DCnU - Batman and Robin from DC's New 52

Okay, so here I am, late at starting week 2's reviews. The first book from week 2 of DC's New 52 is Batman and Robin. With Bruce Wayne wearing the cowl, and his son Damian as Robin. Peter J. Tomasi writes the story, with art by Patrick Gleason and Mick Gray.

I expected to rather enjoy this book, but I found it middling. I just don't like Damian. The character doesn't intrigue or capture me.

The bookends to the story - someone taking out Moscow's Batman, Inc. representative and saying he was coming for Bruce Wayne was more compelling for me than the main story.

The main story was Damian thinking he was awesome, and leading to mistakes that led to mistakes that led to him killing people, and him not seeing that he isn't perfect. I get that is his character, but it will quickly start to get into the same realm that Scully was on the X-Files for me for quite a while - how long could she continue to be a skeptic given what they had seen. By the same token, how long can Damian continue to think he is getting it all right when his actions lead to some of bad guys getting to make a break for it (although he did stop them) and having to be assisted by Batman when caught in an explosion that would likely not have happened had they used the element of surprise.

Overall, it was still an enjoyable story. Batman's method of dealing with the fuel rods was awesome and classic Batman. And I like the direction Tomasi is taking Batman that may be the path to make him less obsessively dark, and more just naturally dark.

Gleason's art style suits Batman very well. The lines are clean, the equipment looks functional and pragmatic. Damian's haughtiness is evident in the character's bearing. Gleason slips the Lady in Red in this book at the pool, just before Batman drains it.

My only complaint about Gleason is sometimes the way he does hands. There is something weird about some of the images that have hands in them. For instance, there is something wrong with the way Damian grabs Bruce's hand in this image. At the very least, this image looks like their hands are the same size. That kind of thing usually doesn't bother me, but since this is Damain's introduction in the New DCU, it was a little jarring.

Overall, this book is so far the bottom of my list of Batman books, but I will not be ditching it right away. My continued enjoyment and buying of this book is directly tied to Damian's character development. We'll see how that works out.