Batman Incorporated #2 // Review
All of Ghost-Maker’s former mentors are in danger. There are a lot of people who are looking to make sure that they’re safe. Anyone who might have trained Ghost-Maker will be a formidable force who can probably take care of him or herself. The real people in danger are the ones sent to make sure they’re okay in Batman Incorporated #2. Writer Ed Brisson continues a very meticulous story with a large ensemble of characters. Artist John Timms keeps everything reasonably intelligible for the reader as locations quickly flit by every other page. There’s a lot going on here. Some of it seems interesting.
Ghost-Maker may be killing his mentors. Or not. It’s difficult to tell. There’s an animated argument about that high above the glittering night streets in Shanghai. There’s a related investigation going on in a shadowy location in Canada. One of the groups is having a conversation about the problem at hand in a posh apartment on a snowy evening in Moscow. The investigator really shouldn’t have trusted Ghost-Maker’s former mentor when offered a drink, but things will only get more complicated before the end of the issue.
Five locations. Brisson whisks the action through five different locations in less the 20 pages. It’s an impressively bold way of moving along a narrative, but the rhythm is off. The drama of a given scene really gets going a couple of panels in before Brisson shoots the script off to another part of the Earth. Brisson has way too many different units in play in a chapter that seems to feature a hell of a lot of repetition. It comes across like a weird international fever dream with a few action sequences, a poisoning, and a little snow. Through it all, Brisson manages to keep it fun, though.
For an issue that takes place in so many different locations, there isn’t a whole lot of difference between them all. Timms has got a brilliant handle on action and drama. Everything flows across the page with stylish grace. As immersive as it all feels, there isn’t much difference from one place to the next. Moscow feels pretty much like Shanghai with some snow. There IS a bit of lush sylvan vegetation in Suriname, but an issue with this much going on should FEEL like it’s taking place all over the world. Timms fails to root the action in the kind of bewildering diversity that Brisson is bringing to the page.
It’s an intriguing experiment, but Brisson has so many moving parts to the plot that it’s all more than a little disinteresting. The creative team holds moments together, but they keep getting smashed into the ether with the coming of the next scene. It would be a lot more fun if it was a lot less frustrating. Brisson and Timms have something here, but it’s not all that clear what they have.
