Saturday, March 20, 2010

Robin Beheads Kneeling Batman

Batman and Robin #10, by Grant Morrison, Andy Clarke, and Scott Hanna

When Bruce Wayne died a while ago, I remember wondering how long it would be before he came back to life again. Mainstream superhero comics are notorious for having characters who will not stay dead, with even Captain America's pal Bucky recently springing back to life in a story of unbelievable suckassness, though at least Marvel waited fifty or sixty years before reanimating the corpse. Bruce Wayne may not have to wait so long, for the cover of this issue proudly proclaims that "The Return of Bruce Wayne begins here!". Actually it begun last issue, when Robin and the new Batman realised that as someone had served up a fake Bruce Wayne body then the original had to be still alive somewhere, but let us not be pedants.

The good stuff here mainly focuses around Robin. Robin as a character is usually pretty camp, not matter which of the Robins we are talking about. I am not sure that is as true of this one, the boy Damian fathered by the original Batman on Talia, creepy lady daughter of sinister orientalist stereotype Ra's al-Ghul. Damian is possessed of an iron will and almost Nietzschean will to power, which, given his age, makes him pretty creepy too.

In a brief cameo we are also introduced to two bequiffed henchpeople of some villain that I have arbitrarily decided are some kind of rofflesome parody of Jedward (for all that one of them is female); I bet they are actually some stupid DC characters who previously only appeared in three issues of title that folded in 1964.

Dark Panda

An inuit panda production

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