Batman going through the stages of grief for his son Damian. Also interesting and developing interactions with other characters such as Jason (Red Hood), Batgirl, Catwoman, and Nightwing. ( )

Damian grew on me, as did this story.
I found Bruce's obsession with the computer simulation very believable, and hit home... in a way that I think most of us can envision. We may not be capable of the physical force of Batman, or relate to his wealth, but we can imagine ourselves in that torture seat... running the simulator over and over. Alfred's take at the end was beautifully done, and we're given a perfectly brief expansion of the circle of grief and widening sense of loss and love at the end.

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I thought that this was wel done. Each issue took Batman through a different stage of his grief. Without spoiling anything, Alfred sure has to put up with a lot of crap. ( )

A powerful look at loss and how it can affect people. Batman loses his son Damian during a mission where Damian was being Robin and this breaks Bruce. His friends try to help but he's lost in grief.

Powerful stuff ( )

Wow. The previous three volumes of the Batman and Robin title have been up and down. Solid, but not always my favorite Bat title, but this one. Wow. It was amazing. The first twenty one pages didn’t have one word on them, and yet the story was so obvious and so very impactful. Another single page that I loved was the blue colored page of Two Face flipping his coin with only one word. ‘No’. It just totally hit me solidly in the feels.

Batman goes a little off the deep end, goes really dark, and Alfred tries in every way he can think of (and with the help of everyone Batman has trained, Nightwing, Jason Todd, Batgirl, Red Robin, as well as a team up with Catwoman, and a very weird sorta assist from Frankenstein.

It’s a broodier than usual Batman title (and that’s saying something), but one of the bright spots is the introduction of Carrie Kelley as Damian’s former ‘acting coach’, and then Titus’ dog walker. I’m not sure exactly where they’re going with the character, but for the moment it was an interesting introduction with many possibilities.

I got this advanced galley through Netgalley on behalf of DC Entertainment. ( )