' energy.
But things go downhill from there. I'm confused as to why this isn't considered a Death of the Family tie-in, when it has more to do with the event than the labeled tie-in Batgirl #13; Batman is busy investigating leads on The Joker, and Damian is studying up on the deadly foe. And yet Damian still has the price on his head from Batman Incorporated. I feel like Peter J. Tomasi is just too used to playing along with Geoff Johns' control of the Green Lantern group of books, and is trying way too hard to make sure it fits in line with every other Batman book at every turn. It's constantly tossing out mentions of Otto Netz and Robin's bounty from Batman Incorporated, and it just doesn't work. The events of Batman Incorporated are more self-contained, happening more along the same time-frame as itself in one go; Robin having this bounty doesn't exactly fit in with the rest of the Batman books, and Batman and Robin is trying way too hard to fit in with both Batman Incorporated AND the rest. Throwing in the random bizarre mutant frog man assassin really breaks up the flow of the issue. It's a standalone event when this issue is already cramming like 3 other plotlines into this already overstuffed issue. It serves no purpose to anything in this issue, nor anything else.
And then there's this zombie story. It's really weak. I just found myself not caring at all about what was going on in this story, there was nothing really to it. There's a cult doing stuff, and suddenly zombies. Not to mention that in the last few pages of the issue, the art changes from series regular Patrick Gleason to drastically different Tomas Giorello. The transition is extremely jarring, and Giorello's art just has a weird quality to it that really puts me off.
In Conclusion: 3/5
Batman and Robin is so good when it's not trying way too hard; which is what it's doing here. It needs to craft its own identity more and stop forcing in references to the current events of as many other things as possible. This issue was just so bland except for the one main scene with the titular duo instead of everything relating to side stuff. A lot of this would be fixed if this was just a Robin solo series.
