- Written by Ed Brisson, Scott Snyder & James Tynion IV
- Pencils & Inks by Fernando Blanco & Christian Duce
- Cover by Guile March
THE SCULPTOR is the woman who formed Mother’s agents. Will she give Grayson and Harper the information they need…or break them?
Pickup your copy of ‘Batman & Robin Eternal’ #11 at Comixology now!
Time to dip into the slightly weird with this weeks ‘Batman & Robin Eternal’. Issue #11 breaks from the traditional format of the series completely, shrugging off the flashback sequences of Batman and Robin and the B storylines of previous weeks to instead tell an origin of sorts for Cassandra Cain through the telepathic abilities of The Sculptor (introduced last week – reviewed here).
Shedding a bit more light on why The Sculptor had to be rushingly introduced at the end of the previous issue, #11 jumps straight in to taking Harper in to the mind-meld of sorts which allows the writers to tell a huge amount of exposition on some of the lesser known characters.
Don’t get me wrong this is a very interesting issue but the introduction of The Sculptor really only serves to push the story on with a big leap. Coming out of this issue readers will have a much greater understanding on how Mother carries out her work but also as to why Cassandra Cain turned out to be the fighter that she is.
The story is very well constructed to provide enough exposition on all the supporting characters without feeling too obviously like a requirement to get us to where we need to be next as fast as possible.
Also, for the first time, this series is elevated out of the doldrums of generic artwork to be something much more individual. Firstly the cover, above, absolutely stands out against everything else in this series so far. It’s psychedelic, trippy and perfectly compliments the story inside. The sequences in the mind meld take on a cloudy texture, colours become washed out and pale but it looks beautiful. The darkness of Cassandra’s past is balanced against the brightness of the room where Grayson, The Sculptor and Harper Row reside.
It comes off as being a little style of substance but if the story is leading towards a shocking reveal to Grayson then ‘Batman & Robin Eternal’ issue #11 has pushed us there in record time.
3 stars
