Batman and Robin #17 review

We’re deep into the ‘Memento’ serial and things are hotting up. At Arkham Tower to question Scarecrow Jonathan Crane about a legendary plant which may be connected to what he believes is a copycat killer homaging long-ago crimes, Batman has been caught up in a riot. Robin isn’t at his side because Damian is volunteering at Gotham’s Sacred Heart Medical Center, thinking it could be a way to do more good than vigilantism.

Batman does have one ally, Parisian cop Lieutenant Katherine Lautrec, whom he first met when an undercover, teenage Bruce Wayne was in London learning how to work a case. That case also involved an apparent admirer of Memento, who first struck in Victorian Gotham. And she proved very sharp.

Damian, meanwhile, is talking with Dr Malik Bashar, who studied under his doctor grandfather.

Writer Phillip Kennedy Johnson and illustrator Javi Fernández are creating a modern classic with ‘Memento’. The action is near non-stop, but so are excellent character moments. Fernández does a remarkable job with the big blockbuster moments, with diagonally stacked panels feeding the fast and furious feeling, but he’s also adept in the quieter corners of the story, capturing the small looks that speak of big emotions. There’s a particularly fine scene here in which Damian asks Bruce some fundamental questions, sparked by a look at his grandfather’s journal.

The conversation is cracking, thanks to Johnson’s deft dialogue and the smart staging of Fernández – look at how Bruce seems to be literally crawling away from a tough talk when he’s actually just trying to stand up.

And the moments when Batman sees Memento – maybe real, maybe induced by a hallucinogen – are fantastically eerie.

Fernández steps away for the flashback scenes, allowing Carmine Di Giandomenico to show us young Bruce – sorry, ‘Jack’ – and the excellent Katherine working the Memento case. His sketchier approach contrasts with Fernández’s more impressionistic work, complementing it. Both men are lucky to have the superb craftsman Marcelo Maiolo giving extra life to their visions, his work blazingly bright or marvelously murky as required.

Steve Wands lays out the letters with his usual pizzazz, the font work being a model of clarity… the art deco style used for captions is particularly pleasing.

The cover by Fernández is coloured by Dave McCaig, and together we get a daringly dark image that lets us know without question that something monstrous lurks in the Gotham streets.

We’re four issues into the new creative team’s run on this book and it’s been transformative; they’ve managed to make the well-trodden tropes of ‘young Bruce training’ and ‘a killer from before Batman is back’ fresh. The careful characterisation of Damien – the super-cocky act-now-think-later rebel is becoming a thoughtful young man – is a big strength of the story. And I love seeing the way Batman is helping his son become a detective – last issue had a terrific sequence in which Damian is having to constantly switch languages as he accompanies his Dad on patrol, while every crime scene sees Bruce asking, ‘what do you see?’.

Don’t sleep on this series – it’s the best Batman book around.