Look at this cover. Wow. I love it. I saw previews of this issue on several websites quite a while ago and have been looking forward to it since. Billed as the last issue of Batman and Robin before the big DC re-order that’s just weeks away now, this issue promised to be the dynamic duo facing off against an arty expressionist villain (or villains) who turns the world into a living piece of modern art. What’s not to love about that? The Bat vs. Dali.

It shouldn’t be a great surprise seeing that big changes are afoot that this issue may be a little… different from the recent run of Batman and Robin books though, and it is. David Hine’s writing was probably constrained knowing that nothing major can happen as this is the last issue and that people are probably just waiting for that. As a result we get a book that feels like a stand-alone issue. Nothing is cared over from past issues and everything is resolved at the end. It’s campy, fun, action filled and yet a little unsatisfying. The characters are under-utilized, the bad guys are barely seen or explained and the main villain is a pretty lazy rip off. It’s even admitted to in the script that The Man Who Laughs is just an “imitation, an homage” to the Joker. And yet there is fun to be had here.

I also thought that the whole concept of an expressionist painting come to life was massively underused. Instead of Batman vs. Dali, we got a story that could easily have been an encounter with the Scarecrow, or any other reality-changing villain. Things are a little weird, and then quickly they aren’t. The greatest selling point for this issue didn’t really come through.

The art again was good, but felt occasionally rushed. And although it did the job, it left no real impression either negative or positive. This is a shame because I really liked the style of Greg Tocchini (who drew the first half of the issue) but found Andrei Bressan (who drew the second half) style boring at best. It’s just a shame that Bressan wasn’t given the entire book and more time so that his work could’ve really shone.
Generally this comic was ok, but ask me about it in a week or two and I won’t be able to remember much about it