A lot of the $3.99 books I can be heard complaining about day-to-day off of the Internet could take a few notes from Jason’s $13 single stories from Fantagraphics. Sequence by sequence and page by page, the re-readability of his stories and scenes consistently offer more densely fulfilling reads than any three or four new $4 books books you could package together and hand to me off the mainstream racks like one of those old hermetically sealed Toys “R” Us deals they used sell by the baseball cards.

“Werewolves of Montpellier,” like many of Jason’s books, draws from existing genre material — this time, it’s werewolf stories. The book exemplifies his quirky unique methodology, which I can’t think of how to describe in any terms other than “chamber comics” because of his use of a minimal number of visual elements and character faces. This reductionist approach to his story telling feeds the timelessness that results from the lack of period-anchoring fashion or uniquely stylized characters that would otherwise draw clear lines between his individual works. Instead, the small cast of animal types and distinguishing characteristics that he employs serves to create continuity in his larger body of work with ham-fistedly working in overt self-referencing. It was a strategy that worked for Ingmar Bergman, and it works for Jason as well.

This particular story ends in a graceful, yet awkwardly suspenseful and open-ended manner, but as with Jason books I’ve encountered before, this landing contributes to the matter-of-fact delivery he often employs in making you feel like you’re witnessing a story sliced out of a larger saga.

Covers go a lot further with me when picking minicomics than they do with superhero books — mainly because with independently published titles on the individual creator/creative team level, it can represent an extra step that someone went through to exhibit craftsmanship and care to affect how their work as an object is being presented. Poseur #3 grabbed my attention on the rear-wall rack at Chicago Comics mostly for this reason. I’m not familiar with the previous two issues, so I can’t comment on its scenes in the larger context of the series. Nor am I familiar with the creator, Nat. The book is a brilliant example, however, of how to chain together disparate serialized stories in a way that makes sense and challenges the reader on a surrealist level while packing enough concrete scenery, characters, themes to make the stories themselves interesting both individually and in the grander scheme of the work.

Self-inflicted electrocution in various contexts and spontaneously erupting physical forms from amorphous organic blobs are the two major motifs at play here, and if you appreciate extremely confined perspectives that leave a great deal to the imagination while you read, this is a minicomic worth picking up. The art isn’t refined in a traditional sense, but it really comes into focus around figures like the Cthuloid/Starro-ish figure who jumps out of the sidewalk and the microwave scene toward the end. In fact, the imbalance between the detail invested in the surreal elements versus the human characters in the art really drives home the notion of the sci-fi and fantastic forces at work in the story being in control. It’s a neat nuance and made for a worthwhile $4 pull.

Well, that was something. Way back at the end of Batman and Robin #4 Morrison had me onboard with the Oberon Sexton mystery, and I’m happy to see that my worst fears weren’t realized, but it turns out I wasn’t far off. Spoiler Alert: Don’t read on to the next paragraph if you don’t want to be exposed to the big reveal at the end of this issue.

The current storyarc has really been humming for the last few months, and Oberon Sexton turning out to be The Joker more or less means that things are ostensibly at fever pitch right now. The duplicitous Sexton/Domino Killer reveal made the unmasking intriguing, even if it compels me to point out the drastically different shape of Sexton’s head and face shapes compared to those of The Joker. It’s a petty aesthetic quibble, but it also constitutes a small cheat on Morrison and his artists’ parts. Nevertheless, narratively and as a plot device, it works.

Furthermore, the rest of issue #12 was full of solid beats as well. Damian’s clarified fall from the House of Ra’s al Ghul was great, and the opening fight between Dick and Slade Wilson/Damian was both fun visually and a well-developed convergence of old and new plot threads. The whole book this month was vintage Morrison, and Andy Clarke, Scott Hanna and Dustin Nguyen’s artwork may have required a prism of collaborations, but it gelled serviceably.

As a series, Batman and Robin has been an unexpected multi-ring circus of hits, misses, and artists, but now that it’s over the 12-issue hill, the big pictures looks much better than you might have expected it to last fall.

I had to sit on this read for a bit after Batman #686. “Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?” is an unmistakably moving slice of Bat-verse, but it’s singular nature demands hard swallow to add up the parts of what Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert put together here. Does this story deserve a place in the Pantheon of top Batman stories ever told? No, but I think people will still read it and mention it ten years from now. I don’t think it will be remembered vividly alongside Alan Moore’s “Whatever Happened to the Man of Tomorrow?” and consistently mentioned in the same breath, but it will often be a fond afterthought to discussions of that work.

Despite the finely tuned writing and elegant arrangement, story never seemed to put anything at risk for me, and the meaty subplots of Moore’s work were absent, which meant the real danger was mostly cerebral, implied and floated lightly upon the playful turns. The end result was satisfying reading experience, but I don’t feel like it added anything to the character beyond a confrontation with death that was interrupted by the “Goodnight Moon” homage at the end, which was also clever and entertaining, but a soft landing for a story that had already relieved its tension.

What I’ll remember Gaiman and Kubert for in this story is their salute to the Golden Age and Silver Age Batman tales of the past. Their tour was heartfelt and worth the cover price on this issue, but I don’t believe my Batman reading experience over the last year would have been impacted on way or another if I’d read this comic when I first bought it. It’s a love poem by an all-star pair of creators, but it’s just not a Batman contribution for the ages.

There was a split second between pages in Batman and Robin #8 when I was expecting to see a horrible replay of the final scene that dare not not be named from Star Wars: Episode III. What happened instead felt much more like Batman, as did this entire issue, and I’m pleased to report back to any doubters who may have dropped this book during issue #’s 4-6 that the Grant Morrison series this should have become from the beginning has arrived, and Cameron Stewart may be to Batman and Robin what Frank Quitely was to New X-Men, even if his issues are few in number. I enjoy how Morrison can play with your expectations and still manage to surprise by offering scenes and moments that just plain resonate well with their characters and backstories.

There are numerous cliches in this issue, from the Lazarus Pit emergence to the twin-costumed hero fight in an instant of ambiguity and even Batwoman’s injuries. Morrison can pull you to the brink of groaning with disgust over a stale plot device and then jar the winged placental mammals out of you, though, both with humor and terror. Furthermore, the density of plot-relevant sequences this week almost made up for the entire last story arc that stretched awkwardly over its issues. And meanwhile you have the whole “Batman never fights to kill!” question hanging like a guillotine over the entire mythos, which is surely only for effect, but it does add another level of tension.

If every chapter of Batman and Robin produced these kinds of results, I’d be convinced we were looking at a game-changing classic, but instead it feels like the book is just now waking up. It was super-strong, but if I have one place to pick bones with it, it’s the weak, weak supporting cast, who all seem like rather bland placeholders who are British — and that’s about it. I’m not saying I need flashbacks or over-exposition in wordy asides, but they just seem hollow and reduced as people, which comes up short in terms of the expectations I have for a Morrison event comic. They have room to grow, though, and even if they don’t this series is standing on solid ground going into #9.