PUBLISHER’S PITCH

Father and son. Bruce and Damian. Batman and Robin. From Batman vs. Robin to Knight Terrors, a lot has happened to the Dynamic Duo, but now they are back together and ready to fight crime in Gotham--just in time for Batman's most monstrous rogues to team up to turn the city into an urban jungle! A new villain watches from the shadows, intent on revenge, with a plot to turn one of Batman's greatest assets against him! Can Damian help his father solve the case before it's too late? A brand-new fun and exciting father-and-son adventure begins, from DC Comics architect Joshua Williamson and superstar artist Simone Di Meo!

RECAP

Damian moves into his father’s new brownstone and the two go through the growing pains of living together with someone for the first time. While Bruce would prefer his son to experience elements of a normal teenage, including going to high school. Damian is uninterested and would prefer to continue honing his crime fighting skills and highlights his new detective skills by discovering a lead from the previous night’s encounter. The duo goes to investigate but walk into a trap set by the mysterious new villain who turns Batman’s namesake winged creatures against him.

REVIEW

This book has been getting hyped by other DC creators for several months now and I finally got to see why. In addition to a great story from Joshua Williamson, Simone Di Meo made BATMAN AND ROBIN #1 into a visually stunning book with the approach to art and colors. It’s jumps from the page like a colorful, realistic manga come to life. Characters are expressive without looking cartoonish, lines are well drawn and clean, various forms of light are used to add depth to scenes, panels are presented at different angles to emphasize scale, motion is effectively captured during action scenes. It’s all SO well done.

One of my favorite pages is a full page where we see Damian’s sketchpad revealing what appears to be a fictionalized story/comic about his own upbringing. There’s nothing particularly groundbreaking about the page, yet it’s a fun tongue-in-cheek homage to the comic book medium. Another favorite is a panel where some of Damian’s toughest moments fill a shadow of costumed Robin as it falls behind out-of-costume Damian. The approach to both of these are so simple, yet the level of execution is sublime. If I had one complaint it would be that different angles are used so often, the final battle sequence felt a tad crowded and I almost missed one of the most important panels as it was surrounded by others. But that’s really just nitpicking.

Getting back to Williamson’s story, I was curious to see how the events of this series lined up with the “Dawn of DC” timeline, specifically with the Gotham War arc and Bruce and Damian’s role in those titles. It was a pleasant surprised to see Williamson align their realities with the plotlines of Battle Lines and Batman #137. Bruce and Damian are on the outs with the rest of the Bat Family due to, as Bruce puts it, “everything going on with Selina.” It’s such a small though on-point way for Bruce to describe the situation given his current mindset— not even taking the slightest amount of accountability. In that vein, it came across like we were witnessing someone with a split personality speaking any time Bruce started monologuing. He was talking about everyday things as if nothing else was happening to him. I don’t know if Williamson intended it to come across in this manner but that’s how I interpreted it and it was so unsettlingly enjoyable.

The writing for Damian was a standout for me. His appearances so far in Gotham War have shown him as a one-note character holding his father up as an infallible figure. Here, Williamson dives deeper into Damian as an individual and pulls back the curtain on how he’s processing the events around him. The aforementioned sketchpad page indicates he views Bruce and Selina as absent parents and you can’t really blame him for thinking that.

The one part of this issue that didn’t work for me is the new villain’s plan. How intimidating can they be if the first step of their plans was to turn bats against Batman? Sure, a giant flock of bats attacking you can’t be fun, but came across as lame and I hope they worse things up their sleeves if we’re really to believe they’re a viable foe.

FINAL VERDICT

While there was a decent amount of action to bookend this issue, the heaviest life was in Williamson exploring the the parent/child dynamics in Bruce and Damian’s relationship. There were glaring hints that their roles are on the verge of shifting much like any situation between a parent who is aging and a child coming into their own. It was also nice to see none of the usual Batman rogues suspects in this issue, with some minor names appearing as a distraction to the mysterious new nemesis. My biggest concern going forward is how this new villain is built up, but that won’t spoil how much I enjoyed this debut issue.

