Batman and Robin #20
The new creative team of Peter J. Tomasi and Patrick Gleason move into the house Grant Morrison built and tackle the Dynamic Duo. Their first foray? A good old fashioned mystery.
The Good
Early in the story Batman & Robin are called in by Gordon to investigate the body of a john doe who plunged from a rooftop dressed as an angel, complete with glowing wings. With all the cosmic and supernatural goings on in the Batman world lately it's refreshing to see "The world's greatest detective" doing some gum shoeing.
The issue kicks off with a very nice scene of the boys of the Bat Family enjoying a movie. It's nice to see a scene like this with all the craziness going on in the various titles it's nice to just see them unwind and be normal. Even Damian acts like a real kid this issue, though the image of him with an iPod is still a bit odd. When you see just what film they're watching, it really makes this moment powerful, especially after Bruce's speech.
This is the first time in Batman and Robin that Dick has read like he properly should to me. Morrison's Grayson was a bit too neurotic for my taste. He was constantly second guessing himself and lacked the confidence that would come with years of being a caped crusader. No such problem here with Tomasi's characterization. It's not as nuanced as Snyder's work in Detective Comics, but he nails the general personality very well.
Alfred, the world's most bad ass butler!!! The Batman books have an innumerable amount of "holy crap that was AWESOME!!!" moments, but I defy you to find one with more pound for pound bad assery than Alfred tying Dick's bowtie one handed, while steering, full speed, through Gotham traffic. Followed by pulling off a no look pass of Dicks shoes that would make Pistol Pete, Magic Johnson, and John Stockton pause in reverence. I'm weired in this way, but I can generally feel how good a Batman writer is buy how they write Alfred. And Tomasi nails him down perfectly here, I can effortlessly here the voice actor form BTAS saying every one of his lines.
Damian's annoying and snotty, as he should be. Tomasi never pushes him over that fine line between immature, over indulged child with a superiority complex to "please give us another vote!"
Gleason's artwork is very, very nice. And it's an exponential upgrade from Scott McDaniel's (which I utterly abhor) during Cornell's fill in arc. He especially shines during the sections with Man-Bat. His work on the last couple of pages is superb and really captures the off kilter feel of Tomasi's dialog for Langstrom.
The Bad
Die, Batman Inc. logo, die and burn in a 1,000 Hells!!!!
I'm loving Gleason's art on this book but it's hard to tell Dick and Tim apart in their civilian clothing
As much as I like Langstrom, he's been relegated to the roll of being the goto character/plot device to signal weirdness in the Batman world ever since Morrison took over the main title. I'd like to see his role expand beyond this.
The Verdict
Buy This Comic
While I wasn't in love with everything Morrison did with his run on this title, I knew whoever stepped in would have some huge shoes to fill. Well I can say that with that this new creative team makes one hell of a first outing and shows that they've got what it takes to not only live up to lofty expectations, but to effortlessly exceed them. This issue serves as living proof that Tomasi and Gleason stand poisted to leave an indelible impact on this title.
