I am still on the fence about this entire premise and the reason that Dick needs to be presumed dead to infiltrate some secret organization because Batman said so. It’s the kind of thing that would generally turn me off from a story, and yet I still find myself riveted in what has been presented so far, even with all my attempts to tell myself it’s a silly convuluted mess. Tim Seeley continues to develop what could easily have been a very generic tale of old school espionage and continue to make it into a throughly engaging tale of intrigue and deceit. There are more ups and downs in issue number 2 of Grayson than many others books have in entire story arcs. I felt engaged as a reader and never felt pandered to, or felt as if I had to know a library full of backstory to squeeze enjoyment from it.
It’s refreshing to be able to experience a story like this (a throwback to the haughty days of ’70s spy thrillers) and not have all the details laid out at my feet. I honestly feel as if I am taking this journey with Grayson and not just following him throughout the book. The writing is smart enough to make you question events and situations so you begin building your own outcomes in your head. Weirdly enough, you actually feel like you’re doing detective work in a book that isn’t about Batman. Who would have guessed that the world’s greatest detective story would feature good old Dick Grayson. The art duties on issue two are split up between three different artists this time around, and while that usually spells disaster when I see that, this time it works flawlessly. I jumped into the book without taking a look at the creative team because I like to go in with as little pre-judgement as possible. Not once reading Grayson #2 did it even cross my mind that the art duties were done by more than a single artist.
Like in issue #1 the real star of the series so far is the coloring. Jeromy Cox does an outstanding job of giving the book a striking color palette which is something to generally associated with any Bat-family book. It really captures the essence of the vibrant and wild world of those old spy thrillers that this book so heavily draws from. Issue #2 throws a lot of content the readers way without feeling overly cluttered. We see a number of side stories begin to form and get some much needed depth into the worlds of the characters we already know and the kind of people they really are. It’s still surprising that this book isn’t 60 some pages because it feels like so much more. The main crux of the adventure sees Dick tracking down an artificial stomach (weird?!?) from a rogue doctor with speedster like abilities. I’ve already said too much, but it’s really quite an engaging tale with some impressive action set-pieces, not to mention there is a lot more story that unfolds around said task. The comedy sprinkled throughout the story is smartly written and helps to change the pacing a bit when things start becoming a little heavy with regards to characters and situations. So many books have amazing first issues and quickly lose their pace with their followup, so it’s really great to see the Grayson #2 is so far living up to all the hype behind it.
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