Interesting Father-Vigilante Take. Clean and Standalone read!
NO SPOILERS REVIEW!
This book actually surprised me. Probably because I was not expecting much from this book.
The Story
Very clean and fresh story and what I really liked was it can be really read as a standalone story without much need of any background information or history of Robins - Only thing that is needed to know before reading this book is that Batman had a thing with Talia Al Ghul long time ago and Damian Wayne is their son. Now, this book is all about "what happened to Damian during his childhood days, how he came to be, and what is going on now". In addition, this has a great illustration on how Batman can have trouble playing roles of both a vigilante AND a father and what does a "son" of Batman think about all his deep dark secrets and his so called "rules" of not killing the rogues.
In addition to the fresh plot there are some of the secrets and some little details of Batman's past revealed in this book.
Very interesting angle taken on Batman. I loved it. I definitely recommend it to anybody including those who do not really like Robin with Batman! :)
The Art
I really liked Patrick Gleason's illustration here. Every panel kind of oozes out emotions and completely fuses with the story. I was reading this book with such concentration that I had no idea when it started and ended! Its like those movies that keep you on the edge of your seat all throughout!
The only complaint I might have is the illustration of the new villain "Nobody". Somehow, he does not seem to have a proper jaw. It appears as though somebody has pulled his jaws back into that weird red buttoned mask.
Also at one or two panels, it was a bit difficult to understand what the villain was doing with those mugshots tied up on the street light pole upside down on the street - although the results were clear.
Overall I can easily give this book 4.5 stars. 0.5 star less for two things - a little bit of art complaints including Robin shown a little too young (could have had little bigger face and a teeny weeny more mature) and Nobody's art. Story wise it was just splendid!
