These aren’t really spoilers, because on the surface level of the narrative they’re so minor:

-The “Flamingo” killer, who’s apparently coming to Gotham next issue to take care of Batman, showed up in the future-glimpse Morrison-penned Batman #666. At that time Flamingo was an underling of the “Third Batman”, the delusional guy who thinks he’s the “antichrist” to Dr. Hurt’s “Devil”.

-At the party scene in this issue, a few references are made to Bruce Wayne’s family name being dragged through the mud recently. This goes back to the Black Glove plot, in which allegations of debauchery were made against Thomas and Martha Wayne–and we don’t know for sure how much of this stuff was true. (Actually, this idea of Morrison’s, about Thomas Wayne’s having powerful enemies who want to discredit the Waynes’ public standing, goes back even further, to a backup feature of Aztek the Ultimate Man (I forget which issue).)

…This unconventional way to begin a review of Batman & Robin #4 is just to let you know how many plates Morrison’s Batman run is still spinning, if only subtly in the background, away from the prime-focus of most readers. So while, on the one hand, I could gripe a bit about how I liked Morrison’s Batman between issues #663 and #683 way more than I like Batman & Robin, on the other hand I’m still able to feast on the references Morrison still makes to these plot threads. While those earlier issues–starting after “Batman & Son” and through R.I.P.’s aftermath–got me ridiculously jazzed-out by their difficulty and allusiveness, I can still appreciate the fairly conventional “Action! Fight the bad guys!”-fun of Batman & Robin. And, truth be told, it was about time for something different, a different tact and mode of storytelling, especially since gloomy Bruce Wayne is gone for a while.

So when I give the writing a 4, just take that to mean that I still fucking love it–and Morrison’s Batman continues to be the writer-character pair I’m most interested in by a mile–but I just don’t consider an issue like this to be worthy of a 5. The disorienting virtuosity of Batman #673–which is possibly my favorite single issue ever, though Morrison isn’t my favorite writer–that’s a 5. The foreshadowing seed-dropping of Batman #666–which seemed a curious non-sequitur at the time but has since developed into almost a Rosetta Stone of this saga–that’s worthy of a 5. But Batman & Robin #4 is still good writing; there just wasn’t anything here to WOW me or make me think too deep, too long, at all. Also, the interactions between Dick and Damian seemed a little disjointed this time around. But maybe that was the fault of the artist, who may not have portrayed everything he needed to. (What was Damian’s motivation to ask “What?” at the top of that one page, for instance? Was Dick supposed to be looking at him intensely or tapping him or something?)

Yeah, I really didn’t care for Tan’s art. How can so many people praise this when many of them poopoo’d
Tony Daniel when he was Morrison’s partner (…yeah, I’m going to leave
this sentence just as it came out naturally)? Daniel obviously had
flaws, but this art of Tan’s looked very sketchy and overly gloomy. Almost like a
parody of black-heavy “dark” ’90s comics. (Were they going for some sort of record as to how much black ink could be used in 22 pages?) Many characters who weren’t in the foreground looked too simplistically rendered: it’s like you’d scarcely know that Scarlett had a disfigured mask unless she’s within ten feet of the “camera”. That said, I don’t think the
art was BAD, just not good. I had expected a steep dropoff in art-quality,
though not a total disaster, and that’s what I got. I guess if I was
even more pessimistic going in–holding my breath and half-expecting
that the series was going to be completely derailed–then maybe Tan’s “…NOT COMPLETELY HORRIBLE!” art would have thrilled me. There were a couple of sequences I liked, though, particularly the motions portrayed in the excitement-filled first few pages.

It’s still a good time to be a Batman & Robin reader. Actually, it’s a great time. It’s not a perfect series by any means–Morrison’s Batman never was–and our impatience for Quitely to return (IF he ever does?!?!) is only going to grow as the months wear on, but…This is great goddamn stuff, with Dick and Damien and a new exploration of  Batman–in just four issues, already a total justification for giving Bruce Wayne a vacation for a while.