Owls descend on Gotham as Williamson pops a Shush on us in BatChat

A new villain called Shush is leading the charge against the Dynamic Duo. With mysterious ties to Damian, Shush wants to use everything our heroes love against them. But far worse than Shush, Damian must face another foe: high school bullies. Batman and Robin #2 is written by Joshua Williamson, drawn and colored by Simone Di Meo and lettered by Steve Wands.

Something dark is crawling from the depths below Gotham. The Court of Owls has failed in protecting a door, and a monster has been unleashed. Now, Batman must join with his foes to stop it before it destroys Gotham. Batman: City of Madness #1 is written and drawn by Christian Ward and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou.

The final season of Adventures Continue reaches its stunning conclusion. Batman must face the combined forces of Ra’s al Ghul and the Talons as the Dark Knight has a final showdown with his deadliest enemy. Batman: The Adventures Continue Season Three #8 is written by Alan Burnett and Paul Dini, penciled by Ty Templeton, inked by Jacob Edgar, colored by Monica Kubina and lettered by Josh Reed. 

Will Nevin: I got some good news, and I got some bad news. Whatcha want first?

Matt Lazorwitz: Let’s go with the good. 

Will: DC is relaunching its Elseworlds imprint!

Matt: That is indeed good news! What’s the bad news?

Will: We got six launch titles, and here are three of them: Gotham by Gaslight: The Kyptonian Age, Dark Knights of Steel and DC vs. Vampires: World War V. What, couldn’t come up with a new Red Son book to throw in there?

Matt: Hey, if these sell, then we can get all sorts of weird new concepts. I’m not necessarily defending a lack of imagination, but when capitalism is in play, you gotta do the safe pic before you do the Oscars pic. In the year 2023, did you think we’d launch like we did in the original Elseworlds line, with that greatest of all monkey astronauts, Batman: Holy Terror?

Will: All hail Holy Terror! We’ll rerank that on the podcast list … one day.

Batman vs. Bats

Matt: While I enjoyed this issue similarly to how I enjoyed the first issue, I am worried about the pacing on this book. I feel like, two issues in, not much has happened. The first issue set up Bruce and Damian’s new status quo. This issue did a little more setup, establishing something about our villains, but it still feels like it’s two issues mostly of prologue. I’d be more OK with that if we spent more time getting into Damian’s head, or digging deeper into the Bruce/Damian dynamic, but a lot of that, while fun, has been pretty surface.

Will: Two issues in, and I don’t know what a Shush is, *and* I’m craving house-style art. Argh. You’re right about the dynamic, but it’s been good in its relative banality at least. I like seeing Damian at school, thinking about destroying a bully just before ditching altogether. Seems like logical character choices.  

Matt: And the reactions of the kids in the school, first the interest because he’s Bruce Wayne’s kid, and then dismissing him because his dad isn’t rich anymore? Bruce has been low on funds since December 2020-cover dated books, and we have seen so little of how that affects his  day-to-day life. Having that play out through Damian, in a setting where the social niceties are much less enforced? Again, a good idea, but we have to see how it plays out.

Will: It’s so strange how people bring that up from time to time, but we’ve never seen Bruce have to sacrifice because of it. It’s an embarrassing plot point and nothing more. Alas. But going back to Damian’s bullying, I’m guessing he has a Middle Eastern accent? I’ve never seen that brought up before, and I thought it was an interesting note.

Matt: I would assume either Middle Eastern or that clipped, almost English accent you run across from people from the Middle East or India who were schooled in British schools. But that might be in my head because nearly every Ra’s and Talia across media speak with some kind of British accent.

Will: Love me some good ol’ fashioned whitewashing! But yeah, I think the bigger problem with this book is that there’s no real imperative to continue reading. I don’t feel like Batman is in any danger — he’s told not to go out because bats will attack him, goes out anyway and seems to be fine — and I certainly don’t care about a derivative character of a character who wasn’t much to begin with. This series ain’t sunk, but I’d say it’s taking on water. 

Matt: And Shush has a mysterious master! If it’s Hush, that’s lame, but I can’t figure out who else it might be. Assuming that this is Mistress Harsh from that opening flashback — which is not a big leap — who lost her position either because of Damian or when the League of Assassins splintered, then she has an ax to grind with the Waynes, but why would someone call her Shush if it isn’t Tommy “My ego is so big, only I would think anyone would want to be a derivative of me” Elliot?

Will: I can’t handle another Hush “mystery.” Let it be Tommy. Maybe he can be the guy who finally takes advantage of the depleted Wayne fortune.

