Writer: Ed Brisson
Pencilers: Javier Pina & Goran Sudzuka
We get another head trip in this week’s issue of Batman & Robin Eternal this week. After issue #11 went deep in the minds with Sculptor and Harper Row, this week Dick Grayson takes a go at it. He gets another backstory, this week behind Sculptor and her responsibilities as part of Mother’s children. While her duties aren’t as gruesome as Cass Cain’s, it still isn’t very nice for the kids. The grand finale gives us what we’ve been waiting for, and what Dick has been dreading: Batman’s meeting with Mother that doesn’t go in favor of Dick. The issue ends in a bloody mess with a surprising suspect at the center of it all.
Issue #12 flew by in my hands. I was whipping through each page for the second week in a row. This speaks to the strengths of these past two weeks as we’ve stuck with these two characters (Harper and Dick) and their story. I enjoy more focus on fewer characters rather than juggling many storylines and issue. While I’ve enjoyed these two weeks, I hope we get a taste of something new for issue #13 (which also marks the halfway point of the title), which it seems is the route will go since Sculptor is apparently out of the picture. Instead, Dick and Harper are going scuba diving and I don’t know what they’ll find. I enjoy the seed that was planted about Batman because it doesn’t seem like him at all and can only have me wondering when he reveals his master plan.
The art again follows the Eternal norm of great pictures from artists you may not have heard of. Pina and Sudzuka team up to put us inside the head of Sculptor yet it looks drastically different from what we saw a week ago. The strength in these “head trip” issues is that there are subtle changes to the pages, but never too much to cause a distraction. I especially appreciate the few panels we had of the Dark Knight. He look sketchy, dark and like our true hero. Overall, another solid effort from the Eternal team and I’m looking forward to how they wrap up the first half of the title in next week’s issue #13.
