I’ll risk sounding cliche when I
say Grant Morrison and Frank Quietly’s Batman and Robin #2 is good comics. I
can’t really put it more eloquently than that. Almost every aspect of this book
shines, from the writing, to the pencils, to the ink, and most of the coloring.
I could honestly tell by the first page that this issue was going to be great
and it didn’t disappoint.

                The
first thing you see when you open this book is a full page panel of Dick
Grayson wearing the batsuit looking defeated and Alfred inquiring what
happened. Its a simple but extremely effective way of drawing the reader into
the story by showing the aftermath and then obtaining the story through
recollections. Frank Quietly, however, makes it special through his rendering
of posture and expression which make the scene feel so much more profound and
effective. Within the first panel I was hooked. I wanted to know what the hell
happened to Dick that’s got put him in this state. Now imagine the expertise
and artistry required to pull something like that off and you’ll come to the
realization that Frank Quietly is no slouch. This book is full of amazing panels
and beautiful layouts that only get better the more you look at them. Not
enough can be said about the pencils in this issue, but I think I’ll leave it
at that. Its not all good in the art department though. One glaring problem I
noticed was a very strange coloring issue, predominately in the backgrounds. It
reminded me of watching a high def TV interpolating low def signals with
bizarre colorations. This didn’t seem to show up in any of the characters which
makes it all the more complexing but easy to overlook. Its just disappointing
that such a silly problem kept this issue from being great.

                Grant
Morrison has been around for a while and has proven himself as one of the top
tier of writers in the industry so when you buy one of his books its fair to
have high expectations. Its my pleasure to share that Batman and Robin #2
defied even those high expectations. To be fair, most of what happens in this
issue is paying off what was set up in the first but everything is done so
well. The tension between the new Batman and Robin, the new villains
introduced, the conflict between the heroes and police, every element is
incredibly interesting in its own right. I’ll move on before this becomes a
love letter to Morrison.

                Simply
put, Batman and Robin #2 is a great book in what is shaping up to be a great
arc. The new Batman section of the DCU is quickly becoming a juggernaut. Its a
shame that such a perfect comic was tainted by the strange coloring issue but
maybe that’ll be fixed in a reprint. I hope this level of quality is here to
stay, not only for this book, but for all Batman titles.