Batman & Robin #17-19

Grant Morrison's run on Batman & Robin is over at 16 issues after being the originator of this new team of Dick Grayson and Damian Wayne. Currently, Morrison is now dedicating his time to writing Batman Incorporated, which is fantastic. Before the new team of writer Peter J, Tomasi, penciller Patrick Gleason, and inker Mark Irwin were to take over in issue #20, writer Paul Cornell, penciller Scott McDaniel, and inker Rob Hunter worked on a 3 issue story featuring a new villain, the Absence. Ordinarily, I would not really bother to review a short run with questionable canon (generally it's viewed that any work done by guest writers is either not canon or can be ignored easily), but this new villain is unique in that she's purposely targeting Batman because he is now publicly affiliated with Bruce Wayne (In Batman: The Return, Bruce Wayne revealed to the world that he has been secretly funding the Batman's operations for more than a decade. A bit of a half-truth, but now the world at large knows where Batman gets his seemingly unlimited funding.).

The Absence was once a young socialite who was allegedly dating Bruce Wayne. It turns out that she was actually dating Tommy Elliot, otherwise known as the villain Hush, during the period of time that the Bat-family did not know Hush was operating as a Bruce Wayne impersonator after he performed plastic surgery on himself to resemble Wayne after Batman had presumably been killed by Darkseid during Final Crisis. Elliot broke up with the young socialite, presumably to create as many enemies for Bruce Wayne as possible if he were to ever come back. Some time afterward, she was shot in the head by pirates raiding a yacht party and presumed dead when her body fell into the ocean. She somehow awoke on the shore only to see in the reflecting water that a gigantic hole in her head (As far as how she received such a huge hole in her head from a 9mm bullet is never explained). Going to a private doctor, she discovers that she has a rare condition that causes the brain tissue to be so compact it forms a ring around the skull and leaves an absence of space in the middle of the cranium. She attends her funeral in disguise and discovers that nobody shows up because apparently she was a gigantic bitch. She then dedicates herself to ruining Bruce Wayne's life (because that makes sense) and re-imagining herself as The Absence.

Without spoiling the ending (which is somewhat thought provoking), this story is just downright silly. The Absence has no desire to kill Batman, just to make him question his loyalty to Bruce Wayne. While that's interesting and all, the silliest part is the whole brain matter in a ring around the skull nonsense. Even if this were a real medical condition, wouldn't she be severely retarded from a lack of brain matter? Plus that gunshot wound to the head blasted through brain matter on both sides of her head. Presuming that her brain matter is more compacted, this means she would lose the same, if not more brain matter from being shot clean through the head than a normal person. Her origins are incredibly dubious (but not uncreative at least) and just downright silly. I'm glad that Paul Cornell won't be writing any more issues of Batman & Robin; I really want to see a return to the serious comic it was under Grant Morrison.

The only positive I can say about this 3-part story is the art was fantastic and definitely welcome after having to deal with Frazer Irving's art for the "Batman Must Die" story arc. Not to say that Frazer Irving is a bad artist, but his style is simply not compatible with comic books. There were quite a few HURR DURR faces from people throughout both his run on Batman & Robin and Bruce Wayne: The Return Home #2.

Final Score: 2 Gaping Holes in the Head and Plot out of 5