Rev, Irving’s art does have a smidge of that Wagner style … especially certain panels, which remind me of the covers from Monster Men and Mad Monk and put a smile on my face. Then again … other panels are downright Alex Rossy (See: The happiest moment in Joker’s life)
Well … if Alex Ross could show emotion and tell a story, and not just pose characters in poses and airbrush them into statues.
Maybe it’s just something about a Joker with slicked back hair looking through his crooked fingers that reminds me of Dini’s “Case Study” … and a broken mirror after an acid bath.
No, it WAS the best issue yet. It’s so weird trying to read other comic books after the latest Morrison’s Batman book. “This is good and all but…*sigh*”
Why couldn’t Batman and Robin #14-16 come out on the same day or something :/
This issue was pure, unbridled hotness. I want to be able to go into my shop TOMORROW and have the rest of this story available already. “Don’t you get it? You’re FINISHED.” I LOVE heroic defiance in spite of an obvious disadvantage…
I’ve seen some of the complaints. One was “Why would Grayson take Gordon to the Bat-Bunker and leave Damian there to begin with?” and the other was “Damian’s not even being original – Jason Todd already did the reverse-crowbar therapy thing to Joker”.
I can think of plenty of reasons. As for Damian being unoriginal? Him being “the next Jason Todd” has been a theme since the beginning, when he smashed Tim Drake through the glass display cases and stole Jason Todd’s old Robin costume (except for the lame green underwear).
Perhaps our new status quo could be “Bruce & Tim” back as Batman and Robin, and “Jason & Damian” as Red Hood and … uh … Boy-Scarlet.
what the moronic internet fails to understand is that when it happened before it was shit and nobody gave a fuck. but that scene…. it meant something. seriously, i keep on picking up the comic and flicking back to it.
Wait … reverse-reincarnation Jason = Joker or time-travel crazy jazz Jason = Joker?
I see the comparison between the two. Big time. Jason is a son of two fathers … Batman and Joker. Leaning into “crossed the lines” Joker direction on the teeter-totter.
But I haven’t seen these Batshit insane predilections yet …
Disfigured by the black glove to look like his worst enemy, in response to him fucking with their operation, Jason = Joker.
There’s some discussion in the comments in Rikdad’s latest blog post(http://rikdad.blogspot.com/) but I found most of it on a certain message board which doesn’t keep a permanent database.
I can see where they’re coming from. A lot of his lines seems that they’d fit in Jason’s mouth a lot better than the Joker’s, especially if you ignore the fixed smile.
The “I used to be a Boy Wonder, too” line stands out as an obvious one.
But in a literal sense I just don’t buy it. Oh, there’s the direct comparison between the panels at the end of The Killing Joke and the panels at the end of Flamingo Is Here. The same “it’s too late for me, Batman” mentality.
But if anything it was pure generational reflection – Morrison saying “THIS is Dick Grayson’s NEMESIS” the same way Joker is Batman’s nemesis. Which makes sense. Batman took Dick Grayson and groomed him into being the perfect protege.
Joker’s “All it takes is ONE BAD DAY” worked on Jason Todd. One bad day with a crowbar and some C4 and now Jason is just as much a villain as Joker, whether he uses his villainy for vigilantism or not.
Who knows … some day maybe Damian will have one bad day, and he’ll give the same “It’s too late for me” speech.
(I guess that means as far as Robins go, it’s Batman 2, Joker 1 … and if Damian doesn’t put that fucking crowbar down, Bats and Jay might have themselves a tie.)
But Grayson doesn’t bring Gordon to the Bat-Bunker in the Better Batmobile … by God, that’s the bloody rocket-powered Rail-Car that Harold the Hunchback built for Jean-Paul Valley when he was Batman!
The reason Grayson’s driving on the wrong (or in the U.K., right) side of the cockpit is because the Rail-Car, like the common magnet train, goes in two directions – forward and back, and the chairs in the cockpit spin around conveniently.
Grant’s winked, blinked and nodded at elements from just about EVERY other period in Batman’s existence … it was only a matter of time before something from KnightQuest got in there.
