Batman And ... 21. It's not a uniform -- It's a shroud.
Batgirl joins the title as the next guest star. Meanwhile, Batman is going deeper into his own failure to save Damian.
The Good
Batman is still grieving. With the Batman & Robin title focusing on Batman's interaction with his allies it is interesting to see the viewpoints of each guest star character during this time in Batman's life. Batgirl is no different to this pattern that Peter J. Tomasi has followed.
There were some good parts in this issue. Tomasi did a good job with the ending of this issue. We have Batman and Batgirl talking in the Bat cave and the two are going back-and-forth about Damian and what the uniform means. Batman doesn't listen to anything Batgirl says and totally shuts her down when she offers to become the next Robin. That was cool to see that Batgirl would just stop everything of who she is to bring Batman out of this grieving period he's in. Granted, it is a little stupid to think that Peter J. Tomasi couldn't possibly follow through on this, but it's the thought that counts. And the thought is worth saying good job Mr. Tomasi.
The artwork by guest artist Cliff Richards was okay for this issue. This was an okay issue and Richards did a great job at capturing the design and look of this Batman title.
The Bad
Batgirl in this issue took away the greatness from this issue. The way that Peter J. Tomasi worked Batgirl into this issue was creating two stories; one for Batman and one for Batgirl. While the script doesn't intend for this to happen, Batgirl was really distant from Batman's story. A good example is with Batgirl visiting her father's apartment window near the beginning of this issue. She was talking about a lot that transpired in the pages of the recent Batgirl issues and it had no connection to this issue whatsoever. If Batgirl's integration into this story better, maybe this issue would not be one of the low points at this time.
The Verdict
This was not one of the best issues of the Batman & [guest star name here]. There was cool Batman and Batgirl interaction, however the two characters felt really distant and didn't fit well in with the script of this issue. There were a couple of elements that didn't make sense, however the ending of the issue was obvious because Batman is still going to go out at night and be angry with himself. You can tell that Batgirl did a horrible job at giving Batman a pep talk, but if you can move past all that I guess you can enjoy it. Overall it was a good script that wasn't executed perfectly and the characters didn't interact with one another on a level that would be believable to [us] the reader. 2 out of 5.
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