Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artists: Simone Di Meo & Nikola Cizmesija
Color Artists: Rex Lokus & Giovanna Niro
Cover Artist: Simone Di Meo
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $4.99
Reviewer: StoryBabbler
Man-Bat has been making big moves with starting his own cult to teaming up with the new female version of Hush, Shush. But Batman’s hot on his tail, trying to stop whatever mad plot he’s got cooking up. Meanwhile, Damian goes back to school but this time with his girlfriend Flatline to finally uncover the identity of Shush. Read Batman and Robin (2023) #9 to see how the dynamic duo fare in their respective ventures.
Review:
Okay, last issue left off with Robin and Flatline going undercover together at his school to unmask who Shush really is. Meanwhile, Batman caught up to Man-Bat who ended up chaining him up and taking flight with him in the middle of the night. Now, we get to see both heroes proceed with their respective halves of the case. Fair warning, there will be SPOILERS.
The comic starts off with Batman awakening to chatter from Man-Bat who delivers a classic supervillain monologue of his imminent success. In his own batcave no less. While Robin and Flatline execute a classic food fight so they can get close to Principal Stone, Damian’s number one suspect for Shush, who he believes is actually his former instructor Mistress Harsh. But he learns the real identity of Shush is not who he thought, and eventually catches up to Batman as Man-Bat prepares to execute his grand plan for Gotham City.
Alright, I’ll with the good then go into the bad. To be honest, the only good thing in this comic is getting Simone Di Meo back to illustrate the Batman and Man-Bat parts of the comic. Because his art is the only thing that makes this version of Man-Bat work. However, that is where the good part of this comic ends and the rest of the bad begins. The first problem is Man-Bat. See, the parts with Batman and Man-Bat are just pure dialogue with Simone Di Meo’s art to liven it up, but we don’t get cool, memorable images or visuals, just dark closeups of their faces as they talk, mostly to explain why Man-Bat went from anti-hero back to supervillain and it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. And the reason why is it doesn’t align with how DC Comics has characterized Kirk Langstom for the past decade, even the last few years.
Let me explain. Most versions of Man-Bat go for the tragic mad scientist route similar to Curt Conners, aka The Lizard from Marvel Comics, whether it’s in the games or TV shows, and obviously the comics. Generally, he’s not really the big villain who seeks power, domination, etc. However, the animated series titled The Batman, cool show, had exactly that in its version of Kirk Langstrom. In his debut episode, Professor Langstrom was initially set up to be in the same vein as his other counterparts as a brilliant yet meek scientist pushed to his limits, but by the halfway point it’s revealed he was fooling everyone including Bruce Wayne. It turns out he creepily obsessed over Batman and wanted to be feared just like him, and he willfully turns himself into Man-Bat so that he can rule the night. This is the type of Kirk Langstrom that Joshua Williamson clearly wants for this story arc, one who always wanted to be a monster and rule the night terrorizing the corrupt and innocent alike. But what Williamson is doing wrong is he’s forcing the comic version to be that darker version of Man-Bat when he was never that to begin with. Not to mention, his plan, if you can call it that, is pretty weak and unimaginative to put it nicely.
Now, let’s get to the other big problem in this comic; we finally learn Shush’s secret identity, and it’s pretty underwhelming. Turns out that it’s not Principal Stone, who may or may not be Mistress Harsh, rather it’s the school teacher Ms. Hall. Now, I’ll admit that I figured the principal was a red herring and it was the school teacher once Damian kept saying it’s her over and over again. But the bigger problem is Shush herself. Everything about her reads like a supervillain from low D-tier fan fiction. We get her backstory and, surprise, turns out she was essentially the prodigal, medical apprentice of Thomas Elliot, aka Hush. He helped instruct her, train her in hand-to-hand combat, asked her to cover for him on mysterious nights. Mind you, all of this before he became Hush and she didn’t know he was a supervillain the whole time.
All that this shows is that she really is a derivative supervillainess since she’s just Hush’s shadow. There’s not much else to her than how she misjudged Batman and thought he was the source of all her woes, but finds out he’s not. It’s also more annoying that Joshua Williamson kept having her deny that she had any connection to Hush every time Batman interrogated her about it in previous issues only to reveal that she did. Now, I believe that she’s really trying to play Damian, cause the way she talks about her past, it feels performative. Like she’s trying to gain sympathy from Damian and Flatline so they’ll overlook her and focus on rescuing Batman and stopping Man-Bat. My theory is she’s playing everyone to take each other out, while she gets away. But that doesn’t change the fact that this comic felt boring for the most part and rushed when it came to Shush’s reveal and Robin finally catching up to Batman and Man-Bat. To be honest, this whole storyline isn’t looking so good. Hopefully the next issue turns that around with some stellar action.
Final Thoughts:
Batman and Robin #9 brings readers the latest issue of this story arc as the dynamic duo close in on Man-Bat and Shush. Sadly, Shush lost a lot of her potential early on in the run, and the reveal of her secret identity and backstory is similarly disappointing, though it can be salvaged if played right. Meanwhile the parts with Batman and Man-Bat felt short-lived as it tries to double down on this more villainous version of him but in ways that contradict his recent comic history. Overall, it was an uneventful issue but it sets up what should be an exciting finale.