Batman and Robin: Year One #1 main cover by Chris Samnee & Mat Lopes. Image: DC Comics
In Batman and Robin: Year One #1, Mark Waid and Chriss Samnee take us through the very beginning of the legendary Dynamic Duo!
Title: Batman and Robin: Year One #1
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Chris Samnee
Colorist: Mat Lopes
Letters: Clayton Cowles
Main Cover: Chris Samnee & Mat Lopes
Variant Covers: Chris Samnee, Alex Ross, Mikel Janin, Matteo Scalera, Karl Kerschl & Lee Weeks
Release Date: October 16, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers.
Three weeks after the deaths of The Flying Graysons, young aerialist Dick Grayson is living with millionaire Bruce Wayne and his butler Alfred Pennyworth. Having taken up the costumed mantle of Robin, the Boy Wonder, he and Batman race towards Gotham City Police Headquarters to make their public debut to Commissioner Gordon. Gordon is uncomfortable with Batman enlisting a young boy in his war on crime but relents and informs the masked duo of a stolen file from his office, taken by the madman Two-Face.
Batman and Robin decide to hit up the city’s informants but are soon under attack by hoods on the lookout for their chase. They’re led to a rigged floor at the feet of Two-Face and his twin henchmen. Two-Face tells Batman that a new crime boss is on his way towards Gotham with the intent to start a gang war. While the Dynamic Duo escape the villain’s deathtrap, the aforementioned crime boss arrives in Gotham later that night with his wheelchair-bound elderly father. As they make their way into the city, his men murder the flight crew that brought them into Gotham, making sure no one knows of their arrival.
Batman and Robin: Year One #1 NYCC variant cover by Alex Ross. Image: DC Comics
As a classic DC Comics writer, Mark Waid knows Batman and Robin. Not just by their characters, as proven throughout his Batman / Superman: World’s Finest run where a Bronze-Age-esque Dynamic Duo regularly feature. He knows that the classic version of the two are legends in DC, and – with hindsight and dozens of events and characters to come in the future – he knows how to retroactively approach defining them for a modern audience. That’s something that Batman and Robin have needed for a long time, and Waid is the perfect writer for the task.
While everyone knows Batman and Robin, the Dynamic Duo have had a troubled history for the past twenty-five years or so. I’m talking in the larger culture. Since about 1997 when the film Batman and Robin notoriously made a splash in comic book media, the idea of Batman fighting alongside a young partner has taken a large hit in the perceived viability of the character in the modern era. As it was the second major live-action property to adapt the two heroes together after the 1966 Batman television series, it had a task to bring forth the best dramatic potential to an audience that would’ve seen the concept as innately ridiculous. Everyone always has something to say about the idea that such a dark and violent character like Batman would never take on a kid in his war on crime. Somewhere along the way, whether it was writing sensibilities in the comics in the 21st century or the Christopher Nolan The Dark Knight trilogy (where star Christian Bale said that he would chain himself to a bedpost and refuse to work should Robin ever be introduced in the series), Robin is often viewed as a relic of a bygone era that oughtn’t be taken seriously at all, ‘lest he ruin Batman’s viability. This idea hasn’t completely taken hold, as comic book fans still very much love Robin. The various character who’ve inherited the mantle – from Jason Todd to Tim Drake to Steph Brown and Damian Wayne – all have large swaths of fans, and with modern readers connecting through various social media outlets such as Tumblr and Reddit, much of the fandom sustains the concept of the Bat-family as an enjoyable in-roads into the Batman series distinct from the grim and gritty punch-outs of fans who are mainly interested in The Dark Knight Returns, Zack Snyder and the Arkham video games (even then, those three examples include Robin in their continuities). So there’s polarization on the kind of Batman and Batman with Robin represents.
Looking Beyond The Polarity of The Dynamic Duo
When it comes to the comics, much of the inconsistent history of Batman and Robin is hazily referenced in the far-off past, rarely to be referred back to. Anytime Nightwing or someone else references the days where he grew up in Wayne Manor and suited up with Bruce Wayne night after night, there’s a cheeky comment or reference to the most recognizable era of Batman and Robin: The Silver Age. The references blend with the 60’s show, but it’s always to put those days at a stark distance, implying a passage of time and maturing of the world they live in. And often times whenever there is a flashback to the days of the original Dynamic Duo, it’s usually to show that things always weren’t as light-hearted as the old comics and shows portray. In modern day flashbacks, Batman is usually shown harshly reprimanding a too youthful and too glib Robin, Robin is either woefully out of sorts or just sticks out like a sore thumb in comparison to Batman, who was always the dark, gritty Year-One-esque avenger of the night. It’s Robin who was silly and unsuited for Batman’s world, Batman had never been different. This is the strange narrative that the last few years have kept coming back towards, despite the real world fact that Batman was a more popular character in the original comics once Robin was brought into the books.