Rating: 8.5/10 more

The art is great as jiminez is on the pencils, but this event is just not good so far. Everyone's acting like an idiot. Batman's off but that's a little understandable, since he was in a different universe for 2 months, but the rest of the bat family is just written so stupidly.

Like did you not think that eventually the villians will team up? Or just hire goons from other cities..... or just pay their old henchmen who are now better trained l. To do bigger and more dangerous jobs.

Selina's whole idea, makes zero logical sense, and I know we are talking about comics here. But this has to be Howard's idea. Because it just seems to stupid to come from chip. He's no god of comics or anything, but I expect him to be smarter then " if the criminals only rob the rich, then nobody gets hurt " ..... yes except once you rob everything the rich have within 6 months. Now what?


I was originally going to give this a 6.5 but the more I thought about it. I feel this end of the event was written, and then the rest of it was made to make a story around the ending.
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That was ruthless, so much fun, and a great homage all at the same time.

Exactly how you want Peter to act after what happened last issue. If you like Angry black suit Spider-Man going to town. You will enjoy this.

If not 🤷‍♂️ it's not what I want for 50 issues of spidey but 5-10 ya it's an awesome arc, best since the first one.

It was a solid issue all around.

I was not a massive fan of the last 5-7 issues so this was a good course correction. I was let down, that they kicked black cat before they ever seemed to have a good time. But the lawyer of a crime boss love interest if they go that route. Could actually be kinda fun, I could see it leading to some good/fun stories.

But the ending got me, I really like where this is going, especially with the villains in this series.

And spoilers



I am a massive Batman who laughs fan, so I can't wait for The Spider Who Cackles. It seems like a good angle to take, it felt weird for this arc to be able forcing Norman to be the goblin. After the last arc.

I bet he saves the day in a couple arcs or maybe even this one, by taking the goblin back.

It only makes sense.

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Sorry but there's no way joker should be beating up batman like that unless Bruce is really hurt.

See it's tough to date this series.

Is it a good story with good art. Yes

Is it a story I've read 7 times in the past 3 years with 7 different writers. Yes

Ram v is trying to put his own spin on it, but I'm really really tired of the villians " Batman is actually bad for the City and I'll save it shtick " just stop it.

There is no way possible in continuity for the city to flip flop on Batman this much and go from " he's our dark saviour " to " wait someone is trying to frame Batman for the 967th time, and we are dumb as sh!t so we fell for it again routine"

And the mad hatter rip off with a bunch of eyes is dumb, just plain dumb.

If this series existed in a vacuum where no other Batman series ever wrote about something like this. It would be good .

But it's now it's just the next version of the same story I've read that doesn't make sense, as a non black label boom anymore.

Get a better editorial dc. more

Boring. Lots of big panels for no reason. MJ and Paul are long-forgotten. Have no idea what Peter sees in Black Cat.

That was a fun finale lots of fan service but it was awesomely drawn. Jimenez is the best artist on Batman since capullo I love his Gotham and everything he does with each bstman he drawn. Michael Keaton needs to buy the page of his Batman for his office. And the Adam west one should go into a Batman museum. Simply breathtaking what that man can do eith a pencil.

The story was fun but I didn't overly like the whole " he created every joker " thing. It looks more like the regular joker drove him mad and not the other way around.

All in all this run has been good. Nothing special I am going to be honest I think I enjoyed the first 2 arcs of tynions Batman run more then zdarsky's. Not by much but batman their dark designs was a way better story then it gets credit for, and better then fail safe, and joker war was better then this arc too. So we will see where this goes from here. I'm excited for the next arc. more

This is coming from a guy who likes Our favourite wall crawler Peter with Felicia over Mj. But this is just a horrible way to treat MJ to me. And Peter getting to look like a big cuck and Paul not only stole his girl he's worked how hard to get back after all this time? But he kids with her. I thought she was the strip mom or something before, but this to me is just an aweful place to take the story. I'm happy he's back with Felicia, and I have really enjoyed this run up until this issue to be honest, it's not amazing but it's been solid. This is jsut dumb and bad, such an aweful idea. I have no clue how it made it through editorial. more

Worst book DC has put out in the last decade. Tim gets his own knock off version of clay face here but that's about it. I read this book just to dump on it (because it truly deserves it) but I do hope it will get readable one day. Tim is my favorite Robin after all.

