Batman and Robin Volume 1: Born to Kill

Batman and Robin Volume 1: Born to Kill collects the first eight issues of Batman and Robin from DC's New 52 series. This series is one of the terrible storylines started by Grant Morrison that they decided to keep for the New 52 (another being Batman Inc.).


First off, the subtitle "Born to Kill" doesn't make sense. One could stretch it to mean the villain of the story was "Born to Kill," but the title makes it sound like Batman and Robin were "Born to Kill," which isn't the case at all. It's a Batman book not a Kubrick poster...


In this series, the mantle of Robin is now held by ten year old Damien Wayne, son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul (I find it hard to believe Bruce didn't have any protection in his utility belt that night). Damien makes Jason Todd look like the baby Jesus He is loud, obnoxious, and disobedient. Reading the interactions between Batman and Robin is like watching a parent counting to ten as a child screams his head off in the mall, followed by the parent buying the toy for the kid anyway.


My main problem with this series is that Damien does whatever he pleases going against the code of Batman (like killing people) and Bruce Wayne just shrugs it off saying things like "he's my son" or "well he has a lot to lose," etc. The story also wanders so far from the Batman mythos that as a Bat-fan it is hard for me to swallow this as actually being a Batman story. I can only hope that Damien will eventually go the way of Jason Todd (minus the coming back to life thing).


The only thing that made this book bearable was the fact that Damien was kidnapped for about half of it. Batman has to save him from a deadly, well-trained foe called Nobody. He is a decent villain for the story, but they do little to mask his back story and give it away all to fast, leaving little suspense. There are some cool flashbacks featuring Bruce being trained by Henri Drucard. This doesn't change the fact that throughout the entire volume the father/son relationship theme is forced down your throat more than in a J.J. Abrams movie.


Patrick Gleason's artwork is simple, but looks good (despite being influenced by Frank Quitely's artwork). When I read something like this I can't believe this is still an on going series, but something like Resurrection Man gets cancelled.


Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 Bratty Children!