Graphic Novel Review Batman Rules of Engagement

Graphic novel review – Andy Diggle – Batman – Rules Of Engagement. 2007 DC Batman V Lex Luthor, without a mention of Superman. It’s an interesting variation on the mythos. Bruce Wayne & Luthor are both millionaire industrialists, here in hot pursuit of a highly lucrative US defence contract only one side or the other can win. The best part of the story is the early portion drawing the parallels between the two men. Both have dark secrets, each is powerful. Wayne tries to see the desire for weapons as a defensive, humanistic measure, though Luthor makes it clear from the outset that the weapons are there to threaten and kill enemies. He regards Wayne as a hypocrite for not freely admitting as much. He seems to have a point. Matters get serious when some of Wayne’s already established weaponry gets loose and goes on a killer rampage. That Luther has had it sabotaged is obvious. Batman has to fight his own robot soldier now. There are some confusing panel crossovers here, with frames showing Batman fighting the robot put in prematurely to highlight coming action during a slower section of the book. It ruins the flow of the narrative badly. With Luthor’s complex plot to turn on America with an army of robots coming into the open. The story moves to a more action driven second half. Luthor sets a killer electronic bat loose to get Batman and it almost gets (a rather young looking) Alfred in the Bat-cave. Batman now figures out how to virally infect the robots with a sense of the Geneva convention, wiping the metal army out. There is then a cop-out finale in which Luther himself proves to be a robot, enabling the real Luthor to pretend to have had nothing to do with any of this. Some good slick action, though its modern high-tech consciousness betrays the mood of early Batman conveyed. Wayne claims he is in his first year as the Batman, but it looks as though he’s been round too long. Some neat touches, such as Wayne having stolen the gun and bullets that killed his parents from the police vaults, and his sunken eyed air of madness making him look very like Luthor at times. An interesting experiment but one that doesn’t quite work as well as it would like. For once I was hoping for Superman’s intervention, but his whereabouts are never disclosed.

Arthur Chappell