Tim Drake has never, ever, Ever, EVER wanted to be Batman!!!! IT’S BEEN THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECT OF HIS CHARACTER SINCE HIS CREATION!!!!

Just avoid it like most other readers

This run has been a good to great slow burn. And I have enjoyed every issue so far. I feel the 10 ranking are a tad high. As it's not the Long Halloween or anything. But it's forsure the best detective has been since Tomasi was in the book.

This is a good read with good art. It reminds a bit of the boys with the way the issue plays out with his old team.

Can't wait for issue 2

It’s just like the looney left have always said, men CAN give birth! Fuuuuuuuu…

The main story was the best of the series. The jones where aweful and in poor taste and has me laughing. There humour was twisted and there was some great banter between red hood and the joker.

Also spoiler

When joker is hiding in the hospital from the swat team, and ends up in the childrens termanilly I'll suck wing. He made them laugh enough to cover for him with the cops. What more do you want from a joker comic.

The backup is goofy but harmless old style comic fun but with dark goofy plots. And no logic at all. Anyone trying to say this is woke, because the joker was hexed and then threw up a mud monster that ended up forming into a mini joker. Is an idiot, who isn't worth listening too. I don't like " woke stuff" that wasn't " woke " you morons giving this 1.0 over it. more

This series has not exactly been what I expected from a zdarsky Batman book. But it's always a good solid read. This was a fun issue, I like the skeleton Jim Gordon. Excited to see where this series goes. It's paying homage to older stories while doing its own thing at the same time. Let's see where this all goes!

Awesome story and can't wait for the rest of the series.

That book was way more fun to read then expected. Awesome job all around on that one. The back up story was great too.

Batman / Spawn was a lot of fun. Seriously it's nice to just read a nice an fun comic with great art. I like the ending and how it leaves this open for a sequel that I really would like to read. Because the only thing holding this book back was time. If this was a 3/4 part series it would be amazing and give the story more time to build.

If you like Greg Capullo's art even half as much as I do, this will be worth reading. It's just gory fun from the first page to the last. more

Not bad overall. The narration felt a little awkward at times. It felt a bit better after a second read-through. I liked the voices of the characters save for a few lines from Batman. In particular, I didn't like his Asylum "bluff" strategy towards the end. I would've liked to see 5-10 more pages to help develop the story. All in all an OK read with solid art, great action panels and spreads.

Art is 12 out of 10. story better than expected to be honest, but felt a bit more convoluted as it progressed. Story is 3/10. I will be back for the next installment and I’m sure most people who read this one will be along for the ride, too.

Okay, who exactly is this made for, because I am a massive Tim Drake fanboy & I’m bi and I can tell you it’s certainly not made for me, and if it’s not made for me then who is it made for? It’s be one thing if this was a brand new character, but this is a character with over 30 years of history, with a clearly defined personality and character traits. Would love if this book incorporated those character traits instead of this Tumblr fanfic version.

Alright, positives first, this is probably the best issue Fitzmartin has written so far, but there’s still a lot wrong with it. This story is actually kind of interesting, and it felt like a natural progression instead of random events happening. And the art is much better this time around. And I am curious to see who the bad guy is, we meet this Colonel guy, so right now I’m leaning towards The General as the main bad.

I think I figured out the Riley Rossmo situation. Rossmo’s art isn’t that bad, his backgrounds and the way the characters move across the page are actually quite dynamic and engaging. But, the character designs are what bring it down. If they can tweak the way the characters look, then there would be improvement.

