With
BATMAN AND ROBIN #18 Paul Cornell had to make the case that the utterly ridiculous look of his villain The Absence had some substance and layers beneath. And, I think Cornell really never comes up with anything that justifies the absurd look of his villain.
The better part of the issue is Una Nemo relating to a captive Batman and Robin how she went from billionaire, ex-girlfriend of Bruce Wayne to obsessive villain with a gigantic hole in her head. And there are some good ideas here. What happens to Bruce’s girlfriends when he’s done with them? He is often toying with their emotions and turning one from a prop into a character with a score to settle is a good idea.
Unfortunately, we’re never able to get around the fact that the villainess has an enormous hole in her head. And despite some pseudo-scientific medical babble, it becomes no less ridiculous and undercuts what could be an effective motivation for the villain. Paul Cornell doesn’t do himself any favors by dwelling on a long drawn out origin in which Dick and Damian barely appear, and cuts directly to an awfully tired ex-girlfriend in peril premise.
Scott McDaniel does better work than last month, but his strengths, primarily action and movement, aren’t well utilized by the story. He’s done well to make it not be a bunch of talking heads and at least make The Absence a memorable visual, but he can’t do much more than that.
BATMAN AND ROBIN #18 ends on a cliffhanger, with a character we haven’t seen much over the last decade or so, so it’s impact is muted. And it points in a rather obvious direction for issue #19. Maybe Cornell has something up his sleeve for the conclusion, but right now it reads like a couple of good ideas tied to some flat out ludicrous ones and the story is neither fast moving nor overly complicated to distract from the bad ones.
