Batman and Wonder Woman by Peter J. Tomasi issue #30 [The Hunt for Robin]

Our caped crusader continues his pursuit of Ra's Al Ghul in the second installment of The Hunt for Robin and this time he was accompanied by no other than the princess of the Amazons, Wonder Woman, as they travel to Paradise Island. The other amazons were not very warm and hospitable on their reception--especially Aleka. Batman was not welcome because he is a man but Wonder Woman was quick to stand up for him, beseeching her sisters to allow him to navigate the island since he believes that Ra's himself has acquired the means to discover the secret location of the Amazons, and will use the island's well-kept secret for his nefarious plans.

This issue was almost like an echo of what happened in the previous story with Aquaman although this had the tendency of being self-advertising. Wonder Woman would go into some sort of expository dialogue every now and then in case the one who's reading this comic book will be interested in picking up her title. It didn't bother me because I was presently not enticed because I haven't heard that many great things about Brian Azzarello's run, especially the way he changed WW's origin story. But then again, Tomasi might be, er, "auditioning" since Azzarello is leaving the WW title soon. It's only slightly jarring to the story being told and I would've preferred Bruce and Diana being friendlier at least. I've always enjoyed their relationship in the cartoon version. I was hoping for something akin to that, but everything is very business-like with these two.

The more I think about it, the more I realize this is almost just like what went down on the Aquaman issue and it's a repetitive sequence of Batman pursuing Ra's with the help of a JLA member, they find him, fight scenes commence, but Ra's escape, so onto the next venture. I wished that kind of formulaic storytelling should be a one-time thing only so it didn't work the second time around for this issue which is disappointing. I did like the brief shared moment between Bruce and Diana at the end when they were discussing about shadows and light. That was really the only part of this comic book I connected with in an emotional level. Too bad. 

With Aquaman, I got a glimpse of a possible team-up again in the future with Batman because they worked quite efficiently together--there could be a friendship and camaraderie between them (without the drama that Batman has with Superman sometimes) if given enough time someday. With Wonder Woman, it felt stiff and sort of one-note as if they had no relationship with each other whatsover (they had tension and arguments between them in the past so I don't know why they act in this issue as if they have only met the first time. These two have worked more than once together and it hasn't always been that pleasant but it didn't show here with the way Tomasi wrote them. It's really just like they shared a cab). However, perhaps Diana is walking on eggshells in respect to Bruce's loss of his son? We'll never really know.

RECOMMENDED: 6/10