Matt: I want to end on a positive note, as this wasn’t a bad comic. Best line is Damian’s response to Bruce when Batman says he wants him to make friends with people he has more in common with than being good at killing: “We also all had bad relationships with our parents.” Both a great rejoinder and very telling of where Damian is in his own head right now.

Gotham Below Calling

Will: Matt, if I had a nickel for every overwritten comic book page I’ve read put out by an artist/writer, I swear, I’d have at least 75 nickels. That’s almost real folding money. 

Matt: I don’t know. There is definitely some stuff here that is overwritten, but compared to some of the other similar books I’ve run across (I’m thinking of one we haven’t reviewed, Rafael Grampa’s Gargoyle of Gotham), this at least never reaches the point where I feel the art is lost under all the words. And I will forgive some overwriting if the art looks as good as it does here.

Will: It looks great, no argument there. And I guess my main beef with the writing was — and you’re right on this point — not that it’s buried under grafs and grafs of text but that the dialogue is so tiresomely ponderous in spots. I get the tone the Talons and the Owls are supposed to have, but it’s a chore to get through, and I think a stronger writer would have been more judicious with that stuff.

Matt: OK, a fair point. I think I like the IDEAS in that dialogue more than the dialogue itself. The fact that the Court has two houses named from the two types of owls, Strigidae (true owls) and Tytonidae (barn owls)? Neat! That they swear to Athena, goddess of Wisdom and associated with owls? Neat! The Court of Owls was introduced, and then has never been deeply fleshed out, so I like the adding to the lore, but it is done in a very tell-don’t-show sort of way.

Will: Here’s why you don’t do more with the art in a story: We gotta let the lettering shine, Matt! You know, have some narration that seems to fade or blur out for some reason. Kids read comics for the lettering.

Matt: Oh, I knew that one was coming! I did like some of the lettering choices. This book is a spiritual, if not actual, sequel to Arkham Asylum, so Batman using the same typeface font is a neat choice reinforcing that. And since that isn’t a pet peeve of mine, it didn’t bother me, but I knew it was gonna bug you.

Will: Every time I read a book in which the letterer approaches the job with the mindset, “Hey, look what I can do!” I die inside just a little more. At least this was only irritating and not actively making the job of reading the comic more difficult.

Matt: I was definitely higher on this book than you are. I love Ward’s art in general, I think his Two-Face looks great here especially, and this concept — Batman vs. some dark mirror of himself — might have been done a lot (we’ve seen two whole events in the past decade themed around it), I think there might be an exploration of how Bruce and some other characters close to him feel about it, which none of those stories ever really has. Plus? Alfred!

Will: A super sad Alfred even! And I’m not gonna lie: The Two-Face visuals were great.

The Adventures Conclude

Matt: What a weird week when it comes to the connective tissue of the books we’re reading. Batman and Robin and City of Madness both use the Terrible Trio. City of Madness and Adventures Continue both use the Court of Owls. I just think it’s funny that, with all the villains in the Batman universe, some keep popping up, especially both obscure and new ones.

Will: I had the same thought — what a funny lil’ set of coincidences. Let me ask you this before we really get into it: Do you take this as being the final story in the B:TAS universe? Or perhaps the final story from the original crew of Timm, Dini, et al.?

Matt: I believe Dini and Burnett were writing it that way. I see the end here, where Talia disappears with the body of Ra’s, as a direct setup for that Batman Beyond story where his mind is in her body. I feel like this was written in a way that bridges the gap between those stories. Now, various changes have been made to this universe that invalidate some of the Beyond universe canon, but not in a way that isn’t fixable, so I think this is definitely building on that timeline, or at least tying it all together.

Will: I know you have *way* more skin in the B:TAS world than I do, but this felt like a satisfying conclusion. We got the insanity of seeing the entire rogues’ gallery fighting Ra’s and his Talons. We had our suspicions about Ra’s plan to feed the world affirmed. Really, short of giving Batman the happy ending he’s earned, I don’t know how else you’d close out a universe. The detective went out on top beating a practically immortal adversary. It’s a good W to close with. 

Matt: No argument there. Reading it made me realize that TAS Catwoman and Talia had never actually met before, so it was fun to throw those two characters in together. And just an art note: TAS always did its best to streamline the designs for so many characters. The fact that Talons work pretty much exactly how they look in the comics in this style tells me how well they were designed to begin with.

Bat-miscellany

• This week’s BatChat podcast has three stories featuring Batman’s other secret identity, the two-bit mobster, Matches Malone.

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Matthew Lazorwitz

Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of five. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the creator interview podcast WMQ&A with Dan Grote.

Will Nevin

Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.