Written by: Joshua Williamson
Art by: Nikola Ćižmešija, Simone Di Meo
Colors by: Rex Lokus, Giovanna Niro
Letters by: Unnamed
Cover art by: Simone Di Meo (cover A)
Cover price: $4.99
Release date: June 11,2024
Batman And Robin #10 brings the Harsh/Shush/Man-Bat arc to a close with a climactic battle against Man-Bat and his cauldron of infected bats in the night skies of Gotham.
Is Batman And Robin #10 Good?
What's the written word equivalent of an ambivalent shrug? How about this? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That's the reaction you're left with after reading the conclusion to Joshua Williamson's lopsided conclusion to the first major arc in Batman And Robin #10. It's not the worst ending in the world, but the signs are not favorable for the rest of the series (for however long it lasts) will be any better. When last we left the Dynamic Father & Son Duo, we learned Shush was really a teacher at Damian's school who happened to be a former acolyte of Tommy Elliot, bent on taking revenge on Batman for Hush's downfall. Meanwhile, Damian's principal, Ms. Stone, was really Mistress Harsh, a former assassin trainer employed by Damian's mother. In short, Harsh and Shush were both working at the same school at the same time in Gotham City, and their appearance in Damian's life was one big, incredibly unbelievable coincidence. The issue ended with Man-Bat kidnapping Batman and preparing to unleash a large cauldron of bats infected with Man-Bat's strange brew with the intention of biting and infecting all of Gotham. It's not quite clear what the brew is supposed to do, but hey, who cares about details? In Batman And Robin #10, We catch up with Man-Bat dragging Batman over the city skyline by a chain as the two are followed by Man-Bat's infected bats. Damian gives chase and uses a Robin-arang to snap the chain, sending Batman crashing to a nearby rooftop. Elsewhere, Flatline helps Shush to a nearby hospital for treatment. Before the two separate, Shush gives Flatline a gas gun, explaining Batman and Robin will know what to do with it. Man-Bat attacks Batman and Robin. Flatline shows up and tosses the gas gun to Robin, who tosses the gas gun to Batman, who then gases Man-Bat. The gas turns the infected bats against Man-Bat, similar to the effect Man-Bat's gas had on Batman at the beginning of the arc. When the bats attack and repeatedly bite Man-Bat, the poisonous bites turn Man-Bat back into Kurt Langstrom... somehow(???). With the bats near the roof, Damian whips out a freeze gun and freezes the bats so they can be restrained for curing later. Later, Principal Stone/Mistress Harsh was arrested for running an assassin training club out of her school. Ms. Hall/Shush escaped from custody after getting medical treatment. And Flatline says goodbye with a more-than-platonic hug, choosing not to reveal that she's in contact with Ra's Al Ghul's ghost. Later still, father and son enjoy a rooftop dinner when suddenly... Goliath arrives with a message from Maya that Bane is alive and living on Dinosaur Island. What's great about Batman And Robin #10? Flatline. The budding romance between Flatline and Damian is the highlight of this issue. Bruce's emerging role as Damian's father comes in as a close second. What's not so great about Batman And Robin #10? Williamson's plot is a convoluted mess, overburdened by plot holes, convenient reveals that lack setup, more conveniences than a Brooklyn bodega, and a poorly thought-out concept.
What was Man-Bat trying to do? Turn everyone into bats? If so, why would a brilliant scientist choose the most inefficient delivery mechanism possible? Why couldn't he quietly poison the water like every other rogue? What is the incredibly unlikely probability that Shush and Mistress Harsh would be secretly working at the same school at the same time? Zero. The answer is zero. Stop guessing. It's zero. And zero is also the amount of effort Williamson put into making you believe it. Why is there no mention of Batman's robotic hand, Failsafe, or Absolute Power? Williamson went out of his way in the early issues to link this series to the main title by bringing up Gotham War, so what happened? How's the Art? The art is clunky for different reasons. Di Meo and Ćižmešija have significantly different styles, and the breakpoints between the artist handoffs aren't natural. The issue waffles from one artist to the next and it looks as disjointed as it sounds.
About The Reviewer: Gabriel Hernandez is the Publisher & EIC of ComicalOpinions.com, a comics review site dedicated to indie, small, and mid-sized publishers.
