BATMAN AND ROBIN #15

Review by: TheNextChampion

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Story by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Patrick Gleason & Mick Gray
Colors by John Kalisz
Letters by Carlos M. Mangual
Cover by Greg Capullo & FCO Plascencia

Size: 32 pages
Price: 2.99

Well with only two weeks to go until the end of the ‘Comic Book’ year (damn Christmas!) this issue of Batman and Robin just won a coveted award. Yes, it just won: “Most Disturbing Issue of 2012” thanks in large part to Patrick Gleason.

Good lord, just how amazing of an artist is Patrick Gleason? I can see why he didn’t completely do the last two issues considering what he does inside here. The issue starts off simply enough; with Damian trying to track Joker and winds up at the Gotham Zoo. We get some absolutely dynamite pages of Robin sneaking in the dark and a great fighting sequence involving hyenas. I was all ready to just cover this in the review and mention the first page of the zoo sequence was my choice for ‘Panel/Page of the Week’. And then the Joker shows up….and now I’m gonna have nightmares. I am hardly doing it justice by saying how grossed out I was when Gleason’s take on Joker was put on the page. It is really hard to stomach these panels but there is a strange beauty witnessing them at the same time. What makes his Joker different than Capullo’s is two things: 1) His face is basically a blank slate and 2) You rarely see Joker’s eyes. When you did, you see the craziness but for the most part his eyes are hidden. These pages are gorgeous and unsettling at the same time and it is why I can’t keep my eyes off them.

This issue is also a highlight for me because Peter Tomasi writes a pretty damn good script here. His issues, lately, have been ho-hum for me and not up to par from the opening arc of the series. Here though he did an outstanding job convincing me of Joker’s motivations here. It might be too much philosophical for some, but Joker explaining how Robins act and his overall thoughts on Batman’s sidekicks felt natural. Of course Joker thinks all of Batman’s sidekicks are making him too soft. Tomasi’s Damian is still a bit of a brat to me considering what he’s been through in this book, but it doesn’t bother me too much.

For my money, this was probably the best issue of the year for this series. Gleason drew one fucked up Joker and other disturbing elements in here. Of course he wouldn’t have been able to draw these moments if it wasn’t for Tomasi’s wonderful script. I’m not reading a lot of the tie-ins to this ‘Death of the Family’ story but I can’t imagine any of them will be as amazing as this issue was.

Story: 5 - Excellent
Art: 5 - Excellent

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