Batman vs. Robin #3 // Review
Bruce Wayne wears a mask and costume. He’s on a beautiful island named Lazarus. It’s a nice place. Too bad everyone’s trying to kill him. He’s going to have to survive attacks from a whole lot of VERY familiar people in Batman vs. Robin #3. Writer Mark Waid continues an interesting action drama that is brought to the page by artists Mahmud Asrar and Scott Godlewski. Color comes to the page courtesy of Jordie Bellaire. The drama quickly paces its way from fight scene to fight scene in a way that explores Batman’s relations with most of the sidekicks he’s had over the course of decades.
Lazarus Island is a rough place for Batman. His son Damian is trying to kill him. He’s taken psychic control of various people who have carried the mantle of Robin over the years and placed them along Batman’s path in a strategic and deliberate way. If he’s going to make it to Damian in time to confront him, Batman’s not going to have a lot of time to rest between battles with former sidekicks who happen to be armed with some very serious magical artifacts. Meanwhile, Damian will pass the time confronting his mother. (He’s got her captured at his place.)
The action sequence at the heart of the issue is fun. Waid orchestrates a strange sort of homicidal This Is Your Life for Bruce Wayne. Waid has a novel insight into some of the relations that Batman has had with his wards over the years. This is a hell of an accomplishment in and of itself considering how thoroughly explored those relations have been on page and screen over the decades. The action is well-paced and dramatically delivered in a satisfying chapter for Waid and Wayne.
Asrar and Godlewski deliver the drama largely in big, sweeping moments of aggression. Waid doesn’t really give them many options, though. There’s a different, distinct fight scene once every few pages. Asrar and Godlewski do a pretty good job of keeping each fight scene distinct, but none of the Robins come across as being nearly as formidable as they should be. The art team doesn’t have much room to make any one action scene feel at all satisfying, but the drama is competently delivered in a rich visual atmosphere that is given all the more depth by colorist Jordie Bellaire.
The relatively limited scope of each combat aside, Waid and company do an excellent job of composing and executing an action-based drama with a rather large ensemble of characters. The scope of this one issue could have easily been expanded into a much more satisfying five-issue mini-series, but Waid has places to go and things to address in the series that won’t wait for a more nuanced exploration of Batman’s relations with various Robins. It’s really too bad, as this feels like the most compelling point in the series thus far.
