Batman and Robin #14 review

Gotham City, 1892, and ritual follows the death of a man.

Gotham City, 2024, and Batman and Robin are enjoying a night on the town.

Gotham City, 2024, the next evening, and Bruce and Damian Wayne are not enjoying a night on the town. The tuxedos are itchy and Oracle says there’s a chance of trouble as father and son attend a do to welcome the new Director of the Sacred Heart Medical Center.

The DC All-In promotion comes to Batman and Robin and brings a new core creative team, writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and artist Javi Fernández. They make a big impression with an issue that begins with creepy intrigue, moves on to a hi-octane car chase and climaxes with our heroes out to stop horror at a hospital. There’s also room for some downtime with Bruce and Damian, including a moment acknowledging that of course the dead Ra’s al-Ghul will be back.

I liked this issue a lot. So far as the story goes, Johnson is one of the best plotters around, able to weave a longform story without rambling. It’s fun to see Bruce trying his best to be a Dad – stern when needed, quick to show how much he trusts his son, but a long way from dear, somehow-still departed Alfred when it comes to feeding the kid.

Micronutrients. Yum. I can see Damian not wishing to ‘waste’ time on meat and two veg, but by golly the Wayne butler would have made him eat his greens.

The growth writers have given Damian over the last few years continues, with his learned brusqueness tussling with a growing, and likely natural, empathy.

That eerie opening page, which presages interests things towards the end of the chapter, shows there’s always ‘new’ history with Gotham to be mined. What makes this different from the never-convincing Court of Owls conspiracy is that Bruce is well aware of his home’s past, as he would be.

Car chases are notoriously tough to make work in comics, but Fernández pretty much pulls it off, encouraging the eyes to zoom from panel to panel while freezing the right moments to get across what’s happening. And the climax, a full-page shot, captures Damian’s heroic personality perfectly.

Equally, Damian’s boredom is easy to see in the downtime, while Batman’s public face as Bruce Wayne, millionaire playboy-also-philanthropist is well captured. He looks like a Hallmark leading man, with his perfect hair and top tailoring. The first time we see Bruce and Damian in their matching dinner jackets, posing for photographers, is great – colourist Marcelo Maiolo really understands how light falls. It’s a skill that also come in handy when Bruce descends into the gloomy bowels of the hospital.

I’m forever moaning about unnecessary cursing in comics, but sometimes the moment justifies it – and here it gives letterer Steve Wands a chance to show how clever and creative he is.

One query involving the lettering – I love the Art Nouveau, Charles Rennie Mackintosh font, but what’s with all the extra numbers on the time check?

Good on DC for not relaunching this series with a #1, as Marvel would have done due to there being a new creative team – heck, sometimes they do it when it’s the same people >cough She-Hulk cough<. A new logo would have been appreciated, though, the current one is as flat as a pancake so far as visual interest goes. Happily, the cover image by Fernández and Maiolo is a winner.

In a world where there’s probably a dozen Batman books every month, it’s difficult to know where to look. And in a week when there’s a massive launch in Absolute Batman, this comic risks being overlooked. That would be a mistake, as Johnson, Fernandez and partners – including editors James Reade, Ben Meares and Rob Levin – show you don’t need to throw the baby out with the Bat-water to make a thrilling, great-looking comic.