Now that the Dynamic Duo have learned who’s behind the new crime wave in Gotham, can they stop his grip on the gangs before it’s too late? Check out our review of Batman & Robin: Year One #4.
Batman & Robin: Year One #4 main cover by Chris Samnee
BATMAN & ROBIN: YEAR ONE #4
Written by MARK WAID and CHRIS SAMNEE
Art and Main Cover by CHRIS SAMNEE
Variant Covers: KHARY RANDOLPH, RILEY ROSSMO, DANNY EARLS
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: January 15, 2025
This review contains spoilers
Batman & Robin: Year One #4 begins as Robin dives into the ocean after Batman, who’s leg is stuck under a fallen crate. Panicked, he flashes his infrared light to find Batman already at work with an iron bar leveraging his leg free. Frustrated by being on the backfoot regarding the new crime boss General Grimaldi, they arrive back at Wayne Manor just in time to be greeted by Laura Lyn of Gotham Social Services. Bruce pretends to have been on a jog while Dick changes from his day clothes to his pajamas to feign sleeping, which just about convinces Lyn who wishes Dick a good next day. This is how Dick learns that he’s being enrolled in public school.
Grimaldi’s lieutenants inform their boss that his name was given up by Harvey Dent and that Batman now knows who he is. The next night, a boxed package “from Miami” arrives at Grimaldi’s door, revealed to be housing dozens of bats when unboxed. This distracts his Grimaldi’s men while Batman confronts him inside his office, warning him to leave town within 24 hours. Utilizing the bats, he escapes the gunmen and flies off the rooftop. Grimaldi admits defeat and underestimating Batman’s prowess, and vows not to make the same mistake, just as Alfred drives Dick to his first day at school.
Analysis
While this comic is still very much engaging and the story is well written, not much happens in Batman & Robin: Year One #4 and the consequences set up from the cliffhanger in #3 didn’t result in much impact on our heroes at all. Batman is not injured from a giant crate falling onto him and trapping his leg underwater, and Robin seems totally fine from witnessing that and the two of them almost dying.
I say this book is still well written, but what holds Batman & Robin: Year One #4 back is a lack of connection with the two main characters from the previous three issues. I think Waid’s starting to lose his grip on Dick’s perspective. We had a perfectly strong set-up for an attitude change with the boat adventure and Dent mentioning the Flying Graysons, but none of that is followed up on here. Batman survives his death trap, naturally, but it would’ve been more suspenseful if they both arrived back at the house to meet Laura Lyn, and he had to hide a leg injury. Also they both would stink of seawater. At the risk of pretentiously instructing Mark Waid on how to write this book, it seems moreso than last month that he’s getting more into the Grimaldi crime story that the developing of Batman and Robin as partners. That’s disappointing, as the excitement of the book is exactly that. How is their psychology adapting to not only a new threat but this new reality of fighting crime together? I was certain there’d be some scene of coming down from the night’s action on the boat ride back to the Batcave, but it almost reads like Marvel-esque hijinks. Additionally, Batman’s assault on Grimaldi’s office read like it came out of nowhere, immediately following the morning-time Wayne Manor scene.
Even Chris Samnee’s art -while still terrific – lacked a certain detail that chipped at the reality of the action sequences. In the beginning with Batman and Robin underwater, there’s hardly any water bubbles throughout. It has the sequence looked unfinished, and while the pencils, inks and colors are all still brilliant, the tension comes from being underwater and there’s not enough visual keys to keep that in mind aside from their capes floating up.
I worry this book is losing focus. I’m still enjoying it, but I’m finding more and more missed opportunities for weighty characterization. We spend four whole pages on Grimaldi, three of which are him spooking his father atop a tall office building. The writing and art are all solid, but is this really the best use of the page limit? Even if this guy returns in World’s Finest or Justice League Unlimited, he’s not really saying anything so unique to a mob boss compared to the millions of others we’ve seen in Batman stories. We’re really watching him and his dad for so long when we could be zeroing in on Bruce and Dick’s thought process on the smelly ride home, having just narrowly escaped death?
What we have on the page is fine, is solid comic action, but it reads as a distraction from the book’s priorities. A minor note is Dick being enrolled in school, which makes me want to bring up Robin Year One (the Dixon miniseries), but if I’m gonna whine about incongruities in DC continuity in 2025, I might as well quit. I’ll only mention that in that series, school was Dick’s idea and Bruce was unsure about it. I liked that take, because Dick would have never been in a school up to that point in his life, and as a young teenager he was eager to start interacting with girls his own age. Bruce’s upper crust upbringing had him balking at public school.
Here in Batman & Robin: Year One #4 it’s the opposite, with Dick not wanting to go to school like any other kid and Bruce wanting to guarantee a basic education. Now the history of Robin and school is, well, it’s not exactly interesting but it’s something I find interesting to think about, considering they’ve got a whole potential supporting cast and teachers and friends that we never see much of until Tim Drake’s era as Robin. Canonically, Dick has always attended school – both in the original comics and in the 1966 Adam West and Burt Ward show, but we hardly ever see what that side of his life is like! So I’m happy to see this element brought in here, but it does only make for generic characterization on Dick’s part to mope and be grumpy about attending classes like a normal kid. Again, Waid misses opportunities here by simply having Samnee render Dick crossing his arms and pouting, and not actually voicing what the hell he’s thinking. Showing, not telling, sure, but what they’re showing isn’t all that unique – despite Dick being a superhero.
Bottom line, Batman & Robin: Year One #4 is still fun but it’s eye is drifting off of the ball. I worry that we’re going to continue to be shown more and more Grimaldi plot and less about Bruce and Dick’s headspaces.