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Final Thoughts
Batman And Robin #10 brings the first arc in this series to a close with lots of action and a few emotional beats. That said, Williamson's central plot concept is poorly thought out, the script is riddled with plot holes and unanswered questions, and the art team's disparate styles don't mesh well. In all, this finale and the arc as a whole are a miss.
3.5/10
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Absolute garbage. Why? I already explained my reasoning in the previous issues so I won't bore anyone here again. There is no character moment here, that person there isn't Batman and everyone are out of character and veryyyyy shallow. Flatline is boring objectively cause they don't give her anything important to do and the plot is nonexistent, why is this 10 issues instead of 3 or 4? they would have introduced characters, had dramatic plots and conclusions if this was written by better writers in just 4 issues and would be way more memorable. So no this issue or the previous issues had no highlights sadly and are absolutely a horrible read especially if anyone has read a batman and robin series in the past. 1 out of 10 cause the art is still horrible too.
ReplyDeleteI guess I am the only one who thinks Williamson is a bad writer at this point on all his series currently cause Superman has become boring for me as well ( nothing against the guy personally just his writing)
Don't worry, plenty of Deathstroke fans will agree with you on Williamson. Many are still fuming over his Deathstroke Inc and Dark Crisis and overall treatment of Slade's character and his family. Here Williamson at least seems to like Damian and actually remember his own pet when Williamson before ignored Slade's living family who wasn't Rose and his new edgy Damian Half Brother Son Williamson himself created to die. and prior to those aforementioned books I didn't have a problem with Williamson but more and more you see his biases and cracks in his writing.
DeleteSee that's the thing, I feel like he used to write wayyyy better than this. And I mean this for Damian and Connor Hawke specifically cause those two could be argued his favourites maybe but now Damian is written horribly in this series, there is no wit or intelligence or edge to him at all! I don't know how could the same person who wrote "I have taken abuse all my life" moment for Damian, write this series , what happened??? I don't think the Robin series is good as a whole, it has a lot of weak issues especially towards the middle and end after they defeat the Lazarus demon and a lot of the side characters are paper thin but there is at least some character stuff going on in some of the issues. And I have read his brief Batman run, his Batman there compared to now is night and day. Also Connor was written way better there compared to his GA run.
DeleteOn the topic of respawn, he could have been an absolutely cool character but he completely forgot him and instead went with the weaker quirky- seen -this -type -hundred- times -before Flatline. He has actually completely brushed aside everything to do with the Deathstroke arc he did, you reminded me. He wrote a very understandable antagonist aka Geo Force but then did nothing else with him too. They just retconned him to be bad and in prison and didn't at least go back to give him more roles. In conclusion there was always weak spots in writing but if I had to pick only one spot where it got worse from then on, I would pick the Deathstroke shadow war or whatever it was called.( it was such a cool idea but was written horribly and was promptly forgotten)
I do agree with you, he was better before at least with his obvious favorites like Damian. Not counting some demands from higher-ups, I do wonder if Williamson is just struggling from juggling multiple projects and this causes certain ones to suffer. Since post-Death Metal he's basically been DC's architect and dealt with supposed big event books that went no where. Now maybe his G.I Joe and other indie work have taken priority so DC books can lag a bit especially with the buzz of Absolute Power changing and ending a lot of books already.
DeleteOn Respawn, I actually don't have a problem with him being created and want to like him more. There's potential to expand the Wilsons and use him to have Joey and Rose attempt to help him and examine the tragic family legacy of not just their father but brother Grant as well. As you said he was created, killed, quietly brought back, and now seemingly forgotten about at a time he be more prominent with Slade dead. Kind of expected him to pop up in this book and continue to be a dark reflection of Damian but that doesn't look the case yet. Oh God, Shadow War was waste and definitely the beginning of the end for Williamson 's track record. Geo-Force was plucked out of limbo to be a villain but one that actually had a point only to be put in a worst light than freaking Talia and thrown away. Speaking of which, Williamson didn't really do Talia much favors in that event. She stupidly wasted time and manpower as well as could of potentially made things worst for herself by going after other big league villains that Slade worked with prior nor would he care if they died. As opposed to Talia just going after his living children, his best friend, and ex wife who save for Rose again she ignored through out the event. Maybe for the best as I did not want to see any of those characters likely show up to die and DC further squander the potential from Rebirth Deathstroke.
