Grayson #8 Review

Secrets.

Minos reveals his hand, but he doesn’t count on being played himself. With Mikel Janin returning, Grayson looks great and vibrant.

There are some elements of Minos’ plan that fail to excite, but provide a good platform for Dick Grayson to play off. And the end reveal is salivating for any Morrison fan.

SPOILERS FOLLOW…………

Two parallel talks go on between Mr Minos and his ‘friends’ (on one side, Helena and on the other, a mystery woman). On both sides, Minos reveals that his obsession with secrets and how revealing Justice League was just part of the plan, not the entire thing.

As he reveals that his major agenda was shutting down SPYRAL which is a reservoir of secrets, he manages to arrow Helena near her heart. Thinking he’s killed her, he makes his way to Agent One.

But Helena apparently made sure her crossbow (which Minos used) was out of focus, so while Minos went off thinking he killed her, she manages to reach Dick during his gym teaching hours with the help of Dr. Dedelus.

Agent One is able to get the better of Minos, but in an apparent copy of Amazo, we see that Minos has fused all the organs together to create a hybrid creature with the powers of the entire Justice League sans Wonder Woman.

Using all his training alongside Bruce, Dick is able to avoid the creature and help Agent One as well. Thanks to the students tagging along, Dick is able to get a clear shot at the Creature, which he kills.

Minos himself appears to be killed by a vengeful Helena.

But apparently, Minos was able to cheat death as he talks with the mystery woman in a café. While his ‘copy’ is dead to the world, he is free to dismantle SPYRAL from the outside. Just then though, the mystery woman reveals herself to Minos – who recognizes her as Agent Zero of SPYRAL and how Minos has been played to ensure that Grayson fell in with SPYRAL permanently.

As he attempts to tell her his ‘own’ secret as to why he did all this, he is killed – with the mystery woman uninterested in his story, decrying him as another standard bat-villain, only one obsessed with secrets instead of penguins (refereeing to Oswald Cobblepot).

I cannot tell you how excited I’m to see this person. From her Bat-talk and Minos’ mention of her as Agent Zero, the mystery woman can only be the original Batwoman, Kathy Kane. Kathy last appeared in the finale to Batman Incorporated and I’ve been waiting for her to return ever since Grayson was announced.

But overall, this felt very rushed, not to forget the Amazo knockoff. Seeley and King salvaged it though by using Minos effectively. He remained the unknown antagonist; only at the very end did we learn he was always a puppet in the hands of bigger players.

This served as a finale to Grayson’s first arc, but there are several things still unanswered – what is the Garden? Do all the organs actually serve a purpose beyond Minos’ actions?

I loved how Dick managed to figure out that Wonder Woman was connected to the heart he managed to get out of SPYRAL’s grasp and that was the weak-spot of the hybrid Paragon creature.

And that Bruce regularly trained his compatriots to exploit the weak-points of the Justice League (makes me wonder how Amazo is even a threat now).

The backup cast of the Deathmask Girls is off-the-hooks in the comedy department. From classifying Dick’s two cheeks as Jim and Juan to wondering whom to love more, it’s a riot.

SPOILERS END…………….

Despite some lackluster elements in Minos’ plans, the end reveal and the overall energy of this issue in both characters and art makes it a welcome end to the first major arc of Grayson.

So, I give this 8.0 out of 10.

+Great artwork

+The reveal at the end

+Comedic backup cast

-Some lackluster elements

-Pacing issues