Maybe he’s the Robin fae Doctor Hurt’s alternate “haha, deid wife and kid!” reality (or whatever?), though that would all be baws. Dinnae want Joker to be Toddums at all.
Unless it is written really well, obviously.
Perhaps folk are taking the ‘I used to be a Boy Wonder, too’ line far too literally?
Point of inquiry, the “Wife and Child dead” sequence at the beginning — is that meant to imply an alternate timeline, or is Hurt saying that he’s Thomas but that Bruce Wayne is an imposter? I don’t have the issue in front of me so I may have missed something.
Whatever he’s saying, he’s saying it in black and white and red all over flashback. And we know anything in that color-scheme can’t be trusted, whether it be Bruce’s own memories, which are all Zur-En-Arrhed beyond repair … Joker’s fantasies about slaughtering …
I agree. I think they’re taking the whole “I used to be a Boy Wonder, too” thing a little off into la-la-land. The two have been seen in places that prove they’re not the same person.
I do want to know what Joker means by that.
I mean …
Remember the Black Knight Clone’s WRONG memories? ScareBane? RiddleCat? Joker wearing a Robin costume? Joker couldn’t possibly be channeling perverted clone memories, could he?
Or is he being more general. After all, surely he was a gifted youngster (we’ve seen it depicted before, actually … one of those insular, introverted genius kids with a sadistic streak for poor little animals and a drunk father who beat the hell out of him, and a barely-there-in-the-head mother who fancied herself an artist.) … not to mention his love of the circus.
The clone batman’s memories are obviously just “broken” mash-ups of the stuff we saw in the Last Rites issues, but you can’t wondering why those combinations? Random, or clues, or misdirection?
And as far as the telephone conversation Sexton gets around about the time Jason is getting an ass kicking, what is Sexton being asked to do, and by whom? Has it been the same person under Sexton’s mask the whole time?
I agree with everyone here that it’s not Jason, but “I used to be a Boy Wonder” is still a bloody odd line.
Perhaps this is the part where Joker relays a story about “Dear old dad” to Damian, to show him they have so much in common … Wonderboys and Absent Fathers.
A “Dad” story from Joker would not be the first Dark Knight reference in this issue.
On the Thomas-Wayne-as-survivor bit at the beginning of this issue: I was put in mind of the “turvy world” that Pyg talks about back in the first arc. I’ve always assumed he was raving about whatever it was that Hurt did to him, and that there wasn’t any literal world where everything we know is upside-down. And I still think that. But I was put in mind of it.
so was i, and also the theme of mental distortion to such a degree it appears supernatural. it’s a shame hurt will probably be done with by the end of this arc, he’s such a good bad guy. not quite joker good, but very nearly.
it pleases me that the joker still works so well in this bold new bat world where every other big bad has so far been original. that really is the mark of an excellent arch enemy. bob kane would be proud.
As ever with Morrison the Hurt-as-survivor story is an attack not just on the character but on the underpinnings of the character. It’s an existential attack on the story of Batman. Brlliant.
Gonna be a competition to see which story is the strongest.
I don’t know that it’s my final decision … but I lean toward “Must Die” as the superior of the two, merely based on page count. Three issues, compared to six … eight, actually, since we’re getting our “right after R.I.P.” issues.
Of course, it all combines, and the more the merrier. Something just appeals to the economist in me about a briefer, punchier tale of the rise and fall and rise and fall of Batman.
A nice re-read makes me feel silly for taking the opening pages a bit too literally. Ocht well! I gather Granto is doing Batman 701 this week as well? He (Morrison/Batman)’s killing my wallet but I love it SO HARDDDD (ocht, it’s only the price of a pint, eh?).
it’s such a shame that morrison’s bat-run wouldn’t make sense to any of my casual comics reading friends. not without a few sheets of brief expository text added in there. sure, at first glance batman and robin seems new reader friendly, but you’d miss out on so much stuff unless you know the entire backstory, and in the end the book just wouldn’t have the same punch. esp this final arc….
that’s part of the problem with getting too crossovery.
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July 8th, 2010 at 8:17 pm
Izzit me, or does Frazier Irving’s style remind anyone else of Matt Wagner’s, circa ‘Devil Quest’?
