Batman and Robin #2 - Comic Review

 

With the first issue of Batman and Robin making reference to the Gotham War event readers of the series may have come to the second issue worrying that the entire thing might already be ruined, as in the last issue of Batman there seemed to be a split between father and son as Batman left Damian tied up in the street, abandoning him. Luckily, Joshua Williamson seems to have gone 'fuck that' and is acting as if Gotham War isn't even a thing; which is the best approach to take and something that I'd rather the books involved in the event would do too.

This issue picks up where the last left off, with a new bandage clad villain (more on her in a bit) has infected Batman with a chemical that turns his very blood into an attractant for bats. We've seen in the past Batman use bats to harass and disorient his foes, swarming them with the animals, and now it seems like it's his turn to be on the receiving end of such treatment. With some help from Damian he's able to get away from the bats long enough to retreat to the Bat Bunker.

As Bruce deals with this situation Damian gets sent off for his first day of public school. This was a part of the series that a lot of Damian fans were looking forward to. After the events of Lazarus Island, where Damian ended up making a lot of friends with other costumed teens, and even got a girlfriend, folks were excited to see him in a school environment. How will he fit in, will he make new friends, will he have rivals, what will he be like in classes? Unfortunately, all of those questions are left unanswered as Damian is in the building all of ten minutes before blowing it off to go be Robin.

It's something of a disappointment that something that was being used as a selling point for the series was so quickly thrown aside in the second issue. Hopefully this is something that we will get to revisit in future issues, and the school situation actually gets to be explored in more detail as what was potentially the most interesting part of this issue was almost immediately tossed out.

This issue gives us some more info on our new villain. Wrapped in bandages, she's revealed to be Shush, further cementing her connection to the other bandage wrapped villain Hush. She's also revealed to be something of a middleman here, ordering around the animal themed villains, whilst taking orders from an unseen figure from off panel. I'm not sure about Shush so far. First of all the name just feels kind of weak, and seems to be labouring the point that she's female Hush, which was already obvious from the costume. Secondly, she doesn't really do a whole lot here, and being a go-between for an even bigger bad doesn't really cement her as a threat all too bad in herself. 

One of the things that I found didn't help with this issue too was the art. Simone Di Meo provides the art, and colours it himself. The art is really nice, and I've lived Di Meo's work on other stuff in the past, but there's something about this book that I didn't really enjoy whilst reading it, and it wasn't until after I'd thought about it for a while that I realised what it was. It's the colours. Di Meo's colours have this effect on them that uses very stark white highlights a lot of the time, even in scenes at night. This has the effect of it always seeming like a characters has a huge spotlight on them, or is standing in the brightest sunbeam that they can find.

This effect makes me feel like the art is being almost washed out at times, and its giving the book a glowing, almost neon look to it that often times doesn't seem to fit the tone or the setting; at least for me. I can't help but think that perhaps the art would look better with another colourist on it, and that whilst Di Meo is a great artist they're hampering their own work by colouring it themselves. 

Batman and Robin issue two is doing a good thing by ignoring the events of the main Batman title, but seems to be taking its time in moving the plot forward, and is skipping over some of the stuff that could make the title more interesting. It's still early days for the series, so hopefully it's just a few stumbles before things really fall into place.

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