Friday, September 18, 2009

Batman & Robin #4

Grant Morrison's story keeps trucking along, continuing directly from the initial three issues. That does make the artistic shift more jarring (see below) though. The Red Hood and Scarlet are killing off Gotham villains. I believe everyone the Hood dispatches in this issue are new creations from Morrison, which is a nice change. As everyone knows, I can't stand when writers kill off characters that others developed, and Morrison avoids that issue by creating, then killing, his own creations.

Dick Grayson and Damian have a few nice character moments, but for me the best scene of the issue is the introduction of a masked celebrity at a high-roller's dinner. Only in comics. Morrison's idea to have Scarlet twittering during her kills seems like an attempt to be topical, but I've seen it in 3 or 4 Joe Casey books at this point, so it wasn't all that quirky to see it again. I'm not sure if it is Jason Todd under the red hood, but I hope it is. His ranting and rehearsing as he prepares to address the public is one of the most interesting things I've seen him do since his ill-advised return.

Phillip Tan is no Frank Quitely. The art here, while competent enough, is a huge step down from the revelatory work Quitely delivered last issue. Scarlet's creepy scene with her doll-face is decently haunting, but it would be way more creepy if Tan could mimick the odd puffiness from the last few issues.

Fair

1 comment:

Artillery MKV said...

Ugh, the Red Hood, was a really cool design when it was a Tux with the red dome and a cape, this 'standard' Bat-goon with a red dome design is FAR from good.

Really, really far from good. So far from good that there isn't even postal service between the two.