“Happy Birthday Damian, Part 1”
Creative Staff:
Story: Andrew Aydin
Art: Juni Ba
Colors: Nick Filardi
Letterer: Aditya Bidikar
What They Say:
It’s Damian’s birthday, and the Bat Family is throwing him a surprise party in the cave! But it seems someone has other plans when a pair of ancient Hittite deities crash the party!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
With a mediocre storyline behind us, Truth & Justice moves to an interesting direction in this new multi-issue storyline from Andrew Aydin. It’s my first time reading their work and it has a pretty decent flow here outside of the sudden arrival of a pair of gods, but that’s easily overlooked. They’re paired with artist Juni Ba which has a really great take on the characters here that reminds me of some of the kinds of character designs we’ve seen in the Grendel books over the years to mess with our perceptions a bit while still delivering exactly who these characters are. I really like the look of them here and how expressive they are, especially as Nick Filardi does such a great job on the color design to bring it all together.
With the story here, the Bat-family has gotten together to have a surprise birthday party for Damian as he’s never had one before. While Bruce is off on a mission, it’s the rest of the extended family there to celebrate things with Alfred making sure that the whole situation doesn’t turn into a bloody disaster. It’s fun to watch the group dynamic unfold amid this as you get Nightwing ready for cake, Batgirl really working the older sister feeling, and just a lot of jokes and familiarity that comes from situations like this. I also really liked that Alfred managed to defuse the idea of a sull surprise party because of his view that Damian would react violently to being surprised.
Of course, no good deed goes unpunished and just as he blows out the candles we get the sudden appearance of two elder god types that are now fighting over Damian. This is owed to his bloodline to some degree as the issue opened with him already captured by his grandfather and tempting him with the offer of immortality. Which at his age is dicey since he’d likely not really grow much more and I can’t imagine he’d want to be that short when Jon is still able to grow tall. I do like the opening bit with his Ra’s al Ghul and all, but the back half of this just leans into the action in a fun way with some amusing if accurate bits about the terminology that’s lightly educational for some. That said, as fun as the battle is, it’s just fluff as the larger context just isn’t there yet.
In Summary:
Aydin’s story gives us a good framework within the operate and I like the basic setup of it all. Ba’s artwork is great and I totally love the way each storyline gives us something unique and different from each other so that it can stand out and work with the material at hand. Just the character’s faces, such as Damian before he blows out the candles, delights me to no end. This looks to be a pretty basic story but it’s the way the characters interact that will win me over and this one is doing a lot of that heavy lifting already.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: June 21st, 2021
MSRP: $0.99