Batman vs. Robin
Batman and his son, Damien, have been having a rough time of it lately. While the Dark Knight has always had issues with openness and intimacy, they’ve prevented him from doing something important: Emphasizing to his son that the death of Alfred Pennyworth wasn’t his fault. It’s this determination to prove himself that has led Damien away from his father’s influence and on a journey across the world… which has now taken him back to the Batcave. With some friends, and a score to settle. He’s looking to make his father pay for every small failure he’s had over the years, but is this really Damien’s will at work? And how’s he going to respond when it’s revealed that Alfred… is alive again!
“Batman vs. Robin” follows up on the events of two unrelated comics, “Robin” and “World’s Finest,” and I’ve only been keeping up with the latter. While I appreciate DC’s efforts to get me up to speed on the former at the beginning of this volume, the narrative quickly spirals out of control as things immediately scale up to a potentially world-ending threat in this event series. In that regard, it’s not hard to feel that the publisher gave writer Mark Waid a list of things that needed to happen over the course of it and left him to figure out a way to tie it all together. Which kind of has it feeling like a parade of endless guest stars and out-of-nowhere complications by the end of it all.
Still, Waid is no slouch as a writer and you can feel that he’s doing his best to wring as much drama as he can out of the proceedings. This is best seen in Batman’s interactions with Alfred, but there are also some nice moments with Robin and the Other Robins. It also looks good thanks to Mahmud Asrar’s textured art that does its best to be stylish regarding whatever threat is on the page, while Scott Godlewski does able pitch-in work when it’s called for. So while it’s not an entirely successful event series, it has its moments and that may be enough for anyone looking for a story that predicates itself on the title conflict.