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Batman: Batman and Son, Part Two (DC Comics, 1940; #663-666)

  • This arc is about fallout—the knowledge of Damian’s existance and a Batman impersonator shooting the Joker.
  • Morrison kicks it off with a prose one-shot, with illustrations by John Van Fleet; I don’t feel like the issue earned the format change, though, and whether Morrison sticks the landing comes down to what your tolerance is for the Joker’s cruelty toward Harley as a plot device.
  • The three issues following that tie current events in Batman’s world to his history and Gotham’s future.
  • The story culminates in a flash-forward to Damian’s tenure as a more desparate, ragged Batman than I would have expected—and it’s very cool.
  • The art team’s work on the book is solid; Kubert, Delperdang, and company’s* pages in the traditiona, sequential issues have a perfect sense of weight and motion.

* The collection I’m working from is oddly vague on who worked on which beyond the penciller and inker.

Collected in

  • Batman and Son (#655-658, 663-666)
  • Batman and Son vs. the Black Glove (#655-658, 663-669, 672-675)

Credits

Writer: Grant Morrison | Artists: Andy Kubert, J.J. Williams III, Tony S. Daniel, Ryan Benjamin, John Van Fleet, Jesse Delperdang, Jonathan Glapion, Mark Irwin, Sandu Florea, Saleem Crawford | Colorists: Guy Major, Dave Stewart, John Van Fleet | Letterers: Ken Lopez, John J. Hill, Rob Leigh, Randy Gentile, Steve Wands, Travis Lanham, Sal Cipriano, Jared K. Fletcher, Nick J. Napolitano, Todd Klein

Deadly Class: Kids of the Black Hole (Image Comics, 2014; #7-11)

Daredevil: Vol. 5 (Marvel Comics, 2011; #22-27)