We interrupt your regularly scheduled “Batman Incorporated” review to bring you this special review of Chris Burnham’s interlude issue of “Batman Incorporated”.
Written by Chris Burnham
Illustrated by Jorge Lucas
Batman’s world has been devastated by his war against Talia, but is he willing to give up on his own humanity?
After his run on “Action Comics” ended, “Batman Incorporated” has been the last place to read Grant Morrison’s work with DC comics for the last few months until it ends. It was disappointing, then, to learn that issue did not actually feature Morrison’s name on the credits at all. In fact, this issue serves as interlude to the main story by Morrison about Bruce Wayne’s epic war with Talia al Ghul over the soul of Gotham City. Written by series artist Chris Burnham and joined on art by Jorge Lucas this issue instead returns to focus on Jiro, the Batman of Japan, who was introduced in the first issue of the original “Batman Incorporated” series as he comes across a gang of biker villains.
Instead of trying to recreate the dense narrative structure that Morrison is known for, Burhman opts instead to write a cleaner, more action-oriented romp through Tokyo. It makes sense for Burnham not to try to attempt a lame copy of Morrison’s work, but it just means that this issue feels really out of place compared to the rest of the series. Maybe it comes down to the issue’s circumstances playing against it (who could really hope to go up against Morrison’s last two issues and hope to be better?), but it really does hinder the issue as it’s hard not to ignore Grant Morrison’s shadow lingering over it. That’s not to say it’s all that bad of an issue, mind you. It’s a fun, simple story that touches on characters that haven’t been seen in a while. Unfortunately, there’s just very little here to make it stand out, especially against Morrison’s work up to this point.
Despite being known primarily as the artist for the series, Burnham proves here that he can hold his own as a writer too. The issue is a one-and-done story that focuses on the Batman of Japan and Crazy Shy Lolita Canary, who was introduced in Morrison’s “Final Crisis”, taking on a gang of new motorbike riding villains. Burnham writes a fun adventure with some interesting villains, but there’s just one major problem: the dialogue. It’s unclear whether or not this is intentional in Silver Age callback kind of way, but the dialogue throughout seems oddly stilted. The banter between characters doesn’t come off as naturalistic as it should, especially during the scene where Batman Japan and Lolita Canary are in the Batbase after their first confrontation with the biker gang. The scene feels like it should read as humorous banter between partners, but it comes off as exposition heavy explanations of how the rest of the issue is going to play out that wouldn’t feel out of place in the Adam West Batman TV series. It’s a simple thing, but it just makes it that little bit harder to get engrossed in the story when the dialogue feels so off.
While Burnham takes over writing duties for this issue, Jorge Lucas joins the title as the artist. Much like with Burnham’s writing, the art here isn’t bad there’s just very little to make it stand out. The design of the Batsuit worn by Jiro here is interesting and surprisingly colorful for a Batsuit with it largely being orange on blue, but Lucas’ rendering of the biker gang is the issue’s biggest problem. The gang is group of fiver women donned head to toe in color-code leather and helmets, which seems fine enough. The problem comes with Lucas giving most of them unnecessary cleavage that changes from panel to panel. It’s not exactly an egregious example of exploitation of women in comics, but it’s just enough to break the immersion of the story. Lolita Canary’s short skirt schoolgirl outfit, on the other hand, is a rather different story. That does feel somewhat exploitative, especially seeing as there is at least one upskirt shot throughout the issue.
This issue feels like a victim of circumstance more than anything. Burnham would have been hard pressed to match or even beat Morrison’s writing on the title in the past as it is, but this issue ended up being little more than filler. Which is probably the most disappointing thing about the issue: it came at a point in the series where it is ramping up to the climax of Morrison’s final Batman story which suddenly comes to a screeching halt. This issue could have, and probably should have, been a lot more. It plays around with a number of ideas which had already been introduced throughout the series, but never seems to have any fun with them and only uses them as deus ex machina devices to get the story over with. It’s really disappointing to see an issue that could have been a fun adventure with some interesting characters simply fall flat.
Final Verdict: 5.5 – Browse. If you’re already a fan of the series, it’s probably best to get it for posterity’s sake, but other than that it’s just not quite worth it.
