Batman and Robin Eternal #5

By: James Tynion IV, Scott Snyder, Steve Orlando, Scot Eaton, Ronan Cliquet, Steve Pugh, Wayne Faucher, Gabe Eltaeb

“You’re right, Dick. That’s exactly what Bruce would have done. And that’s exactly why I never expected it from you.”

In the newest issue of Batman and Robin Eternal, Robin gets mad at Robin for being more like Batman when he should instead be more like the Robin he was before not being Robin anymore. Also Robin punches Robin in his stupid Robin face.

This week Steve Orlando is on scripting duty once again for the story by James Tynion IV and Scott Snyder. Unlike previous issues however, this one doesn’t contain the same amount of humor. There are some more subtle scenes, but there’s still some comedy to be found like a former ally of Grayson showing up to the door nonchalant with a crazy badass weapon was pretty humorous. Some aspects of the story don’t quite get explained this issue either – like why exactly Bluebird decided to follow the mute ninja girl in the first place? Sense of adventure? Curiosity? We’re not quite sure, but hey, at least it wasn’t a trap or anything…right? Orlando does however do a great job this issue with juggling the story lines, leading the action from one scene smoothly into the next beside which characters were at play.

On the artwork side of this issue we once again have an array of artists lending their talents to the page. Scott Eaton does the pencils on pages 1-7, 10-11, 16-18, while Ronan Cliquet has pages 8-9 and 12-15, leaving Steve Pugh with pages 19 and 20. On inks we have Wayne Faucher along with Cliquet and Pugh inking their own pages. Gabe Eltaeb is on color duty. One of the opening scenes, drawn by Eaton, shows Batman and Robin bursting onto the scene together (during a view of the past) as the glass of the window they shatter scatters around them. In this scene the duo is bursting into a church however, so the glass falling all around them is in various colors, as if they shattered a rainbow in order to catch a villain (kind of poetic). The switch in artists leaves some inconsistency with the characters, most noticeably with Red Robin on the last page, who looks like a grown man only a few pages before…and then a small child on the last page (this is after he punches Grayson in his stupid face).

This issue tackled various story lines, all following some version of a Batman sidekick (even though Bluebird hasn’t technically had the honor of being Batman’s child soldier yet) with some things explained well and others left to the “just because” scenario (Bluebird tries to explain why she decided to follow, but it’s not a realistic explanation). There’s plenty of action this issue, but it falls short of the humor that was fused with issues prior.