This is Batman Vs. Robin. It is Written by Mark Waid and the Prime Illustrator is Mahmud Asrar. Two issues are also Illustrated by Scott Godlewski alongside Asrar. The Coloring is done by Jordie Bellaire and the Lettering is done by Steve Wands. The variant cover used above is Illustrated by Francis Manapul. The story follows Batman, as he discovers that the world of magic has gone into complete chaos. And one name that seems to be responsible for it, Damien Wayne, the fifth Robin. So Batman, along with a resurrected ally, are on a mission to find out what’s going on with Damien and to stop it. Will they be able to and what is going on behind the scenes of the magical occurences?
This book isn’t my favorite. It has some very good things about it but there are also some problems. One thing that I really love about this story is its focus on magic. Magic isn’t really something that get much limelight with Batman stories so having it here is pretty cool. There is a lot of awesome moments with demons and magic. Mark Waid is also very good at understanding characters. I don’t think there has been a single character he has written that the characterization was messed up. Now to my main problem with this book, it has been done before. The storyline of Damien going rogue has been done so many times before from his very first appearance. It has become quite tiring to see the same storylines over and over again for one character. And it almost always ends the exact same way. This is probably one of the better examples of this type of storyline, but it is still massively overdone.
Spoiler Alert: One thing in this book that I like are the character moments between Batman and Alfred, the character resurrected. Even though Alfred is only in the book a little until its discovered that he is a fake, the moments between him and Batman are really sweet and exemplifies their relationship perfectly. The main twist with this book is that Damien is being manipulated by a villain named Nezha. Nezha is great here. We get to see some of his fears and motivations with this book. Its really interesting to see.
Another Spoiler Warning: One thing that annoys me about this book isn’t really it’s fault. In between issues four and five (the final one) was an event named Lazarus Planet. This event is highly influential towards the final issue. So it is kind of jarring when the plot has completely changed in between issues because of the event. At the end of the fourth issue, Batman is wounded and the rest of the cast is trying to save his life. At the beginning of the fifth issue, Batman is possessed by Nezha and Damien has to take him down. It was very confusing and kind of took me out of the book a little. Which is disappointing because the final issue was the best one.
The art in this book is pretty good. Mahmud Asrar is really good with a darker art style which really fit well with this book. The use of shadow is particularly great. Jordie Bellaire’s coloring is really great. One thing that was annoying was that Scott Godlewski, who is a good artist, doesn’t really fit with the rest of the book’s style. When it switches from Asrar’s style to Godlewski’s style was very noticeable for me. Other than that, the art does a great job representing the story.
Overall, this book was ok but it wasn’t for me. I have seen the concept for this story many times before and it is starting to get tiring after a while. It does have some interesting concepts introduced and good characterization but that is about it. The art is good and it does boost the story in areas here and there. I would recommend this book if you haven’t read a book about Damien rebelling and if you want to read Lazarus Planet. But if you aren’t in either of those groups, I would advise you skip this one.