Batman & Robin #8

It is amazing what Grant Morrison can accomplish with a great artist. After meeting up with Batwoman last issue, we get to see just how she was captured by some evil chimney sweeps and taken to be sacrificed. I love how Morrison writes about the Crime Bible. He's the best at making it seem like an evil religion, there's something about the crazy way he delivers back-story about it that just makes it seem so perfect for comics.

There are still some conflicts between the London crime factions, but the bulk of the issue has an insane, resurrected Batman taking on NightBats, Batwoman, Knight, and Squire. It is interesting that Morrison gave us the nugget that Darkseid wanted one of Simyan and Mokkari's clones from Final Crisis as a body double for the banished Bruce Wayne. That's kind of a huge bit of plot to pull from a year-old event comic. I'd think people who hadn't checked out Final Crisis might feel a tad cheated. I enjoyed the fight, especially how easily the insane Batman dealt with the heroic crew. Only NightBats held his own for any length of time, though the matching costumes made it difficult to tell who was who. Having Batwoman sustain such serious injuries is interesting too, I'm sure she's going to need to be resurrected in the Lazarus Pit. I don't think that will change her long term, although she may come back infected (right LOST fans?)

Cameron Stewart has a great mix of cartoon and Quitely in his pencils. The war of the Batmen looked fantastic and I liked the shadowed Darkseid silhouette too. I am starting to wonder if this would read better in trade though, this did go by awfully fast.

Good