The decadence of the above image only helps, obv.
July 8th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
And really, what more needs to be said?
Down on all four trotters, Piggy!
July 8th, 2010 at 9:57 pm
My slightly longer review:
Is hot sex, and has the bloke from my local comic shop in a cameo role as a Gotham police officer.
Will be reviewing myself soon, once I’ve covered the backlog…
July 8th, 2010 at 10:03 pm
Rev, Irving’s art does have a smidge of that Wagner style … especially certain panels, which remind me of the covers from Monster Men and Mad Monk and put a smile on my face. Then again … other panels are downright Alex Rossy (See: The happiest moment in Joker’s life)
July 8th, 2010 at 10:22 pm
No! There are no Alex Rossy panels! Rinse mouth!
July 8th, 2010 at 10:55 pm
Well … if Alex Ross could show emotion and tell a story, and not just pose characters in poses and airbrush them into statues.
Maybe it’s just something about a Joker with slicked back hair looking through his crooked fingers that reminds me of Dini’s “Case Study” … and a broken mirror after an acid bath.
July 9th, 2010 at 12:32 am
that issue was FEARSOME.
July 9th, 2010 at 12:38 am
‘pay attention’
pay attention, robin – focus, like that amazing magic eye glare irving throws down for dick here – because it’s not zombie/henchmen time anymore.
it’s fucking joker time.
doctor hurt time.
pay attention or die.
it got serious this time out. crowbar serious.
July 9th, 2010 at 2:03 am
big boy time.
July 9th, 2010 at 6:57 am
Frazer Irving is a baller.
This issue was boss.
Dr. Hurt is such a cunt.
July 9th, 2010 at 6:58 am
I haven’t felt that shooken up from a Batman comic since “The Thin White Duke of Death.”
Down, Down…
July 9th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
Maybe the best issue of Batman and Robin yet.
No, it WAS the best issue yet. It’s so weird trying to read other comic books after the latest Morrison’s Batman book. “This is good and all but…*sigh*”
Why couldn’t Batman and Robin #14-16 come out on the same day or something :/
July 9th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
This issue was pure, unbridled hotness. I want to be able to go into my shop TOMORROW and have the rest of this story available already. “Don’t you get it? You’re FINISHED.” I LOVE heroic defiance in spite of an obvious disadvantage…
July 9th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Now this is an event seven years in the making.
July 10th, 2010 at 10:01 am
That one domino that was highly prominent = 3, 7 = C G = The Joker’s gunning for the Commissioner this time around??
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
July 10th, 2010 at 4:00 pm
SEXXXXXXXXXX.
And anyone who speaks out against the Damian/Joker sequence needs to suck it up.
July 10th, 2010 at 6:38 pm
Not sure why anyone would want to do that
July 10th, 2010 at 7:26 pm
Aye, dead guid batcomics, not been this ‘pumped’ and ‘stoked’ for the monthlies since ZUR-EN-ARRRRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHH.
Not sure what else to say the noo, other than echo other folks’ feelings regarding WANTING THE NEXT COMICS NOW. But do I?
I like the wait. It is exciiiitiiiingggggg.
July 10th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
I’ve seen some of the complaints. One was “Why would Grayson take Gordon to the Bat-Bunker and leave Damian there to begin with?” and the other was “Damian’s not even being original – Jason Todd already did the reverse-crowbar therapy thing to Joker”.
I can think of plenty of reasons. As for Damian being unoriginal? Him being “the next Jason Todd” has been a theme since the beginning, when he smashed Tim Drake through the glass display cases and stole Jason Todd’s old Robin costume (except for the lame green underwear).
Perhaps our new status quo could be “Bruce & Tim” back as Batman and Robin, and “Jason & Damian” as Red Hood and … uh … Boy-Scarlet.
July 10th, 2010 at 11:12 pm
Edit: Not sure why anyone who isn’t a dick would want to do that
July 11th, 2010 at 1:42 am
I was equally dismissive of their complaints.
July 11th, 2010 at 2:19 am
what the moronic internet fails to understand is that when it happened before it was shit and nobody gave a fuck. but that scene…. it meant something. seriously, i keep on picking up the comic and flicking back to it.