While it is cool to see Tim take down these faux-Robins, it is brought down by the over abundance of narration. I don’t think there was a single panel in this comic that didn’t have any dialogue in it. Comics are a visual medium, let the art do the talking, Show Don’t Tell. Also Tim seemed to show more remorse beating up Damian or Jason than he did Stephanie……deep breath….anyways.

The humor here, just does not land. There is a moment where they do “the high ground” meme and it just feels like “how do you do fellow kids.”

Now talk about Bernard. I kept confusing him for a her, because quite frankly Bernard looks like a lesbian. He looks more and more feminine with every issue, even, are we sure Tim is dating a guy? It just feels like Fitzmartin’s gay fantasy. Also they are implying that Bernard’s family doesn’t approve of him coming out…groan really, you’re doing this cliché? It’s a good thing to tackle, important even to show how families are not always supportive, but it’s just so overdone. Can’t we just have it be Bernard is also experimenting discovering something about himself, but instead it feels like that “I like men now” moment from the Simpson’s movie.

Now let’s talk about how Tim follows Bernard to his boat. Tim is trying to avoid Bernard in order to keep his identity in tact, but as soon as Bernard says the word boyfriend, Tim instantly perks up, forgets everything, and follows Bernard like a little puppy dog………no, No, No, No, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!! Tim has always, ALWAYS prioritized keeping his identity a secret from those he loved, yes he hated having to lie to his loved one, but he understood his responsibilities and took every measure to keep it safe, whether it was from Ariana, Stephanie, or his own Father. WHY ARE THEY MAKING TIM A SIMP FOR THIS MANIC PIXIE FEMBOY?!?!?!?! This just reeks of Straight girl’s Yaoi Tumblr fanfic.

Start writing Tim instead of this Gay Fantasy Lookalike, give Bernard a f@#king personality, and show us why the hell Tim wants to date him already!!!! I’m still growing more convinced that Bernard is the villain, because how else was Bernard able to sneak up on Tim the way he did. That prospect is frankly what I’m looking the most forward to.

TL:DR Plot is okay, too much narration boxes, art is better but still needs work, Characterization AWFUL
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This was not what I expected but a good read. It's got 4 different set teams which is usually something I hate, but it worked for this story. Ben'a new suit is pure badass and one of the only character redesigns I've liked in a long time. Can't wait for this event to start.

This has been a great series overall possibly the most consistent and best on the shelf from the big two. Since issue 1. I have rather enjoyed this run and can't wait for the next arc to start. Also the Kraven's last hunt variant cover is top notch.

This is a really really good comic. I was going to give it a 9.


Spoiler




God dammit dc, you killed off alfred after three issues I was soooooooooo happy to have my butler back. You can go to hell. I'm only buying 1 cover of every book from now on instead of two, and cutting my pull list in half. I'm tired of your shenanigans and Tom foolery.

Hard to rate without the conclusion, but the art so amazing and the story has been fast paced. It's good not great. It's worthy of the main Batman title atleast. I don't get the 4-5 ratings. The art alone makes this book worth reading.

My only complaint about this arc is that it almost feels like the end of a long run on Batman not the start of one. Where do you go from this?

This is a really really good start to a Batman run. It's different and sets itself apart from every other Batman book on the shelf. It has a mood to it that matches the story it's trying to tell perfectly. Ram G writes a very interesting Batman story. Can't wait for the next issue, also Albuquerque's art is perfect for this book. Only reason it's an 8 and not higher is I just liked the white knight series better this week.

But between detective comics, the Zdarsky Batman run, and the white knight, waid's Batman and supermen, and Batman vs Robin, it's possible the best over quality in the Batman line up in a long time. I'm loving it. more

This series is awesome, this is how you do an elseworlds tale. This is a very very great issue. The set is amazing, I love the way sgm does the shadows in this book. I can't wait to re read the first to volumes and then go through this series again when it's done. Dc this is one of your best books on the shelf and the covers are always worthy of putting up on a wall. I may have to change up my Batman books and get some sgm on my wall soon. more