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Great read! I don’t know how long the series will end up being before Morrison decides to either leave the title or close off the book on his way out, but I want Cameron Stewart back for at least one more storyline.

Damian seemed to move quite a bit considering the injuries and operation he sustained. However, he is not pulling the kind of stunts he does when he’s in full health so it wasn’t that big of a deal.

Very glad we got to see two pages of Knight and Squire after Dick and Kate left London. I really wish to see a Knight and Squire mini-series some day.

Heh, “Evil Batman” is speaking like the cyber-animals from WE3 …

A quibble: The Knight and Squire weren’t created by Grant Morrison, but by Win Mortimer. Arguably, this Squire (the third) was Morrison’s, but the team itself has been around for sixty years.

“Heh, “Evil Batman” is speaking like the cyber-animals from WE3 …”

That’s why Brian thinks “evil Batman is just freakin’ AWESOME!”

Heh, “Evil Batman” is speaking like the cyber-animals from WE3 …

I was thinking the exact same thing.

I was just happy they finally wrapped up that friggin Crime Bible prophecy for Batwoman that has been teased and rehashed over and over since 52 (wait, maybe they didn’t mean Batwoman…wait, yes they did but the prophecy has been averted…wait, no it wasn’t…etc). This was a nice way of bringing two dangling plot lines to an end (the Final Crisis corpse and the death of Batwoman).

And there’s also the way Morrison ties the seeming joke with the “Pearly King of Crime” into the famous Frank Miller image of Matha Wayne’s broken necklace from Year One.

What I really like about The Knight and Squire is that Grant’s Beryl Hutchinson is really the more competent of the two. She is usually more central to the action working directly with Batman while Cyril Sheldrake works separately and often needs things explained for him. This is true in the three main stories that feature them: JLA Classified #1-3, Batman #667-669 and Batman & Robin #7-9. While they have appeared in other stories (the later half of R.I.P. and Battle for the Cowl) their roles there were as members of a larger group and were minimized.

While Cyril brings the history, legacy and baggage of the name “The Knight and Squire” to the team, it is Beryl who keeps him together as he has mentioned a past of filled with dark periods that she’ll pulled him out of. She also has better technology skills and we’ve seen her pushing him to improve their equipment. Though I do enjoy the hints that they don’t have the vast resources that Batman does and have to scrape by on what they have.

Of course, Beryl doesn’t seem to lord this over him and control the relationship. However it is worth noting how the rest of the characters view their relationship.

In Batman & Robin #3, Dick turns down Damien’s suggestion that they call themselves “Robin and Batman” by saying “Yeah, that’ll catch on.” But in Batman & Robin #8, Dick refers to his companions as “Squire and Knight”. Dick hasn’t even spent much time with them, but he can see who is really moving the group forward.

And yes, there are some really great things in that page of fake Batman’s memory.

The second panel on that page has current joker wearing the original Robin costume, striking a Burt Ward pose from the 60s tv show while wearing the Red Robin belt. Catwoman there is falling from the trapeeze like the Flying Graysons with a Riddler ? on her chest.
Panel 3 has shows a man snapping a twig. It’s Bane’s face and hands, with Scarecrow’s hat and the chestplate of Jean-Paul Valley’s Batman costume.
Panel 4 has a Robin (Tim Drake?), wearing the handmade Zur-En-Arrh batsuit from R.I.P., and an alamgamation of Alfred and Commissioner Gordon looking at a dead Pre-Crisis Kathy Kane Batwoman, surrounded by the broken glass of the Fake Batman’s test tube.

Then of course we have the bullet and pearls from the death of the Waynes.

Plus I think the Batmobile in the foreground of panel 1 is a variation of the one from Batman: The Animated Series.

Am I the only one who thinks that morrison was making commentary of Frank Millers Batman?

No, Randy, I had that idea too. Crazy Batman’s “That’s wot I DO to mi enemies. I no every vulnerable BONE. Every PRESSURE POINT, every tender NERV” and “MISHUNN muss come FURST, Ulfred!” seemed to definately be aping Miller. The implication seemed obvious: this is a deformed and degraded Batman who has turned into a monster.

I think that the evil Batman clone being a Miller riff is a real possibility. Good pickup, people!

Man. How many writers out there could reintroduce Batzarro into main stream continuity, and have it be this awesome.

Between this, We3, the Bizarro World in All-Star Superman, and probably more, Grant Morrison is the master of the comic book word balloon speech impediment.

Zombie Batman was awesome, yeah. I really liked how Morrison gave him the same demons the real Batman has, but with the zombie Batman they’ve driven him insane. Like the scene where he’s about to sacrifice Damian to “save” his parents from being shot: “N I sez WOT duz it take 2 STOP the gunshots n city’s bug blak voice REPLY… THE SACRIFICE OF A SUN!”. He thinks he can sacrifice his son to the city to get back the parents it took away from him. The death of the Waynes is the primal scene that drives both the real and the zombie Batman, but whereas the real Batman uses that trauma to try to stop it from ever happening to anyone else, the zombie Batman is so broken by trauma he thinks he can retroactively stop it from happening to himself. Great stuff!

The use of ‘sun’ rather than ‘son’ in zombie Batman’s dialogue was a very nice subtle demonstration of comics doing something hard to do in other media.

This was a great issue.

I wish Morrison was doing a sixty issue run with Dick and Damian – it’s just such a joy to read.

And I’m with Adam Farrar – The Squire rules!

I wish Morrison was doing a sixty issue run with Dick and Damian – it’s just such a joy to read.

I agree. I’m one of the people here who’s kinda hoping they retire Bruce as Batman permanently and have Dick run away with the cowl for the next fifty years or whatever. Although I wonder how much time it’d take for writers to turn Dick grim & gritty, if ever that happens.

