Batman and Robin #6 continues with Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason doing their best to make me hate them and then love them again in one issue. I've complained from the start about Bruce and Damian's relationship, and this issue was the one that made it for me.
Picking up from the last issue, Nobody tells Damian to shoot the ambassador. He prods him until he manages to pull the trigger, resulting in a hollow click. He tosses the weapon aside, telling Nobody he isn't playing games. Ducard assures him this was just a test of his commitment. From there, they take the ambassador to a safe-house to interrogate him further. To gain a bit of trust back, Nobody tells Damian how to execute the move he used to incapacitate him in the alley. After Damian knocks the ambassador out, they depart.
Back with Batman, he continues to trail Damian, and follow the clues to his son. He continues to narrate the letter to Damian as well, going into the story of what happened to disenchant Bruce from the company of the Ducards. Henri trained both Morgan and Bruce on the job, going after a terrorist named Hassan. They finally track him to a hotel and while waiting for INTERPOL to come pick him up, Bruce watches as Henri Ducard shoots him through the peephole of his hotel door. He packs his bags and leaves, his education going no further. Henri instructs Morgan that Wayne is now a loose end to be cut, personally.
On his departure from England, Morgan was set to kill Bruce, but a chance in the weather allowed Bruce to dodge the bullet and fight hand to hand with Morgan in a battle that almost cost Morgan his life. Before he departed England, he dropped Morgan into Henri's workshop, leaving a slightly bat-shaped hole in the skylight.
At the embassy, Batman runs into Gordon and asks for two hours to handle the kidnapping of the ambassador, because it's personal. Gordon gives him one.
Back at the safehouse, Damian and Nobody get the information regarding the human trafficking ring, and Damian is impressed with how they didn't have to torture him to get it. Morgan casually brings the conversation around to how Bruce almost killed him during their training days, but Damian says Bruce only gave him the broad strokes.
Morgan explains Bruce wanted a surrogate father in Henri, and he was determined to push Morgan out of the way. Damian pauses the whole thing when he notices Morgan is dunking the ambassador in acid. Nobody says his own calling card is that he makes the guilty disappear. Damian attacks him and they begin to fight.
Morgan accuses him of turning on a GPS, and reminds him that he pulled the trigger and he was about to kill the ambassador, Damian countering that he knew it wasn't loaded. He claims that the problems between he and Bruce are real, but he used them to sell himself to Morgan and he threw away Morgan's so-called freedom because Bruce is his father and because Morgan seems to enjoy his work too much.
Morgan uses the GPS' ability to transmit sound to relay a message to Batman, letting him know the next sound he hears will be the sound of his son breaking. We end with Bruce shouting Damian's name inside the Batmobile.
The art in this issue lives up to the standards set in the previous issues, with nothing extraneous about it. Because there is a flashback, we're treated to both styles of art.
As I've said for the last few issues, this series has grown on me. The last three issues have rehabilitated a lot of the damage the first three issues did to Damian's character. Last issue's narrated letter to Damian and this issues proclamation of "Because he's my father, you idiot(.)" have gone a long way toward establishing the Bruce and Damian relationship we were promised at the outset of the series.
Reviewed by Melinda Hinman
