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Review: Damian: Son Of Batman #1

By | October 31st, 2013
Posted in Reviews | 3 Comments

Picture, if you will, a world where Damian did not die during the events of “Batman Incorporated” #8. A world where, instead, Batman died, but in an entirely unrelated incident. A world where no one’s really sure when this was supposed to take place, but just went a long with it anyway. A world where Damian… becomes Batman.

Written & Illustrated By Andy Kubert
Damian Wayne, the son of Batman, has adopted the cape and cowl as his own… but what horrific events set this troubled hero on the path of his dark destiny? It’s a possible future that may never be in this epic miniseries written and drawn by one of Damian’s co-creators, Andy Kubert!

Well, ok, Damian doesn’t really become Batman here, but it is only the first issue. What does happen here… isn’t an awful lot, to be truthful. Andy Kubert, who help co-create Damian Wayne as he was introduced way back in “Batman” #655, returns to illustrate and write this imaginary story the serves as a prequel to the Damian as Batman story from “Batman” #666. That’s really all you need to know going into this story as it has no connection to anything else. Right off the bat, we see that instead of using a major moment in Grant Morrison’s Batman saga to subvert Kubert opted to create a whole new scenario in which Batman dies. Spoiler alert, by the way, but the cover really gives it away anyway and it would be hard to talk about the issue without mentioning it. That’s really the first of a number of curiosities present in Kubert’s writing here. While the fact that he didn’t simply retell “Batman Incorporated” #8 and switch Damian with Batman isn’t a bad thing, the method in which Bruce does bite the big one is positively… pedestrian. Kubert created a scenario which, by all counts, probably shouldn’t kill Batman… and yet somehow it does. Perhaps there’s a comment on Kubert’s part in how Batman dies suddenly and unexpectedly, but it’s a strange way to open the issue.

And that’s just the start of the strangeness of this issue. Kubert’s writing is, to put it charitably, all over the place. There’s no real consistency in tone or feel to the book and, most importantly, in his writing of Damian. Damian, as the focus of the series, should really be the consistent focal point of Kubert’s writing. Yet just as the divergence point for this series from what happened in established DC continuity is ambiguous, so too is Damian’s characterisation. He seems to flip-flop between overly flippant to the point of becoming a pastiche of Dick Grayson’s Robin and overly abrasive almost to the point of parody. That’s what really kills the book, sadly, as without consistency Damian’s reactions to the death of Batman feel forced and unnatural. Damian seems to go from a rather stable Robin to hunting down villains almost instantly. And yet even when Damian is hunting down said villains, trying to find who caused the death of Batman (despite it being painfully obvious) we don’t get to see it. We see a page of three panels in which Damian attacks three different villains, including an admittedly nice nod to Jackanapes, but we never see Damian interact with them. The closest Kubert comes to addressing Damian’s grief is in a scene where Damian visits confessional with a priest who, for some reason, has been trusted with the identity of Batman and his family.

The biggest problem with this series is a feeling of missed opportunity. The word epic sits right there in the solicitation, but it’s nowhere to be found in the issue itself. For a book that revolves around the death of Batman, there’s no sense of grandeur to it. Instead of seeing riots in Gotham as criminals who were afraid of the Batman finally get the chance to run wild, we see… villains making blog posts about how they killed Batman. In a book that should feel epic and emotional leading up to Damian finally taking on the mantle, it’s brought down by muddy characterisation and unnecessary levity.

Yet while Kubert’s writing may bring the book down, his art is as strong as ever. Thanks to Kubert’s involvement in the first arc of Grant Morrison’s “Batman” which introduced Damian, seeing his art here feels like a return to form. It’s easily the strongest part of the book as it’s clearly where Kubert feels the most comfortable. There’s an especially notable sequence of Damian regaining consciousness that, panel by panel, transitions from painted panels to traditionally coloured panels that conveys the soft-focus muddiness of waking up. There are, however, some unnatural exaggerated expressions, especially on the first page, that bring Kubert’s art down. It wasn’t exactly enough to lift the book above it’s disappointing writing in the first place, but it still breaks the immersion of his art which is usually highly detailed and atmospheric. Unfortunately, there’s not a whole lot to say about Kubert’s art overall. Not much has changed about it since his work with Grant Morrison on “Batman” which means it’s still as sharp and detailed as it was then.

Overall, this should be a much better book than it is. Kubert was an excellent fit art-wise, but his disappointing writing definitely wasn’t. There are a lot of missed opportunities in the issue that could have capitalised on the core concept to create a story exploring a son mourning his father. What we get instead is a small handful of scenes with inconsistent characterisation from it’s lead character no less and very little in the way of emotional draw. There’s an overwhelming sense of “Oh… I guess that’s it, then.” that starts from Batman’s death until the last page reveal which is less of a twist and more of a headscratcher. It’s disappointing to see an issue with so much potential just fail to deliver on any of it.

Final Verdict: 4.1 – Just disappointing.


Alice W. Castle

Sworn to protect a world that hates and fears her, Alice W. Castle is a trans femme writing about comics. All things considered, it’s going surprisingly well. Ask her about the unproduced Superman films of 1990 - 2006. She can be found on various corners of the internet, but most frequently on Twitter: @alicewcastle

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