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BATMAN AND ROBIN #14

In “Batman Must Die!” part 2 of 3, one of our heroes lies near death! Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne enter the ultimate, blood-soaked battle against two foes who almost destroyed the original Batman. Are the new Dynamic Duo up to this final confrontation with absolute evil? If they can’t truly bond as a team, they’re dead!

Written by GRANT MORRISON
Art by FRAZER IRVING
Cover by FRANK QUITELY
Variant cover by FRAZER IRVING

Price: $2.99
iFanboy Community Pick of the Week Percentage: 3.4%

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TheNextChampion09/09/10NoRead Review
Nick Fovargue09/09/10NoRead Review
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Avg Rating: 4.2
 
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Comments

  1. Avatar photo Slockhart says:
    September 7, 2010 at 2:40 pm

    Is it just me, or does it feel like it’s been a lot longer than 2 months since #13?

  2. Avatar photo tschafer says:
    September 7, 2010 at 2:55 pm

    Agree!

  3. Avatar photo JimBilly4 says:
    September 7, 2010 at 3:07 pm

    I just started reading all the recent Morrison trades, so I can only assume they held up the end of this series for me to get caught up. Sorry everybody. I’ll let Grant know when I’ve finished RIP and Final Crisis.

  4. Avatar photo misterckent says:
    September 7, 2010 at 3:32 pm

    It does feel like it’s been a while, but it’s a great excuse to read the last ish.

  5. Avatar photo WheelHands says:
    September 7, 2010 at 4:02 pm

    Been looking forward to this one for what feels like a while. Let’s do this.

  6. Avatar photo MegaPhilip says:
    September 7, 2010 at 4:04 pm

    It feels like it’s been a while for me too…wish Quitely was back on the art!

  7. froggulper says:
    September 7, 2010 at 5:04 pm

    The art’s been fantastic, and so has the story, so I think the wait will be worth it.

    But there’s no way they can delay the next issue so long before all the "Return" one-shots are scheduled. So…here’s hoping that Frazer can get the next ish out sooner and that DC doesn’t unexpectedly have a partial fill-in artist on #15.

  8. Avatar photo Mike Romo (@rikemomo) says:
    September 7, 2010 at 5:19 pm

    anyone remember what happened in the last one?  jeez, this took awhile. I am gonna have to dig up that issue…still, I LOVE Irving’s work, so I am down with it, as they say.

  9. Avatar photo TheNextChampion says:
    September 7, 2010 at 5:42 pm

    I can’t link it up right now, but an article on CBR talks about how ‘overworked’ Morrison is. Everything he’s working on, from all Batman to Joe the Barbarian, has been delayed for about two months then originally scheduled.

    It’s a shame cause I think this is gonna be an amazing issue. If we just judge on the last issue with the amazing Irving art. I’m gonna have to re-read the last issue though to remember what happened.

  10. Avatar photo NawidA says:
    September 7, 2010 at 6:01 pm

    It seems to be Morrison which is reasonable because Morrison has a huge workload (and his old writing partner Millar isn’t around to assist).

  11. froggulper says:
    September 7, 2010 at 6:42 pm

    I’ve heard about Morrison having been behind on Joe the Barbarian scripts, but on one of the San Diego panels it sounded like he was already scripting Batman Inc stuff. So, I dunno whose fault all the delays are. Maybe Morrison was behind a few months ago and now he’s not. There’s probably enough blame to go around for the delays. I don’t mind too much when the final products are this good.

  12. incredibledave says:
    September 7, 2010 at 6:53 pm

    Im happy to wait two months if #14 is as good as #13

    and ill happily wait another two months for #15 if it keeps up the quality

  13. edward says:
    September 7, 2010 at 8:08 pm

    @Conor: one of the covers of the week right there, mate

  14. Avatar photo robbydzwonar says:
    September 7, 2010 at 8:59 pm

    Cameron Stewart’s Twitter account states that he has been working on #17 for a hot minute now.  If #17 is almost done, I would find it hard to believe the scripts for #s 15 and 16 aren’t done already.  I’d chalk it up to a delay with the artists involved.

  15. Avatar photo PraxJarvin says:
    September 7, 2010 at 10:19 pm

    More please.