So now we have Mark Waid, a self-proclaimed expert of Batman who has no interested in seeking to legitimize Batman and Robin to fans who may not be open towards them. In the pages of World’s Finest, Dick is about 16-17, and a fully capable partner. While still young and underage, he and Batman work together terrifically, and Dick’s light-hearted humor isn’t rebuked by Bruce but compliments his serious mood. In my opinion, it’s the best the two have been written together in decades, and only goes to show how Batman flourishes when he’s given a young partner to mentor and work with.
So How Does It Feel to See the Early Days of the Dynamic Duo?
Some of my complaints on past retroactive presentations of the Robin of old are present here, but there’s a caveat. Dick is very new to his life as a costumed crime-fighter, and as such he’s loudly showing off and bouncing around like a performer. This, in and of itself isn’t a bad read of his character, as he’s still very much a circus acrobat. But it does underline his relative immaturity in the role. And while the classic Golden Age Robin was pretty much exactly like this, here Waid uses this characterization to underline his youth and inexperience. Which…again, is a smart take on his characterization. My issue is that in past retellings of Robin’s early days (and there have been so many, from the various Robin: Year One books to Batman Chronicles: The Gauntlet), Dick wasn’t so giddy over being Robin that he failed to take things seriously. It’s a balancing act, and a young Dick Grayson needs to be chipper and get things wrong when he’s first starting out. But how do you do that when many retellings often depict that as his overall characterization in general?
The counterbalance Waid strikes in Bruce’s characterization, which is not only great but underrated in my eyes when it comes to writers’ takes on Batman’s headspace, Bruce never shows anger, irritation or disdain for Dick – as he shouldn’t – even when you would be expecting that he might. The pivotal scene is in the car ride to GCPD HQ. Robin is fist-pumping in classic Burt Ward fashion, musing that they might be fighting the Joker, and Batman says nothing. Robin apologizes, acknowledging that this is serious, to which Batman informs him that often times his silence is mental preparation, and that this is when he’s his best self, not condemning Dick’s attitude but advising that he use any time he has to rely on his mental facilities for the challenge ahead. What makes this work is the fact that Dick becoming Robin, in the original Detective Comics #38, was Bruce’s idea to begin with. He understands Dick at this stage in Dick’s life more than anyone, and he openly relates to Alfred that Dick’s rage threatens to destroy him if it’s not properly redirected. So what we have in the Batmobile scene isn’t a scene of “LOL Robin is being goofy” but a true scene of guidance from mentor to protege. It’s a scene that not only informs the perfect relationship between the two in World’s Finest, but it’s one that we never get anymore these days. It engages with the idea of Batman and Robin, it doesn’t repel at it.
Most everything in this issue is great, from Bruce’s characterization to Chris Samnee’s sublime artwork. His Batman and Robin art every October during the online trend “Batober” shows that he too fosters a deep love for these characters. So my nitpicks with this first chapter really are simply nitpicks, and they come down to continuity. As referenced earlier, there have been several retellings of Batman and Robin from the early days, half of them involving Two-Face. Robin: Year One by Chuck Dixon, Javier Pulido, and Marcos Martin expanded on Robin and Two-Face’s relationship directly, which in continuity is later referenced in the pages of Tim Drake’s Robin series and during the Prodigal arc when Dick Grayson was first Batman. So seeing Batman and Robin interact with Two-Face in a completely new setting here bugged my brain. But that’s no one’s fault but my own. On the other hand, this is three weeks after Dick’s parents were killed, and he’s already Robin?
Another element of the Post-Crisis Batman continuity was that both Dick and Jason Todd had at minimum six months of training before donning the cape and mask, with Dick referenced to have trained for at least a year before becoming Robin officially. Here, it’s been less than three weeks? Granted, Bruce and Alfred mention how supremely physically adept Dick is at his young age (something that always made Dick becoming Robin the most sense, he’s a world-class athlete at age twelve), but I’m thinking in less than three weeks he was adopted, trained to swing on the bat-ropes, use Batarangs, run around in a weighted costume, and dodge gunfire? The short timeline does explain Dick’s very young mental state, but it’s just a bit too short for my personal liking. A month, two months even, and I would have rolled with it better. But that detail given at the very top of the story threw me for the rest of the story.
At the end of the day though, Waid’s characterization of Batman and Samnee’s classic artwork carries this solid first issue. But nitpicks are only those – nitpicks. With great artwork and storytelling, there’s little else you could ask for. And for Batman and Robin, this miniseries could be just what the Dynamic Duo need moving forward into the future.
