At the beginning of this issue, there was a panel of the new flying Batmobile firing a missle at a speeding getaway car. When the missle was fired, the comic sound effect was spelled out by the missle’s smoking tail. I wanted to upload that picture onto here and just point to that and say “That’s my review”. That picture details and foreshadows what exactly this book is going to be…A lot of fucking fun!!!

Grant Morrison has accomplished alot in his tenure as a Batman writer. He has written stories that have been dark mysteries (Island of Mr. Mayhew), stories that have embellished on the personal connections between characters (Batman & Son), and even cerebral stories that focus on mind and idea of Batman (Batman RIP). All of those stories have been great reads, though Morrison brings something new to the table with this new title and arc: an exciting and fun action story. I mean, I guess you can say that Batman & Son was an all action story, but compared to Batman & Robin, that story seemed to be missing the fun and silly element that’s ever present here. In this issue alone, many silly concepts were intoduced to Morrison’s epic Batman tale, including a flying Batmobile, a bumbling frog henchman, and a extremely creepy villain who brainwashes his victims with even creepier doll masks. All of this seems pretty reminiscent of the Batman days of old, when Batman would chase down colorful and extravagent villains instead of mob bosses and typical drug dealers. This makes sense, however, as that seems to fit Morrison’s motif for Batman, wherein each arc, he introduces a more viseral take on an old relic from Batman’s long past. Before it was Damian, The Club of Heroes, and Bat-Mite. Now it seems that the campy swashbuckling aspect is getting the Morrison treatment, and it’s an absolute blast to read. It’s kind of like what would happen if Grant wrote an episode of the 60’s Adam West Batman.

 Not to be outdone, Frank Quitely delivers his best of the unique art he does. The first time I saw his art was on his run on The Authority, and while I thought his widescreen style of drawing did wonders for the stange environments and action sequences, I thought his characters were ugly as shit. Especially the faces, as they were always so wrinkled and smushed toghether (Kind of like a bulldog.) However, I read more of his more recent stuff, like We3 and All-Star Superman, and thought his character design has improved tenfold, and that trend continues in this book. This time, the ugly characters are supposed to be ugly, and man, Quitely can really draw some scary motherfuckers. If I saw an army of those doll-faced thugs walking down the street, I’d probably run like a sissy and hide under a cardboard box, MGS style. As for environments and action scenes, well, all I have to do is point to that scene I mentioned at the beginning of the article and you’ll get an idea of the innovative way he paints a scene. I especially liked the spread of Bruce Wayne’s skyscraper, and the cutout sections of Alfred traveling through all the secret lairs and tunnels, a la Life Aquatic w/ Steve Zissou. As a kid, I was always interested in castles and their secret lair and tunnels, so I ate that page right up.

I was thinking about giving this book a 4 for story, but due to the fact that Morrison invigorated this title with much needed fun to get it out of its dark stupor, I’m giving it the extra point. Not only does this book accomplish on every level, but its a very solid first issue that anyone can get into. I’m definably in for the long haul.