In Batman & Robin #7, the new arc begins with sparks aplenty. Flatline has come to Gotham, and Man-Bat has… a cult?!
Title: Batman & Robin #7, “Cult of Man-Bat Part One”
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist: Simone Di Meo
Colors: Giovanna Niro
Letterer: Steve Wands
Main Cover: Simone Di Meo
Variant Covers: Derrick Chew, Kael Ngu, Simone Bianchi
Release Date: March 12, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers.
Bats soar through the Gotham night. Man-Bat is speaking to his cult followers and whipping them into a frenzy. Shush is unimpressed, but Man-Bat assures the time is near. On a rooftop in Gotham, Batman meets Flatline.
She explains that she has come to Gotham to seek her missing sister, Mila. Robin offers to help but defers to Batman, who approves the mission with a reminder to follow Rule #1 (“no killing”). Flatline and Robin soar off into the night, and they banter while catching each other up. A specter of Ra’s al Ghul appears and warns Flatline to tell Robin the truth, but she waves him off.
The duo follow a lead to the shuttered Iceberg Lounge but are attacked. Smiling, they leap into action before Mila herself appears. She is the ringleader.
Elsewhere, Batman captures and interrogates a member of the cult. The cult member gives a speech and then swallows a capsule supplied to him by Man-Bat. He dies. Shush appears, offering a team-up to a scowling Batman while a halo of bats swarms around.
Wow! The next arc in the Batman & Robin book gets off to an absolutely cracking start. From the stunning luminosity of the Gotham night framing a cloud of bats to the opening Kafkaesque lines – “We have always been here” – the Cult of Man-Bat arc shoots off the line like an F1 car. Cult arcs are a familiar motif in The Batman Universe and comics in general. While opinions vary, I typically enjoy a good cult story if it’s well-executed. Which this is.
After some of the somewhat stolid pacing of the “Gotham High” arc, writer Joshua Williamson sets about a contrasting path with admirable vigor. This issue is one of the more dynamic TBU books I’ve reviewed in some time. Batman, but especially Robin and Flatline, are constantly soaring through the skyscrapers of Gotham, and it’s an absolute delight. Guest artist Simone Di Meo outdoes himself in this issue, with a particularly jaw-dropping panel on p. 10. Robin and Flatline leap off into the night at an unusual and dramatic angle. The curvature of the gliding figures originates from the distant Caped Crusader himself, wreathed in shadow, and rendered in a tender and obvious homage to Bruce Timm. The right angle of the façade creates a distinct canvas, and the soft illumination from below washes the entire scene in a glowing, almost infrared spectrum. I stared at this panel for a while!
Image Credit: DC Comics
Williamson expertly matches the dialogue to the movement across every page. Flatline and Robin’s conversation balances the obvious need for the characters to catch each other and the audience up with foreshadowing what lies ahead. The artwork careens the characters towards each other and their search for Mila; it also underscores the tautness of Flatline and Robin’s relationship. The tension builds both in the dialogue and the composition of the panels. I find Flatline to be an intriguing character in general, and Williamson manages something with which adult creatives often struggle: Portraying adolescent intimate relationships with respect and dignity rather than through the cynical and shortsighted japery with which they are often regarded.
I really enjoy the Damian Wayne that Williamson is writing. This reader can tell how much care and respect the writer has for the character, as he consistently reminds the audience that mature minors can often hold their own and then some in adult worlds – even if it costs the minor much. In less capable hands, I have found Damian irritating, but in this book he feels like someone I would very much like to know. He is both distant and near, an iconic symbol, the primary Robin of the Abernathy era, but yet also feels strangely familiar, like a student with whom I might have worked.
The twist at the end of the book also works as an ironic reversal. After looking for Shush, she has, of course, brough herself to Batman. Similar to the Batman & Robin Annual, I found that almost everything in this book worked, from the dialogue to the character representation of the Dynamic Duo to the art. I hope we see much, much more of Di Meo on this book, as it works extremely well.
Heck, even the variant covers are fantastic; Derrick Chew’s realism and warmth in portraiture is a particular highlight.
Increasingly, it seems possible that Batman & Robin is the third Batman book for which I’ve been waiting. We should be so lucky!
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
