Batman #133 (2016) cover a

Chip Zdarsky performed miracles on his Daredevil run. Now he's done it on his Batman run:

He's writing so well, it doesn't matter that Mike Hawthorne is his fill-in artist.


To be clear- Hawthorne has, uh, clear layouts. You can tell what's happening in every panel, and they all move the story forward without confusion. (That's more than I can do, possibly you too!) Unfortunately, his figure work is weirdly long, and not in a Kelley Jones sort of way. He also has something about his work that makes him hard to ink. The great Wade von Grawbadger, Stuart Immonen's inker of choice, couldn't dig his work out of mid to meh.


This all sounds pretty negative, and the book is great, so let's turn to Chip Zdarsky. After having Batman fight a version of robot Batman designed to defeat Batman, with Batman becoming the Batman of Zur-En-Arrh to try to avoid being thinking and fighting like Batman in order to have a chance against this Failsafe Batman that was of course, built and designed by Batman, (sorry for this run on sentence, but here we are) Batman sacrificed himself in that most Batmanniest of ways by appearing to be destroyed while actually ending up in a parallel Gotham.


This Gotham has allowed Zdarsky to reinvent every single Bat-villain in whatever way he wants, all while having Bruce, OUR Bruce, investigate the death of...Bruce Wayne.

It's nearly impossible to have a bad issue of Batman if Bruce and Alfred are by a grave, and it's nearly impossible not to have a great issue of Batman if either one is at the other's grave. You'll get that here, and more.


Highly recommended for those who can read word balloons with their glasses off, and people who haven't looked at a Bat-Book since Grant Morrison left.