Mr. Smith you do right an entertaining book.  I just finished it and was flipping back through the book and found that it was just a fun book.  I enjoyed that Robin/Nightwing wasn't dark and brooding, that even Batman recognized that he just goes and disappears on people.  The first half of the book is set up for what is to follow in the series, we have a flash back to the Silver Age where Batman and Robin are fighting two villains, which evolves into a present day altercation with a similar villain.  The action really isn't necessary, but what he does is try to set up how Batman sees his younger partners.  That while they have all seen some sort of horror in their life that is on par with what he experienced as a child, they are not like him.  They all have their own ways that they dealing with it, but they do "never let the bastards win", as he puts it.  Dick still has a smile on his face and kids around, much like the earlier Robin had.  I think we forget that somewhere in there he was still a kid and would still find it fun that he takes down the bad guy on his own or that while he may have left Batman; there still is something there that makes Dick want to make Batman smile. 

The second half of the story allows Smith to show some of Arkham's gallery and eventually leads to a confrontation with Ivy and the Demon.  This is where we meet the new "partner" in this fight.  This partner is and adult vigilante that as far as I know has not been seen in the Batman Universe before.  We don't get his name in this book, but it appears that what he is setting up is this maybe a sidekick that he can relate to.  While Dick has gone and became Nightwing, Jason passed away, and he sees Tim as moving on sooner then later; Batman wants an adult that he can fight crime with.  So that he can be more then just this dark purely professional character on the streets of Gotham.  I couldn't imagine being him without someone to vent to about what is actually going on in his head.  The closest thing he has is Alfred, but I would guess that he can only tell him so much; he would rather have someone who possibly could understand what it's like to be him as a vigilante trying to fix it all.  While I think that this person can never really exist because the idea that made Bruce Wayne into Batman is so integrated with each other.  Batman can never truly open up to anyone, let alone someone that has just appeared in the DCU it is an interesting idea that has never been actually explored. 

The only thing with this book is the art, not spectacular.  There are some good points here and there, but overall it is just very average. The only reason that I give it a 3 is that I actually like his layouts of the book on the page just something about the character designs throws me off.  The big example for me was the batmobile that he draws has a face on the front of it.  Seeing that totally took me out of the story. I understand that it is the artists right to make changes, but these can be done right or wrong.  Mr. Flanagan chose wrong in my opinion. 

In total this book is a worthy start to this series, we see what is going to be examined and where he is going to go.  I liked the idea of the entire Batman and partner relationship being examined with someone new coming into the fold.  I just hope that as Walt Flanagan gets more experience with these characters he can improve on portions of his art.  As a side note, I really would love to see the original second "Kevin Smith" Batman book idea with Batman/Swamp Thing.  Too bad DC has decided to keep him out of the DCU proper.