Batman and Robin #5 Review

Batman and Robin #5 is the next chapter in Grant Morrison's Batman saga. The current arc is "The Revenge of the Red Hood" and the art is by Philip Tan, with Jonathan Clapion doing inks. As far as a series goes, Batman and Robin has been on of the most impressive series this year, however with issue five, the series takes a big drop in quality. When coming into this arc, i was already expecting a drop in quality from a change in artists, however, i was not expecting such a drop in the quality of the writing as well.

The Simplest way for me to put it is Batman and Robin #5 sucks.

With that said, I'll tell you why.

Throughout this whole series, each issue has been a blast to read, fast paced, interesting and always one of the best books to read. With issue 5, reading it becomes a chore, the art is dark and hard to following, resulting in often having to reread pages just to understand what has happened, there is barely any interesting developments; and Morrison's script goes on about pointless and unimportant things for the majority of the issue, like an intro about how Sasha or Scarlet goes regrets coming to America. Some of the dialogue includes Jason Todd going on about getting zits and going bald from wearing the Red Hood's helmet and how he's really a red head, none of which is significant to the story-line, and it just seems stupid. The book is just covered with action scenes in which nothing is accomplished, the two duo's fight, they part company, the soon after they fight again, and Jason confesses shooting Batman wouldn't do any damage, but then he does anyways, because it would hurt.

The art in this issue drags it down as well. I like what Philip Tan can do, but here, he constantly choses awkward angles and screws up the faces. As well, the book is too dark in appearance, and at times the setting seems to change without notice. As a result, the book is hard to follow and even harder to appreciate. Tan struggles especially on Damian's face, coming up with several hideous panels to behold.

Now that I've said that, I would still recommend picking this book up, just for completeness because i fell like this is just a slight drop in quality that will be repaired within an issue or two. This might just be an extreme case of how most stories tend to get a bit dull in the middle too. Hopefully Tan can fix up his pencils for the next issue, but if not after that , a new artist is on the way for issue 7.

4.5/10

Thor #603 review

Thor #603 is the penultimate Thor issue by current writer, JMS and artist Marko Djurdjevic (?), while this issue is in many ways just as good as any other issue in JMS' run, it feels slightly out of place, being paced much faster than any other issue in his run.

While reading Thor 603, it feels like the events that unfold in this issue, would normally, if JMS wasn't wrapping up his run, take up at least two more issues, but instead, the events that unfold seem rushed and aren't expanded on like they normally would be in a Thor book; however that's not necessarily a bad thing. In this issue, there's everything, the return of the Warriors Three, an awkward moment with Donald Blake, Sif and Mrs. Sooner, scenes with Loki and Doom plotting, big, evil things, Bill and Kelda, more Doom and Loki, and an interesting cliffhanger.

Another good thing about this issue, is the art. It's still Djurdjevick and not Coipel, but this is the best Djurdjevic's art's ever been in Thor. His expressions, his backgrounds, his machines, his costumes, everything looks great in this issue. As well, a new colourist takes over, Kevin Djurdjevic takes over, and makes the book even more beautiful.

All in all, this Thor is an amazing issue, out of 10, it's not quite a 9 but definitely above 8.5. This book is highly recommended and I cannot wait "30 days!" for the conclusion of JMS's fantastic Thor run.

8.9/10