Batman and Robin 7 ...A mother's and a son's love...

[benicio127]

Sooooooooo. This is creepy. But so pretty!

SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!








And .... wait. Didn't Dick stop Tim from pouring bits of his loved ones into the Lazarus Pit................




Suggested tags: Batman/Dick Grayson, Robin/Damian Wayne, Batwoman/Kate Kane, Talia al Ghul, Alfred Pennyworth, Title: Batman and Robin, Creator: Grant Morrison, Creator: Cameron Stewart

Comments

[From: ghosty732]

I'm not sure how this issue ends, but I'm guessing whoever rises from that pit is NOT Bruce Wayne, which will lead to everyone knowing that the skeleton is not his?

[From: darkknightjrk]

The last page is an almost full-page spread of a gloved fist coming out of the Pit, and the tagline for the next issue is "Batman vs. Batman," so I think it's like the Black Lantern Batman, in that it's Bruce Wayne's body and maybe even skills, but the real Bruce is lost in the timestream and they'll have to take out the Batman from the Pit.

[From: jelly_ace]

And the stew plot thickens...

I'm only following B&R here in S_D, so I gotta ask why Dick wants to revive Bruce using the Lazarus Pit.

[From: darkknightjrk]

Last issue Jason, while being put in handcuffs by the police, screams at Dick for not even trying to the Pit on Bruce, and the reason why Dick goes to London is that what might be one of the last Pits found is there, so Jason's words shook him.

[From: mystery]

I'm only following B&R here in S_D, so I gotta ask why Dick wants to revive Bruce using the Lazarus Pit.

It doesn't make any sense. Apparently, the story logic is supposed to be that Jason brought it up last issue. As in "Why don't you?" So this issue, Dick did. Great story logic!

[From: jlroberson]

Dick says it's just a continuation of his standing vow to always get Batman out of danger if he could.

He's testing the limits of "could" with this.

[From: sistermagpie]

Ah, just missed the part where Dick makes sure to explain his relationship to Bruce. Since this is GM, he's not his son. (That's how you know you're reading B&R--there always needs to be some line indicating that Damian is Bruce's first child ever.)

I liked this issue, though it is hard not to be distracted by Dick of all people using a Lazarus Pit. That's kind of a serious part of his personality that he doesn't believe in that, even when he's tempted. It was just reiterated in Resurrection of Ra's and Blackest Night. Now because Jason accused him of wanting to be Batman (the thing he didn't want to be) he's shipping bodies across the ocean for a dip.

The trouble with the Alfred/Talia scene is I'm sure I'm supposed to take it seriously. Not only is Damian basically a meta since he can take a bath and grow a new spine (don't suppose he'll be sharing that water with Babs, huh?), but he really is supposed to have to choose whether he wants to "stride across the 21 century like a new Alexander" or, as Alfred hints, be an awesome hero as Batman. I know he is whatever GM wants to write him as, but his actual personality can't cash those checks the characters keep writing about him with their mouths. It's not like he's got Clark's powers. He's just an gifted and over-indulged kid with a ton of exaggerated expectations placed on him. It makes me think he'd more likely grow up to be a minor supervillain.

Loved seeing Knight and Squire again. Especially when Dick greets Cyril with "Cyril, looking good."

[From: chipsnopotatoes]

Talia is quite the stage mother, isn't she? Why am I not feeling any kind of tender motherly love in this scene...she talks about him like he's some kind of car that's in the shop. Now, I understand why he's a basketcase. I kind of feel sorry for the little bugger.

[From: tornadotwin.blogspot.com]

I would hope that Damian chooses the path of the Bat and maybe even grudgingly sticks up for Dick when Dad comes back and tries to take over the Batmantle again.

And I wonder if Babs ever finds out about Damians procedure if she'll ask Bruce for the cash so she could get that done too. (I don't know Babs all that well so I'm not sure if her handicap even bothers her anymore).

I honestly never heard of the name 'Cyril' till Archer on FX

[From: jlroberson]

Damian was grown in a lab. He was never, physically, entirely normal.

[From: mystery]

I enjoyed seeing Knight and Squire. Hated the spine-growing and yeah. Sorry, Alfred. Not buying GM's--I mean "Alfred's" acceptance of "Damian will stride across the 20the century like Alexander'.

Also, yeah. Think Babs can have a dip in that pool? And who wants a Bat who's like a clone, anyway? The whole reason I like them is that they're not super-powered.

[From: jelly_ace]

Dick makes sure to explain his relationship to Bruce. Since this is GM, he's not his son. (That's how you know you're reading B&R--there always needs to be some line indicating that Damian is Bruce's first child ever.)

What's so freakin' special about Damian anyway? All this informed greatness (as Talia said, to the level of the Alexander) is annoying me.

I'm curious so as to why Mr. Morrison doesn't write Dick as Bruce's son. So that I can understand and not be just annoyed at him.

[From: psychopathicus_rex]

It's quite possible that the 'striding' in question here really has more to do with Talia's ambitions for her son than his actual capabilities. He may be trying like mad to live up to his mother's plans, but whether he actually can cash the checks she's writing is another story.

