It took me a while and two reads to decide on how I feel about B&R. I liked the series immensely when Morrison first launched it (big surprise there), but don’t have any real experience with Peter J. Tomasi, the current write for the series and the relaunch. I was actually going to pass on it at first, waiting for it to drop down a buck, but then I saw the preview pages for the book online. As always, art almost always is the true deciding factor for buying a comic for me, and I really liked what I saw from artist Patrick Gleason throughout the whole book.

The story is a neat one and follows up the pre-relaunch story of Batman Inc. The idea is that Bruce Wayne, back from the dead, has spread his Batty influence around the world. He’s got counterparts now in Africa (as depicted in the New 52 Batwing series), Japan, and as we see in B&R, Russia. Each Batman has their own nationality’s flavor to warp the character into something more interesting. The villain of the series is made to be quite unbeatable and has an agenda against all of Batman Inc. I liked the depiction of the villain (“Nobody” is his name as best we can tell) as a true threat who is just brutal and appears to know much, much more than is on the surface. It actually reminded me a bit like the villain in Batgirl #1 in this way.

For me, the art was really the star of the show. Gleason’s lines are precise and clean. Bruce Wayne, Batman, and Gotham as a city are portrayed in deep, impenetrable shadows. Robin is drawn particularly nice throughout, and I will always love the difference in size between the huge Batman and tiny Robin as most obviously portrayed in the Dark Knight Returns, but on display here through the 10 year-old Damian Wayne Robin.

The art convinced me to pick the book up, but I most anticipated seeing how Tomasi would portray the father-and-son relationship between Bruce and Damian. I’m quickly coming to realize that these #1 books are often not designed for me at all. I felt Tomasi kept repeating himself portraying the conflict between father and son, but then again, this is a conflict I anticipated and was informed of as a result of my general interest in comics. I’m sure readers picking this book up for the first time probably appreciate the introduction to their rocky relationship. The thing I believe Tomasi nailed was how mirthless Wayne Manor is with Damian as the Robin. Robin’s always been the light-hearted foil to Batman’s grimness, but Damian’s a trained assassin from birth – arguably more hardcore and definitely less forgiving than Bruce. I’m not quite sure how Alfred can stomach all of it, but I’m excited to read #2 to find out.