This book has been very very good, even better than ASS, I think, as this book is actually making efforts to tell a real story instead of just doing intellectual riffs on Silver Age ideas (which was what Grant did with Bruce-Batman til RIP) – no matter how interesting that was, it was still largely for what Wolk calls “superreaders,” almost bordering on fanfic. BATMAN & ROBIN is GMozz at his best and most lucid and most fun and entertaining since … since KILL YOUR BOYFRIEND, at the farthest, since SEVEN SOLDIERS at the most recent.

I just kinda wish Cameron Stewart wasn’t channeling Quitely too often in the art, which I know (through his tweets) he did deliberately. It felt like he was working under Quitely’s shadow, when Stewart is a very very very good artist all by himself. Just a very minor quibble in the midst of a great great work. Looking forward to Frazier Irving’s turn!

Frazer Irving will not be joining us next issue. He’s doing an issue of the Return of Bruce Wayne series, though.

And I love it how after reading it, what really stuck with me was Yikes, Bruce Wayne sure has some issues.

Frazer Irving will not be joining us next issue. He’s doing an issue of the Return of Bruce Wayne series, though.

Eh, really? Who’s doing the next run?

Andy Clarke.

Andy Clarke.

I forgot all about that! Thanks!

Although I wonder how much time it’d take for writers to turn Dick grim & gritty, if ever that happens.

I’d hate to have a gritty Dick!

no matter how interesting that was, it was still largely for what Wolk calls “superreaders,” almost bordering on fanfic.

I wouldn’t have said that – it was less fan-fic, and more an attempt to correlate all of Batman’s history into a unified whole – and show us, the reader, how it can all work together.
(whilst also having him beat some guy by being awesome who turned out to be *yawn* the devil).

Andy Clarke.

The chap who did the first two issues of Rebels?

an attempt to correlate all of Batman’s history into a unified whole – and show us, the reader, how it can all work together.

But only for a certain kind of reader, the uberfan who knows Zuhr-en-arr (sp?) and Batmite and Tom Wayne’s classic Bat-Man costume in that party in that issue from whenever, etc etc etc, stuff that are only until recently (until DC republished the relevant stories) province to people more obsessed with Batman than the average reader, which was why I said it was fanfic (although I must admit, I said that a little harshly).

I have a friend who recommended RIP to his girlfriend as an entry-point read for BATMAN, and I thought that that was the most absurd entry-point superhero comic book recommendation I’ve heard since PEDRO & ME.

RIP (and the other GMozz stories that came before) was a great intellectual exercise (as was ASS) but it was really more for a certain niche audience than for everyone, which is how BATMAN & ROBIN is for me, which is probably why some people see it as GMozz in his most normal, which I agree with, only: I find the lucidity very very very good. We can’t have every GMozz book be some peyote-charged treatise/sigil rendered on the 2nd-dimension! We should have some sober stuff from too, if only every once in a while.

And yeah, the Devil thing was a yawner.

This issue definitely made the other two issues of the arc make more sense, and seem much more worthwhile.

holy crap!

this stewart guy does very, very, nicely while mcguiness is over at marvel.

I am apparently in the minority here but I hated this story arc. It makes Dick Grayson look incompetent and hypocritical.

While it’s no shock Morrison ignores what others do with characters before him, Dick Grayson would not use a Lazurus Pit to bring back Bruce Wayne. Not after he fought Tim Drake to prevent him from doing the same thing with his own parents. There were other ways to get that Batman Corpse into the Lazurus Put without Dick being the one to do it. And the whole “Batwoman’s crippled, no problem lets kill her nad use the Lazurus Pit AGAIN thing was equally as uncharacteristic and stupid.

Dick Grayson is not a fly by the seat of his pants hero, who just makes things up as he goes along> He is a highly skilled tactician, trained by the greatest her of all time, and has leadership experience and from his days with the Titans and the Outsiders.

Morrison writes Dick Grayson like someone who lived in a circus all his life and is not capable of planning or handling money, forgetting/ignoring the fact hat he spent more time in Gotham as the heir to a fortune than he did under the big top.

And through all this Mary Sue… I mean Damian sits in the corner scoffing at him and calling him an idiot at every turn. And the way Morrison writes Grayson who can blame the little bastard?

While I do give Morrison credit for some of the things he is doing with this title (the Light Batman/Dark Robin twist for one) I think he really has no idea what makes the character of Dick Grayson tick. This title would be a million times more enjoyable if he wrote him as the capable, competent hero he is.

And the whole “Batwoman’s crippled, no problem lets kill her nad use the Lazurus Pit AGAIN thing was equally as uncharacteristic and stupid.

i thought dick’s “explanation” for using the lazarus pit on the fake batman was enough of an explanation for using it on batwoman, but yeah, as much as i liked this run, this bit was a bit stupid, especially when it only seems that it was there to satisfy a storyline from 52.

[...] from: Batman and Robin #9 Review | Comics Should Be Good! @ Comic Book … Posteado por: yoobz on February 25, [...]

Is it just me, or does Cameron Stewart have a little Bolland in his Batman?

Just wanted to thank xr0b666x for his comment : Morrison has no idea who Dick Grayson really is and what his character is all about. Grayson would never use the Lazarus Pit, and it was so annoying to see Knight, Squire and Dick letting Batwoman die (or even killing her with morphine) and then using the Pit to ressurect her. It was like “hey, no big deal, let’s just get rid of her and then use the pit !”. None of the characters argue with it, nor ask questions, it’s like it’s a simple decision. It really got me upset, since this part of the arc lacks of basic psychology and deepness.