“Death of a Family” has finally begun the crossovers into the other Batman comic books. Click the jump to see quick reviews on them.
This week Batman & Robin, Batgirl, and Suicide Squad had their crossovers. Of course, Batgirl and Suicide Squad have been doing their crossovers for the longest time, but Batman & Robin blows both of them away this week!
BATMAN & ROBIN #15: Damian has gone out to look for Alfred. He pretty much dismisses the rest of the other Bat-family members calling them weak for allowing their emotions get in the way as well as for not seeing the bigger picture in “Death of a Family.” So, Damian has taken it upon himself to find Alfred who has been kidnapped and blinded by the Joker. Who Damian finds or more so who finds Damian is the Joker in this issue.
Peter J. Tomasi (writer of Batman & Robin) has written such an entertaining and darkly twisted issue of Batman & Robin, which features only Damian in this crossover. Tomasi plays with the idea of a cat and mouse game between Damian and Joker, but it comes off more as the cat toying with his mouse. Tomasi’s writing of the Joker compliments Scott Snyder’s (writer of Batman) Joker in a way that it feels like Snyder’s Joker from Batman. The Joker’s personality is quite similar with all the elude references of dark humor in the Joker’s dialogue. Patrick Gleason (artist of Batman & Robin) pulls out all the stops in this issue. His version of the Joker is spot on and can be considered the third best Joker behind Jock (artist of Batman back-ups) who is second to Greg Capullo’s (artist of Batman). The humor that Gleason puts into this issue is classic as you can see Damian hanging upside down in the Joker’s trap and head butts Joker in the face. This scene is a classic move by Gleason to bring humor the dark pages of this issue. Ultimately, without Gleason making this possible, I don’t think this issue would have been so entertaining!
BATGIRL #15: This is issue is the continuation from Batgirl # 14, where Joker is holding Barbara’s mother hostage. There are a few thing referenced in this issue such as Joker’s little bat leather book that he has kept about Batman. However, we do not know what kind of observations Joker has of Batman, but what we know is that Gail Simone (writer of Batgirl) uses the book to reference Joker’s marriage proposal and his way of living forever through the book. The entire issue is basically Batgirl reacting to Joker’s marriage proposal, her having mixed feelings, and the raw emotions coming out of her. She is walking the line of darkeness as she beats the crap out ofJoker and holds a gun to his head. Simone does shine in this issue! The art was not done by Ed Benes, but by Daniel Sampere who did a decent job.
SUICIDE SQUAD #15: Since the last issue of Suicide Squad, Issue #14 was not so interesting! It felt more of a build up to Issue #15. This time around with Issue #15, it has more of a bang! Issue #15 was much more physical showing a lot of fight scenes between Joker and Harley. Harley Quinn who is being strangled by the Joker with a chain around her neck continued from Issue #14. Both of the characters go blow for blow with each other such as Joker biting Harley’s ear off and Harley biting off Joker’s tongue. Yeah, it was a bit brutal but it didn’t translate well on the pages through the artwork. Joker continues to look like a transvestite with good looking hair. I’ve never seen such cool page boy hair on Joker before! Adam Glass (writer of Suicide Squad) attempts to rebuild the cutesy love between Joker and Harley that people love. It was appreciated by those who enjoy the couple. You can see this as Amanda Waller states this “In his (Joker) own strange way, he actually loves Harley and wants her approval.” Yeah, well for those who find this statement to be utter crap; she does a slight point that Joker still wants Harley. Why else would he come after her and beat the crap out of her if Joker didn’t care? Even though, the two are still separated after this issue. There might be some shred of hope that the two might come back together just not right now. Glass really did play the love/hate relationship instead of the abusive relationship established in Issue #13 of Batman.
Check out some of the panels that I thought were cool.
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