  16. Avatar photo NawidA says:
    September 8, 2010 at 2:41 am

    @robbydwoznar

    I’m sure they’re done NOW but artists need a while to draw to. 

  17. Avatar photo NathanNicdao says:
    September 8, 2010 at 3:14 am

    Yeah, why was this late?

  18. Avatar photo TheNextChampion says:
    September 8, 2010 at 2:59 pm

    I remember about a month ago that there is no way, ala Cap: Reborn, that the Batman books would be ridiculously delayed. Thus hurting the actual return of Bruce so we do have a ‘Who Will Yield the Shield’ situation on our hands.

    Unless……UNLESS Irving can seriously get two issues out in one month, I see that happening. 

  19. Avatar photo robbydzwonar says:
    September 9, 2010 at 1:37 am

    God, I can’t wait to read this come lunch time!!

  20. Avatar photo xrcst says:
    September 9, 2010 at 2:30 pm

    Meh, I did not like. It started off really cool with the Robin and Joker, but all the other stuff left me confused. A lot of people on this thread were saying how good the art is. Yeah it looks nice, but there were at least a couple of panels where I wasn’t even sure what was going in. Joker/Robin stuff gets a 5, the other stuff… a 3 maybe.

  21. Avatar photo WheelHands says:
    September 9, 2010 at 3:50 pm

    Good issue. Well worth the wait. Not much in the way of clues about the big mystery behind Dr. Hurt/El Penitente/Thomas Wayne, but definitely action packed. The Joker/Damian moments stole the show of course, and even though I saw it coming, the page where Joker turns on Damian knocked my socks off. The stakes are extremely high and Morrison does a fantastic job of conveying that. The bad guys are winning, and it looks like only The Joker can stop them. Awesome.

    Anyone who knows anything about art can see it’s obvious that Irving’s work takes some time. But what he lacks in punctuality and panel-to-panel transtition, he makes up for in style and color selection. I wouldn’t mind having some of these panels up on my wall, and I’m content to be a little patient for a final product like this.

  22. Avatar photo Onic says:
    September 9, 2010 at 6:29 pm

    SO good. Art continues to impress and Grant Morrison is really starting to hit his stride with this issue.

  23. Onlyjosh says:
    September 9, 2010 at 6:34 pm

    Perfect issue in my book, disturbing and beautiful, breakneck pace ending in a cliffhanger. Can’t wait for the big Bat pay-off. Thanks Grant & Frazer.

  24. Avatar photo JaqueNargg says:
    September 9, 2010 at 7:22 pm

    This was great! 5 stars easily. Not quite as hard to follow as last issue (then again I read RIP in between 13 and 14). Really good action here. I was hoping for some more exposition about Hurt but I can wait a while longer.

  25. Avatar photo WilliamKScurryJr says:
    September 9, 2010 at 8:15 pm

    Frazier Irving’s art is SO CLEAN and SO CINEMATIC here. The panel where Damien is rigored into an arch was simply gorgeous. This is like reading celluloid frames as panels in a many cases.

  26. Avatar photo silentbum says:
    September 9, 2010 at 11:32 pm

    Agreed, this is easily shaping up to be my favorite arc of the series thus far.

    Frazier’s art gives the whole story a bunch of wonderful tones and the story has been flowing at a wonderful pace.

    Joker & Damian really do steal the show.  The fact that Damian is hardly the ideal Boy Wonder, even straying a lot further than some of the "disturbed childhoods" some of the kids have had is a great contrast for Joker, who is in on everything.

    So many characters are playing together and the stakes are high and I’m loving each and every moment of it.

    So glad I stuck with this book and I’m definitely sticking around to see where it heads from here.

  27. Avatar photo TheNextChampion says:
    September 10, 2010 at 12:28 am

    Ugh…..I want to say I can’t condone this quality because of the lateness but…..This was so damn good! Seriously, this was sooooooooooo good to read. I know I’m contradicting myself and I hate myself for it; but I enjoyed this issue too much to have the lateness ruin it for me.