WHAM!
July 11th, 2010 at 3:00 am
Also, if various Batshit insane conspiracy theories are true, and that Joker is Jason, it’s even better.
July 11th, 2010 at 4:22 am
Wait … reverse-reincarnation Jason = Joker or time-travel crazy jazz Jason = Joker?
I see the comparison between the two. Big time. Jason is a son of two fathers … Batman and Joker. Leaning into “crossed the lines” Joker direction on the teeter-totter.
But I haven’t seen these Batshit insane predilections yet …
July 11th, 2010 at 5:29 am
Disfigured by the black glove to look like his worst enemy, in response to him fucking with their operation, Jason = Joker.
There’s some discussion in the comments in Rikdad’s latest blog post(http://rikdad.blogspot.com/) but I found most of it on a certain message board which doesn’t keep a permanent database.
I can see where they’re coming from. A lot of his lines seems that they’d fit in Jason’s mouth a lot better than the Joker’s, especially if you ignore the fixed smile.
July 11th, 2010 at 8:14 am
The “I used to be a Boy Wonder, too” line stands out as an obvious one.
But in a literal sense I just don’t buy it. Oh, there’s the direct comparison between the panels at the end of The Killing Joke and the panels at the end of Flamingo Is Here. The same “it’s too late for me, Batman” mentality.
But if anything it was pure generational reflection – Morrison saying “THIS is Dick Grayson’s NEMESIS” the same way Joker is Batman’s nemesis. Which makes sense. Batman took Dick Grayson and groomed him into being the perfect protege.
Joker’s “All it takes is ONE BAD DAY” worked on Jason Todd. One bad day with a crowbar and some C4 and now Jason is just as much a villain as Joker, whether he uses his villainy for vigilantism or not.
Who knows … some day maybe Damian will have one bad day, and he’ll give the same “It’s too late for me” speech.
July 11th, 2010 at 8:16 am
(I guess that means as far as Robins go, it’s Batman 2, Joker 1 … and if Damian doesn’t put that fucking crowbar down, Bats and Jay might have themselves a tie.)
July 11th, 2010 at 9:19 am
Feel like an idiot for not noticing this before …
But Grayson doesn’t bring Gordon to the Bat-Bunker in the Better Batmobile … by God, that’s the bloody rocket-powered Rail-Car that Harold the Hunchback built for Jean-Paul Valley when he was Batman!
The reason Grayson’s driving on the wrong (or in the U.K., right) side of the cockpit is because the Rail-Car, like the common magnet train, goes in two directions – forward and back, and the chairs in the cockpit spin around conveniently.
Grant’s winked, blinked and nodded at elements from just about EVERY other period in Batman’s existence … it was only a matter of time before something from KnightQuest got in there.
July 11th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
if jason is the joker someone needs to explain the time frame to me because it makes absolutely no sense.
July 11th, 2010 at 3:04 pm
Maybe he’s the Robin fae Doctor Hurt’s alternate “haha, deid wife and kid!” reality (or whatever?), though that would all be baws. Dinnae want Joker to be Toddums at all.
Unless it is written really well, obviously.
Perhaps folk are taking the ‘I used to be a Boy Wonder, too’ line far too literally?
July 11th, 2010 at 5:58 pm
Especially since Oberon Sexton took a phone call from El Penitente right after Jason Todd was arrested in issue 6.
July 11th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Point of inquiry, the “Wife and Child dead” sequence at the beginning — is that meant to imply an alternate timeline, or is Hurt saying that he’s Thomas but that Bruce Wayne is an imposter? I don’t have the issue in front of me so I may have missed something.
July 11th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Whatever he’s saying, he’s saying it in black and white and red all over flashback. And we know anything in that color-scheme can’t be trusted, whether it be Bruce’s own memories, which are all Zur-En-Arrhed beyond repair … Joker’s fantasies about slaughtering …
I agree. I think they’re taking the whole “I used to be a Boy Wonder, too” thing a little off into la-la-land. The two have been seen in places that prove they’re not the same person.
