MORRISON BATM-ANNOTATIONS: BATMAN & ROBIN REBORN

BATMAN & ROBIN REBORN

Batman and Robin #1 - "Domino Effect"

• New Batmobile!
• Mister Toad, Lev and Niko...
• Briefcase full of dominoes (bones)
• Professor Pyg...
• European circus slang...
• Wayne Manor locked up -> move to the Penthouse in Wayne Tower.
• Ghost Train abandoned carnival/circus, Dollotrons.
• Niko's daughter, Sasha.
• Pyg and the Dollotrons stop Niko from leaving: give him a new face and make him one of them
• Wants to make him perfect, castrates him too?
• Pygmalion was a sculptor who prayed to Aphrodite to make his sculptor of a beautiful woman alive.
• Is Pyg resculpting the world in his image? Seems that he is trying to make everything "perfect".

Batman and Robin #2 - "The Circus of Strange"

• Circus of Strange invades GCPD and kills Toad.
• Robin disobeys orders and clashes with Dick. He tears off the badge and goes out on his own.
• Gordon recognizes both, including Damian since he met him in Wayne Manor during RIP.
• Phosphorus Rex, Siam, and Big Top
• Circus of Strange trading mind control drugs with Russian human traffickers. That's who Lev and Niko were.
• References to when Dick was in Bludhaven.
• Wooden Gallopers = merry go round in circus.
• Pyg planning attack on city.
• Domino found in Toad's hand; how did they kill Toad under everyone's noses...
• Quad-Bat cycle.
• Alfred is the GOAT, gives Dick the best speech ever, treat Batman like a performance not an impersonation.
• The show must go on!
• Girl Sasha has the Dollotron mask on!
• The Dollotrons sent out last issue detonate TNT suicide vests across the city. The night belongs to the Pyg!

Batman and Robin #3 - "Mommy Made of Nails"

• Dick says bombs were just to start panic. Pyg wants to make city sick.
• Enter Pyg!
• Pit of Despair, Despair Box, used by Harry Harlow in rhesus monkey experiments. Isolation chamber, similar to Batman #156.
• Maternal deprivation, Wire Mommy, 
• Batman was the rhesus monkey for Doctor Hurt!
• Who is Pyg talking about, who put him in the Despair Pit?
• Mormo, formless chaos...
• Tiamat, Tohu Va Bohu...
• Gorgon queen...
• "Where a hug is a crucifixion", Wire Mommy, Dollotrons are representations of his Wire-Mother. There is no Aphrodite, there isn't any female goddess to bring the perfect creations to life. It's never good enough.
• "Television is different in the turvy world"; what reality does Pyg think he's in? The persona emerges out of some trauma who can make the TV world perfect.
• Dollotrons don't carry bombs, but germs!
• Sasha burns Pyg, but Robin leaves her behind to chase him.
• Germs, sickness, aerosol narcotic, drug that spreads like flu, addiction you can catch.
• In the lab, vial with antidote next to domino... did Pyg make the antidote or did someone else leave both?
• Lazlo Valentin, circus boss who underwent some kind of trauma, becomes Pyg and finances experiments with next-gen drugs.
• Russian gangsters, illegal immigrants, prostitution/human trafficking.
• The drugs were identity-destroying, used to control women. Pyg wanted to use it to hold Gotham for ransom.
• Gordon's comments confirm that carnival was the same one from Killing Joke.
• Double-12 domino, now 12-11...
• What happened to Pyg has happened to Gotham, look away from the mirror, away from the reflection, and the beast creeps in without you knowing. But the thing is, Batman and Robin have come back as well.
• Follow up to the ending/beginning of RIP! Le Bossu gets jumped!
• Who is watching Alfred in the penthouse from a gargoyle?
• Sasha is killing the other Dollotrons, including her father. She is saved from the police by Red hood!