    I just want Morrison to write the Joker for the rest of his life. If the comic just came with that intro and there was a printing error for everything else then I would still make this my POTW. Irving’s art is making this late for sure; but look at the insane amount of stuff he needs to work. Endless panels of crowds, groups, and heavy action. Some of the best work Irving has done so far.

    So yeah I’m doing a 180 here, but I don’t care. This was a fantastic issue and I think it’s (so far) the best arc since the first.

    5/5 

  28. Ramulux says:
    September 10, 2010 at 5:35 am

    This was just epic.

  29. Avatar photo ResurrectionFlan says:
    September 10, 2010 at 11:36 am

    I like how Morrison has contrasted probably the most powerful super powered villains Darkseid (which Batman defeats theorhetically in a sort of sudoko mental battle with the magic god bullet) with two humans Pyg and Hurt and made them seem the more menacing ones! Pyg is just so creepy.

     

    Really interesting.

  30. Avatar photo TheTaken says:
    September 10, 2010 at 11:41 am

    This is an intense read!  Very good.  Anyone else confused how Commissioner Gordon ended up where he did and Dick ended up where he did after the explosion?

  31. Avatar photo Franktiger says:
    September 10, 2010 at 7:45 pm

    Morrison’s writing always confuses me, it seems to me that he writes in this stream-of-consciousness prose kinda way, kinda hard to understand at times. 

  32. Avatar photo NoahPlaysNintendo says:
    September 10, 2010 at 9:00 pm

    Fugly.  I love this book, but I can’t stand the art in this issue.  To me it’s Invincible Iron Man ugly.  

  33. incredibledave says:
    September 12, 2010 at 10:46 am

    Absoluetly excelent!

    Love how Joker, Hurt and Pyg are all batshit insane but all very distinct characters. Love the twisty angles and trippy colours which make it feel like the city is going insane. Love Joker’s pimp hat at the end of the issue. And it was neat how Dick’s batons from Batman#700 are now his weapon of choice.

    See you guys in 2 months when #15 comes out

  34. Avatar photo Franktiger says:
    September 12, 2010 at 1:05 pm

    Those would be the Escrima sticks he used when Nightwing, its part of a Filipino marital arts or style of weapon based fighting, also called Arnis or Kali; Daredevil and the guy from Kick-Ass also use those….yea, pretty cool he busted them out in this, didn’t realize the significance of that until now.

  35. Avatar photo RoiVampire says:
    September 13, 2010 at 11:18 am

    The last page, where joker makes the comment about knowing someone who’s good at serious while looking at damian is priceless

  36. Avatar photo drakedangerz says:
    September 13, 2010 at 1:22 pm

    @Franktiger-Dick Grayson has been using them as Nightwing for years.

  37. Avatar photo Franktiger says:
    September 13, 2010 at 2:50 pm

    @drakedangerz – meant didn’t realize that Dick was using them as Batman now; believe me, all my actions figures of Nightwing have his escrima sticks as accessories, that’s how I knew that’s what they’re called actually.  Still kinda awkward to me to see Dick as Batman, been a concept we’ve all had to wrestle with I’m sure; will be glad to see Bruce back in the cowl, when that happens, I would expect Dick to happily relinquish it, but not sure if they’ll have him do that.

  38. Avatar photo kennyg says:
    September 14, 2010 at 12:09 am

    As someone else noted, it seems so long since the last issue I had forgotten what happened in that one. I need to go back and read these back-to-back. I thought the art was really great. Perfect for the mood, loved the Joker, definitely like this better than Quietly’s work on the book. I’m becoming an Irving fan, and I used to be a detractor. The writing? Well, in typical Morrison fashion, we have some great ideas that are not always executed well. He drives me crazy with his jarring shifts around in the story. I’m often left wondering "What just happened? How did we get to point B from point A a few pages back?" Morrison weaves an intricate tapestry with a great degree of depth, but often drops a stitch that throws me off. If he could balance the complexity with gracefulness this book would consistenly be a 5.

  39. Avatar photo Rebis02 says:
    October 4, 2010 at 11:55 pm

    I was a bit dissapointed in this issue, maybe because I thought the last few was so good I had too high expectations.  I did enjoy the Robin/Joker scenes though and thought Pyg was written as completly crazy, which I liked too.  Here’s hoping #15 brings the quality back up.

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