In Batman and Robin #12, Batman squares off against Vengeance and Kobra while Robin, reflecting on Alfred’s murder, takes on the might of Bane.
Batman and Robin #12 main cover by Simone Di Meo
Batman and Robin #12
Writer: Joshua Williamson
Artist & Colorist: Juan Ferrerya
Cover Artist: Simone Di Meo
Variant Cover Artists: Juan Ferrerya & Travis Mercer with Andrew Dalhouse, Simone Di Meo, Vasco Georgiev
Release Date: August 14, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers.
Batman and Robin #12 begins on Dinosaur Island, Robin (Damian Wayne) charges out of the underbrush astride his saurian steed, thinking only of Alfred and of dealing death to Alfred’s killer. Vengeance banters with Batman, warning him to leave her and her father alone. Robin attacks Bane, and they battle. Bane pummels Robin, but in between flashbacks to conversations with Alfred, Robin recovers and taunts Bane.
Vengeance and Batman pursue the antagonists, and Batman discovers Bane’s Venom lab. To Batman’s questioning, Vengeance admits Bane contracted with Kobra to create a new form of Venom, the effects of which did not fade. Instead, he and Vengeance succeeded only in creating a new form of Venom that exposed its users to the side effect of animalistic rage. Batman is furious, and just as Vengeance prepares her attack, she is neutralized by Maya.
Amidst tall trees, Bane stalks Robin. He falls for a ruse; Robin takes advantage with a well-timed kick to Bane’s knee. He advances on the vulnerable Bane, but stays his sword as Bane notes that he never had any real choice but to become a monster. Bane invites Robin to finish the deed, and Robin, filled with rage and grief over Alfred’s murder, grants Bane the mercy he withheld from Alfred.
Bane points out that they share a monstrous capacity, and Robin rejects the notion, expressing disgust, rage, and sadness at the fact that Bane never had anyone who showed him an alternate means of facing historical trauma. Batman and Maya burst into the clearing, and as they prepare to depart, Vengeance shoots Robin with a vial of Venom. Robin transforms into a monstrous version of himself and roars at Bane, “I AM GOING TO BREAK YOU!”
Batman and Robin #12 variant cover by Juan Ferreyra. Image: DC Comics
Although the first entry of this final arc in writer Joshua Williamson’s run left me pining for the cityscapes of Gotham, this is a dense, fascinating book that is packed with important moments. Readers have been waiting many months to see how Batman creatives will handle the death of Alfred, and it is spellbinding to see Robin’s rage and grief unfold in the pages of Batman and Robin. This is truly ‘The Third Book.’
I have been so impressed with Williamson’s work on this book, and Batman and Robin #12 is no exception. He has an incredibly deft touch, discerning with an almost uncanny feel when to say more and when to leave spaces for readers. The settings, narratives, and plot structures have been well-formed, logical, sequential, and above all simple. This is a book about Batman and Robin. The wisest choice any writer could make would be set the stage carefully but simply and leave it as a canvas on which The Dynamic Duo can display the full range of emotion, action, and perspective that makes them arguably the most important pair in any comic universe. Williamson has chosen exactly that path, but the skill and care with which he has rendered its contours is astonishing.
In Batman and Robin #12, the flashbacks do not distract; they artfully and obviously cast Robin’s choices with regard to Bane in sharp relief. The vastness of his rage and anger at Alfred’s senseless murder is boundless, and yet it is the photo-negative boundlessness of his love and respect for Alfred that stay Robin’s hand. Williamson clearly loves and respects Damian Wayne, and he shows this by portraying a mature, thoughtful Robin who, while still caught in the throes of adolescence, is nevertheless a fully-formed being capable of growth and agency. Williamson reminds us that Damian may be a youth, but he is not a child, and while he is as accountable to his past as we are, he not ruled by it – contrary to what the brilliant Bane asserts.
So too does Williamson skillfully render the ironic contrast with Bane’s progeny, the aptly named Vengeance. Batman’s child will not become vengeance, not only departing from the choice Vengeance seeks to force on him, but from his own father. Batman too had to learn that the vengeance he embodied in Years One and Two was insufficient. Gotham needed more from him, and Robin seems already to have internalized that message.
Perhaps it is because I rewatched Matt Reeves’ The Batman twice this summer and am somewhat obsessed with it, but I perceived echoes of the film in this book. The resonance is apparent not just in Robin’s comprehension of the limits of vengeance – a key theme in the 2022 film – but also in Bane’s remonstrance that he never had any choice but to become a monster, a perspective also explicitly adopted in the film by Riddler.
The 12 books in this series have been among the best 12 books in a comic series that I have read since I began seriously collecting in 2015. It’s been a pleasure and an honor to have been a reviewer on this book, and while I am sad that Williamson’s run is ending, I am also excited for the upcoming creative team of Philip Kennedy Johnson and Javier Fernandez. May we go from strength to strength!
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advance copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
