Oliver Davis reviews Batman, Incorporated #11…
Issue #10 ended on a cliffhanger. Bruce had injected himself with the Man-Bat serum, bulging his body into a monstrosity of rage. Soaring in a giant, robotic suit with wings of flesh, the Bat-Batman of Vengeance flew towards Talia al Ghul atop her fortress for their epic, final showdown, the conclusion of five years of plotting from Grant Morrison. And then!….
…an interlude story, focusing on the Batman of Japan. Another entire month to find out what happened. Unless they do a story on the Nightwing of New Zealand next.
Interlude stories are often refreshing mid- or post-arc breaks, that can embrace the single-issue format of comics. Grant Morrison is no stranger to them. His run on Action Comics had a few, the most prominent being about Earth-23’s black President Superman (read: Obama). Thing is, this issue is frustratingly placed in the middle of a climax. It’s also the first of Batman, Incorporated not to be written by Morrison. Instead its regular artist, Chris Burnham, picks up the quill, for him to leave drawing duties to Jorge Lucas. Although they create a readable episode, it is robbed of both Morrison’s writing and Burnham’s art – the two best things about the series (and arguably contemporary comics as a whole).
It follows the Batman of Japan, recruited to Incorporated way back in the first issue. Like, the real first issue, before that whole New-52 thing happened. Along with his sidekick girlfriend, Canary (not Black Canary, just small Canary [she’s Tinkerbell size]), he chases five motorbike-riding female villains across the streets of Tokyo, each differentiated by the colour of their uniform. “Who are you? The Pink Ranger’s silicone sisters?” Canary asks in the issue’s best exchange. “Better than being built like a 12-year-old boy,” comes the green-clad rider’s bitchy response.
Burnham has a real knack for dialogue like this. They continue:
Blue Rider: “Hah! I bet I know why he likes his girlfriends so small.”
Batman of Japan: “I do all right.”
Blue Rider: “Not as well as her whole High School baseball time did! I head she’s like the Tardis. Bigger on the ins–URKK!”
The “urkk” is the sound Batman of Japan’s boot makes against a motorbike rider’s leather.
But that, along with the wonderful time-lapse caption “FIVE ANGUISHED DECISIONS LATER…”, is not enough to distract from where the real action is happening: the next issue.
Oliver Davis (@olidavis)
Originally published May 24, 2013. Updated November 28, 2022.
