Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Batman & Robin #5


First, a few stray thoughts. I can’t believe that Batman’s training room is called the Danger Room. I mean, didn’t Marvel copyright that or anything? It just seems odd that Peter Tomasi would take that name so easily. The other thing I noticed is that there is a page in this that looks all messed-up and digitized. That happened recently with the Metal Men collection, surely there is some sort of quality control for that?

Now, as for the comic itself, it is brilliant. Tomasi has established himself as a master of mood and plotting, and his Patrick Gleason makes the story come alive. I don’t want to have a separate discussion on the art because everything fits together so seamlessly. From the new Batmobile’s design (and we see it in action taking out cars in Gotham) to the wonderful, detailed splash page showing Nobody and Damian taking out an embassy full of people. When I complain about splashes in the new 52, this is NOT what I’m talking about. Gleason fills the page with wonderful, unique moments, the best being when the two vigilantes just sneak down a hall behind a headphone-wearing janitor. Just brilliant.

Ducard’s origin is wonderful too. He’s a fairly generic bad ass, but the moment when he meets and dresses down Bruce Wayne is fantastic. It seems all you had to do in order to impress Ducard Sr. was beat the crap out of his son.

A lot of the new 52 stories have only taken five issues to tell, but I’m glad this one is lingering on a bit longer.

Excellent

2 comments:

Always Right said...

If there is a mouse in the Danger Room, is it a Danger Mouse then?

Martin Gray said...

Boom boom!

Sounds like a decent issue - perhaps I should give this book another chance.