[From: tornadotwin.blogspot.com]

As soon as I reached the part where Dick says something along the lines of justification of Bruce in the LP I was goin wtf. He totally scorned Tim on wanting to put his own friends in there but it's ok for Bruce to go in there? Ridiculous.

(cameron stewart is amazeiiinnngg!!)

[From: benicio127]

Motto'ing you on everything.

Especially the Cameron Stewart bit. Plus he's a Canuck! Wooo!

[From: sinisterlink]

Wow, Tim is going to be angrier than ever when he finds out this happened after Dick had talked him out of using the pits to bring his dad/friends back.

Also, Talia and Alfred just standing there watching a nude Damian getting a new SPINE put in while Talia talks about how magnificent he is really skeeves me out.

[From: chipsnopotatoes]

yeah, i thought it strange too. Morrison really writes her creepy.

[From: mullon]

This feels more like something Tim would do.

[From: bluefall]

Yeah, but Morrison has never let characterization get in the way of a plot.

[From: mad]

I'm trade-waiting on this series, but I'm tempted to pick it up for Cameron Stewart's art.

[From: jlroberson]

Yeah. I didn't care as much for his older style--like in 7 SOLDIERS, a knockoff of Darick Robertson--but as he's been getting into cleaner layouts and bolder brushwork, I've really taken to him. He needs to go in kind of a Darwyn Cooke direction and forget about strict realism entirely. He strikes me as a guy whose work is screaming for more focus on stylization and design.

[From: mystery]

I'm curious. When you titled this post, did you mean Damian or Dick as the son. Because one is and one isn't the son now. Officially. Thanks, GM! And if Dick isn't, we better believe that Jason and Tim aren't sons. Only Damian.

[From: sinisterlink]

Wait, what? WHAT?

[From: mystery]

You know, if it could just be an Elseworlds...

[From: irrelevant]

Huh. Y'know, even though I like it, I'm having a really hard time squaring Morrison's B&R with the rest of the Batman continuity. It's like Morrison is tweaking canon characteristics and personalities at his own whim. Morrison's characterization seems to change with every issue. It's kind of off-putting. And also weird. o_O

[From: cmdr_zoom]

The Morris-Son cares not for the works of lesser men, nor the dictates of their petty continuity! The Morris-Son stands ALONE!

[From: icon_uk]

Sigh... not liking this idea AT ALL, and no version of Dick Grayson I know would run with this because he knows how Bruce (who, please note, didn't even try to use a Lazarus Pit for Jason because he knew the likely cost)

I am also seriously sick of the Lazarus Pit being used as a cure-all like this. The original idea was that there were very few of them and Ra's controlled them ALL, plus, and this is the biggie, it only revived the NEWLY dead, not the long dead; if you were a rotting corpse it would be no use to you, since there would be nothing to revive.

Now the damn things like a health spa plot device. ICK.

[From: shadowvalkyrie]

WORD on that! Dick kept Tim from trying to revive his dad as well, so I really call bad characterisation on this one.

[From: jlroberson]

Just read the rest of it. You know what I like? Morrison has this as not any London that's real, nor even DC canon London, but rather BATMAN London, as in the kind of London we saw in Haney/Cardy and Infantino stories. "Hyperquaint," I'd call it.

I honestly don't know why people who get mad at other writers for throwing out things then get mad at Morrison. Morrison doesn't really retcon exactly, does he? What he does is ADD TO. And also tries to find a way to make as many things work from a character's history as possible, opening up more possibilities to people who follow him(which more often than not, they just ignore). He's the ultimate reconstructionist. Even his DOOM PATROL was an attempt to create a modern equivalent of the kind of weird the original had been in its day.

[From: cmdr_zoom]

"Hyperquaint," I'd call it.

And here I thought we called that sort of thing "poorly researched", "stereotypical", or just "wrong."

(he posted, from AMERICA, by tapping at the keys with the barrel of his favorite gun)

[From: 3goodtimes]

Oh Talia... don't ask Alfred if a naked little boy in a tank is magnificent. It's creepy.

I have a bad feeling that this pit storyline is going to end lamely. I mean, it can't be Bruce. Can it? That doesn't make any sense.

[From: jaybee3]

Would Talia really use the whole formal "Bruce Wayne" name with Alfred. I mean Talia has been in Bruce's life (and thus Alfred's) for over a decade. It's not like they're strangers. And one would think we would see just a bit of mourning of Talia for her "Beloved" - but apparently not.

[From: jlroberson]

"Bruce" would be too familiar in front of Alfred, and "Wayne" would be too impersonal, and someone else is now Batman. All three would sound wrong. So calling him that is the only other option that doesn't.

[From: taggerung301]

oh god, is that damien's freakin SPINE?!?!

I am seriously squicked out
D:

[From: benicio127]

Ha. Your icon and your comment together are hilarious!

And now I imagine Rod Roddy from the Price is Right telling Damian... "You could win... A BRAND NEWWW SPINE!!!"

Or at least Rod Roddy's voice... from beyond the grave...Rod Roddy from Earth... RISE!