Respawn is dead - no reason to bring him back
DeleteJim- he isn't dead though. They showed him at the end of the Robin run secretly keeping tabs on Damian. If he was dead I wouldn't have necessarily wanted him brought back but they made a point of showing he is still on the Lazarus Island or something then completely ignored him for a long time. Unless he died again since the end of Robin somewhere else that I am not aware of.
DeleteMy takeaway was different. For me the problems in this issue are the same problems that have plagued the series, and are rooted in the mishmash of the creative team. The strengths of the the writer, artists, colorist...and even lettered clash. I feel Williamson's scripts are work best when paired with artists that convey subtle nuances in emotion. The little shifts in body language, facial expression and mood that focus the story on the characters internal progression. Unfortunately, this the styles here are not suited to that type of story, instead the characters are plastic, almost positioned like toys on the page....toys that are so similar, the Robin in the story could be Tim, Jason or Dick. The "mystery" of Harsh and Shush failed because the script and images didn't align. As a reader I couldn't see any "hints" to invest me in the "mystery" as every female character looked the same, and had the same muddled color scheme. ManBat failed for me as I couldn't "see" who he was. I just saw Ras al Ghul with wings. As a result, I couldn't feel pity for a scientist endeared by science. The team on the series--as strong and talented as they all are--just hasn't worked for me. Their strengths do not fit together on a book that depended on the team slotting together.
ReplyDeleteBut that said, Goliath and Maya left me smiling as I finished the book and l brought my rating up. I am hopeful for the next storyline, particularly after seeing some of the art that has been released as I could at least tell who is who.
I respect this perspective, there is definitely truth to it but I have to say, a lot of the blame still rests with the writer himself. No amount of good art would answer the many many plot holes and the out of character dialogue and the fact still remains that this storyline was way too padded when it could only at best have been 5 issues. For example a lot of the same problems with plot and character voices are also in the GA series Williamson is currently writing as well, quite identical in fact but the art there is way more coherent than here, the art didn't solve the problems with script. I have also read many well written plots in comics before that have had more incoherent art than this, but the strength of those scripts went so far as to make me not mind the art at all and be even kind of fond of them at least if not find them beautiful. ( a good example for me personally is the Nightwing and Batman one shot story Bloodborne by Kelley Puckett. The art was jarring on its own for me, but it is such a well written plot with strong characters that it genuinely made me fond of the art where I would not have been if that art was on a mediocre script let alone on a horrible one like this series)
DeleteHowever I definitely agree that the horrible art is not helping this series at all, a good art probably would have made this series more palatable but I am selfishly glad for it cause it makes all the problems with the writing more apparent when there is no good art to dazzle.
I like Goliath and Maya, but if you don't see them for what they are - a fan service moment to forget that this arc ended with little to no explanation at all then I feel bad because you were being duped! Here is the Joshua Williamson tell in most of his series - if something is solved in a bullshit manner without any explanation, within a couple of pages you will get a big fan service hugging reunion moment to try to divert your attention. It happened multiple times in Green Arrow already as well! There are at least 5 huge plotholes in this issue alone and Batman does absolutely nothing to solve anything in this series - somebody else ends up always figuring things out and just hands it over to Batman!
DeleteJim- I completely agree, Damian isn't faring any better in that regard either. They just handed him the address of the cult, explained everything to him about it when he wasn't even aware Batman was taken by them then also handed the cure to give it to Batman. Why Shush couldn't have explained the cure part to Damian when she was explaining everything else I don't know but then we wouldn't have 4 or 5 pages of filler of Batman and Robin fighting the cult with no result and no strategy till Flatline arrived with the cure and also it gave an errand for flatline to do so it would justify her presence in the story. It robbed Damian or Batman having to make the cure per Shush's instructions to at least contribute something important to the fight and I I suspect it was just done so we would have an action scene in the finale. It's bad writing at the cost of characters to stretch the plot for an issue. Same with GA as well. In fact as both you and I and many others have said, this two runs by Williamson is weirdly identical in problems they are having.
DeleteAlso I really don't want Maya brought up in this series, she is such a well written character and her story had genuine heart behind it so to have her arrive to then be as shallow and out of character as everyone else in this series really bothers me. I wish they would just stick with Flatline or shush or Harsh or any other cring character from recent runs, at least then I wouldn't care what happens.
It shows why Batman and Robin are so famous in comics. The story is as exciting as our MRI property management software, blending classic ideas with new ones. It's a must-read for fans who enjoy both old and new storytelling.
ReplyDelete