I do want to know what Joker means by that.
I mean …
Remember the Black Knight Clone’s WRONG memories? ScareBane? RiddleCat? Joker wearing a Robin costume? Joker couldn’t possibly be channeling perverted clone memories, could he?
Or is he being more general. After all, surely he was a gifted youngster (we’ve seen it depicted before, actually … one of those insular, introverted genius kids with a sadistic streak for poor little animals and a drunk father who beat the hell out of him, and a barely-there-in-the-head mother who fancied herself an artist.) … not to mention his love of the circus.
July 12th, 2010 at 12:08 am
i think he just wanks off over that stuff, thrills.
July 12th, 2010 at 10:22 am
sorry, that was a little sordid. i was slightly tipsy.
true though.
July 12th, 2010 at 11:38 am
Nae bother, being sordid is totally in keeping with the tone of the comic, eh?
Bruce’s bad dad loves a good wank.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:22 pm
The clone batman’s memories are obviously just “broken” mash-ups of the stuff we saw in the Last Rites issues, but you can’t wondering why those combinations? Random, or clues, or misdirection?
And as far as the telephone conversation Sexton gets around about the time Jason is getting an ass kicking, what is Sexton being asked to do, and by whom? Has it been the same person under Sexton’s mask the whole time?
I agree with everyone here that it’s not Jason, but “I used to be a Boy Wonder” is still a bloody odd line.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:47 pm
Perhaps this is the part where Joker relays a story about “Dear old dad” to Damian, to show him they have so much in common … Wonderboys and Absent Fathers.
A “Dad” story from Joker would not be the first Dark Knight reference in this issue.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Weren’t the clone’s memories just a nice way of representing the bat-traumas?
July 13th, 2010 at 12:10 am
On the Thomas-Wayne-as-survivor bit at the beginning of this issue: I was put in mind of the “turvy world” that Pyg talks about back in the first arc. I’ve always assumed he was raving about whatever it was that Hurt did to him, and that there wasn’t any literal world where everything we know is upside-down. And I still think that. But I was put in mind of it.
July 13th, 2010 at 10:27 am
so was i, and also the theme of mental distortion to such a degree it appears supernatural. it’s a shame hurt will probably be done with by the end of this arc, he’s such a good bad guy. not quite joker good, but very nearly.
it pleases me that the joker still works so well in this bold new bat world where every other big bad has so far been original. that really is the mark of an excellent arch enemy. bob kane would be proud.
July 13th, 2010 at 10:31 am
As ever with Morrison the Hurt-as-survivor story is an attack not just on the character but on the underpinnings of the character. It’s an existential attack on the story of Batman. Brlliant.
Gonna be a competition to see which story is the strongest.
July 13th, 2010 at 12:16 pm
I don’t know that it’s my final decision … but I lean toward “Must Die” as the superior of the two, merely based on page count. Three issues, compared to six … eight, actually, since we’re getting our “right after R.I.P.” issues.
Of course, it all combines, and the more the merrier. Something just appeals to the economist in me about a briefer, punchier tale of the rise and fall and rise and fall of Batman.
July 13th, 2010 at 1:30 pm
A nice re-read makes me feel silly for taking the opening pages a bit too literally. Ocht well! I gather Granto is doing Batman 701 this week as well? He (Morrison/Batman)’s killing my wallet but I love it SO HARDDDD (ocht, it’s only the price of a pint, eh?).
July 13th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Cheaper still if you duck the bar and drink at home … while reading.
That could be my current disdain for dive bars talking.
July 13th, 2010 at 2:42 pm
it’s such a shame that morrison’s bat-run wouldn’t make sense to any of my casual comics reading friends. not without a few sheets of brief expository text added in there. sure, at first glance batman and robin seems new reader friendly, but you’d miss out on so much stuff unless you know the entire backstory, and in the end the book just wouldn’t have the same punch. esp this final arc….
that’s part of the problem with getting too crossovery.
July 13th, 2010 at 2:44 pm
retro: drinking and reading doesn’t work for me. spliffs on the other hand = WOOOAWAH!
July 13th, 2010 at 3:01 pm
I can see how that would be the case.