Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews

Detective Comics #838
DC Comics
Dini, Benjamin & Crawford

Part Three of the Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul is a fast paced installment that begins to bring together the segments of the story. Batman sinks up with I-Ching. They find Ra’s, who has Robin and Damian. While, Nightwing and Alfred are playing some catch up.

We begin with Robin and Damian lying on stretchers, knocked out, at the feet of Ra’s. They were apparently faking and they spring up to fight the ninjas surrounding them. These first few pages confused me and I had to read it a few times. Why would Robin and Damian wait until they were put before Ra’s to escape? Wouldn’t it be easier to escape outside? Or even in transit? Also, why and how did Damian run away and Robin couldn’t? This sequence had me a tad lost.

Anyway, this allows for some alone time with Ra’s and Robin. Ra’s appears to have grown some skin and has ditched the bandaged look. Ra’s tries to seduce Robin with some women and snacks. This again, brings up the escape question. Why does Robin attempt to escape while guarded by ninjas and not when guarded by some apples?

Ra’s tries to get Robin to turn from the dark side of Batman to the darker side of Ra’s. Why? I don’t have a clue. He’s clearing wasting his time and it made no sense.

Batman get a suit of armor from Talia. Where she had that tucked away I don’t know. On the other hand, why would Batman not have his own suit, heavy jacket or even just some long underwear packed away in his Bat-jet I don’t know either.

I-Ching shows up when Talia and Batman are getting roughed up by some ninjas. I-Ching appears to team up with Batman knowing some information that is relevant to both of them for the overall plot yet to be revealed.

Meanwhile, Alfred and Nightwing take out some bad guys from Ra’s camp. This is key because we see Alfred take the leader out, which is outstanding. Perhaps the best part of this issue. In fact, the whole sequence between Alfred and Nightwing made this issue good instead of average for me.

Talia, Batman and I-Ching find Ra’s lair and Batman duels with his old buddy Ra’s. After the fight it is made known to Batman that Ra’s has Robin and Damian captive and one is going to die as a sacrifice for Ra’s new body.

On the surface, this issue is great. It’s fast, it has action, it has some good dialog and some big steps forward in the plot. However, upon further analysis there are so many questions that just don’t add up.

Besides the ones mentioned above about Robin escaping and Batman’s suit of armor, how about why didn’t Nightwing contact Batman about Robin and Damian being captured? Also, since when does Batman use the front door? One last one is, how can Ra’s use Robin’s body if all along he was droning on and on about how he needed the body to be his “blood”?

This last question is the big one for me. If he could use Robin as his host then why not just find some 15 year old black belt off the street and steal his body instead? Batman wouldn’t be in the mix then, would he?

I just felt that the issue was too much of a departure from actions that Ra’s had been preaching and from actions you’d expect from Batman.

I am not saying I disliked this issue at all. As noted above, I liked the pacing, action and overall plot movement. However, these questions make this story an average Batman one, so far, instead of a classic Batman one it should be.

The artwork is a tough style. Robin looks old, while Talia looks like a teenager. However, the action is great and I love Batman in the armor. The armor really steals the scenes from a visual perspective. In terms of characters, I loved how I-Ching and Nightwing looked.

Ultimately, this issue entertained me and that’s the point, so I can cant give it a bad rating because I feel the story doesn’t add up yet. However, a newbie doesn’t stand a chance reading this, which is a shame. Almost half way done with the arc and I have been entertained, which is a whole lot better than being bored, right?

3.5 out of 5 geek goggles.