First off – Eric Canete has re-opened his sketchblog to the public. He’s amazing. Go check it out.

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There’s a reason I haven’t been writing about comics much here lately – I actually haven’t been to a comic shop (specifically the comic shop I was talking about on Free Comic Book Day), since well, Free Comic Book Day. I’ve had friends pick up some books for me at their local shops, I’ve bought Pluto at Border, but I haven’t set foot in a comic shop in at least a month. Haven’t missed it at all. Stepping into the shop for the first time in a month just showed me how shitty it is, and how little I can depend on these jackasses. I look in my bag of pulled books and it’s three books that I stopped reading months ago. Godland? They didn’t order it. Jersey Gods? Muppet Show? Sold out. Batman and Seaguy? Had to dig them out myself. The place is a ghost town at 4:00 in the afternoon, and if no one’s in your shop and the one person there can’t find the book he ordered – you have a fucking problem. There is no reason to have a pull list if they’re going to ignore it. Looking at this and next week’s releases, there’s only one book (Phonogram) I’m interesting in reading and I’m not going back there for one book they probably won’t have. I can wait.

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Anyway – BATMAN AND ROBIN #!

Everyone has tackled this book and I’m attempting to cover the small area that hasn’t been hit by Jog, Andrew, Plok, Duncan and Amypoodle - the thing is, at a certain point everyone is reading into this book and it’s maybe the least complex thing Morrison  has written in five years. That’s not to say it’s simple, or that theres not much going on – but it’s the straightest action script that Morrison has written since New X-Men was kicking off. At a certain point we’re all just seeing what we want to see. But, with that disclaimer here’s what I’m seeing.

The angle that I’m seeing the most of – of acclimating to Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne as B and R respectively – is something I could care less bout. In fact, Morrison seems to have planned this for years, considering Batman #666 has Damian explicitly mentioning that he’ll never be as good a Batman as Dick Grayson was. The only thing that really impacts the story in any way is that like Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson’s enemies come tailor made for his psyche. If you want to boil the Batman mythos down to one simple concept – it’s that all the negative aspects of Bruce Wayne’s personality end up populating his rogue’s gallery. So it makes sense, once Dick Grayson becomes Batman mutant carnies appear. That’s really the most interesting idea here – not these two guys suddenly finding themselves in positions they weren’t ready to accept. Once you become Batman you are destined to battle your demons physically. The carny angle is kind of obvious, due to Dick’s history. But there’s also a childhood logic to the villains that’s especially creepy. Fairy-tales, dolls, animal masks, men on fire. It’s not the Joker and Catwoman, it feels a lot more primal. Dick’s villains are his own. And if you want someone to feel like this isn’t substitute Batman, that’s probably the smartest way to go about it.

Professor Pyg – who we are given an introduction to here – is played ominously. Methodical, sadistic, the kind of quiet insanity that’s much more off-putting than cackling madness. Mutilating his own henchmen’s genitals and erasing his mind – surgically – in his own home. It’s nothing new, but it’s played as the kind of inevitable event that’s going to be more interesting than something played for suspense. This is happening, and it’s horrible. You get to watch. This scene brings up a lot of images – Bond villains, Jack Lint’s blood-stained smock and baby mask in Brazil – but the flat affect and suburban terror brings up David Cronenberg’s role in Nightbreed.

Nightbreed is a strange movie – while there’s a lot of potential there the script is profoundly stupid, the special effects and acting are awful, and the idea nonsensical. But it’s got some great imagery, a hell of an ending, and Cronenberg. His character there is pretty rote for a slasher to0 – a psychiatrist who hates families and deformities. But Cronenberg plays it with a sadistic glee behind his monotone performance. His monologue draws up a real character even though there’s really not one there -  “No I’m death, plain and simple”. He just wants perfection, and to destroy everything he considers imperfect. Basically this is the character Cronenberg seemed to think he was playing.

But yeah – that’s just an angle. This is an action book by Morrison which means it lives and dies on the artist, which is Frank Quitely. Quitely is amazing, like anyone needs to be told that at this point. Dude is arguably the best English-language comics have to offer right now, so of course it’s good. The pacing here – I don’t think that anyone else could do what he’s doing here.

This sequence – we know it’s Dick Grayson from the dialog, so the obscuring of his face isn’t meant for suspense. Dick is shown in extreme long shots, in shadows, cropped off-frame. It’s only in this scene – this doesn’t carry through the rest of the book. This is specific. Dick is diminished in the presence of everything that was built around Bruce. Dick isn’t just in the shadow of the bat, he’s in the shadow of everything that came with it. So standing in the cave, in the mansion, Dick is  boxed in by destroyed mechanical Dinosaurs and computers covered in sheets. H’s a big part of all this, it’s him in the photos with Bruce and Alfred and the dog, but it’s not him. It’s too large, too much someone else’s life. The second page is worse – Bruce’s unmarked grave set deep in frame, his parent’s memorial looming over him. This is quietly conveying the theme of the issue, possibly the whole 12-point run – sons striving to meet their father’s stature. The shadows and trees of the first panel bleed into the second one. Bruce’s death is pervasive, even if he isn’t dead. Dick looking back, his entire face is covered in darkness.

The darkness is death, plain and simple.