In Batman and Robin 2024 Annual, Bruce and Damian take a night off for camping. Or do they?
Batman & Robin 2024 Annual
Writer: Josh Williamson
Artists: Howard Porter
Color Artist: Rain Beredo
Cover Artist: Howard Porter
Variant Covers: David Nakayama, Dustin Nguyen, Gleb Melnikov
Release Date: January 30, 2024
This review contains spoilers.
Variant cover by Gleb Melnikov (All images courtesy of DC Comics.)
Synopsis:
Batman and Robin 2024 Annual begins as Batman and Robin take out Double Dare and reflect on the need for a night off. When Batman learns that Robin has never taken a road trip, it’s on! Bruce and Damian leave Gotham City for an overnight camping experience, but Damian notices an unusual number of Missing Person flyers in the gas station at which they stop. Their alarm bells ringing, Bruce observes the absence of even a satellite signal. Damian discovers a body.
They confer and Damian heads back to the gas station to confront a patron he observed there but runs face-first into a strong force field. Bruce points out that this feels less like a trap and more like a hunting ground. The hunters are gathered at a nearby mansion at which Roulette is the Rogue running the show. The monthly buy-in is US$10 million and Roulette announces that she will waive next month’s fee for whoever successfully kills Damian. Bloodsport is among the hunters and is especially excited.
Back at their car, Bruce and Damian assess their supplies which includes little more than camping supplied and a few Batarangs Bruce brought along. Father and son set to work making traps and settle down by the fire to await the results. Damian points out that they are not like other families and need not cosplay. The traps begin to take out the hunters while Bruce and Damian count stars in their sleeping bags. Bloodsport strides past the injured and incapacitated hunters and fires multiple bullets into the sleeping bags. He comms Roulette and indicates that he has succeeded.
He realizes the bags were empty and scans the scene. Perched in a tree, Bruce and Damian discuss Bloodsport’s origins. Damian has a plan and indicates that they should separate. Bruce confronts Bloodsport and they fight. Bloodsport realizes with whom he is battling once a Batarang enters the fray.
Just as Bruce gains the upper hand, Damian enters the mansion and apprehends Roulette. He is joined shortly by Bruce but Roulette mocks them and indicates the entire point of the exercise was to draw them both to the mansion for the hunters. Damian smiles and informs her that he happened to turn the livestream of the hunt on for the benefit of their backup, which is now swarming the mansion in the form of the Gotham City Police Department (led by Chase Meridian).
Driving back home, Damian asks a question to which he already knows the answer: Whether Bruce planned this entire night off as an exercise?
Analysis:
I really enjoyed this book! It’s a compact story that both stands by itself as an Annual should but also ties into deeper themes that writer Josh Williamson explores in Batman & Robin. The story is admirably straightforward and while the narrative is linear other than a brief nod to Bloodsport’s backstory, that simple structure serves the Annual format well. Williamson here does what I wish more comic writers do: He gets out of the way of his characters. Readers of a Batman & Robin Annual are obviously looking for a focus on the Dynamic Duo and two of the most significant characters in any comic universe.
Such a focus is on offer here. Williamson offers a clean and coherent story that draws on a familiar motif (heroes being isolated as human prey) and sets the characters in motion. The restraint produces winning results. I enjoyed the banter between Bruce and Damian, especially inasmuch as Williamson is doing an excellent job in Batman & Robin at honoring Damian’s youth and impetuousness without descending into the adolescent petulance some writers foreground that renders the character unbearable. In particular, the playful irony between Damian’s chagrin at cosplaying “normal” families and Bruce’s confirmation of that impossibility given the reveal at the end is highly effective in developing the most important father-son relationship in The Batman Universe.
The only criticism I have is a missed opportunity for the backup to come in the form of the Bat-Family rather than the GCPD, but that is a minor flaw indeed.
Howard Porter’s rough lines match the grittiness of the setting, although at times it is difficult to distinguish Bruce from Damian. Rain Beredo’s colors are always a gift to any book and he marries the strong earth tones of the hunting ground with bright reds and blues for the story’s Rogues.
Nearly everything works in this book and it makes wonderful use of the Annual format.
Final Thoughts:
Batman and Robin 2024 Annual is a fun, compact annual which hits scarcely a wrong note.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
