Book Review: The Shadow/Batman by S. Orlando et al.

The Shadow/Batman written by Steve Orlando and art by Giovanni Timpano

In the past couple of years, some bizarre crossovers have happened in comic book--Batman/Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Green Lantern/Planet of the Apes (at least the Star Trek/Planet of the Apes crossover has the cool title "The Primate Directive"), etc. I've avoided them like social contact at the height of corona virus paranoia. This crossover makes a lot more sense and immediately appealed to me.

Batman travels to New York City where he joins forces with The Shadow and Robin (the Damian Wayne version, who has gone off on his own even though he's only a teenager). Their tense triangle of crime-fighting is interesting, especially as the story assumes The Shadow trained Batman, who trained Robin. The family theme runs through the book. The Batman bad guy is Ra's al Ghul who is Robin's biological grandfather on his mother's side. The bad guys are part of an evil conspiracy that has dominated the world from the background for decades, even resurrecting certain people to maintain control. Bruce Wayne uses his financial power to try and force them into the public, an act that only invites devastating retribution.

I enjoyed the story for its noir styling and old-fashioned feel. The dialog is well written and the confrontations are exciting. It's just as much a Shadow story as a Batman story, which is nice. The art is great. Timpano worked on a Shadow comic before this, so he's had plenty of practice with the style. The only problem was the bonus material at the end where the author goes page by page through the first issue commenting on the creative process. The first few pages have the uncolored art that matches what he is talking about but pretty quickly the art switches to other pages from later issues and have nothing to do with the commentary. Whoops!

Recommended.