REVENGE OF THE RED HOOD

Batman and Robin #4 - "Red Right Hand"

• Lightning Bug, mercenary hired to collect protection money, killed by the Red Hood and Scarlet.
• They use social media to become new age super-enforcers.
• Let the punishment fit the crime!
• Calling card: vengeance arms against his red right hand.
• Fallout from Hurt's defamation of the Wayne Family affects Wayne Enterprises stocks.
• Apparently the alibi for the world is that Bruce is out to clear his parent's name.
• Lucius has found some financial irregularities...
• Meet the English author, the gravedigger Oberon Sexton. His family was killed by criminals, and his face burnt by acid.
• Will the Dollotron mask tear off Scarlet's whole face? The mind killing Pyg-drug didn't work, this is her true self.
• Red Hood is driven by revenge on Batman, Dick, or Bruce?
• B&R stalk crime boss meet-up. High Rise Romero, Bullet-Nose Dmitri...
• Neon Dragon Triad, Tony Li. Penguin.
• They think Batman is killing.
• El Penitente, some kind of drug-lord. His messenger, Santo.
• Flamingo: no pain, no fear, no remorse. Eater of Faces. Pink Flamingo plane.
• New mode of crime, grassroots, viral. Could El Penitente be the one behind Pyg?
• Red Hood kills everybody, but hears something in the room...
• Dick thinks it's Jason...

Batman and Robin #5 - "Scarlet"

• Sasha followed her deadbeat pops to America to join her uncle.
• So it is Jason Todd. References to Battle for the Cowl.
• He's taking Batman's mission to the next level now that he's dead. No doubt a part of it to spite his memory.
• El Penitente, the main man in Mexico.
• Of course the hood is used against Damian, foreshadowed last issue.
• Santo survives, a domino in hand. 12/10. This was probably the sound Jason heard last issue.
• Sexton is in Gotham hunting an international serial killer. Is it the Domino Killer?
• Lucius still asking about finances, Damian wants to deal with it.
• Jason does the press release, uses the phone poll, haha!
• Gentleman-G Merrywether, Aitch-Eyes, Rodney Fidget.
• Jason studies marketing, he wants to make the symbol of the Bat obsolete.
• Apparently, he dyed his hair from red to black to look like Dick Grayson.
• Sasha's uncle was the human trafficker.
• Flamingo arrives, eats the faces of everyone on the plane. One model survives, was an actress for video shoot. Eduardo Flamingo, alpha-enforcer for the Penitente Cartel.
• Hood and Scarlet pour bleach into Santo's IV. They best B&R and kidnap them.
• They have them tied up but are ambushed by Flamingo!
• King of Killers, Ace of Assassins, Death. Flamingo was a good man until the mob rearranged his brain and made him kill everyone he loved.

Batman and Robin #6 - "Flamingo is Here"

• Hood has Dick and Damian naked and tied down for a livestream, activated if 1 million calls go in to see the true identity of B&R! They obviously make it out before it goes live.
• Flamingo is evil as hell and paralyzes Damian. Hood sends him over the junkyard ravine.
• Paralysis connection to Killing Joke.
• Scarlet dips with the Red Hood mobile and takes her face off. Her arc complete, she sheds the grimdark for the sunrise!
• Damian is airlifted away by his mother's surgeons.
• References to Killing Joke with Jason art.
• Jason gives Dick a final mic drop in claiming that he hasn't used Bruce's corpse on a Lazarus Pit yet because he doesn't want to be in the shadow of the Bat anymore.
• Masks are off! Identities revealed! What is the true face!
• Oberon Sexton has been investigating the serial killer, the same one who killed cardinal Maggi, one of the black glove. We saw the ad at the end of Batman #681.
• El Penitente calls Sexton claiming to know his sins. It's Doctor Hurt! Self flagellation and a W brand on his back. He has unfinished business in Gotham and wants Sexton to do his bidding?
• Dick goes to the vault beneath Wayne Tower and uses code ZEA to access "Bruce's" corpse!