Review: Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 2

Quick Summary

Pros: The entire read is fun and allows the characters to show off their formidable abilities. Cassandra Cain’s story is great. The conclusion to the series is satisfying.

Cons: Logic is ignored in some places in order to allow more action or cool moments to occur. The artwork is frustratingly inconsistent.

Overall: This is a fun comic book, plain and simple. It has lots of action, leads to a satisfying conclusion, and has a lot of great moments from individual characters. This allows the comic to turn into a truly over-the-top joyride. The only flaw is that this joyride is often pushed along by gaps in logic and strange decisions from smart characters. Any fan looking for a mostly visceral comic centered around the Batman-family should check out this series, as long as they are able to forgive a few mistakes here and there.

Story

Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 2, by Scott Snyder, James Tynion IV, Tim Seeley, and others, is a fun conclusion to a series that celebrates the existence of Robin as a hero, as long as you don’t take the entire thing too seriously. The action here is intense and leads to many over-the-top moments from many of the characters. It also helps ramp up the book’s suspense as it approaches its climactic conclusion, which has the high-stakes and intense emotions one would expect from a Hollywood blockbuster. However, a lot of this action and drama comes from situations that feel forced and a few that don’t make much sense at all. This is particularly harmful in one aspect of the book’s conclusion. If readers are willing to overlook these flaws they will find an enjoyable read underneath.

(spoilers start here)

The best and most instantly entertaining aspect of Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 2 is the wild action contained within. This volume amps up the Bat-family’s fight against Mother, forcing them to dodge brainwashed, homicidal children and personal betrayals in order to meet their goals. This rising action coincides with the revelation that Mother’s plan goes far beyond human trafficking and actually extends to world domination, dramatically increasing the stakes of this book.

This leads into the conclusion to this series. It has the Bat-family completely disable Mother’s operation and has Mother die by the hands of her own creation. This allows for an emotional moment between Cassandra Cain and her father, which is an excellent way to finish introducing Cassandra to the new DC universe. This conclusion is also satisfying in general and works well as a way to end the series.

Unfortunately, there are also a number of places where this series does things that allow for a cool moment or a neat twist, despite the fact that the thing being done doesn’t make sense or just isn’t that believable. For example, the team uses Doors to gather the Orphans in one place and have Midnighter fight them instead of just dropping them in a desert, where they could have no impact on the fight. In addition, some tense plot points simply go unresolved, like the mystery surrounding Mother’s ability to cheat death or Red Robin’s completely unexplained call to mother from the last volume. Having some plot points that never actually develop into anything makes it obvious they were simply included to create a momentary burst of tension, rather than turn into something more meaningful.

The most significant example of tension being created with an unbelievable scenario occurs near the volume’s conclusion. Mother’s entire pitch to Harper is based on whether or not Harper will be willing to kill Cassandra. While that particular action may have been questionable at this point in the series, Harper’s willingness to go along with the rest of Mother’s plan seemed completely out of the question. At no point did it seem believable that Harper would team up with Mother, so the comic’s climax has a lot less tension in it than intended. It really kills this moment in the book, which is significant considering how important this moment is to the story.

The only messaging that Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 2 manages to hit correctly is in regards to the existence of the Robin role. From a very early point, it appeared that this series was attempting to justify the often criticized role of Batman’s young partner. The narrative tackles fan complaints about Batman manipulating children and raising his own army of child soldiers. Over the course of this volume, I found the arguments made here quite successful. Dick Grayson’s statements are particularly convincing and show how being Robin enabled several people to become the heroes they were meant to be.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork in Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 2 is pretty variable depending on the chapter and has a frustrating lack of consistency. In nearly every chapter, the characters look noticeably different than they did before. In some, Dick Grayson looks like he is just exiting his teenage years, in others, he looks like about ten years older. This problem compounds with the fact that some chapters simply don’t look that pleasant from a visual standpoint. There are a few seriously good chapters here, like the opening chapter from Marcio Takara and another one from Tony S. Daniel, but these highly positive chapters are a bit of a rarity. Instead, the artwork in this book struggles to rise above mediocrity, which doesn’t exactly help the reading experience.

Continuity

Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 2 continues the story from Batman and Robin Eternal Vol. 1 (Review).

The story here is not directly continued in any particular comic. However, the adventures of Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Cassandra Cain continue on in Detective Comics Vol. 1: Rise of the Batmen (Review).

This volume also makes references to other comic books, detailed below:

• Batman’s “death” is mentioned a few times. This “death” occurred at the conclusion of Batman: Endgame (Review).
• Vague references are made to the “Zero Year”. This Year is shown across Batman Vol. 4: Zero Year- Secret City (Review) and Batman Vol. 5: Zero Year- Dark City (Review).
• A number of references are made to the death of Jason Todd in Batman: A Death in the Family.
• At one point, Dick mentions “Jim and Juan”. This is a reference to the names the St. Hadrian girls gave to Dick Grayson’s rear end in Grayson #8, collected in Grayson Vol. 2: We All Die At Dawn (Review).
• The origin behind Damian’s dragon-bat is told in Robin: Son of Batman Vol. 1: Year of Blood (Review). 
• The final issue of this collection takes place after the events of Batman #50, collected in Batman Vol. 9: Bloom (Review), and Robin War (Review) (Reading Order).
• Harper Row mentions that she was able to track Batman a long time ago. This is shown in Batman #12, collected in Batman Vol. 2: The City of Owls (Review).